Stop your agile transformation!
Many companies are dealing with the topic of agile transformation or are already in such a phase of change. Agility – whatever that may be exactly – is generally regarded as a good ‘tool’ to prepare an organisation for the present and the future. Over the past 16 years, I have been able to support numerous change projects at a wide variety of companies and can only give you one piece of advice: Stop your agile transformation!
Patent remedies and the wrong question of why
What I experience and have often experienced was summed up well by Simon Bennett in a comment on Twitter a few years ago:
Apparently ‘Agile Transformation’ means ‘keep changing agile until it perfectly fits the way in which the organisation is currently operating’ otherwise it would be called ‘Organisational Transformation’.
In other words, agile transformations are often classic change programmes that are dressed up as agile with lots of modern buzzwords or garnished with agile methods. The search is on for patent remedies without a concrete and truly different vision. What they are looking for are new, universal solutions for everyone that do exactly what the programmes did before: internal restructuring with the aim of increasing efficiency.
Of course, there is not and cannot be a universal panacea for a new organisation. The future is individual to each company. This means, for example, that any attempt to copy a particular model is doomed to failure. [1] This is especially true when companies try to transfer frameworks developed for developing software or hardware, for handling projects or for developing products (in small or scaled environments) to entire organisations. These frameworks are useful in certain situations (especially if they are understood as building blocks), but cannot fully meet the complex and diverse requirements of and for organisations.
In fact, the question that often arises at the beginning of a planned change does not help either: Why are we as a company engaging in an agile transformation? The answer to this question is not a reliable guide for change processes, as those involved are often satisfied with a quick answer to this ‘why’. However, the quick answer only tells us why we are doing something. What this does not answer is: Why are we taking the steps we are taking? What purpose are we really pursuing? The question of why usually answers the motivation of a person, a team or an organisation. As a result, we lose sight of what we actually want to achieve or believe we have to achieve with the changes.
Planful approach, outside in and an important realisation
Like other change programmes, agile transformations usually follow a plan to achieve a defined goal. However, as there is no patent remedy and the answer to the question of ‘why’ does not provide sufficient information about why the whole thing is being tackled, there is often no clear target image of a future organisation. A typical goal-orientated 5-year plan does not work. What’s more, these plans convey a sense of security and are therefore rarely adapted, even if new findings make an adjustment seem sensible. [2]
Sometimes it is even worse: ‘agility’ and the hoped-for flexibility and adaptability are then used as an excuse for the fact that those involved have not even given serious thought to the meaning and purpose. Even the PDCA cycle is only of limited help here, as the review is not carried out in small cycles and not specifically at the points where the actual change takes place.
Discussions often arise in companies about whether a change towards a sustainable organisation is more bottom-up or top-down. I have experienced and supported agile transformations in companies of various sizes that were both bottom-up and followed a clear top-down organisation. On closer inspection, the implementation of the programmes was always a hybrid of both. Clearly, without the broad masses there is no progress and without the decisions of the decision-makers there is no progress. Only one or only the other would not work. However, both approaches have the same basic problem: they are exclusively inward-looking and only consider customer needs in second place.
An agile transformation can work neither top down nor bottom up, but only outside in. It must be consistently orientated towards the market, i.e. towards customer needs, while taking into account the needs of the people in the company and the customers. Overall, this is not a radical change, but rather an evolutionary development, even if small individual steps may seem radical. The transformation to future-proof organisations must be designed according to different principles than has been the case with change programmes to date.
These observations lead to an important insight: agile transformations that follow the rules of classic change programmes will change just as little as classic change programmes before them.
The foundation of reorganised companies
What exactly a new organisation will have to look like in the future, what structures it will follow and what processes it will need will become clear over the course of the transformation and will change again and again in a highly flexible manner depending on new requirements. The basic principles of today’s organisations will have to give way to new principles. The change is profound and fundamental. [3] This also means that, depending on how you look at it, ‘agile transformation’ may be an organisation’s last change programme or none at all, as the goal must be a never-ending process of continuous and rapid adaptation that is sufficiently stable.
