Achieving Enterprise Agility: Three Key Points

Last week, whether you were aware of it or not, an army of agile zealots descended on Orlando, Florida to attend the 2014 Agile Alliance conference. This is a yearly event attended by people new to agile, all the way up to experienced coaches and transformation experts. We come together on a yearly basis to hear presentations, learn about the latest trends, network, and of course find a little time to enjoy ourselves as well. For those of us who love “All Things Agile,” it is our version of Disneyland! Or in this case… Disney World, since we were in Orlando!

Anyway… this year was a little different for me however. Late last year, I was asked to co-chair the 2014 Agile Executive Forum. The forum is a place where senior executives come together to share experiences and best practices on how Agile is being implemented and scaled within enterprise environments. Having started out as a Scrum Master, moved to Enterprise Agile Program Management, and then into leading large scale transformation efforts, this was a topic that was near and dear to my heart. So, of course I accepted and set about the many tasks required. One of which was picking the theme for this year, and of course the clear winner was Enterprise Agile, which later evolved into “Achieving Enterprise Agility.”

There is a difference between being agile, which leads to achieving agility versus doing agile. Doing agile is teaching your software development teams Agile methods, such as Scrum, Kanban, XP… and then saying “We are agile!” That happens a lot in the World of Agile. Achieving agility is a journey that never ends… It is a perpetual state of becoming agile and responding to the change that comes with it. So, we define Enterprise Agility as a measure of the ability of the entire organization to respond rapidly to change...

• It focuses the efforts of an organization around quickly creating and delivering sustainable business value
• It fosters an environment in which the whole organization’s efforts are prioritized according to what provides the highest business value
• It looks beyond individual teams to focus on all parts of the organization – technology and business – that comprise the entire value stream
• It embraces change and collaboration between and among all enterprise layers to continuously deliver value, iteratively and incrementally
• It allows organizations to rapidly adjust to change and exploit urgent opportunities and translate them into business value

So you see, it is much more than merely teaching Agile methods to developers. It is about embracing a set of core values and principles, and embedding them into your organization. After all, at the heart of any agile transformation lies organizational change. It is really more closely akin to the process of “metamorphosis,” since the goal to achieving enterprise agility is to evolve the organization to a higher state of being agile by embracing and harnessing those inherent forces associated with change. Not acknowledging this has led to many a transformation failing… but that is a topic for another day. Let’s get back to the forum, because there were some takeaways I would like to share with you. As I spoke with the executives in attendance and listened to the speakers, three points seemed to emerge:

First, there is no one sure fire way to transform your organization. Just like people, companies have a culture, personality, and style all their own. Every one of them is different and unique based on how they grew, who their leaders are, and what type of organizational structure they use to conduct their business. As a result, the transformation models presented and discussed ran the gambit from iterative waterfall/agile hybrids to mixtures of Disciplined Agile Development (DAD) and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Each of these companies took what applied to them and left the rest behind. In my mind, that is truly the essence of agility… changing and evolving to a higher state of being that provides greater business value, in an incremental and iterative way that exploits rapid change and harnesses the power of the entire value stream.

Secondly, consultants can help you along your journey… but they cannot do it all for you! You must put a face to your transformation. That is, you need an Agile Change Champion that will care and feed your transformation. Someone who is excited about agile, but not necessarily considers him/herself an agile expert. What is more important here is that he/she understands the organization and can help outside agile experts to understand the corporate culture, organizational structure, appetite for change/change fatigue limits, etc. so that they can build a transformation process and model that works in your organization. And most importantly, that those experts build a structure that allows you to continue to evolve well after they leave the building. Remember, agility is a state of evolution, and agile embraces the Lean concept of continuous improvement. Build that into your transformation and your metamorphous will be truly amazing.

And lastly, but quite possibly the most important thing… DO NOT underestimate the change management curve. The best transformation processes I’ve seen are iterative in nature and change happens over time. You must take into consideration the speed at which your organization changes… I call it your “Appetite for Change.” If you push too hard and run to far ahead, your transformation will fail. Build a change management plan that allows people to understand, absorb, adjust, and move forward with the change. If you do not do this, you will find that your efforts will be quietly sabotaged. People will feel left behind, which causes “change panic.” Remember, most people are risk adverse, so take the transformation in stages and plan it out well, communicate it, and get buy in from key stakeholders before you move forward.

I wish you luck on your journey towards achieving enterprise agility. And, as I also say, “Don’t just do agile… be agile!” See you next year in Washington, D.C. for the 2015 Agile Alliance Executive Forum.