In an ecosystem that embraces changes with ease, adaptation isn't merely an advantage—it's a necessity. Inorder to keep pace with the trend, agile transformation  plays a pivotal role in reshaping how organizations innovate, collaborate, and deliver value. As the entire environment races to meet customer demands and navigate complex challenges, agile stands out as a mindset that champions flexibility, responsiveness, and continuous improvement.

But what exactly is agile transformation, and how different is it from agile adoption? This blog delves deep into the heart of agile, exploring its principles, differences, benefits, and the profound impact it has on organizations striving for efficiency and innovation. Whether you're a seasoned agile practitioner or new to the concept, join us on a journey to uncover the transformative power of agility in modern business.

So, What is Agile Transformation? In simple terms, it is the process where an organization shifts its way of working and thinking to embrace agile principles and practices across all levels and functions. It involves adopting agile methodologies like Scrum or Kanban, promoting collaboration among teams, encouraging continuous improvement, and fostering a culture that values adaptability and responsiveness to customer needs.The Agile methodology has been transforming the way organizations work and build technology. The terms Agile Adoption and Agile Transformation are often used interchangeably while they have completely different meanings. To know the difference, it is essential to understand the Agile methodology and why it is so crucial today.

Agile Adoption vs. Agile Transformation

Simply put, Agile Adoption is the process of "doing Agile," while Agile Transformation is the process of "being Agile." Agile Adoption involves building processes that align with Agile values and principles. It's akin to changing methodologies, such as shifting from a waterfall or SDLC process to an Agile framework. This approach is particularly relevant for project management methodologies and includes using the Scrum framework, Lean software development methodology, or Kanban boards for project management. When an organization runs an Agile pilot, they are engaging in Agile Adoption, and many organizations discover the benefits of Agile this way.

In Agile process management, a Scrum Master helps the team organize and prioritize work based on business requirements. Teams work in short, timeboxed iterations called sprints to deliver small, fully developed solutions.

Agile Transformation, on the other hand, involves transforming the entire culture of an organization to embrace agility. It goes beyond adopting new technology and tools; it requires a fundamental shift in how people think and feel. This cultural shift spans the entire company. Agile methodologies and frameworks serve as mediums through which an organization transitions toward agility. The outcomes of this transformation vary for each organization but share core values: flexibility, responsiveness to change, and the ability to make quick and cost-effective adjustments. Ultimately, a successful Agile Transformation results in true business agility, eliminating silos and fostering efficient cross-functional team collaboration.

Differences between the two

• Agile Adoption happens within the team while Agile Transformation occurs across the whole organization
• Agile Adoption is a short-term process while Agile Transformation might take years to implement
• The culture shift in Agile Adoption is almost nil while there is a major change in the organization culture in Agile Transformation
• Agile Adoption requires very little time for planning, while Agile Transformation involves extensive and detailed planning before implementation
• Agile Adoption increases the productivity of the team adopting it while Agile Transformation manifolds the productivity of the whole organization
• There are no significant changes in the team structure due to Agile Adoption, while the entire system of the organization will change during Agile Transformation

It is evident that Agile Transformation is a long, tedious process. But what makes it so essential that 77% of organizations today are geared toward it?

The Impact of Agile Transformation on Organizational Structure

When an organization starts the journey of Agile Transformation, it undergoes many changes in its organizational structure, teams, way of working, work strategy, and approach toward challenges. Every employee of the organization works towards one common goal and is aware that every action taken drives the organization towards the goal. Silos become non-existent and cross-functional teams are born. The organization will start to see the small effects of Agile Transformation right from the beginning of its journey. By the end of it, there will be very notable and measurable benefits like:

• Faster time to market
• Reduction in planning and process building
• Flexibility in product delivery
• The ability to incorporate changes without having to disrupt the deployment process
• A healthy organizational culture
• More involved and collaborative individuals as well as teams
• Independent and self-organizing employees
• A clear vision of the organization’s business goals
• Enhanced creativity and innovation
• Renewed focus on customer experience and satisfaction

One of the most important traits of Agile Transformation is that you build Agile teams. These teams form the building blocks of the whole Agile Transformation journey. So, what does an Agile team look like?

