Considerations for companies wanting to move to agile and pitfalls to avoid?

By | 26/06/2021

See the embedded video for my recent chat with Dr Penny Pullan about companies wanting to move more to agile and what pitfalls to avoid.  I’ve been involved on several occasions with companies that have done this with varying levels of success.  This has also been a popular topic at conferences with other presenters sharing their experiences.  The aim of this video is to cover this popular topic, give companies in this situation some support into what can happen and what to look out for to be successful.

You can also access by click the link here.

 

See below for the transcript.

[Penny]

I’m Penny Pullan, I’m here with Helen Winter.  

Helen is somebody who goes into organisations who are struggling with complex situations  where it’s really hard to work out what’s going on and what isn’t quite working.  And when she goes in, she manages to see what’s going on.  think it’s years of experience, but it’s really, really helpful for people.

So I’ve got question for you, Helen.  There are lot of companies at the moment that are wanting to move to Agile, and know that  there are lots of things they should be thinking about and lots of pitfalls that they should avoid.  So few questions. Why do companies want to move to Agile in the first place?

[Helen]

think there are 2 reasons and sometimes the most the biggest reason for when I’ve worked at companies that want to move to agile has been when something needs to be done quickly.  There’s tight time, scale and time line,  and they haven’t got  time to have the risk  odoing things one after the other and end up with the risk of it extended outwards because the deadline has to be met.

That’s the first reason why companies tend to want to be agile also if they’ve got particular products the sooner they gets to help to market, sooner they will earn money.  So that’s kind of another reason.

Another reason, though, found where it’s probably the least likely to be successful is if they just do it because think they should.  And I’ve come across that few times, and that’s probably the one where haven’t seen it succeed as much because it doesn’t necessarily have the buy it in the right places.  It might not have the right set up.  The right reasons for doing it might not be there.  So they kind of lot of three reasons why they’re the main ones, think. 

[Penny]

And then, of course, the the 60 million dollar question, why does it sometimes go wrong?

[Helen]

So, again, the buy in, getting the buy in, especially if you haven’t got buy in at the top, you haven’t got that to push it through.

And sometimes it might not just be that might not be the right project to do it with or the right time to do it.  So with Agile, you have to be able to show things on regular basis such as show and tells.  It’s great for websites, but if you can’t show it such as with calculations and you’ve got to show then that make it very difficult.

Cultures, big one as well where it goes wrong.  So, you know, if you get team together and for example, if you bring in a traditional project manager, that’ s all lead and command, then that that goes against the sort of the whole culture of agile is trying to get people to work as team and come up with their own solutions and work in different way that could cause lot of conflict . I’ve seen that happen.

And then another reason why I’ve seen it go horribly wrong is where you’re working with like third parties that can’t work the same way. And that’s probably been the most often.  Well, I’ve seen it go wrong because and it’s very difficult because there’s nothing you can do about it, because, you know, if you’re working with third party and they say the only way we can work is, is waterfall, then then it just doesn’t work. 

[Penny]

So there are people trying to do some sort of combination of agile at one end and waterfall in different place. And they’re so different, aren’t they?

[Helen]

Yeah, yeah. You just can’t you just can’t have that.  In another cultural type scenario I’ve come across is, you know, where companies where decision making, for example, is done by lots and lots of different people and where they have lots and lots of meetings.  And with Agile the sort of product owner role, for example.  The whole idea is, is that things can be done quicker because you go to one person that can make all the decisions and is in strong enough position, is senior enough to make those decisions.  And that’s where I’ve kind of seen it go wrong as well.  Where I’ve seen things go well is where they’ve got product owner that’s in the right position of authority, got the right seniority and has had good coaching and that’s where I’ve seen it work well.  It does it make such difference?  If you set things up in the right way, you’ve got much more chance of success.

The trouble is, is sometimes I’ve seen things have gone wrong and then it’s seen as dirty word. And then it’s almost like nothing’s allowed to be used, which think is shame, because sometimes some of the principles behind agile are quite important.  So to kind of then go, no, it’s dirty word.  We can’t ever discuss ever again and that looses out on some of the advantages it can have.

[Penny]

It does, doesn’t it?  And especially in the sort of disrupted world that we’re in now, surely it makes sense to do things in more flexible way where you actually can change course as you go through as well.

[Helen]

Yeah, mean, like recent programme we’ve been working on, one of the things it does very quickly is it shows where things are wrong so you can correct them quicker. You haven’t got to wait until someone’s finished document and it’s been reviewed and signed off to then find that something’s not quite right. So that’s where I’ve seen it work really well when you want to do things with speed, because then people are motivated.

Its lot more resource intensive That’s another area that can go wrong where if your testers are required but the test manager goes, oh, I haven’t got resource.  You can have it in two months time because that’s how we normally work, then that isn’t going to that’s not going to help.  It’s trying to get the right people together at the right time and ideally dedicated as well.  It kind of fails if you’ve got people part time because then you’re constantly stopping and starting.

[Penny]

Absolutely. Wow.  Helen, from what you’re saying, you obviously know an awful lot about this and have done this many times and have managed to get things going again, should imagine, quite bit.

So how can people find out little bit more about you?  And if they’re in this situation and they’re thinking, oh, we could really do with her input, how can they get hold of you?

[Helen]

Okay, so if they just want some more information about it to read,  I’ve got book called Business Analysis Handbook, which is full of information about when to use Agile, what sort of things you need to do.  So if they’re just looking for reference, then the books available or they can contact me through my business email address at Helen.Winter@ Businessbullet.co.uk, you can just get in touch through that address or LinkedIn and we can chat from there.

[Penny]

Thank you very much.

[End of transcript]

Thoughts? Questions? Please share in the comments.

If you have found this article useful then you might like my book – The Business Analysis Handbook – Techniques and Questions for better Business Outcomes.  The book is available from www.koganpage.com and all major print and e-book retailers.

 

Author: Helen Winter

An Management Consultant responsible for structuring programmes, success criteria, mobilisation, management of scope, budget, timely delivery, benefits realisation and stakeholder satisfaction. Helen has led on large transformation programmes to execute delivery along with strategic business outcomes. Helen is also a global business author with publisher Kogan Page where her first book “The Business Analysis Handbook” was a finalist for 2 major industry awards. One was for contribution to project management literature with PMI and the other was the Specialist book category for the business books awards. She is an active member of the APM programme management group. She is currently involved in a focus group sharing examples of good programme management practice and is an established speaker for project management forums. In her free time, she loves sharing her knowledge on her blog BusinessBullet.co.uk which is followed by over 5000 visitors a month.

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