This is Why Agile Transformations Fail (and succeed)

Everyone wants the secret sauce.

What is the "Staples Easy Button" we can hit which makes us go from bureaucratic, slow, fearful and ineffective to sleek, streamlined, courageous and successful?

Perhaps you heard that training your people in Agile methods does that? As someone who has been leading transformations, training teams and leadership in multiple frameworks and methodologies for years; They were wrong.

It's not that the frameworks and principles don't help guide and set foundations but there is another, equally impactful concept, that is truly the tip-of-the-spear when it comes to a modern-day understanding of organizational effectiveness and driving our ability to respond.

I've witnessed some very distinct patterns, regardless of organization size, market or history. Change is hard; I mean, really hard. Right now people have change fatigue. Between the amount of day to day change we experience in our personal lives to the upheavals that take place in the office related to org structure adjustments, leadership swap-outs, job titles, hybrid vs remote vs in-office, tooling changes and more; People are in a state of change fatigue.

Now, we want to provide them with (force them into) yet another way of working which we tell them takes a complete mental shift from everything they are used to doing and ways they have previously worked. By the way, the company probably tried some other technique once before and not loo long ago.

"No thanks." I get it.

Studies have shown our brains are actually wired to fight or flight against change and yet we are bombarded with it every day. The ironic part is we tell Scrum teams, DevOps areas and scaled Agile structures that consistency is key while we ask them to be change and adaptation advocates...experts.

"I want you to hold still while also being highly flexible please!"

In today's business and product climate I am more an advocate now for organization effectiveness, that includes the ability to be highly responsive, than ever. But not taking into consideration the impact of the adaptation to becoming adaptable is what leads many transformations down a road of abandonment.

Where I've seen transformations fail and succeed was in whether they applied sound Change Management and communication practices to any transformation effort well in advance of any actual changes. These practices may not be specific to a single CM framework but are often a mix of a few concepts that cater to where the organization is right now. It is quite literally prepping the organization for the changes coming, bringing them along, highlighting the risks and challenges as opposed to covering them over or ignoring them all together, and taking the approach of minimizing the amount of change required at any one time.

We have to change in order to get good at change.

The company that can continuously rethink itself will be the one that survives...and thrives. This means it has to get good at the concept of change. This isn't about locking a framework in place to put guardrails around change. It's about becoming more accustomed to change as it happens and structuring ourselves in such a way that we can respond effectively. But we have to change in order to get good at change. And that takes time and effort.

Successful application of Agile methods starts with the successful application of Change methods.

The Agile frameworks and Principles are ways to help promote adaptation. But we cannot expect immediately successful results through their application if we aren't addressing the impact of these changes at the personal and professional level for all of those involved.

What I've learned? Successful application of Agile methods starts with the successful application of Change methods. Without it, you are setting up your transformation for long-term abandonment. Due to lack of quality change practices in advance, you will hear comments like, "Agile won't work here" or "We aren't ready to take this on". This means any company who is either currently applying Agile methods or is starting to, must...and I emphasize must, have a Change Management group internally or hire a consultant who is familiar with exactly what these changes are, how they impact people and the best ways to go about getting them in place before anyone attends a single training.

Sure, you can point to leadership's role in a transformation, organizational culture, finances, market or quality of coaching. I can take every one of those concepts and relate them back to whether or not that company was prepped well for the changes coming based on their specific current internal climate.

Change Management....the new "Agile framework" of choice. Not sure why I didn't see that coming to begin with.