Should Your Technology Team “Go Agile”?
In the early 2000’s, Agile exploded on to the scene. Suddenly, everyone who wanted to be “cutting edge” thought they needed to adopt the methodology for any kind of technology projects.
However, instead of enabling rapid innovation, many companies found that they spent significant time and effort to change their way of delivering products to market, only to find that the investment never ended and the gains were never achieved. Still today, executive leaders ask, "If my company were to go Agile would it actually solve our problem?”
The unfortunately un-inspiring answer to that question is “it depends.” The reality is that Agile can be a powerful tool, enabling committed companies to quickly respond to market changes and deliver higher value in shorter periods of time. But ultimately it is just a tool, a framework or even a cultural shift. It is not a golden ticket to guaranteed rapid innovation.
Agile takes commitment from the entire enterprise.
Moving to an Agile methodology takes hard work and commitment, not just from your product development or IT staff, but from everyone involved in your product lifecycle. The Sales Team, Marketing, Customer Success, Operations, Engineering, even Finance and HR must be involved for a successful move to Agile. Everyone needs to have “skin in the game” and participate in the process. Depending on the technology implementation’s primary functional beneficiary, a company might select Product Managers from the impacted departments or, if available, they might leverage someone from a centralized Product Management Team to collect and prioritize system functionality. To enforce and adopt cultural change, HR must ensure that support for an Agile-driven process is included in measures, objectives and incentive plans across the organization. Senior leadership must support the process by encouraging participation and by tying the need to the company’s strategic vision, all while staying the course when inevitable initial failures or bumps arise during the learning process.
Agile does not automatically mean faster.
Many organizations think that moving to Agile will automatically make robust technology delivery happen faster. In reality, unless you are writing smart “User Stories” or clear and succinct requirements, that carefully define the smallest possible market-valued functionality (MVP - Minimal Viable Product), Agile will likely not accelerate delivery. What you get from Agile implementations is an earlier, albeit less feature rich, market-ready MVP, which enables earlier feedback from your customers and a near-term roadmap based on these customer demands. The key to speeding delivery is in how you define a “ready for release” candidate. Simply put, if you try to squeeze too many eggs into that basket, you are just going to have a mess. Feature-rich product launches still require significant time. Instead, designate a Product Manager who stays laser focused on a true MVP to start and then leverages customer feedback to prioritize the subsequent releases which bring more utility/benefit to the end users.
Agile requires a cultural shift.
Another reason Agile fails is because companies don’t base the move to the new methodology on creating a culture of empowerment and accountability. Simply moving to scrum-based or iterative development will not be enough for a company to reap the benefits of Agile. Accountability and clear roles and authority across the organization is key. One method many organizations have adopted to help foster this accountability is to create DevOps teams – where developers are not only responsible for developing new functionality, but also for managing and supporting the cloud or hybrid environment where the product is live. This is great for the technology team, but the business needs to be equally invested. For business participants, this means becoming “Product Owner Oriented” by ensuring that the voice of the customer informs functionality and translating those needs into user stories with detailed acceptance criteria (to ensure robust testing). From a leadership perspective, it means leading scrums (e.g. stand-up meetings), sprint retrospective and sprint demonstrations. All of these tools must become a core function in your organization.
So, yes, “going Agile” can bring substantial benefits to your company. But you must embrace the new mindset; your entire organization needs commitment, focus and accountability to drive the benefits of Agile.
Written by:
ANN TOFOLO
With over 20 years of experience leading organizations through transformations, Ann helps Excelerate’s clients to navigate the complexities of modern business and considers herself a connoisseur of fine breakfasts.