Do you have Agile culture in your organisation?
Rajeev Raj.D I Director - Agile Transformation
Empowering organizations through Agile transformations, fostering high-performing teams, nurturing Leaders, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and driving growth with 24 years of IT and Agile expertise
Now a day's Agile is a fancy word for many organizations!! Every company is in Agile. If you ask any senior management people they will say, of course we are in Agile from past so and so years. But, the moment you start discussing with those people, you will realise Agile is just a fancy word for them and they start telling you about the problems they are facing. Just to fool their clients they put the Agile label to their organisation by hiring some Scrum Masters and Agile coaches and spoil their career by just making them a place holders doing nothing. More than 90% of the companies at least in Bangalore, still following command and control and not at all agile. Many people think if they do daily stand up then they are agile. Similarly if they do planning meeting, review and demo then they used to say they are in to Agile. Team members have fear to open their mouth even in the retrospection!! If you closely examine it, many middle level management people are spoiling the agile culture by running waterfall inside every sprint; may be fear of sustainability in the organisation forcing them to do so. No transparency anywhere!! blame games and politics everywhere!! No one trust each other!! No one ready to help or share knowledge with people!! Many project managers are wearing the scrum master's coat and they believe that Scrum master is nothing but the project manager in Agile. They don't trust their people whom they are working for; they screw them up again and again by doing the same micromanagement and always talk about empowerment!!!. Forcing the developers to work on Saturday and Sundays by spoiling their personal life. In many organizations, Scrum masters and product owners don't have any value!! Many people don't know Product Owner is the customer/Customer representative !!!
My humble request to all senior level managers is that please spend some time to learn Agile and its values if you really don't know what is Agile. After understanding agile properly (not tailored by your PMO) you evaluate your people. Give space to the scrum masters and Agile coaches to bring the proper transformation / Agile culture in to your own organisation. Please re-create the Agile culture from the scratch. At least in Bangalore, many company's culture has been spoiled by wrongly introducing / interpreting Agile in their organisation. We are not in the stone age!! Command and control era is over and be a servant leader for your organisation to grow!!!
I don't know how many people are agreeing with my views, but this is the harsh reality!!!
Please feel free to comment your thoughts, suggestions or corrections.
Small Business Consultant/Investment research analyst/Quickbooks consultant
5 年I would say Agile or Waterfall would depend on the culture of team. Nature of the project. But yes What you said is very true and bold.
Digital Transformation Coach, Keynote Speaker, Mentor ??|| SAFe Expert & Trainer (SPC) || Ph.D Candidate?? || ICF PCC - Executive Coach || Product & Scrum Coach || ??? 5.0 Products || AI ?? & Blockchain Afficionado ????
5 年Well articulated Rajeev Raj D We have to get the mindset right first in the leadership level.
18+ Years of Experience | Certified Agile Coach | Certified Scrum Master | Anaplan Solution Architect
5 年Some companies are even expecting delivery responsible from SM. As you rightly said, senior management needs to be fully educated about agile principles before adapting the agile methodology in any companies
Agile, Gen AI and ESG Sustainability l CSE (ESG) Practitioner, Consultant and Trainer I GSDC and ICAgile Authorised Instructor l SAFe? 6 Practice Consultant I WSQ ACLP Certified l PSM I Indian Army
5 年Fear.... of the unknown...of failure....of making mistakes. The inability to say 'no' and always 'looking good'. Till such time there isn't a collective consciousness to raise individual self awareness and social relationships, this malaise shall persist in the environment. Each of us is a microcosm of change, contributing through infinite possibilities that shall result in the culture shift. This article is one such step....asking questions, inviting an introspection and challenging prevailing belief sets. It's all about ...mindset, mindset, mindset!
Creating Awareness around Business Agility
5 年Good articulation Rajeev Raj D. Unless the principles aren't understood and followed as is, i.e., being agile with continuous practice, one has to grow empirically through inspect and adapt in becoming agile. What most of us forget or don't understand is, it isn't a destination, it is a life long process of continuous learning and adapting to bring optimal outcome. We need to become thermostat and true change agents in order to bring the required change.