Agile Know-How Magazine • Fall 2017
Special collaboration
As anyone who has tried to do it knows,
changing an organization is painful.
T
hough Agile is intellectually quite simple (the application of
empirical principles to software delivery), it can fundamentally
challenge deeply held beliefs that have gone unchallenged for
years. Challenging these beliefs can be deeply unsettling; it can
undermine confidence and close off career paths. When we ask
people to embrace Agile practices, we may be asking them to
abandon a world view that, while not perfect, may seem to them
better than the next best alternative. The core of our mission is
to show them that Agile is not just different but better. We are only
successful in our mission when their beliefs change.
In order for us to do this, there has to be cracks in their world
view that can let new ideas penetrate. I have found that the
following beliefs establish the possibility that an organization is
open to change. The greater the degree to which people in an
organization affirm these beliefs, the more open they will be
to embrace Agile principles. Conversely, when people do not
affirm these beliefs, their organization’s cultural inertia may be
too strong to overcome.
1
Belief #1: “If the organization does not change,
it will cease to exist.”
There is nothing like imminent demise to make an organiza-
tion willing to try something new. Plenty of organizations find
themselves in this position today; upstart digital innovators are
breaking old business models at a pace that traditional organiza-
tions cannot match. When an organization’s leaders believe that
their current culture cannot produce the innovative products
and services that the market demands, they are open to chan-
ging anything and everything.
The problem that many organizations face is that they don’t see
that the world has changed around them until it is too late, that
is, if they see it at all. They can powerfully insulate themselves
from seeing the truth. When they do finally see it, they can
succumb to despair or finger-pointing. Neither is productive.
In order for an Agile transformation to be successful, they must
come to believe that Agile is a way out of the crisis in which
they find themselves.
2
Belief #2: “The path forward cannot be planned
or predicted without experimentation.”
Even when they believe that they are in trouble, people may
still cling to the belief that traditional, predictive planning will
save them. They may believe that if they can just deliver the
“competitor-killing” new product that they have on the drawing
boards, they will be fine. The problem with this belief is that
when markets change, assumptions change along with them.
Traditional planning approaches are chock-full of assumptions
about markets, features, and customer needs that have never
been tested or validated. As long as the organization believes
that “the business” knows what customers want and that it just
needs to deliver it faster, it will continue to cling to traditional
delivery models.
The core of our mission
is to show them that
Agile is not just
different but better
If it believes that it already knows what it needs to deliver, the
organization will see no benefit in working iteratively, delivering
working software, measuring results, and refining its definition
of the right solution. People believe it is reasonable to expect a
detailed plan that stipulates when these requirements will be de-
veloped and tested. The organization must first come to believe
that