Agile is being adopted rapidly across industries, from IT department to other departments and companywide. Many companies adopt agile ways of working and but end up with just the name or transform into a hybrid organisation that magnifies the problem they intended to solve.
The extraordinary interest in Agile is understandable. When companies get it right, the results can be stunning. Productivity shoots up, employee involvement increases dramatically. New products and features can be implemented in weeks instead of months that it used to take earlier. Innovation rates go up while faults and repairs come down.
However, transformation to an Agile way of working is hard. It requires changes in internal processes, how people spend their day, how they interact with each other. The organisation structure, reporting remuneration and career paths have to be planned and implemented carefully.
Many established companies fear this transformation and would rather maintain the status quo. They try to kill this idea before it spreads throughout the company. Many leaders hesitate to take on this transformation. But once they see anyone company succeeding in their industry, and see the results of its successful implementation then the interest picks up and they want the same implemented in their company.
One should not overlook the years of planning and execution. There should be a total commitment from the leadership team to make the change, a willingness to experiment and learn from failures. When they do not commit fully they are likely to fall into one of the three traps being discussed here.
Agile in name only
This is the most common trap. Companies plan, commit to making the change to Agile way of working but they do not make the fundamental changes in ways of working like setting up cross-functional teams, a try and fail approach. In large companies speeding up decision making means reducing the layers of reporting. This is a big cultural change and difficult to implement. Successful companies establish boundaries within which the teams are free to take decisions but most companies c0ontinue to make decisions the usual way.
Two-tier
There may be companies that have reorganised themselves around the agile way of thinking but the senior management continues to function in the old traditional way. Other companies implement on a departmental basis like product development, design, sales, marketing, support working in an Agile framework while the rest continue traditionally. If the experiment is successful the rest of the organisation moves quickly into the agile framework. But the benefits are lost when the results of agile teamwork come up against the traditional process and long drawn ou approval formalities.
Half measures
Some companies get the agile transformation process partially right. They may be successful in setting up cross-functional teams and do work using the agile framework of scrums and sprints. But the companies may not have enabled support functions like career paths and incentive programs.
Employees adopt new practices but are uncertain about its impact on their personal growth. The effort flags off after the initial enthusiasm, and the decision making and results these half-measures leave the organisation less productive than before.
It should be remembered that these traps are easy to get into and difficult to get out of. The key to avoiding it is to plan completely and execute better.
By Grant Freeland, Martin Danoesastro and Benjamin Rehberg
BCG 2018/05
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