How many organizations succeed at transforming to Agile?
Andrew SoswaTechnology leader| Leading global financial institutionElk Grove Village, Il, United States
I believe that only a few org structures will allow Agile where it will thrive; (1) startup, (2) small business (below 20 employees), (3) innovative org (where leaders drive it to be innovative).
All other organizations, that were in the market for a while, will try Agile. They realize that they are out-innovated or want increased collaboration, decreased stage-gate processes, faster product delivery, happier teams, etc. etc.
The "try" phase is where the Hybrid falls in. The firms will implement parts of Agile where it fits their existing model (organizational, SDLC, product delivery, etc).
In your opinion, how many firms successfully:
A. transition from "try" phase to Agile throughout organization
B. stay in Hybrid form for a long time
Is there any data or research on the numbers? Saving Changes...
Sustaining organizational transformations when executive "lifespans" are measured in months is very challenging so I'd agree that the larger or older the organization, the harder it will be for the transformation to stick.
I'm not aware of a comprehensive survey of agile transformation success rates that is freely available, but I'm pretty sure that the bigger industry analyst firms (e.g. Gartner) and consulting shops (e.g. Deloitte) would have such data available at cost.
I am not biased against large organizations - if they started with the "right" values and principles to begin with and maintained those as they grew, they can remain nimble and responsive.
I agree to both of your opinions on the challenges of large organizations in transforming and adapting to agile. However, if these large organizations are broken into multiple smaller units and a framework is laid down to integrate these smaller units seamlessly, it may be possible to adopt agile even in larger organizations. It may take years to adapt to agile methodologies, however we have few examples of such companies in real world. e.g. Spotify. You can search more about success story of Spotify in adapting agile on youtube. I am not sure, whether I am allowed to post links here, so not posting it.
But I agree, that organizations usually try to adopt agile mostly by not getting rid of their old culture and methodologies. They want to stay in their comfort zone while want to experiment with some areas of their business operations. They usually want best of both worlds, and that is where the challenge lies. Adopting agile has to be from grassroot level and by giving up older cultural values of hierarchical structures.
Snehal Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I do not know how much. I will ask from my personal experience from 1995 up to date where the only thing I did is working in this type of endeavors to put organizations in "future proof" mode. I worked with all type of organizations including national to international, from hundred to thousand of people working inside them. And thanks God or some other force that you can say governs the Universe I only have success histories to tell. Because of that I was requested to make the same job from 1995. The problem today is one and only one: people do not understand what Agile really is and people takes that Agile is what the Manifesto said, while the Manifesto has the word "software" into his name for a reason. But if you need answers about the how answers are outside there starting from Tom Gilb´s work (called EVO), pass from Mary Poppendienk (with focus on Lean which is not the same than Agile), James Coplien and Allistar Cockburn with patterns and following with the new start Scott Ambler´s DA between others. Obviously most of them wrote with focus on software. But first of all, you need to understand what Agile really is then you have to go to USA DoD/NSF Agility Forum deliverables (1990) taking into account most of them are in a brief called "Response Ability" which is a book that Rick Dove wrote. Rick was the leader of that Forum, at Leihihg University. Saving Changes...
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
No companies succeed in transforming to Agile because "Agility is a journey, not a destination."
Sorry... I had to.
There is some truth to that, though. How are you defining success? An organization might make some modest changes that help them deliver value to the customer in a faster and more collaborative way. Does that mean their transformation succeeded? Do they declare victory and stop looking for ways to innovate?
Or does "Agile transformation" always continue, in the spirit and tradition of Kaizen?
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2 replies by Andrew Soswa and Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 24, 2020 10:20 AM
Andrew Soswa
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Maybe we should call what Agile is and what is Agility? In my opinion, Agile is a methodology that drives business strategy toward continuous improvement and innovation = Agility. In that sense, Agility is achievable when the company adopts ways to constantly improve and innovate.
Why improvement and innovation? Improvement, in my opinion, is a refinement of existing capacities, while innovation is the creation of new capabilities.
Most of the time, the firm has to keep improving, but sometimes it has to stop improvement and get to innovate (design new product/processes or even own org structure that it will subsequently improve). The management has to know why, how, and when to improve and innovate.
Sep 27, 2020 8:36 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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I think I understood your point and I fully support what you wrote @Wade. Agile is a journey where knowledge is the key ingredient mostly forgotten mainly for people that never had gone to the basement, to the definition of Agile. Is like to ask to Nadal, Federer, Djokovic "have you succeed with being agile?".
