Myths associated with Agile Transformation

Having so much awareness about agile transformation why we coaches are facing so much challenges in transformation journey?

One thing I observed is there is no ready made model which we can follow to adopt agile practices. There are no best practices in agile which we can blindly follow & get the desired results.

Since Agile transformation is all about how people collaborate, inspect & adapt & it is extremely difficult to replicate human interactions & collaborations since Human beings are highly complex, intelligent, diverse & ever changing.

Another common issue is People move to Agile, go through required training and start working on projects. But after a period of time, if you ask any team member, “what exactly is Agile?”

Team members will start talking about Scrum ceremonies, embracing change, shorter feedback cycles etc.

Here I will like to share one of the myth surrounding transformation which I have faced during most of my coaching assignments.

Myth: Change has to be mandated since people are resistant to change

Transformation is all about change at all levels, change in mindset so people are going to oppose it but leadership have to mandate that. I don’t agree with this. 

Let’s try to understand with an example:

The big Bus has been bought for some reason & everyone has to on board that. Here teams had been provided no option, no rationale behind choosing this mode of transport. Some people happily boarded the bus, Some complied to it without thinking about it, Few people are not happy with this mode of transport but on boarded since they don't want to lose their job & some were even have to be pushed to bus.

This on-boarding process took a very long time due to so many issues, objections and by the time everyone was on boarded, guess what?

The reason for getting onto the bus have changed.  Now the company needs to use ship for movement.

So now everyone has to be moved to ship (new mode of transport) with probably new destination since the goal has been changed. So after spending so much effort & money to get people on boarded, the value returned is big 0.

Let’s look at a Contrasting Scenario

Here also teams have to on board the same mode of transport (Bus) but here some people are creating an enabling environment by helping people explaining the rationale behind choosing this particular mode of transport, clarifying their questions. Leaders have provided the clear rationale for the journey with a compelling vision & objective. Leaders are providing a clear direction & leading from front.

In this case, Definitely we will get an easy buy in.

What was the difference?

In second case, sense of urgency has been created with clearly articulated vision & goal proactively from the leadership.

Similarly if teams are not convinced about agile transformation, sense of urgency has not been created, we will end up doing agile adoption where end results is not what we want to achieve.

I generally enable this environment by using Objectives & key results (OKR’s)

I even got successful results with “Informal Constellations” approach to bring concurrence about the change where change already happens & I join the journey bit late.

This exercise will give team clarity about the transformation, since they are heard and involved. Hence they feel more empowered and committed towards the change.