The reorganisations I am familiar with are not really aimed at establishing adaptability, autonomy, individuality and flexibility overall. A fundamental change in the entire understanding of cooperation and organisation is only superficially the goal.
In most cases, the core objective is simply to be able to process existing business faster and optimise existing structures. A consistent shift of responsibility to the value-creating teams and a flexible structuring of the organisations that is not based on internal controlling but on the market, which would offer support and freedom to those directly involved in value creation, usually fails quickly. Structures and forms are not really rethought. Instead, the existing fences are just put up a little differently. In this respect, Albert Einstein’s quote fits like a glove:
Problems can never be solved with the same mindset that created them.
In future organisations, autonomous teams, units and groups must organise themselves as a decentralised network in which people act according to common principles and support each other. What was previously jointly aligned, organised and structured by detailed rules and processes that applied equally to everyone and often evolved over time must be transformed into a dense, decentralised but coherent network.
Increasing transparency cannot be about the top of the organisation finally knowing everything in detail or even everyone in the organisation knowing in detail what everyone else is doing. In view of the need for faster and more frequent decisions, nobody can do that any more. And this also means that it is no longer possible for everyone to be forced into one structure and aligned towards one goal.
Newly designed organisations are based on common principles of cooperation, connecting elements and cohesion between people for positive value creation. Organisations are constructions for people and therefore living, agile, constantly learning, creative, flexible organisms.
Sometimes I have the impression that something very important is forgotten: High value is created by great people, not by new processes or optimised parameters. The parameters and principles must promote value creation, creativity and learning, not hinder it. And people can recognise and shape exactly what that is for themselves, their direct and indirect environment, with each other and for each other.
One of the important sentences from the Agile Manifesto is: ‘People and interactions over processes and tools’. In addition to the development of communication skills, this includes other forward-looking competences. As long as this principle is not one of the top guidelines for both the new organisation and the path to it, you will have just as future-oriented an ‘agile’ company during and after an ‘agile transformation’ as you did before this elaborate change programme.
So if the goal or the core of so-called agile transformations are new structures, rules and processes and not the individual promotion of people, their communication, development and interaction, then there is a high probability that this is also just a differently painted, expensive change programme that gives the appearance of a major change but does not really change anything.
Somehow it is reassuring that nothing changes even if the change programme is called ‘agile transformation’ for advertising purposes and those involved know pretty well what is really new: namely nothing at all.
Conclusion
It is probably better to engage with agility in the form of an agile transformation than to do nothing at all. What I have experienced over the last 16 years was certainly not worthless. Nevertheless, my recommendation today is – don’t bother with agile transformation. There is too great a risk that the result will not be satisfactory once the plan has been implemented. Well meant is far from well done.
Instead, start real small and large changes and improvements wherever they bring concrete benefits. It’s about developing a people-oriented organisation through continuous improvement towards a great environment and consistently market- and customer-oriented, flexible value creation with the aim of making the world of employees and customers a little better every day.
Notes (partly in German):
Get in touch with Daniel Dubbel if you want to make the world a little better for your employees and customers. You can easily reach him via the website of his great blog INSPECT&ADAPT or via LinkedIn.
[1] Scheitern ist Scheiße
[2] Sicherheit in stetige Veränderung
[3] Werte für die Zusammenarbeit
What made companies successful yesterday is often already becoming an obstacle today and will completely jeopardise competitiveness in the future. Here, Daniel Dubbel takes a look at future skills in creative work (in German).
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Daniel Dubbel has published another post (together with Sebastian Daume) in the t2informatik Blog:
The Agile Organisation of Work in the Craft Sector
Daniel Dubbel
With over 24 years of professional experience, including more than 16 years agile in various roles, Daniel Dubbel’s goal is always to improve collaboration in teams, departments and organisations for great employees in successful companies for satisfied customers.
Since 2018 he has worked as an Agile Coach and in various other roles for DB Systel GmbH, the digital partner of Deutsche Bahn, focusing on competence building in agile methods and practices beyond Cargo Cult and organisational development of units.