Transitioning to Agile: Five Success Factors
Transitioning from a waterfall process to an Agile framework like Scrum can be a daunting task. However, you can make the effort a whole lot easier if you have a good idea of what needs to change – beyond getting rid of waterfall – if you were to take the plunge for your organization.
I have found that there are five broad success factors that need to be addressed in order to successfully transition to Agile. Without addressing these factors, you may be able to make a transition but the viability of the effort is likely to be short-lived.
Below is an illustration of the five success factors:
Although all five success factors are essential, Culture has a greater impact overall...
Technology
In this context, we are referring to technology as any process, tool or material that helps solve a problem. Typically, this is the element companies tend to focus on first – and unfortunately often ends up being the only factor they focus on. Software tools like ScrumWorks, Mingle or Jira’s Greenhopper are good examples. So is frameworks like Scrum or XP; they all help enable teams to be successful and solve a problem. Unfortunately, by ignoring the other factors, transition efforts suffer.
Organizational Design
We use the term ‘design’ here rather than ‘structure’ as this refers not only to the organizational structure of the organization, but also the physical (architectural) outline. If an organization is very hierarchical with several layers of decision-makers, your transition efforts will be challenging. Also, if resources are located in remote locations or have a clear ‘office preference’ where open space and collaboration are frown upon, you will have a hard sell on your hands. But don’t ignore this – you will lose a significant piece of Agile’s potential if your company’s organizational design is not addressed.
Leadership
This can be one of the most important factors; leadership holds a lot of influence as they...