How Agile Organizations Work Through Transformation Management – Techbytes

Today’s businesses face a wide range of different challenges. From competing with industry giants all over the globe to keeping up-to-date with the latest advances in technology, every day can be a never-ending race to produce the best products and services.

And, let’s face it. To remain relevant in virtually any industry today, business owners and their staff must embrace the need for seamlessly transforming into a high-performing agile organization.

With this in mind, you should also know that an agile transformation can be defined in numerous ways. One of the most noteworthy involves creating an environment that consists of the following dynamics:

• Creating and managing networks of coupled teams
• Setting up coordinating dependencies
• Managing its trade-offs efficiently
• Introducing products in the market as swiftly as possible
• Giving these organizations the leeway and freedom to make an informed decision quickly
• Speeds up the turnaround time

 

Now that you know a little bit more about creating the ideal environment for today’s fast-paced business world, you may also address issues like ‘how agile organizations work through transformation management.’

Fortunately, this part of the transformation management process does not have to be difficult to explain or understand. However, each organization must start with the basics. And, that is to set a clear end-state vision, and then work strategically forward.

1. Establishing a Clear End-State Vision: Agile transformation roadmap

As mentioned before, the entire organization needs to have a clear end-state vision of the company’s overall transformation plan. This vision must be developed and shared early in its beginning stages. By establishing the end-state vision, it will become the common standard for a variety of key elements in the program, including identifying the governance of the decision-making processes and procedures.

Actually, once the end-state vision has been designed and established properly, it can be translated into the company’s program WBS (work breakdown structure). When this agile transformation roadmap is created, communication with all parties involved is also shared consistently across channels throughout these changes. To learn more about how to build an agile transformation roadmap, you should follow these 7 steps:

Step 1: Build A Leadership Coalition

Step 2: Define an End State Vision

Step 3: Build a Transformation Roadmap

Step 4: Maintain a Rolling 90-Day Plan

Step 5: Conduct 30-Day Checkpoints

Step 6: Adapt & Learn

Step 7: Connect Activity to Outcomes

2. Sets Up the Organization for the Long Term: Understanding the Differences Between Agile Adoption and Agile Transformation

When a company decides to go agile, it is important that they understand everything that is actually involved in these types of changes. This is especially true for organizations that are committed to effecting these changes in every aspect of their business. For instance, when a company's leadership coalition does their research on how to work through this process, it is important that they understand the clear distinctions between Agile adoption and Agile transformation. To that end, here’s what everyone involved needs to know.

Agile Adoption

One of the biggest differences between Agile Adoption and Agile transformation is related to the speed at which these changes can be accomplished. Typically, when a company is committed to Agile adoption, these changes can be accomplished within a short time frame. For instance, an agile adoption project can be done within 1 to 3 days or several weeks at the most. Therefore, these changes can be completed without spending a significant amount of time away from the company's core functions. Agile Transformation

On the flip side, when you are talking about Agile transformation and its relation to your business, it is a commitment of change that can take years to reach the end goal. In some cases, an organization’s leadership coalition and its stakeholders may feel like the end goal is nowhere in sight.

So, as Agile organizations work through transformation management, they must know when to use the appropriate Agile approach. Since Agile transformation is designed for long-term completions, these organizations are not actually equipped to successfully manage multiple projects nor this type of movement between teams.

3. Establish Proactive Measures: Prepare for Agile Transformation Go Wrong

As with any major change in an organization, the possibility of something falling in the process gets higher, especially as the stakes to produce premium value get higher, too. Therefore, during this transformation process, everyone involved must be able to identify and quickly address critical signs that obstruct the company’s overall end-state vision.

For that reason, here are 2 critical signs that have to be addressed to avoid significant issues and problems with an Agile transformation.

1. Agile Transformation Seen as Set of Practices versus Agile Way of Thinking

First of all, to be successful in the area of software development, the organization must see an agile organization as the company’s values and principles. If this does not happen, the staff may easily fall back into using the standard set of practices to complete the work that has to be done.

Unfortunately, whenever an organization begins to design, create and deploy software applications based on these traditional practices, the agile transformation for that company can easily be compromised. To address these issues, the organization must refocus its efforts on the agile way of thinking.

2. Backlogs Negatively Affect the Agile Transformation

For an agile organization to be effective during the agile transformation period, it is very important for the organization to avoid stacking up projects that need to be completed. Simply put, project backlogs are a critical sign that this new way of thinking is not working properly or as anticipated.

Backlogs in software development may also lead to low-quality work and missing lots of hard deadlines. Fortunately, there is a way to address these issues, while also getting things back on track. For instance, to take back control of these issues, you need to start organizing a company's software development projects based on specific features. The company needs to prioritize the features that will offer the greatest premium value to real-time consumers.

Takeaway

Today, many agile organizations face a wide range of issues and concerns as they work through transformation management. Since many of these transformations can take years to complete successfully, it is important that leaders of these companies establish a clear end-state vision in its early stages. Also, to avoid obstructions in this new way of thinking, proactive measures must be in place, including prioritizing projects based on proving premium value for real-time consumers.