Stop Transforming – Start Evolving!

Why should you stop transforming?

For over 50 years, we’ve helped teams and organizations find better ways to develop software and systems. Throughout this time, we’ve guided organizations in adopting renowned methodologies—first RUP, and for the last 15 years, SAFe. When an off-the-shelf method wasn’t the right fit, we’ve assisted in creating custom methods and rolling them out.

However, a familiar pattern emerges almost every time. Initially, the transformation shows great promise. But after some time, the process stalls. What worked well at first becomes less effective. The blame is often placed on the chosen method, sparking a search for a new solution—and a new transformation cycle begins.

This pattern is costly, both in terms of staff time spent on learning and adjusting, and the financial burden of licenses, training, and consultants. Having witnessed this cycle with several of our large clients, including Volvo Cars, we’ve learned an important truth: transformation often fails not because of the method, but because it’s impossible for any single method to keep pace with the constantly evolving landscape of ideas, practices, and techniques.

Leaders of these transformations eventually appear out of touch, and newer voices with fresh ideas rise to prominence. The original method—once fashionable—quickly fades. And the cycle continues.

This won’t be solved by the next "big" methodology, whether it’s a well-known framework like RUP or SAFe, or an internally developed approach.

Why should you start evolving?

Change is hard—especially when it involves overhauling how your teams work. Large-scale, "big bang" transformations (such as those required for RUP or SAFe) demand far more than just training and certification to succeed. Skilled consultants are needed, but even the most capable ones often end up addressing basic issues rather than tackling the real challenges.

This makes large-scale transformations difficult to sustain. They’re expensive, time-consuming, and come with no guarantee of success. Instead of taking a massive leap, we recommend a more sustainable approach: evolving one step at a time.

Start where you are and evolve incrementally. Focus on bite-sized improvements—whether that’s adopting one or a few principles, patterns, or practices at a time. Different teams will need different approaches depending on the products they work on (life-critical systems, data-centric projects, performance-heavy applications) or the skill levels within the team. The direction of your evolution can still be guided, but it will naturally adjust as you and your teams learn what is truly needed.

How do you evolve?

Essence, the international standard we’ve pioneered, provides a structured way to evolve your existing Way of Working, no matter where you are starting from. Essence is a platform that hosts an ecosystem of over 100 practices, with more being added all the time. This ecosystem allows teams and organizations to select practices that suit them and combine them to create a method tailored to their needs.

This method, designed using the Essence platform, is easier to learn, adopt, adapt, use, update, and—as a result—sustain. Updating goes beyond documents, slides, or blogs. It’s about changing mindsets and behaviors, which is often the hardest part. The method also incorporates gamification, actively supporting teams while they work.

As a typical user of an Essence-based method, you don’t need to know much about Essence itself—just as a car driver doesn’t need to understand the engine to drive. However, if you want to create new practices, a deeper understanding is required. Fortunately, designing practices using Essence is 5-10 times faster than normally.

So, how do you start?

The answer, as always, depends. It depends on your product, its size, the skills of your team, how they currently work, where they are located, and the tools they use. But regardless of these variables, the first step is to establish your own ecosystem of practices, starting with the ones available through Essence. You may need to adapt practices to your specific needs or even create new ones. Teams can then select the methods that work best for them.

This process may require some consultancy. Thanks to Essence and the Essence WorkBench platform, the amount of help you need is much less than normally. Ultimately, the goal is for your own people to lead the way forward.

Towards success with sustainable methods!

Talk to us about how we can help turn this vision into reality for your organization.

?