Saving Changes...
Andrew SoswaTechnology leader| Leading global financial institutionElk Grove Village, Il, United States
Sep 24, 2020 7:17 AM
Replying to Wade Harshman
...
No companies succeed in transforming to Agile because "Agility is a journey, not a destination."
Sorry... I had to.
There is some truth to that, though. How are you defining success? An organization might make some modest changes that help them deliver value to the customer in a faster and more collaborative way. Does that mean their transformation succeeded? Do they declare victory and stop looking for ways to innovate?
Or does "Agile transformation" always continue, in the spirit and tradition of Kaizen?
Maybe we should call what Agile is and what is Agility? In my opinion, Agile is a methodology that drives business strategy toward continuous improvement and innovation = Agility. In that sense, Agility is achievable when the company adopts ways to constantly improve and innovate.
Why improvement and innovation? Improvement, in my opinion, is a refinement of existing capacities, while innovation is the creation of new capabilities.
Most of the time, the firm has to keep improving, but sometimes it has to stop improvement and get to innovate (design new product/processes or even own org structure that it will subsequently improve). The management has to know why, how, and when to improve and innovate. Saving Changes...
Abrachan PudusseryProject Management Domain expert| Wrench SolutionsKochi, Kerala, India
A better scope of reference can be teams than organizations?. Mainly because within large organizations, the transition happens team wise first, scaled to product line and then to organization. Another factor to define 'Success' is ROI. Another factor to be considered is the cultural aspects of the geographies. While work volunteering works in many countries, some countries work allocation works. Hence we need to define what is true Agile first. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Sep 24, 2020 7:17 AM
Replying to Wade Harshman
...
No companies succeed in transforming to Agile because "Agility is a journey, not a destination."
Sorry... I had to.
There is some truth to that, though. How are you defining success? An organization might make some modest changes that help them deliver value to the customer in a faster and more collaborative way. Does that mean their transformation succeeded? Do they declare victory and stop looking for ways to innovate?
Or does "Agile transformation" always continue, in the spirit and tradition of Kaizen?
I think I understood your point and I fully support what you wrote @Wade. Agile is a journey where knowledge is the key ingredient mostly forgotten mainly for people that never had gone to the basement, to the definition of Agile. Is like to ask to Nadal, Federer, Djokovic "have you succeed with being agile?". Saving Changes...
In my experience, Agile transformation should start from upper management and trickle down to middle and junior staff (at team level) - this is the key to successful implementation. Apply 80% energy to onboard top management and 20% on middle and lower staff. Gradually, as the agile transition leader will drive the effort and improvements are visible soon enough the % will change from 80% focus on middle-lower staff and 20% on Top management (as at that point top management is happy with the data metrics and results produced by the agile teams).
If upper management do not understand the benefits - it is going to be hard enough to 'transform' and chances are company will stay in Hybrid state forever - won't be surprised if they fallback to old ways. Think of this as our habit patterns - if someone is asked to run a mile everyday - he would do so for say 3 days in a row but at some point if he slacks for even a day or two - boom he is done.. his mind would give thousand excuses/explanations and won't let the body move outta bed.
Lastly, every company every program and every human-being is unique so looking for data may give you some help but it will be hard to convince everybody in the group based on just the data. My suggestion is apply the rule of 'empiricism' (learn from your own fact-based, knowledge-based experiences) and make decisions.
I hope it helps. Saving Changes...
Amir KashmiriHead, PMO| Siemens Ltd., ChinaChina, Mainland
Hi Andrew, I would strongly advocate the Shu Ha Ri model of Agile Adoption. Do not cherry pick what seems good in Agile. Adopt wholesomely Agile as it is and after attaining expertise can decide to do Hybrid methods. Saving Changes...
Marcus UdokangProject Manager| Aivaz ConsultingCalgary, Alberta, Canada
Most organizations I have worked for have been hybrid. I understand that Agile is something many organizations want to adopt. And, taking a hybrid approach sounds like a safe step forward. But, Agile is not for every organization. If during the hybrid stage an organization discovers Agile is not for them, then can revert back to Waterfall without having used up too many resources. That's one side of the story. The other issue is that a hybrid environment may just be the solution for some companies, as you have described. Saving Changes...
