How to Avoid Agile Transformation Pitfalls
Pitfall 4 - Failing to communicate the goal of the transformation (often enough)
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 entirely or at least to a large degree.
The reasons for failure were often the same. I listed the ten most painful pitfalls in this article. Understanding the possible pitfalls is step one. Then, you can start fixing the situation.
Today, I will discuss what helped me successfully avoid the pitfall of failing to communicate the goal of the transformation (often enough). I will spotlight the practices I experienced that were particularly helpful, rather than a complete guide.
In my professional life, I have been subjected to many organizational transformations. Most of them were poor attempts that were announced in a grandiose way but petered out quite quickly. At the start of my career, these announcements had a huge impact on me. I can vividly remember how they robbed me of my sleep, either of excitement or worry.
But when I had experienced multiple of these transformations, I became aware of a pattern: most of the time, the hype would fade away and ultimately nothing significant would change.
The exceptions to this had one important thing in common: they informed us meticulously about the need and what was about. Plus they didn’t do this only once, they made it one of the core messages of the organization throughout the transformation. Me and my colleagues were taken on the transformation journey.
Outcomes that matter to your people
If you wish to have any shot at succeeding with your transformation, people need to understand the objectives. They also should support this goal. You may not succeed in getting everyone behind the transformation, but you wish to have sufficient support.
Almost every transformation I can recall started with a session solely focused on informing the people about the current state of the organization and discussing why we needed to change our organization.
The most compelling reasons to change were focused on the desired outcome, like:
“We need to remove the silos in our organization to be more response to market needs and to improve the quality of what we create”.
We all felt the pain of the siloed organization. Improving this would directly impact our daily work. We wanted this reorganization to succeed.
To paint the picture, the worst goals focused on output, like:
“We will introduce Scrum to all teams to work in two-week Sprints and use Jira as the admin tool.”
In essence, we were told that we had no say in what we believed was the best way to do our work and create our product. Also, this goal doesn’t help us understand why this would be a good thing in the first place. I felt immediate resentment and secretly hoped this would fail. And I wasn’t the only one.
Communicate often
Communication of the goals doesn’t end at the start of the journey. To everyone informed and engaged, you should communicate regularly. I found that a good way of doing this is by having a specific regular event that is solely focused on the transformation journey. In this event, you seek to have a conversation with your people.
You start off with the transformation goal to get everyone on the same page (again) and show consistency in your message. You then address all the things you were able to achieve to bring you closer to the goal. Then you can discuss and verify the results with the attendants. You can end the event by collaborating with the attendants on what would be the best things to achieve next. Some of you will recognize this format. It is exactly what happens in a Scrum Sprint Review.
As a matter of fact, the best transformations I was involved in, we worked with Scrum. The Sprint Review was our moment of contact with the people in the organization to touch base on our goal, our progress, the feedback of the people and what we should do next.
Communication goes both ways
Communication isn’t only about sending the information. It is just as much as listening to the responses and having a conversation. It all starts with determining the reason for the change. When the people in your organization can’t relate to your reason or change, you will face an uphill battle. Perhaps you see issues that others don’t see. Or you think there’s a problem, but in reality, it doesn’t exist. Regardless, you will only find out by having the conversation.
You should continue to have the conversation with your people throughout the transformation. It helped you to clarify the progress you have made and learn from your people what their pain points and desires are to achieve the goal.
End Note
Agile is all about collaboration and communication. So is an Agile transformation. After all, you wish to improve the agility of your company. The only way this can work is by including your people in the discussion. They are the ones who work in Agile teams or will collaborate with Agile teams. It would be nonsensical to keep them ill-informed and roll out your Agile project from an ivory tower. As a traditional project.
Back up you "why" with metrics so it is clear this is not a high-ranking manager's gut feeling or pet project. Where are we? Where is our competition? Where do our customers like us to be?