Agile transformation

Agile transformation, Agile digital transformation, Agile transformation strategy, Agile transformation roadmap

Agile transformation entails transitioning an entire company’s ideals and nature to a nimble, reactive culture that is based on agile principles to stimulate business change, with the goal to revamp the whole company mindset and environment to embrace creativity and innovation, as well as reduce unnecessary management layers by empowering employees to think independently. Agile organizations are a network of teams operating in rapid learning and decision-making cycles, that are driven by a common purpose and use new data to give decision rights to the teams closest to the information.

Agile transformation is the work of refactoring the organization so that it can actually do Agile. The Agile transformation journey takes a traditional company through a series of steps to adopt new Agile ways of working, which sometimes implies as much as changing the mindset by which the company exists, putting Agile values and principles at its core.

Agile digital transformation is fundamentally about forming teams, defining an agile governance model, building backlogs, and regularly producing small increments of working, tested software. At scale, it’s creating networks of loosely coupled teams, coordinating dependencies, managing trade-offs, getting things into the market fast, and measuring throughput instead of productivity. Removing the things that get in the way of accomplishing these things is the work of the Agile transformation.

Agile business transformation

From a business point of view, the relationship between the organization and the clients fits some patterns and trade-offs in predictability vs. response to change and commitment vs. emergent customer needs:

  • What the organization values in terms of planning – how much do you value predictable delivery vs. the ability to adapt and respond to change
  • What do the customers value from a planning perspective – are you trying to figure out what your customer wants vs. are you focused on making and meeting commitments
  • Planning trade-off – the more a system is designed for predictability, the harder it is to change and the more it is designed for adaptability, the less predictable it will be

Based on this analysis, the system in which the organization and the client are working might be in one of the following scenarios, which are related with the level of Agile transformation from low to high:

  1. The organization is trying to be predictable, but the clients do not know what they want, the environment is chaotic, the market is changing in an unmanageable way, a lot of time is spent doing long-term planning that becomes obsolete very fast, delivery to market is done in an unpredictable way
  2. The organization is in alignment with the expectations of the clients, but struggles to make and meet commitments due to the lack of clarity around requirements, poor estimation and extreme variability in completing work against the estimations
  3. The organization is very adaptive, makes commitments in smaller batches, it values change, has a roadmap for the future and plans for smaller timeframes, but struggles to deliver in a predictable cadence for the clients
  4. The organization is investing to learn, does small experiments, has small teams that work independently with basic initial requirements, delivers often and learns from customer feedback, measure success on goals and business outcomes, commitments exist, but failing to deliver on them is not a big problem

Most companies start the Agile transformation because they are in the first scenario from above, operating in a predictable way and having clients with emergent needs. Their goal is to operate in an adaptive way and move to the forth scenario, and to achieve this they loosen the commitments, empower teams to become self-managing and give the teams everything they need to become successful. The Agile transformation might be started in the organization with a pilot involving one or a small group of teams, and then scaled to more teams only when the organization has changed its practices and is ready for such a way of working at big scale.

Agile transformation strategy

  • Starting point assessment – check where the company stands in terms of structure, workflows, performance, ways of working etc.
  • Mindset change – make the transition smoother for an established company by embracing the Agile mindset
  • Address fears – people that will do the work need to understand the benefits and accept the Agile principles
  • Agile coaching – engage all company levels in the Agile transformation and provide coaching for different roles and levels, help the teams until they become self-managing and can continue the transformation themselves
  • Leadership guidance – leadership needs to have a clear vision and define where the company is heading in the transformation journey
  • Improve communication – communicate the Why for the change and the strategy that will be used, setup communication channels for the transformation, and engage leaders in the communication
  • Measure progress – analyze the efficiency of the changes implemented and have clear milestones in the Agile transformation journey

  • Understand your organizational culture and how to create coherence based on shared principles, without losing diversity
  • Create a common and transparent framework for decision-making processes that adapts to each specific context
  • Find out what your customers actually need and how to get it to them by focusing on value creation
  • Acknowledge your strengths and base your strategy on tested experiments to safely move towards your goals in small incremental steps
  • Remove the costs of excessive coordination by distributing control and empowering teams

