Agile works! Or does it?

As more and more companies realize Agile is not exclusive to software development, what are the benefits of adopting Agile principles and practices into the enterprise? What are the drawbacks to agility? What measurements prove Agile provides significant benefits both internally and externally to the business and its customers? In the operations of running a business, we can look at each department; what the departmental purpose is, what services the department is empowered to provide, and who the consumers are. Every department within the organization has a purpose to satisfy their consumers and satisfying that mission can be measured based on “what is important to those that consume our efforts?” When the focus is narrowed to “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software” (Agile Manifesto), replacing the word “software” with services, solutions, outputs, efforts, etc. will get the business centered around why the business exists in the first place. The benefits of Agile principles and practices can be felt by everyone in the enterprise if everyone understands their role to “satisfy the customer.” The overarching mission of the organization and the underlying missions of each department has to by synchronized to ensure the whole is achieved.

A few benefits of adopting Agile include, #1 more satisfied customers (focus on me your consumer and I will be happy to rely on your business, department, service, solutions, even more than I do now), #2 transparency of vision, goals, decisions, throughput, and lessons learned shared internally and externally will ensure the business is aligned with every type of consumer thus allowing the business to achieve more satisfied customers. #3 Transparent organizations are healthier organizations. Health can be measured with employee retention and dollars & cents. #4 Business leaders are the decision makers for “what & why.” Solely based on consumer demands. The Agile teams determine the “how”. In a mature Agile organization, executives understand if they provide a thoughtful vision for “what & why” they will never have to think of “how.” The same mature organization will have learned by inspecting the output, solution, service, product, etc. as frequently as cadence warrants, those outputs are valuable, accurate, ideal and just in time to be consumed by the customer who made the request.

Drawbacks of an Agile adoption might be #1 It is very hard for people to hide bad decisions from anyone in an Agile organization primarily due to the transparency Agile brings. Roles are specific and purposed. Agile teams hold themselves accountable to delivering value based on the self-organized commitment they make to each other as they form, storm and normalize into maturity. #2 I am frequently asked “as a manager, where do I fit in, in your Agile world?” My short answer is “by doing what you were hired or promoted to do…and hopefully that was to ensure those in your charge are motivated, encouraged and empowered to do well while they are in your care.” #3 Enterprises will be forced to rethink how they lead, govern, communicate, and measure success. For some, “don’t rock the boat” is comforting. For many, disruption of status quo is refreshing, exhilarating, challenging and highly rewarding. #4 Agile is a team sport. The lone superstar is encouraged to help motivate their team rather than shine alone. They keep the cape tucked into their work clothes and allow their team to become high performing with their mentoring and leadership. #5 Executives must be engaged before, during and after the transformation to Agile. Without support at the top, vision, goals, successes and failures will go unnoticed long to realize loss of employees and revenue. Are any of these really drawbacks?

Measuring successes of Agile adoption is fairly simple; executives answer “are we leading our mission and have we provided the right amount of engagement, encouragement? Are we providing the right amount of funding for education, coaching, training? Are we celebrating wins? Teams answer “are we delivering what we promised on time, every time?” Customers answer “did we provide the answers teams’ needed to satisfy our “asks” in a responsible amount of time to get the deliverable on-time, just-in-time?” The truth is, Agile works! Agile has become the norm in managing software development projects. Rapidly, the successes of “working software” has influenced a DevOps culture and IT operations management. Today, Agile is ever so slowly becoming the norm for business operations management. In the coaching space, we say “Agile adoption is not a one size fits all endeavor.” Because every company is uniquely different based on their people, processes and technology, Agile adoption needs to be tailored to fit the unique qualities of that company. Starting with a temperature check of the executives, managers, influencers, and those teams providing the value to consumers, a coach will be able get to know the organization before a “game-plan” gets drawn up. I encourage any organization considering adopting Agile to seek out an expert external to the organization. There are many reasons why this point is critical. I’ll be expanding upon this and some other points I’ve made above in future articles. Have an Agile day!