Your teams and organization are excited about adopting Agile. You have read all the promises of success, and people have been trained in the latest practices. Then you begin the transformation only to discover that productivity actually goes down. People become unsure about their new roles and responsibilities. What happens next is crucial.
Agile adoption involves a mindset shift as well as a behavior change. These require work and continued support from management and other resources. In many cases, there may need to be additional help brought in for coaching, training, or facilitation. It is important to understand that this is a journey which will take some time to complete. Set realistic goals.
I often recommend building expertise by adopting Agile at first on some smaller projects. I call it “Iterative Agile Adoption”. As more team members gain experience, this provides greater communication pools and expertise when you make the larger transformation. This also allows you to shake out some of the details of how you will work, understanding of new roles, and selection of best tools for you projects.
You must have buy-in by the entire organization and especially from management. In the early phase, there will be pressure to revert back to the “old” way of working or to implement a “hybrid” scaled back version or even to be “agile” in words only.
Let me finish with another sports analogy. I watched my son (and recently my grandchildren) learn to play soccer (USA) or football (rest of world) at an early age. All young players begin
with struggles to control the ball with just their feet. Imagine if the coach had said “you can pick up the ball with your hands and run or pass it down the field, put it on the ground and kick into the goal”. This would be a “hybrid” game, but it is not soccer. Also the children would never learn to actually improve and play the game with skill. Eventually my son became a very good soccer player but it required practice, perseverance, and support from his parents (eg management) and coaches. The same will be true of your Agile adoption.
