Transitioning to a more Agile way of working may be desirable for a number of reasons, such as reducing time to market, improving product quality and improving team motivation. Whatever the reason, and however well-intentioned many organizations are, the adoption of Agile in many organizations has quite simply failed. This post is the first in a series that will look at the reasons why Agile adoption fails so frequently and how to avoid those pitfalls and move towards a situation where you can reap the benefits that you read of so often in the Agile community.
For me, the main reasons for failure are:
- Lack of buy-in. This can come from anywhere - from top or middle management, from employees further down the organizational hierarchy or even from large, important customers. And what's more, it can take many forms; outright refusal to consider Agile practices, indirect sabotage of attempts to move towards a more Agile way of working or just a plain old lack of enthusiasm to improve things (usually borne out of product development practices that have been left in a 'broken' state for far too long and have resulted in a dip in employee motivation).
- The organizational culture doesn't support change. This is closely linked to my first point.
- Giving up when it gets hard or immediate gains are not seen.
- Lack of an on-site Agile evangelist (someone who knows what they're doing).
- Not allowing for the likely initial downturn in productivity during the Agile adoption process when new processes are being tried out and people are learning.
- Trying to do too much at once. In my experience, the 'big bang' approach to Agile adoption rarely succeeds (although it can be done).
- Adopting Agile practices and then saying 'we're done'. Agile is about continuous improvement and is not a one-off exercise.
- Presence of a traditional performance appraisal system - see my other post on this.
In the next post, I'll look specifically at how you can begin to move towards a more Agile way of working while ensuring that you've set wheels in motion to help mitigate some of the major problems highlighted above.