Transformation pillars

  • North Star strategy – A strategic, clearly defined customer “North Star” strategy gives direction to employees about what success looks like
    • Articulate the desired experience explicitly
    • Give the strategy a purpose, inspire people with a vision that transcends the product or service and focuses on outcomes customers seek to achieve
    • Add customer perspectives to metrics through use of measures such as the Net Promoter Score or a customer effort index
  • Governance and reporting – analyze existing approaches to planning, resource management and budgeting and plan for waterfall, hybrid or agile approaches, reevaluate governance and management of projects, decide which initiatives will transition to agile product development and which will be kept in a traditional project management way
  • Organizational design – shift the culture of the organization with new ways of working, improve outdated processes and policies, team structures, reward and recognition criteria, change management methods
    • Workshops to define or clarify the organization’s vision and values for agile
    • Organizational alignment assessments to understand opportunities and challenges
    • Support for strengthening key competencies and providing opportunities for employees to upskill based on core capabilities of teams
    • Understanding of formal and informal organizational drivers
  • Customer-focused agile processes – delivering on customer expectations requires using a customer-centered design methodology, effectively engaging users in the design process increases adoption and reduces rework and overall cost, facilitating agile transformation by having business, technology and users working together
  • Infrastructure and tools – Agile transformation requires a platform that is nimble and flexible, can scale-up or down quickly, can be provisioned or de-provisioned on-demand, and can provide the security that customers and regulations demand; working across silos, stacks and segments to provide solutions for the customer is a new way of working for many digital and infrastructure teams, and it requires education and enablement
  • Leadership engagement and change management – leaders need to set an example by continuously communicating the strategic goals and tactical needs to make agile a successful effort in their enterprise
    • Just-in-time training for leaders and developers
    • Change champion networks
    • Regular change-readiness pulse checks and assessments
    • Innovation centers to encourage design thinking
    • “Day in the life” journey maps that help employees envision their “new day”
    • “Finish line” features that help teams understand what “done” looks like

Agile transformation roadmap

An Agile transformation roadmap may help a traditional company set out on its way to adopting the Agile principles. A roadmap is not entirely a plan, but it lays out the milestones to head toward and roadblocks to try to avoid. Tailored to the specific needs of any given company, a transformation roadmap defines Agile steps to give the company an idea of how to approach its transformation. If done right, it helps align the teams involved and smoothly roll out the Agile transformation plan.

  • Define the vision and goals for the agile transformation – clearly define the business goals and objectives that the agile transformation is intended to achieve. This could include things like improving time to market, increasing customer satisfaction, or reducing costs.
  • Identify key stakeholders – identify all of the key stakeholders who will be affected by the agile transformation, including leadership, project teams, and individual contributors. It is important to involve these stakeholders in the planning process to ensure that their needs and concerns are taken into account.
  • Assess the current state – conduct a thorough assessment of the current state of the organization, including the current project management processes, team structures, and culture. This will help to identify any potential challenges or obstacles to the agile transformation.
  • Define the target state – based on the vision and goals for the agile transformation, define the target state for the organization. This should include a clear description of how the agile practices and principles will be adopted and integrated into the organization.
  • Develop a roadmap – develop a roadmap that outlines the specific steps and activities required to move from the current state to the target state. This should include a timeline for each step, as well as a clear description of the resources and support needed to successfully complete each step.
  • Communicate the plan – clearly communicate the agile transformation plan to all stakeholders, including leadership, project teams, and individual contributors. Make sure to address any concerns or questions that stakeholders may have.
  • Implement the plan – follow the roadmap to implement the agile transformation, including training and coaching as needed to ensure that all stakeholders have the skills and knowledge needed to successfully adopt agile practices and principles.
  • Monitor and adapt – monitor the progress of the agile transformation and be prepared to adapt the plan as needed to ensure that it remains aligned with the business goals and objectives. This may include conducting regular reviews and assessments to identify areas for improvement and make any necessary adjustments.

Agile mindset