Top 10 reasons why Agile fails and some options
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The document outlines the top ten reasons why Agile methodologies fail, emphasizing issues such as lack of supportive budgeting practices, ineffective leadership, and failure to consider the real voice of the customer. It argues that many organizations struggle with traditional risk management and the inability to adapt to complexity, ultimately hindering their agility. To succeed, organizations must foster a clear vision, cultivate servant leadership, and prioritize a data-driven approach to decision-making.
Top 10 reasons why Agile fails and some options
- 1. Top 10 reasons why Agile fails and some options
- 2. 2Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC 70,000+ users and counting Your friendly neighborhood Scrum and Scrumban, Kanban tool The game trusted by 130+ trainers and coaches Boutique IT Solutions & Services firm that builds high-performing teams & organizations. Who We AreA quick peak at our products, services & affiliations Certified Scaled Agile Training Certified Kanban Training
- 3. What is Agile organization Agility as the ability to make timely, effective, and sustained changes has two implications: 1. Agile orgs should register profitability rates (eg. shareholder returns, Ratio of operating cash to assets, Ratio of buys to customer, reducing lead times etc.) that are higher than the average of their competitive group and 2. That above-average performance should be sustained. Survival is related to, but not the same thing as, agility. It’s common to see organizations not be able to adapt and as a consequence not be able to survive. Organizational agility results in sustained high performance.
- 4. Lacking supportive budgeting practices Data driven Value streamsSmaller feedback loop Market changes Agile encourages distributed cognition, distributed decision making and small batch sizes. Traditional budgeting practices central decision making and yearly cycles. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Consider beyond budgeting practices.
- 5. Lacking convictional servant leadership Yes, it can be cultivated Limited constraints Anticipating needs Building Shared Vision Other’s (customer incl) needs It’s beyond just removing impediments, advocacy and facilitation! Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Continuously cultivate servant leadership practices. Use Executive coaches where needed.
- 6. Lacking balance Between principle and practice Artificial data Heavy weight artifacts Mindless process Action without understanding While Shu-Ha-Ri has been a helpful way to think about leaning Agile, it can also be misused. In fact more often than not, it’s misused. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Beware of natural proclivities in your own organization.
- 7. Failure of traditional risk management Particularly in the context of managing external vendors Outcomes ContractsNegotiation Partnerships Relationships that rest on untested capabilities , imagined outcomes and lack of trust. Be willing to revise assumptions based on learnings and empirical evidence. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]
- 8. Lacking the voice of the real customer That support realization of a vision Market trends User StoryHolistic risk Product Mgmt Traditional Agile has represented the voice of the customer by localized roles that have clearly failed by and large in the industry. Product Ownership in most case is trivialized to subjective prioritization and a translator of traditional requirements into insipid artifacts. If you need to localize make sure you 1) choose right 2) person receives appropriate training and 3) he/she has autonomy. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]
- 9. Lacking vision That animates those who accomplish it Capable Forward lookingSOO Achievable Every team, team of teams, organization has to have a purpose. The clearer, the more shared it is, the more effective the team or organization is. A vision animates, energizes a team or organization giving it purpose. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Leaders need to master story telling and use stories to reinforcing the vision.
- 10. Tampering Common v/s special causes 97% Root causesLacking feedback loops Cascading effects Hyper urgency, often leads to premature action or acting on non-root causes which tends to cause more problem. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] 1) Systems thinking 2) Mapping systems effects 3) Under cause effect delays 4) Willingness to make data based decisions 5) Patience.
- 11. Lacking concept to cash thinking Data without Why ArtifactsProcess without purpose Local optimization Missing value stream understanding and management of end to end flow of value. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Very few are able to make value stream level decisions. Even fewer are capable of having a value stream perspective.
- 12. Underestimating change fatigue Patterns not logic Roles and Job Titles Evolution vs Revolution Multiple initiatives at the same time Change is hard. People resist change. Large change is more difficult. Forced change is painful. Fatigue becomes the fabric of the organization. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Few well thought long term initiatives. Eg. Toyota, Amazon, Spotify, Nationwide.
- 13. Not understanding complexity No traditional metrics Knowledge work Not allowing failure Variable causes and effects Strong tendency in companies to look for 1) best practice type strategies and solutions 2) Prematurely converging on a solution ignores unknown unknowns. All large enterprises deal with complexity. Yet many of these companies approach problems deterministically. Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]
- 14. 02 01Lacking understanding of complexity Underestimating change fatigue Top 10 reasons why Agile fails Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]
- 15. 04 03 Top 10 reasons whyAgile fails Lacking concept to cash thinking Tampering 05 Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected] Lacking Vision
- 16. Top 10 reasons whyAgile fails 45 06 Lacking the voice of a real customer 07 08Lacking balance between principle and practice Failure of Traditional Risk Management Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]
- 17. Top 10 reasons whyAgile fails 0910Lacking supportive Budget practices Lacking Convictional Servant Leadership Official Licensed Material © CodeGenesys, LLC@ajrdy [email protected]