Many companies want to make the agile transformation so that they can better organize their teams, in order to deliver more value and ensure more competitive advantage for the organization. However, throughout this movement of change, as we went through several companies with our consulting or assembles squads, we have identified some very common behaviors.
And we’ve resolved to bundle these top mistakes during an agile transformation, which are holding companies back from achieving results and getting the most benefit out of this process. Check out:
No short deliveries
Both in the transformation process (we perform the Agile Transformation process, in an Agile / incremental way – click here and learn more), as well as in the day-to-day of the teams that work in the development of the Product, it is essential to have short films delivered in order to be really agile. It is these deliveries, made with correct slicing and prioritization, that promote the inspection and adaptation mechanism – one of the main pillars of agility.
Think only about process and forget about Engineering
Another typical mistake we see within companies undergoing an agile transformation is to focus too much on the process and leave software engineering behind. To extract the maximum benefits from this journey of change, you need to pay attention to the quality of your engineering.
One of the items of the Agile Manifesto is precisely having a good software architecture and an adequate design to enable teams to have more shorter deliveries that can make Agility concepts be well used within the teams routine.
Do the mechanic and think it’s okay
Another failure that happens a lot is to think that the concepts and pillars of the Agile or Digital Transformation are just more processes and not giving the correct depth they have. It is not possible to have a traditional mindset (waterfall), using only some techniques or mechanical processes of the agile frameworks and achieving the estimated results. It takes a real mindset change!
Do you really want to change your organization’s mindset and have more engaged teams with more productivity? Click here and schedule a conversation with us.
Climbing too early
Still talking about depth, if you haven’t managed to make this transformation in a small cell within your company yet, don’t start scaling this initiative to the entire organization. This process of transformation, whether agile or digital, is based on a cultural change, a turning point in people’s thinking… And this change calls for the correct training to be carried out, the breaking of ties that exist in the daily lives of teams – that make them not have the necessary performance, among other characteristics, which take time to be modified. So it’s important to know the right time to start climbing!
Don’t measure and learn during transformation
The fifth mistake we most identify in companies during the agile transformation is not measuring and not learning along this process. Deliveries are being short, software engineering is getting the right attention, you’re putting agile principles into practice in the right way, you’re scaling at the right time, but do you have indicators for all of this?
You need to be data driven and use the data to measure theWhat’s happening. This will help you know if you are really delivering more value to the organization with these initiatives. Is the teams’ productivity higher? Is the number of impediments decreasing? Is lead time decreasing? Are users and customers satisfied with the product? These are some questions that need answers, data and analysis to help you measure and learn from this transformation process.
Low product and customer focus
When we talk about agile transformation, we have three main pillars: processes and/or management, engineering and product/customer. When you don’t focus properly on the product and the customer, you don’t have, for example, prioritization techniques and you don’t know what is really value and what is success for a project. You can work with any method, but if you don’t give proper attention to the product and its user, you are probably generating a lot of waste in developing this business.
Read more: You seem agile, but not focused on the Customer? You’re probably losing the game!
Finding that Agile is an end and not a means
The seventh mistake we see most in agile transformation processes practically consolidates all the previous failures, which is to think that Agile is an end and not a means. This is very common! During our consultations, we hear a lot of people say that they want to be more agile, they want to implement the Spotify model, etc… But what organizations should want is not these formats, but:
Get more results
Doing more with less
Increase Efficiency and Effectiveness
Competitive advantage
Making the technology area a protagonist within the organization
Delivering more value to the business
And, to achieve the above goals, Agility comes as a means! If for this you need to use other principles and concepts other than Agile, that’s fine. The important thing in this transformation initiative is to achieve the goals, that’s the end.
If you have identified some of these errors in your daily life and want to correct them, contact us. We can make this diagnosis in your company and help you to have more results!
