Agile Change: Gift or Guff?

Does your business or programme need to adapt faster? Join us for this week's Tackling Transformation series exploring the concept of Agile Change and see how to make it work for you.

As the old saying goes ‘give a child a hammer and everything becomes a nail’. Well, in the world of transformation never has there been a tool enter the toolbox that’s seemingly so perfectly designed to hit any problem. From cybersecurity, software engineering, product and service development and now of course…change. It’s seemingly unique ability to be applied to any situation or context where the merest whiff of uncertainty exists, coupled with the need for benefits yesterday, and you’ll hear the leadership pronounce this programme as AGILE.

And for good reason. Change is life and life is change. Businesses, if they’re serious about hanging around, have to find ways to carry more speed into the corners of strategy execution. Being able to create an organisation that can look at the potential of new thinking or technology, grab it by the conkers and turn it into value faster than anyone else gets proclaimed the winner – eventually. Whether it is flexibility, adaptability or nimbleness you need then be sure to have the agile hammer conveniently located on your tool belt.

So that’s how the boardroom see it. Now think of the Programme Director who is told in no uncertain terms to see this project home on time and on budget. No scope creep, complete mitigation of risks and of course no slippage in the benefits case please... But be agile. Delivering all this, and unlocking the promised value that underpinned the release of resources of course, requires not only successful development of the solution but also effective adoption. It stands to reason if I’m thinking, building, releasing and iterating every couple of
weeks then surely my ‘adopting’ and ‘scaling’ need to be in the flow too. 

Enter the change manager into the proceedings. A stuffy, hierarchical, siloed, risk averse, power-based culture on the one hand. Limited change budget (that got culled to get it through the board approval), no reliable data, no change tech, and a need to hire freelancers (can’t afford consultancies) on the other and you can see why the notion of ‘Agile Change’ is an endangered species already. No amount of adapted processes or methodologies alone will result in faster change.

The Programme Director is actually set up for failure before they even begin. Or are they? Could the latest approaches in Agile Change provide an answer?

Buzzword: Agile Change

Since 2001 and it’s appearance in the Agile Manifesto, this lightweight, flexible approach has become the go-to method for many programmes. In reality, it often gets watered down, pick ‘n’ mixed between variations in methods and even blended with the good old waterfall. However, in the world of change management the ability to lift and shift what happens in software or digital development to a world of unpredictable,
emotional, biased, inflexible and time starved humans is not without its challenges. So, let’s explore, using a simple framework on how the concept of Agile Change is interpreted, how it is applied and does it deliver what it promises to. Let’s kick off then and see where we land.

What is it?

Firstly then, what is it? Agile Change, is predicated on the ability of teams to apply a shift in thinking towards the design, set up and run of projects. This means using agile change to realise the benefits of a programme as early as possible by making sure that teams go after landing the required changes in ways that reflect their value to this business. The name of the game here is speed and adaptability.

Gift or Guff?

Gift

• Emphasis on the ability of people and teams to collaborate effectively – Agile change takes collaboration to another level of sophistication. If you think good collaboration is about using MS Teams properly then you need to think again.
• Meaningful involvement with stakeholders from the outset and throughout – Very powerful but needs a lot of effort to stand up and maintain, not least because many of your stakeholders have other
  things to worry about than your sprints.
• Correctional and iterative change interventions in the flow of project work – By far the best part of agile change. Once you’ve experienced the impact of this way of delivering change you’ll never want to go back to the old doctrines.
• Transparency and focus on value being created from early stages – Kind of obvious in today’s commercial reality but it certainly helps position the credibility of the programme if agile change starts to get some early runs on the board and can evidence them in a way the stakeholders all say they accept. Just getting agreement though on what constitutes value let alone agreeing on the quantum is hard enough.
• Faster processing of data and insights from which to action change – a nerve centre is another way of thinking about this. Think about a NASA style mission control room dedicated to the launch of a new solution and you’ll get the idea of what it means to have a data driven program and insight led change approach.

