Why it’s hard to be agile with just Agile
By: Lena Zhuravleva
Tags: Company Culture, Agile Transformation, Scaled Agile Framework, Continuous Improvement, Agile Coaching

Why it’s hard to be agile with just Agile

Many times I hear people complain about Agile not working. Even though I agree it brings about controversial results in many cases, I also believe this is because it is usually not applied accurately, just like musicians in an orchestra must be properly placed for us to hear the symphony.

There might be various reasons why the Agile Symphony is not working, but this article will focus on the fundamental ones.

1. Usually, Agile fails because it is not applied on the organization level.

Until recently, Agile was considered for the team level only. But applying solely on that level will make you quickly hit the wall because the other pieces of the game are not there.

Remember: “optimizing the component does not optimize the system,” as a new SAFe approach insists and I believe it.

Even if you optimize all the dev teams across the entire enterprise, if you make them scrum teams and force them to work in an agile-like manner, there are still many vital parts of the system that are functioning in an older way: a business model, organizational hierarchy, technology infrastructure, portfolio/ product management and budgeting. This can make it look like we’ve just created two parallel realities in one company, each speaking its own language and serving its own values that are usually very different if not opposite. This will most likely create tension between those two worlds (traditional and Agile one), which might affect the lean flow of value, slow down the decision-making process and most likely poison the working climate.

Now I feel we have SAFe to help us to solve those challenges. It covers the other enterprise areas that are left, outsiders and therefore blockers to Agile transformation. Look at this diagram reflecting seven major organizational areas (with 21 dimensions) which change should affect to make Agile work in the organization. Now it is easier to understand that “achieving agility,” especially for a big company, is maybe a goal, but a very ideal and hardly achievable one. Knowing that should not demotivate us, but inspire us to look at it as a continuous process. The old adage says, “it is not a sprint; it’s a marathon,” and it’s preferable to enjoy the journey.

2. Usually, Agile fails because transformation is not approached as a cultural change first, with its specific values and mindset.

a) Mindset:

Adopting a new Mindset

The so-called people factor is often a root cause of value delivery failure. This factor starts in our head with a thinking pattern, point of view, or conclusion that we made about life. All that makes up our mindset, which rules our behavior, and if this mindset is limited, so will be our choices and actions.

A change in mindset is often a tough thing to do for an individual. In Agile, we are talking about organizational change for a big group of people, so change on that scale can be even more challenging.

Agile is correctly referred to as a working fashion that makes a project, a process, and an organization, as a result, more adaptable to a constantly-changing environment. However, the ability to adapt doesn’t start on a technical side with some technological improvement, it begins in our mind, which should be able to continuously adjust to a constantly-changing reality.

In SAFe, this is called Fixed vs. Growth Mindset:

Ability to be open to trying new things (incl. opinions, perspectives, approaches, etc.)

(incl. opinions, perspectives, approaches, etc.) Ability to view things in a broader context (e.g. seeing the positive in seemingly-negative outcomes)

(e.g. seeing the positive in seemingly-negative outcomes) Ability to welcome constructive criticism no matter how big your title is

no matter how big your title is Ability to view a mistake as a necessary learning curve and opportunity to grow, which can be a fundamental challenge due to everything mentioned above)

This mindset enables the whole organization to see the opportunities where no one else can see them. A more detailed description of what the “Growth Mindset” is you can find here.

Generally, it is easier for a person to learn a new technical skill than update their belief system or learn to see a situation from a different perspective. That is why it is important to understand during the hiring process if a candidate has a growth mindset to fit in a growing and innovative organizational culture.

b) New Culture and fundamental Lean-Agile Principles:

SAFe, Agile and DevOps approaches are based on cultural change first, which means the transformation of some fundamental principles and values. Only then can we talk about other technical pieces that create a continuous flow of value. These principles include:

Fast Feedback , enabling quicker discoveries that bring the most important thing to the table — DATA

, enabling quicker discoveries that bring the most important thing to the table — DATA Variability and options, due to much uncertainty upfront and continuous discoveries on the path of creating value, is becoming more valuable in the new reality than a more strict approach

due to much uncertainty upfront and continuous discoveries on the path of creating value, is becoming more valuable in the new reality than a more strict approach Decentralized decision-making means less control and involvement from the vertical hierarchy into value development, especially when it is time-critical and requires local information. This encourages and shares responsibility on every level and makes the organization more horizontal.

If people in the organization do not support these principles with their actions routinely, their actions will sabotage the essence of an Agile workflow. The full description of the essential values for the Culture change you can find here.

3. Usually, Agile fails because organizational leaders are not supporting it as much as they should.

In fact, leaders are the core people in this game. Only they can take on responsibility for change and actively lead that change to a new way of working. They — and only they — have the authority to create the environment, give direction and provide resources. That is why the SAFe House of Lean puts leadership in the base of its pyramid:

The SAFe House of Lean

The crucial power point is that every true leader must lead by example. Leaders are the role-models for their employees. Suppose a leader officially supports transformation but has a fixed mindset where they don’t value investment in continuous learning or are not open to receive constructive feedback nor discuss it. In that case, they are sending a confusing message to their employees, who will automatically adjust to the leader’s behavior as a standard. We should not underestimate the positive effect of leadership behavior. If a team member lacking the mindset of growth sees the leader’s example, they will be more likely to learn a new norm. This experience of a new behavioral model can be very valuable. This is why I believe mastering and coaching others will become an in-demand skill for leaders in the 21st century, where old ways of leading by tyranny are becoming less popular.

That is why leaders, if not entirely on board, can easily become the major blockers, and it will be almost impossible to overcome this challenge. That is why the organizational leaders need to dedicate time for proper training before initiating and implementing transformation. They truly need intimate knowledge of the Lean-Agile approach to set those behavioral examples as a routine. This will give them authority and a chance to the organization to truly master agility. More information about lean-agile leadership you can find here.

4. Usually, Agile fails because it doesn’t have a transformation plan.

SAFe Implementation Roadmap

However, the whole idea of planning is shifting in the Agile environment. An upfront and detailed plan is not something we are aiming for, as details are rising during their execution of the process. Yet, we need some strategy to begin with, as organizations tend to skip fundamental steps when jumping into agility. That might create a mess — not just in the working process,but also in the employees’ minds, which can be even worse. SAFe highlights 12 necessary steps for the organization to address on this challenging path. A scaled agile framework can be created for large companies that face difficulties scaling Agile. Still, I believe those 12 steps can also be helpful for smaller companies to strategize around transformation. The thoughts, topics and challenges that are covered in the SAFe Implementation Roadmap article series can be scaled down and applied to organizations of various sizes.

5. Usually, Agile fails because it doesn’t have tech pieces.

Finally, suppose the solution doesn’t have enough scalability, flexibility, and the running code isn’t updated and validated continuously. In this case, the company cannot support the core Lean-Agile principles from the technical side. In order to avoid this, we need CI/CD automation. I can not stress more that it is essential to be able to build, validate and deploy an update within one iteration for organizational agility. And if a delivery pipeline is limited on many levels to perform, the company will find itself in a water-scrum failed reality even on the team level.

Make it a priority to find a way to invest resources in building a continuous delivery pipeline to run Agile not only on the Jira board but also in reality.