JUNE 2020CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM9track are tightly coupled, highly optimized for a particular purpose and very efficient at moving stuff from here to there--as long as you want to get on and off where the train wants to stop. But the train has fewer options: forward and back. If something is blocking the track, the train can't just go around it. It's efficient but not very flexible. So breaking your organization into small pieces must be implemented. 4. Ignoring cultural paradigmsAgile transformation also means transforming your culture. And culture means the way you act, react and interact with others. So if you ignore your culture, then failure is obvious. As Roger Connor- the author of Change the Culture Change the Game said `culture lives in our experiences and beliefs.' So if you want to change the results of your company, then you need to change the experiences that create the beliefs of the people. Otherwise pushing actions may create short term outputs but will never provide sustainable long term changes and outcomes.5. Not having shared ownership for the change management strategyCommitment is the only thing that creates an action. So having committed people on-boarded and providing a clear vision/strategy is one of the critical enablers of execution. Transformation is not about transition; it is not a state change by keeping your traditional habits. It is a change like riding a bicycle with a new steer which makes you going left while steering right. So keeping the right balance with your commitments and making people fully engaged is essential to achieve shared success. Also constantly sensing or probing the stakeholders' perception and setting up the right engagement approach will help you to seize what is going well and what's going wrong6. Building the competencies on time, on placeCompetency is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. So you should make sure that right competencies are involved or ready to be grown. Identifying the needs, building the theoretical and practical knowledge at the front, being clear about the roles/expectations from them and providing an overarching coaching service for the whole stakeholders will make it easy and will create a sustainable pace of execution. Otherwise, you will need lots of pitstops to rectify the decisions and regulate yourself that may cause disengagement, scepticism and lack of commitment of your stakeholders.7. Lack of transparency and common definition of successDefinition of the Done concept is one of the core artefacts of Scrum. So if you want to make sure that transformation is proceeding on the right path and pace, then you should define a standard definition of success with your stakeholders for all of your transformation deliverables. And then making the outcomes fully transparent with successes and learning will increase the credibility of change management and also provide dedicated support from the organization. 8. Setting the right governance for making it stickLeading a Business Agility transformation takes planning, time and effort and often represents a large investment. For the change to provide lasting value, it is important to "make it stick" and avoid falling back into old patterns and behaviours. So setting up the right governance for keeping the new mindset alive, incentivizing the desired culture, empowering teams to own it and also supporting the change with the new management approach will make it stick.9. Not having a capable technological infrastructure to support transformationTechnology Agility evolves the technical culture, processes and tools toward quality and efficiency. Building trust and collaboration, minimizing waste and creating effective feedback loops are vital aspects in meeting the overall goal of delivering business value more quickly. You should consider the technological needs and capabilities to enable an effectively working agile mind-set. 10. Missing the customer feedback while making your decisionsBeing a customer-focused organization where decisions about the products are made based on aligning customer needs and wants with the overall goals of the organization. To achieve this, users and customers are engaged early and often, the "voice of the customer" is made real and is used throughout the product development process, and feedback from users and customers is incorporated and helps drive product decisions. To get the customer a seat at the table, the organization should use various techniques including user personas, journey maps, product experiments (minimum viable products and prototypes), customer interviews and focus groups.Finally, agile companies are adaptive, innovative and flexible to restructure every piece of their way of working. And this power comes from awareness and influence, not command nor control. Leaders should focus on creating an environment of clarity, trust, and common purpose, so members know what the company stands for and how it intends to fulfil its promise to customers. And then leaders should get out of the way.
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