Over the years, I have been part of many organizational transformations. Almost without exception, the goal was a worthy one. Some did succeed, but many of these transformation efforts failed, either completely or at least to a large degree.
The reasons for failure were often the same. This article will list the 10 most painful ones. You may recognize them. I think it’s important to realize these pitfalls exist. This is when you can start fixing the situation. Which I will cover in more detail in follow-up articles.
1. The main actors in the transformation aren’t aligned
The people who lead the transformation think they are on the same page but they fail to verify this. Saying “we need to be Agile” is one thing, but everyone has different ideas of what this actually means. I have seen people misunderstanding what DevOps means, what Scrum entails, or what Value Streams are. To give some examples.
It may sound obvious that alignment on your objectives is key. However, don’t underestimate how often this doesn’t happen. It may appear obvious that everyone is on the same page, but you don’t know unless you verify this.
People may think they know. People may think the others know. People may be afraid to acknowledge they don’t know. Regardless, a failure to align is a sure way to having a rough transformation journey.
2. Agile transformation as a traditional project
I find it interesting how people can strive to have an Agile organization, but their approach towards this is in a traditional fashion. They design, plan and execute the transformation with the idea that everything will happen as planned and that at the end of the transformation, the organization will be changed according to the expectations.
However, transforming an organisation is complex and sometimes even chaotic. You may have all kinds of ideas for changes that will benefit the organization, but often these will not play out as expected. You are working with people who all bring their uniqueness.
Also, in your organization people interact, and create values and practices. Every location, every department and every team has its own culture. What works for one location or team may not work somewhere else. It’s simply impossible to know upfront what to do to achieve your goals.
Running an Agile transformation as a traditional project can be a sign that the organization doesn’t have a learning culture. When people are not allowed to do experiments to learn from their outcomes, they will often choose to follow a traditional approach that gives a false sense of control.
A lack of learning culture is even more alarming given that Agile organizations should embrace the unknown and learn from what they did to understand what to should try out next.
3. The transformation work is on top of the regular responsibilities
The effort needed to transform an organization is often severely underestimated. Instead of focusing on it, people need to balance their responsibilities. They get additional work on top of their already-loaded agenda.
Transforming an organization is a long-term effort requiring focus and dedication. Having one or two people full-time on the journey and the rest doing it on the side won’t cut it when you’re looking at transforming an organization with more than 250 people. Let alone transforming an organization with over 1,000.
4. Ignoring to communicate the goal of the transformation (often enough)
Your organization has professional, capable people. Many of them have experienced multiple transformations. Some may have good experiences. Others may have witnessed failed attempts. Regardless, people will have expectations. Excitement, anticipation, fear, all of these emotions impact your people.
To make a transformation a success, the entire organization needs to be involved. Some may play an active role, and others will need to find their space in the new organization. This is why people need to understand why the transformation should take place.
It doesn’t suffice to have one town hall to announce the Agile transformation. Regular communication is key, repeating the goal of the journey and keeping people informed on developments. Even better is to ensure people are actively involved. This is the next point on the list.
5. Failing to actively involve the people
I have seen Agile transformation teams that worked from an ivory tower, taking all the decisions and doing all the work. They “rolled out” the transformation and expected the people to simply adopt the new procedures, practices and culture. It doesn’t work this way.
Better is to engage the people and give them the opportunity to identify with the journey towards Agility. People can help on every front from start to finish. You can involve them when you decide on the purpose of the journey and discuss what would make the transformation a success. People could also volunteer to address aspects they feel they can contribute to or help verify the progress.
Actively involving your people helps to increase their engagement and commitment. It feels good to know your skills and efforts are appreciated and have an influence on the outcome of the journey.
You may wonder how to manage this, how to have conversations and make decisions with a large group. There are many ways to do this. I personally am a fan of Liberating Structures like Purpose to Practice and Ecocycle Planning.
6. Failing to understand how deep a transformation goes
It pains me when I see transformation efforts limited to tools and procedures. Like implementing Scrum or SAFe as an approach to managing the work, introducing Jira to administer the work, and reshuffling people into Value Streams.
While the above examples may be of benefit, the human factor is the essential thing. You wish to have a culture of collaboration to achieve results. This doesn’t come out of the blue. It calls for a change in management behaviour and also additional responsibilities for the product creators (designers, developers, quality people, etc.). Agile approaches are about collaboration and self-organization. Teams aren’t merely building the product. They are also expected to be on top of the value they are creating.
The human factor adds complexity of culture to the transformation. And a culture change takes its time. An Agile transformation is a continuous journey as there’s always room to improve or to adapt to changing circumstances.
7. No eye on the objective, only on implementing transformation “features”
Every step of the transformation exists because you believe it will bring you closer to your goals. Often though, implementing these steps is a goal in itself. The efforts are a success when executed according to plan.
However, I have seen many actions without the desired impact. I also have seen actions that turned out to have a negative impact. As an example, we once thought it would make sense to have all teams using the same Jira setup. But what suited one team was detrimental to another team. Still, the actions of implementing the Jira setup were marked as “completed” and the teams that “complained” were considered temporarily disgruntled. It took years before this issue was repaired. Not coincidently the person responsible for the setup had left.
All actions should be a step closer to the goal. You can’t simply assume that this is the case. It needs to be top of mind for everyone that completing actions doesn’t automatically mean progress towards the goal.
8. No regular assessment if the transformation is going well
I already highlighted the complexity of organizational change. You may have all kinds of ideas of what would be good to do. But you can never know, because your organization is totally unique. What works for one organization doesn’t for another. What’s more: this also applies to departments and teams within the organization.
It is therefore of crucial importance to regularly assess if the transformation is heading in the desired direction. Just like Scrum has the Sprint Reviews to assess if the outcome of the Sprint resulted in bringing them closer to their Product Goal, maximizing the value of their product.
9. Wrong measurements or no measurements of success
Regularly assessing if you are heading in the right direction is important, but this requires an understanding of how to assess this. What makes the transformation a success? How can you determine you are making progress towards the goal?
Many transformations have no well-defined measures of success. They are running blind. Without unbiased ways to assess progress, the door is open for the hierarchy of opinion: the highest-ranked person in the room determines. Sadly though, the highest-ranked person in the room knows less than the combined knowledge of everyone and is inferior to plain facts.
10. Abandoning the transformation after a few months, never mentioning it again
It’s not a problem to abandon something that doesn’t bring the expected results. Perhaps a different approach can be more fruitful. And it’s always good to avoid the sunk cost fallacy: the fear of stopping something that has cost so much already.
But when you decide to abandon a transformation, ensure you properly inform your people. They have a right to know as it concerns them heavily. But it also may prevent them from being sceptical towards the organization and/or management. They may also be more open to the next transformation that will inevitably come.
This is my top 10 Agile transformation anti-patterns. What are yours? Leave them in the comments
If you know exactly where to go and how to get there, it is neither agile nor a transformation.