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Agile Transformation Explained

Reading: Agile Transformation Explained

Many organizations are struggling to apply the concepts of Agile because they view Agile as a new way of doing the same old thing. They believe that if the roles, ceremonies, and artifacts of Scrum are in place, they’ll reap the benefits of having become Agile.

However, in our experience, leading a large-scale Agile Transformation isn’t about simply adopting a new set of attitudes, processes, and behaviors at the team level—it’s about building enabling structures, aligning the flow of work, and measuring for outcomes-based progress. It’s about breaking dependencies in an effort to achieve true business Agility. But, in order to achieve business Agility, Agile has to be applied in a certain context. You have to be able to form the right kinds of teams, build the right kinds of backlogs, and produce working, tested increments of product.

The Problem

The problem is that this context doesn’t exist in most companies. Sure, we’ve seen organizations that can implement an Agile way of working on small, self-contained projects. However, when it comes to scaling Agile, most companies fall short because they lack the proper buy-in from leadership, they lack the ecosystem in which Agile can be successful, and they don’t know how to orchestrate the type of change that’s required of organizations that are adopting Agile.

The Plan

What’s needed is a plan. A plan to do more than simply teach people Agile. You’re going to need to find a way to systematically overcome the structural, procedural, and cultural barriers that get in the way of Transformation. The good news is that the plan is knowable, and we want to prove it to you. This talk will explain what a structured, disciplined Agile Transformation looks like and will cover:

• Why organizations want to Transform
• What actually needs to be Transformed
• How the change will be orchestrated
• Who should be orchestrating the change

 

Next On-Boarding at LeadingAgile w/ Betsy Layman and Matt Smith

Comments (2)

  1. Veronica
    Reply

    Of course, I believe a plan is needed in any kind of a transformation. Also, even before implementing a new system, it’s important to do a good research to answer a very basic question: is your company ready for Agile and can manage it? This will help to avoid problems in the future. I found an interesting article about, though you’d like to take a look: https://kanbantool.com/blog/how-not-to-fail-an-agile-transformation

    Reply
  2. Nadine Rochester
    Reply

    Very interesting. It’s refreshing to read about an agile transformation applied in full. I read many articles about organisations adopting components of agile and while that may lead to streamlining of isolated processes it does not constitute an agile transformation. I think this is where many companies fall short, when they try to adopt agile in part without a full understanding.

    Reply

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