Becoming Agile – How to Tell If You’re Ready

The first article in this series, “Becoming Agile – Shifting from Best Practices to Sustainable Practices”, made the case for adopting a mindset that embraces small actionable steps throughout the year to move towards a more nimble, adaptable, and innovative way of working. In this second installment, I’ll take a step back and explore what are the reasons for wanting to become agile in the first place and what it takes to be truly ready to adopt a new way of working.

The ability to adapt fast is a highly sought-after characteristic for organizations because of how quickly things change. Many businesses think adopting an agile manner of working will boost their productivity. However, there remains a challenge: how do they determine whether they are ready for agile?

Many of you reading this article have probably been asked: “How would you describe your organization?” You, without hesitation, say: “We are agile”. As we all have learned becoming agile is not a simple or straightforward task and many organizations struggle with this change. They start off as waterfall, changing to scrum, trying Kanban, and then adopting a hybrid of the many agile frameworks and methods. They create checklists, playbooks and confluence pages detailing the inflexible or one-size-fits-all process that must be followed. This leads to frustration and missed expectations where often folks feel, “Agile doesn’t work for us”.

The goal of any business should be customer satisfaction so becoming agile is about being able to deliver the right features, at the right time and in an effective manner. Organizations need a more flexible approach to problem solving and the ability to respond quickly to market changes. They also want help managing complexity by focusing on outcomes instead of outputs.

Why Become an Agile Organization?

Some primary drivers for why organizations want to adopt agile include:

·?????The company has high-quality requirements, but their customers are still unhappy: If they can't get the right information from their users, then it's impossible to build what they want.

·?????The team is trying to predict how long things will take: Agile teams measure how much work they can do in a given amount of time rather than guessing at how long it will take.

·?????Teams aren’t sure if they’re delivering value with every release: As a company, you know that each feature needs to provide real value for users and business stakeholders before it ships out the door.

·?????The company is spending more money on development than maintenance: When projects are completed, there should be no difference in cost between maintaining them and creating new ones.

·?????Teams are not sure what to do next: Agile teams make decisions based on data, not feelings or opinions.

·?????The team spends more time arguing about what to build than building it: If your team isn't collaborating effectively, then you need a fresh approach that helps them collaborate better.

·?????The organization is not sure how to prioritize features: If you’re not sure what to build next, then the best way to prioritize features is to put them in order based on the value they provide, and this is where agile can help.

·?????The organization doesn’t know how to measure progress: If you don't know how your team is performing and whether their efforts are paying off, then there's no way for them to improve.

·?????The company can't figure out if their projects are successful: Agile teams use data to measure the effectiveness of their work and make decisions based on those measurements, rather than opinions or feelings.

But Are You Ready?

Once an organization identifies why they want to adopt agile, the next step is to determine whether they’re ready. It will take an honest introspection to determine if your company or team possesses certain characteristics or factors that may impede their ability to fully adopt and implement the mindset and way of working needed. Do any of the following exist in your organization?

1.????Resistance to change: Becoming agile requires flexibility and adaptability. If your organization or team is resistant to changing their current ways of working and unwilling to embrace new ways of working, they may not be ready for agile. Some examples of resistance to change might be:

·?????Fear of failure

·?????Loss of control

·?????Too much change all at once

·?????Fear of the unknown

·?????Cultural issues due to long term embedded traditional processes making it difficult to shift thinking to an agile mindset

2.????Lack of buy-in from team members and stakeholders: If team members and stakeholders are not fully on board with the idea of adopting agile, it can be difficult to implement it successfully. Examples of lack of buy-in could be:

·?????Perhaps the team doesn’t have experience in problem solving or experimentation and is focused on delivery dates following the status quo. Team members that possess good problem-solving skills help the team to adapt to change and to overcome obstacles.

·?????There’s no motivation to change – there is a perception that “things are fine the way they are” even though there is data to the contrary.

·?????A team member may feel that their career path will change. For example, an engineer may feel that they won’t work on building new products and will be stuck working maintenance, or a team member wants to be on a leadership track and HR hasn’t caught up with agile ways of working yet.

3.????Lack of leadership: Becoming agile requires strong leadership to guide the team through the process. If the team has a leader who can provide direction, support, and coaching, they may be a good candidate for adopting agile. If a company or team lacks the necessary leadership, they may not be ready for agile. Examples could be:

·?????Leadership has not had training so lacks the understanding to want to support the new way of working.

·?????Leadership doesn’t care about the process – just meet the dates at any cost.

·?????Leadership feels the need to direct the people doing the work.

4.????Lack of transparency and communication: Agile methods and ways of working rely on transparency and communication among team members and stakeholders. If the team has a culture of transparency, trust, and teamwork, they may be a good candidate for adopting agile. If they lack these qualities, they may not be ready for agile. Look out for:

·?????Trying to apply agile methods to non-agile frameworks.

·?????Teams and/or business units working in silos.

·?????A team member being a “hero” and not collaborating with other members of the team.

·?????No dependency management plan for multiple teams working on a shared product or feature.

·?????No planned reviews or demos with customers or stakeholders to gain important feedback.

5.????Lack of trust: Becoming agile requires collaboration and trust among team members, leadership, and stakeholders. If there is a lack of trust among team members, they may not be ready for agile. Examples of lack of trust are:

·?????No belief of psychological safety between team members and leadership

·?????Fear of being humiliated or punished for speaking up

6.????Lack of ownership: Becoming agile requires team members to take ownership of their work. When there is a strong sense of ownership, it helps the team to take responsibility for their work and to be more engaged in the process. If a team lacks a sense of ownership, they may not be ready for agile. Assess if:

·?????The team is not permitted to make decisions on how they work.

·?????The team is not product focused, they work on multiple projects or one-off requests where they don’t receive feedback.

·?????The team is not recognized or rewarded for their contributions.

7.????Continuous Learning and Improvement: Being agile requires continuous learning and improvement. If the team or organization is willing to learn from their mistakes, continuously improve their processes, and adapt to new challenges, they may be a good candidate for becoming agile. If the team doesn’t want to or can’t allot time for continuous learning and improvement, they may not be ready for agile.

It’s important to remember that it's not just about implementing agile methods but it's about embracing the agile mindset and principles as well. They serve as the cornerstone of any agile team or organization, and by fulfilling them, organizations can successfully adopt agile and experience its advantages.

Final thought

The process to becoming agile should be gradual and strategic. If the organization or team isn't ready, it's better to work on the areas that need improvement before attempting to adopt agile.