Overcoming the Obstacles to Achieving Agility and Delivering Business Value

I am  excited to say latest version of  Cutter IT Journal  has published my article “Overcoming the obstacles to achieving agility and delivering business value” .  I  authored this article exclusively for Cutter. 

In this article, I have articulated various issues that hinders agility in the organization. I am proposing the Systems thinking approach to solving the organizational and agile challenges.In order to achieve true agility, it is not sufficient to blindly follow the agile practices but to think beyond Agile. One should look at fixing the organization structure, focus on uplifting the relationship between business and IT and last but not least, fix the funding model.

I have shared some practical tips and solutions to achieve true agility beyond practicing Agile. The article is exclusively available for Cutter IT members and could be downloaded from here.

Here is the abstract of the article:

This months issue covers the following topics, including mine (highlighted)

IN THIS ISSUE

Vince Ryan and David Putman open the issue by exploring several common difficulties experienced by groups moving to an Agile approach. These range from cargo cult behavior -- blind adherence to the what of Agile without knowing the why -- to the technical abilities of people to work in an Agile environment. The authors delve into key issues such as empowering people to actually make the changes required to support Agile, as well as ensuring that they have the proper skills to be able to thrive. The authors explore such areas as training, the recruitment of new people, and offshoring/outsourcing with respect to the changes that may be needed for an organization to truly reap the promised rewards of an Agile approach.

Our second article, by Cutter Senior Consultant Lynn Winterboer, examines one of the less traveled paths of Agile -- the implementation of Agile approaches in the DW/BI space. Winterboer addresses the challenges of breaking this type of work down into small slices, when it has traditionally been an "all or nothing" deal. She describes what is perceived as technical inefficiency in the small slice approach and how that is balanced by the business efficiency. Winterboer shows not only the advantages gained by earlier delivery of value, but also the effort required and "instability" incurred during the transition. In the end, both organizations in her case studies found ways to deliver smaller aspects of the total solution, providing more value sooner to their stakeholders.

In "Overcoming the Obstacles to Achieving Agility and Delivering Business Value" Venkatesh Krishnamurthy dispels the myth that "Agile is a tool" that can be discarded when you're "done,"much as a hammer is put away once a construction project is completed. He asserts, correctly in my opinion, that simply following Agile practices does not make an organization Agile. The use of systems thinking to view the transition in the context of the whole organization shows how the organizational structure, funding models, and business/IT relationship must change in order to support true business agility.

Finally, Alan Shalloway speaks of how Agile and Lean have "lost their shine" as the result of misapplication. My experience certainly supports this assertion. Shalloway proposes the use of a Lean-Agile hybrid approach that leverages both the organization-wide strengths of Lean and the team-level strengths of Agile. Like Krishnamurthy, he recommends the use of systems thinking in order to take a more holistic view of the context in which the Lean-Agile transition is taking place. Shalloway describes this ecosystem and the unexpected effects that can result when you don't consider groups outside of the development teams.

Read more about this issue here