So you’ve probably heard of agile transformation, but now you are not sure where (and if) to start because you don’t know what agile transformation actually is?
Well, we have got you sorted!
In a nutshell: What is agile transformation
Let us begin our explanation with an example: A restaurant chain named Burger Queen (that was creative!). Let us imagine Burger Queen wants to start 20 new restaurants in California.
This is what they have planned for upfront within their (waterfall) plan, like most other companies. They have a clear plan for their first year of market entry.
Within their first weeks of the actual market entry, they notice that 6 out of the 20 restaurants work pretty bad - probably because of their location. Financially, they can already see that these restaurants do not have a long term reason for being. Damn it, that was wasted money!
Before we go any deeper, a quick note. We recently had 11 international senior agile practitioners as guests in one of our webinars, asking one question: How do you scale agile methods the right way?
The result of this is the following fantastic video recording that answers some of the key questions when scaling agile, for example:
- Should you start your agile transformation rather bottom-up or top-down?
- How do you align leadership on a common goal and vision?
- How do you choose the right agile framework – and why is that actually not that important?
My recommendation: take a look! The video is rather long, but every single minute is worth it.
The agile mindset
Now let's change this approach to an iterative, agile approach. Burger Queen takes this agile mindset :
“Ok, we don't know which locations are the best to open our next 20 restaurants. We don't even know if people like our burgers! There are so many uncertain variables and hypotheses on which our plan is based.
This way, after three weeks already and with lower risk (and less money spent) they will know that 6 of the planned locations will not really work - not speaking of all the other learnings from their experiment that they can use to make their business plan more precise.
What is agile transformation - the theory behind it
What we have seen in our example is an agile approach to organizing a business.
In short, an agile transformation is the transformation of a company from their currrent (often waterfall) management method to iterative or agile ways of working.
Specifically, it is utilising a methodology of agile principles and frameworks for change and impact - for example like Scrum from organizing through a) detailed long term plans to b) organizing in iterative steps. In Scrum these steps are called sprints - a plan for the next few weeks only.
After transforming to agile ways of working, teams and the entire organization are able to (in the best case) work more successfullyby introducing new processes and organizational structures. Experience has shown that the transition to agile methods is particularly worthwhile in contexts in which environmental variables (such as customer requirements or technologies) are changing quickly.
The advantages of agile ways of working: You are more adaptable to a world in which new technologies or pandemics constantly refute the hypotheses on which our plans are based.
Agile transformation is often associated with a cultural change in which teams (or “trains” or “tribes”, so merging many teams) are formed that work together as a unit in iterative cycles (e.g. three months).
Depending on the framework (whether Large Scale Scrum LeSS, Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®, Scrum@Scale or NEXUS) there are different wordings – you can find more about this in our introduction to the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®.
Managing changes at the team level in these scenarios can of course be a big challenge. You can find specific tips on how to develop teams and organizations in our free eBook "Teamflow & Mindset Change".
By the way, talking about agile transformation... one quick hint: Do you want to make sure that you are setting the right priorities in your agile transformation ?
Fill out our agile maturity assessment for your agile transformation – it only takes 3 minutes! You will even get a benchmark based on the more than 300 participants we already have. Have fun 🙂
What is agile transformation: The basics
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Agile transformation is about putting people and their mutual interaction first – and not tools and processes. This is also part of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
In agile work, the process and not the output is important. The customer should always be involved in the development process instead of just presenting the output at the end (you cannot find that in systems that are organized through Waterfall is not included).
"When the customer comes first, the customer will last."
Robert Half
For our example this would mean: Burger Queen regularly offers its customers the chance to test new burgers free of charge. In this way, they draw their customers' attention to the new products - and at the same time can learn what customers really want.
2. Responding to change over following a plan
An important part for the successful implementation of the agile transformation is to respond to changesinstead of following a plan.
This perfectly fits the example of Burger Queen's new way of working. If Covid would hit Burger Queen, using their trucks they would be able to experiment flexibly and learn faster.
They could see if their locations were on point. Burger Queen reacted to change and regathered data to better their business around their customer needs.
What is the waterfall to agile transformation?
In contrast to waterfall, agile transformation is a different ball game. We have already covered the difference between waterfall and agile methods - check it out here.
"The two main development methodologies are waterfall and agile"
To briefly repeat the difference, firstly, the waterfall method is a traditional and linear approach where phases run in a particular order and cannot be abandoned.
Again, the example of Burger Queen fits in well here - given how they originally planned to execute their market entry: they had this one year plan. They would be opening up the 20 restaurants, ordering exactly 1000 salads per month and so on. And after 6 months they would reach the next phase - opening up 30 more restaurants...
One thing that is important to understand: waterfall is not always bad. It is perfect if you can be sure that circumstances will not change.
How and when to start your agile transformation?
All in all, waterfall to agile transformation may take up to two years to process - because it is an adoption of a whole new culture, as stated earlier.
The occurrence of agile transformation from waterfall would include some of the valid additions:
- the presence of experienced agile experts,
- formal training in agile,
- communicating effectively
- strong executive management or a well-prepared management team, respectively.
By the way, you can find seven tipson what the management team must do for a successful agile transformation here.
Waterfall to agile transition (vs. transformation) - definition
Some people do not say agile transformation, but they call it agile transition - so what is the difference?
According to Method Park and VitalityChicago a waterfall to agile transition is the introduction of agile methods, whereas agile transformation is the complete shift of mindset comprising a larger part of the company - a culture shift.
In other words, the transition into new methodologies is a small part of the larger transformation. If only two out of 100 teams switch to agile ways of working, one would probably only speak of an agile transition.
At the same time, from our experience, the majority of people use these two phrases (“waterfall to agile transition” vs. “waterfall to agile transformation”) interchangeably.
Conclusion: what is agile transformation (definition)
It has become clear that agile transformation comprises many stages. However, one thing's for certain: customer centricity. Customers are at the heart of agile, because the core reason for an agile transformation is delivering value faster - to your customers.
In our example of Burger Queen, the customer feedback was key. If they had not gone out with the trucks then they wouldn't have known where their customers were gathering mostly.
By the way, to bring our story example to an end: Burger Queen - after their agile transformation - was able to develop pretty well and finally got bought by Burger King 😉
