A couple of months ago the following statement was made at a conference by a business manager: “We want better projects, so the management of our company has decided that everyone will start working agile from January 2015”.
I was puzzled. Very puzzled. Did he honestly believe that the whole company would wake up one Monday morning in January 2015 realizing that a whole new era had begun, and everyone would leave all their old habits, attitudes and approaches behind and start being agile?
It made me wonder. Several things, actually:
“If the decision is already made, why don’t they start their agile journey today?”
“Do people really think that transforming a business from a traditional to an agile approach to projects will happen just like that?”
“Have they realized that the decision to work agile means that the management will also have to change their ways?”
“Do they know that doing agile is not the same as being agile?”
Making the transformation to becoming an agile business is a significant endeavor that will not happen overnight and just because top management gives the order. There are too many old habits to be broken, and many agile principles are counter-intuitive compared to traditional ways of managing projects, people and teams.
Once the decision has been made:
It requires determination
It requires training
It requires a will to change at all levels
The Managers’ Contribution to Successful Agile Implementations
One thing is, however, certain – an agile transformation is only likely to succeed if heavily supported on an ongoing basis by the management. It is also a prerequisite for a robust agile implementation that managers too are acting according to agile principles.
This means among other things:
- Being available for timely strategic decision-making when required
- Providing the frame for true delegation of operational decision power to the operational level
- Accept that errors will happen (and understand that they always did)
- Fostering an environment of trust at all levels in the organization
- Managers must accept that supply and demand must be balanced, and they should only start as many projects as the organization is able to handle.
- Spreading key resources (bottlenecks) over too many projects only makes matters worse. Stop starting and start finishing projects rather than having them drag on due to lack of resources. Stop multitasking. It generates enormous waste.
- Make the organization’s priorities clear to everyone. When help is needed on projects from other departments, is this more important than their “real” job? Has time for project work been prioritized and allocated so other tasks are not suffering?
- Delegate operational decision power to the (agile) project managers, Product Owners, etc. Waiting for decisions generates lots of wasted time, and the decisions will usually be better when made by those that are directly involved in the projects.
- Be ready to make strategic decisions on an “on demand” basis, but understand that good decisions require a deeper understanding of the projects. Don’t just scratch the surface, and be a Project Sponsor not only by name.
- Understand that projects are complex and are taking the organization to new places. Therefore, the project team will most likely make mistakes. However, it is better to make mistakes, correct them and progress, than making no mistakes and stand still.
