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Most organizations are on the path to scaling Agile within software development or IT. Although organizations are beginning to see the advantages of an Agile transformation beyond IT, a successful transformation involves more executive participation in an active way. No longer do you need to convince executives they should support scaling Agile delivery, but instead, for it to be a successful transformation, you need to convince leadership to be actively engaged.<\/p>\n
I sat down with Jon Terry, Chief Evangelist, Lean-Agile Strategy at Planview, to discuss successful patterns of how executives lead their organization through an Agile transformation, considering who needs to be engaged, challenges to expect, and mistakes to avoid. Let\u2019s jump right in.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s in it for executives to become engaged in an Agile transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n At the highest level, success or failure of the transformation. Like any other significant organizational change movement\u2014executives must be involved to support the organizational structure change, along with the culture change. If you really want an Agile transformation to be successful, executives must help drive the change through those obstacles that are inevitably going to happen. Executives who successfully engage in an Agile transformation see tangible results: faster time to market, better market share, and funding the right products at the right time. A successful Agile transformation can also improve morale across the organization, creating more engaged employees, which ultimately means better retention numbers.<\/p>\n What type of leadership is needed for a successful Agile transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n An executive\u2019s biggest role in an Agile transformation is to encourage groups of people to work together and, in essence, force the conversation and change to happen. The goal isn\u2019t to force the\u00a0outcome<\/em>\u00a0of the conversation but instead\u00a0provide guidance<\/em>\u00a0through servant leadership. Executives and leaders cannot just accept the situation when everyone is just smiling and saying, \u201cGreat, we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d It\u2019s up to the executives to push until a difference of opinions arises, and then leaders sponsor the facilitation of conversations that actually get to the uncomfortable points of this kind of a change. Leaders should not accept the proposed path forward until those differences in opinions are discussed.<\/p>\n In my opinion, I think some of this is modeling the behavior. If an executive is asking people further down the chain to delegate more of their authority, while communicating the corporate mission, then they have to be okay with the solution being different from what you might think is the right idea but supporting the decision to try. Executives need to model that behavior for people further down the chain.<\/p>\n Additionally, executives must recognize an Agile transformation is a major change, and people are going to make mistakes. Modeling the behavior of allowing people to fail and not falling back to command and control when those mistakes inevitably arise, is also a behavior to model. Ultimately, you\u2019re trying to encourage your subordinate leaders to do the same thing.<\/p>\n What is a common obstacle an executive or their management team might need to overcome for a successful Agile transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that in most organizations, when we talk about creating a strategy and then developing programs and projects to execute on that strategy, the usual way that\u2019s pushed downward is via a \u201cthis is how you\u2019re going to do it\u201d approach, as opposed to, \u201cthis is what I want to accomplish, you (teams) figure out how to get the result.\u201d I think that happens at any level, because usually the people who get to executive positions get there because they\u2019re good at their job and have a strong understanding of the level below, and that\u2019s a natural tendency to follow.<\/p>\n Using myself as an example, I\u2019m a product guy. I love products and can get deep in the weeds in products, and that\u2019s very tempting, and I enjoy doing that. But if I spend too much time in the weeds and make decisions for people, people will just way, \u201cWell Jon\u2019s the boss, if that\u2019s what he wants to do then okay.\u201d By doing this, we missed out on other ideas from those closer to the work. Instead, leaders should lead through intent and provide guidance. When you receive an idea or a path forward that\u2019s not quite the way you would have done it, ask yourself, \u201cwell, do I genuinely believe that\u2019s disastrously bad, and we\u2019ll really fail in a bad way if we do it that way? Or, is it just not the way I would have done it, and let\u2019s take a shot at it.\u201d If you go down the path of not supporting an idea, be fully transparent as to why so that the team can grow and understand beyond just getting shut down by the boss.<\/p>\n What is the biggest struggle organizations are having when trying to scale Agile?<\/strong>\u00a0In lots of conversations we\u2019re having, agility at the team level is reaching a tipping point. And that\u2019s a good thing, because customers are saying, \u201cAgile delivery is generating results. We like that; we want to do more of that.\u201d However, more often agility at the team level has reached a point where, for all the good it\u2019s doing, it\u2019s breaking how organizations traditionally run their business. It\u2019s up to the leadership to determine how to support Agile delivery so that they can continue to compete in the market and retain customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n