Guff

• People oriented approach that’s culture dependent – all change of any size, shape or frequency is about people, but what’s not considered is how to change the underlying culture of the teams to make agile work. Its just assumed you’ve done that part or will give it a go with the culture you’ve got.
• Where’s this resource coming from? – running an agile change approach is intensive. Teams needs to work together highly effectively from the start. Change activity is always on and its in lockstep with the other programme streams. That’s a big shift from the ‘bolt on at the end’ mentality that’s still so pervasive in so many programmes. 
• Remind me who the data scientist is? - Data signals, live sentiment, scenario testing, predictive adoption rates… the relationship between change, data and decisioning is a powerful trinity. But to be agile at change requires an underling analytic capability, knowledge factory and objective decisioning ability that transcends the excel, sharepoint and cognitive that’s bias rife across programmes today.
• Show me the money – faster time to value is so easy to say and difficult to do, certainly at scale. Many agile change approaches are great at going from idea to proof of concept, but getting beyond that and actually scaling change adoption to the point where the value is material is a difficult ravine to cross. Agile change does not always properly address the need to sustain and grow benefit potential

Reality of the outcomes

So let’s now look at the evidence to support the effectiveness of this approach. What do you really get back from agile change relative to what you have to put in?

Gift

• More responsive and inclusive towards changing needs – undoubtedly this can result in better solutions and better adoption if used on the right programme by the right team.
• Earlier identification of the risks and gaps – flushes out the challenges at earlier rather than being bitten when its too late.
• Speed to market – like comparing hyperoptic fibre with copper cables for your broadband speed test. Cut launch times down by months and even years.
• Saves money by killing duff ideas earlier – always a good thing. In fact inclusion of failing fast rates as a key business metric in your
  transformation portfolio reporting is a pointer towards the maturity of the organisation to be agile.

Guff

• Focus on sprints drives great focus on activity – this may be true in theory, but in reality all agile change approaches end up encountering scope creep because there’s a pressure to respond to every need, risk and barrier.
• Knowledge is built by doing – try telling that, or saying you were going so fast nothing was written down, when responding to an audit committee searching for documentation and evidence to share with a major market enquiry into your product’s failings.
• Let agile change take you where it needs to go – If agile change lands you in a place a million miles from your vision and strategy then it is time to rethink how you got there and whether you need to get back.
• Sprints save money – Agile change is notoriously difficult to resource plan around and therefore forecast costs from the outset.
• Come on, anyone can adapt to agile - this way of working, for some people, is a shock to the system. It feels chaotic and unplanned, even though there is, or should be clear processes. Wait for the shouts of there’s no detailed plan and then the burnout and then the exits.

Is it easy to use

And then there is the aspect of how easy human-centric transformation is to embrace. Can I read an Ikea style set of instructions or is it some abstract philosophy that will be a journey in lifelong learning?

Gift

• Resources and training a plenty – if you want the methods, tools and techniques for building and delivering an agile change capability into your programme then there’s a limitless world of material out there.
• Make it a career – every programme or change lead worth their salt can find opportunities for personal and career growth by becoming a master in this field. The demand for knowledge and skill in this area of change is growing almost exponentially.
• Agile adaptation – best thing about agile change is that it is building on solid agile software and programme principles established over twenty years ago. Some elements are a bit in need of an update, like the science behind collaboration, but this is an extension to existing organisational capabilities

Guff

• Culture – As Peter Druker once put it, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Well it eats agile change for lunch and dinner too. Agile change will go nowhere without an enabling culture.
• Leadership- to think that agile change can thrive in most organisations is a fallacy. Leaders still talk about being bold, taking risks and letting people be empowered, but that’s not how it is in the majority of organisations. Think back to when you last saw the moment they summons the programme lead of a £10m agile change initiative to the boardroom asking for the detailed plan for the next 6 months and don’t get one – what happened next!

Is your agile change management approach fit for purpose ?

If you’re wondering how far to go down the road of agile change management adoption or capability build, then get in touch with us for our free guidebook to building the exponential enterprise. It is a simple follow overview of the main components, what to look out for and how to assess your priority areas. Contact us for guidebook to building exponential enterprise.

Conclusion & recommendations

Agile change management can be highly effective when used properly. In the hands of the right teams, in the right culture and on the right challenge it is certainly a gift. Its emphasis on adaptability and collaboration can change the way you think about transformation. It is the enabler to a world of continuous transformation. To get there though make no mistake that if your culture is hierarchical, power oriented, risk averse and siloed you’ll need to make significant investments in structures, leadership and processes before you see any returns. Take a step back and ask yourself…

• How can I improve our ability to deliver change more efficiently and effectively?
• What do I need to do to shift mindsets to managing change in an agile way?
• What’s the infrastructure, tooling and capability I need to give it a go?