Why So Many Agile Transformations Fail - 3 Ways to Make Agile Stick

is your agile transformation like joining a gym in January full of good intentions but you know the changes won't last fortunately there are things you can do to make your transition efforts stick hi I'm Mike Cohn I'm the author of three best-selling books on agile and scrum I help teams succeed with agile in this video I'll share three things you can do that will help you and your organization stick with it through an agile transition first focus on showing progress with just one team that is moving to Agile a lot of organizations transition a bunch of teams five ten or a hundred and hope that each succeeds getting a little better at agile each iteration a better approach is to focus on getting one team really successful I'd rather have one team kicking butt than 20 teams each five percent better you can have multiple teams moving to Agile at the same time but focus on helping one team get really good at agile getting one team very successful shows others what is possible other teams can then be motivated to pursue the same results there are two areas you can leverage to help that first team become great the people on the team and the attention that is shown to that team you can really help a first team get great by focusing on a team that has the right people they may already be on that team or you may need to transfer them onto that team you aren't doing some double-blind clinical trial of agile by this time more than 20 years after the agile Manifesto we know agile Works what we don't know is what successful agile looks like in your organization this first team to get great will tell us what we need to know find a team that wants to try agile and is willing to change to make it happen stack the deck if necessary by putting open-minded people and agile Advocates on that team the attention given to that team is your other leverage Point agile coaches especially if from outside your organization often have limited time that must be spread across multiple teams helping each improve make sure the team you're trying to get successful with agile first gets all the coaching they need unfortunately at first that will come at the expense of attention to other teams but the long-term benefits of getting this first team successful will be worth it a second thing you can do to help your organization stick with it through an agile transformation is to get support from above There is almost always someone who resists an agile transformation most commonly this is some level of middle management you want to circumvent this stumbling block by gaining support above that layer as early as possible like right after you finish watching this video with support from above anyone resistant will be caught between teams and leaders both pushing for agile you shouldn't necessarily go to your boss's boss and say your boss is resistant to Agile but look for ways to spread the word about the success teams are having especially that first team you're helping to get great let's look at a third thing you can do to help your organization stick with an agile transformation longer than someone who quickly abandons their January resolution to go to the gym daily to remain motivated it's important to measure progress along the way there's an infinite number of metrics related to agility you can use the metrics you use can change over time but suppose quality is something the organization hopes to improve through its agile transformation Begin by measuring the number of tests that pass each night org that are added each Sprint these don't truly tell you about the quality of the shipped product but they are leading indicators increase these and it is likely that product quality will improve down the line if you see quality is improving perhaps you switch to tracking team member satisfaction or track both metrics if you have time and see the need as you begin an agile transformation or as soon as possible if you've already started your transformation work to get Baseline measures of anything you may later want to use as a metric some metrics will be hard to Baseline after the fact for example you can't ask team members today how much they enjoyed their work six months ago if you don't track and Report some metrics that show Improvement the effort of an agile transformation will begin to feel a burden and the motivation to continue may drop too many agile Transformations fail after the initial enthusiasm Fades you can keep yours moving along by getting a first team great as soon as possible getting support for the effort from higher up in the organization and measuring progress along the way I'd love to hear how your agile transformation is going if it's going well tell me in the comments what you've done that's helped if it's struggling let me know where and I'll try to use your comment when I make a video on how to get a stalled agile transformation moving again I post a new video each week check out the related videos on the screen right now and if this video has been useful click the like button and if you're new to this channel click subscribe so you don't miss out on future tips to help you succeed with agile thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Mountain Goat Software

Views: 3,333

Keywords: agile transformation, agile adoption strategy, waterfall to agile transition

Id: q31g4G8mNc8

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023