4 Ways to Overcome Agile Transformation Obstacles Posted on : Apr 08 - 2021

If an organization desires a successful Agile transformation, the first step is to shift its thinking from ‘doing Agile’ to ‘being agile.’ Unfortunately, a commonly shared belief that Agile is just a software development methodology keeps too many companies stuck in the ‘doing Agile’ mindset.

This belief ties back to the principles of Agile thinking from frameworks like Scrum or Lean. Most of these methodologies were focused on teams of developers. Naturally, the vocabulary and tools derived from these methods are unique to software development. While development has evolved away from waterfall approaches, the rest of the organization tends to run into cultural challenges downstream because the vocabulary and ways of working are foreign.

When an organization begins to lose progress downstream, it is too focused ‘doing Agile’ rather than ‘being agile.’ In order to shift the mindset toward ‘being agile,’ a new mindset must be adopted across the organization. These four insights offer ways to overcome obstacles along the way:

Instill Agile Thinking Across the Organization

The first step toward instilling agile thinking is to establish common vocabulary and define what it means to be agile. A common vocabulary and understanding of agility helps teams across the organization understand and see that agility is more than doing sprints.

As an organizational strategy, agility equates to flexibility – the ability to adapt to changing business requirements. It also means being collaborative and making complex processes more lightweight. Instilling this type of agile thinking into everyone at the organization leads to success. DevOps, for example, successfully instills this type of thinking through value stream management.

Essentially, this hurdle boils down to setting common goals and creating a common understanding of what ‘agile’ means across the organization. View More