Agile Adoption Is Hard… So What’s the Secret Sauce?
I’ve heard too many times now about companies jumping into business agility, thinking it’s something easy…
If you’re among them, you might be wrong!
But let’s take a step back… all of us know how adopting Agile practices is crucial nowadays…..
“By 2023 80% of ITSM teams that fail to adopt an Agile approach now will find their ITSM practices ignored or bypassed as a result of more agile ways of working being adopted elsewhere in the organization”.
Gartner said it in 2020, but how is it going? Lets’ take a look at some statistics…
Agile adoption ramped up in 20201
The pandemic has forced companies to adopt an Agile approach, especially in order to improve communication among distributed teams. Teams in the software industry have seen an increase in Agile practices from 37% to 86%2.
At least 71% of U.S. companies are using Agile3
Therefore, most companies have understood the importance of such practices, at least for areas like R&D (83%), production and operations (82%), and customer services and support (79%).
Companies have experienced 60% growth in revenue and profit4.
The benefits for adopting Agile practices are countless, and among them is an increase in revenue. However, such growth refers to companies which have fully adopted Agile rather than only implementing it in small teams.
The most popular Agile framework is Scrum5
Agile projects are 3x more successfulcompared to waterfall ones6
The benefits a company experiences are better management of priorities, faster software delivery, increasing productivity, and better business and IT alignment2.
I could go on forever with statistics about Agile adoption… you will also find tons of them on the internet. However, if on the one hand it clearly ends up being that Agile is the way to go to face the unpredictable and volatile market conditions we live in, it certainly doesn’t come without challenges.
46% of respondents identify inconsistencies in processes and practices as the main barrier to Agile adoption, followed by cultural clashes (43%), organizational resistance to change (42%) and lack of skills and experience (42%)2.
To remove these barriers and ensure a successful Agile transformation, the following three aspects are worth considering:
As with any type of change, Agile transformation needs to start from the top. If such changes are not encouraged by the management, there will be general resistance. It’s therefore vital that leaders have a clear vision and communicate that vision to the whole organization.
Secondly, Agile processes need to be supported by a tool to improve communication and help manage internal processes. There are many different tools available on the market, but Jira is the most popular one and the one most recommended by users2.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, seeking the right partner is also key for a successful Agile transformation. Lack of skills and experience2 is mentioned as one of the biggest challenges faced by companies. 86% of companies have adopted Agile practices for software development2, and therefore they don’t have experience in promoting agility at an enterprise level. The experience of a partner is crucial to make the adoption process smoother and avoid wasting time.
To conclude, the pandemic has certainly accelerated Agile adoption, but this is especially true for areas like R&D and IT. Organizations are on the right path, but still have a lot of work to do in terms of expanding agility at the enterprise level. Even though Agile projects are more successful than waterfall ones, companies will still face a lot of challenges that slow down the adoption process and decrease the success rate.
For a successful Agile transformation, it’s therefore of crucial importance to be supported by the right partner, which can help by bringing to bear the right tools. A partner should have solid experience and a certified team that is able to support a company during the entire process, from the assessment time until the launch (and afterwards).
ABOUT US
Würth Phoenix is an IT and consulting company belonging to the Würth Group, with over 20 years of international experience. We are an Atlassian Gold Partner and our team of ITIL, Agile and Prince2 certified consultants helps enterprises in their Agile and digital transformation process.
Does it match your skill set? Our customers often present us with problems that need customized solutions. In fact, we’re currently hiring for roles just like this and others here at Würth Phoenix.
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