Building Effective Agile Teams: Key Concepts and Challenges

The main idea behind an Agile team is to form a group of people with a common goal who are flexible in their work and adaptable to changing customer requirements. Unlike traditional teams, Agile teams are characterized by their self-direction and self-organization, practicing shared leadership.

A notable trait of Agile teams is their cross-functionality. This means focusing on "generalizing specialists" who can contribute to multiple domains, rather than being limited to their own. The goal is to cross-skill team members to eliminate hand-offs and dependencies.

While this approach has significant benefits, it can disrupt existing processes, especially in traditional organizations undergoing an Agile transformation. Such disruptions often lead to chaos and resistance, causing some companies to revert to their old ways and abandon the idea of building Agile teams.

To mitigate this risk, a more effective approach is to maintain your existing structure, particularly if it has been successful, and gradually improve it through continuous experimentation. This allows for a smoother transition to Agile practices without overwhelming the organization.

Getting Started with Agile Transformation

As discussed before, the Agile Transformation process is an extensive process spreading across all aspects of the organization. There are 4 Pillars of the Agile Transformation journey:

1. People
2. Processes
3. Structure
4. Technology

People

Employees are a significant part of the organization and thus, they are going to be a major contributing factor in the Agile Transformation journey. While strategizing the transformation journey, pay extra attention to the company culture. You can start by training your leaders to coach their teams rather than directing them. Focus on team-building exercises to help everyone collaborate effectively. Additional focus has to be given to talent management and upskilling of employees.

A significant chunk of efforts in this section are targeted towards company culture. For all Agile Transformation efforts to succeed, the organization’s complete culture has to be altered to the Agile culture. The culture has to be so designed that every individual is motivated to make the best use of her/his time and skills towards a common goal. Bureaucracy has to be demolished and agile mindsets have to be built.

Processes

Being Agile does not mean the absence of processes. Instead, it emphasizes building processes with flexibility in mind. Even the best-laid plans can fail, so it's essential to design processes that accommodate this reality. Planning and decision-making should enable teams to rapidly test and evolve their processes, making adaptability the core of all projects.

The focus in Agile shifts towards outcomes rather than efforts. Teams continually assess the efficiency of their structure, identifying and eliminating bottlenecks as necessary. Projects are broken down into product features, with teams working on each feature in sprints that typically last 2-4 weeks.

The necessity of cross-functional teams becomes apparent, as each sprint aims to fully develop a product feature or functionality. To support this, various linkage mechanisms must be established to facilitate cross-functionality among all teams. Additionally, individual teams should allocate time to value-adding activities.

In summary, Agile processes are characterized by their flexibility, outcome-focused approach, and reliance on cross-functional teamwork. These principles ensure that teams can adapt, improve, and deliver high-quality products efficiently.

Structure

The first thing to go into the organizational structure would be bureaucracy. The hierarchy of the organization has to be simplified to eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks. The process of decision-making has to be streamlined to ensure that it does not become a roadblock either. Roles and responsibilities have to be built more on the team level instead of assigning individual responsibilities.The team structure changes completely. Instead of having a team of people of a similar discipline, a team should consist of a group of people with different skills and unique disciplines who can take care of all the tasks within a sprint.For example, in the case of the waterfall work management system, there are separate teams of developers, IT professionals, designers, QA testers, etc. A feature will go through each team as a car moves through the assembly line. But in the Agile way of working, each team will have at least one developer, designer, IT professional, and so on — a team that can develop, test, and deploys a feature end-to-end. This team will now work and collaborate in sprints. This works for all non-technical teams as well.This does not mean that two people of the same discipline, who are part of separate sprints, do not have to collaborate at all. In reality, the same discipline professionals get together from time to time for upskilling and knowledge sharing. This way, no employee or team ever ends up working in a silo.

Technology

It is evident that if the organization is going through a major revamp structurally and culturally, the technology has to be upgraded as well. The right tools for collaboration and employee engagement are crucial to building a better employee culture.Also, when teams upskill, they should adopt new tech stacks and modern architectures for developing applications. The IT infrastructure and operations have to upgrade to keep up with the latest tech stacks and support rapid changes. Gear up towards building an automated CI/CD pipeline for application delivery to speed up the deployment process.

How We Made Ideas2IT an Agile Organization from the ground up

There are many different paths to enterprise agility. Some organizations use an agile operating model from their inception while other organizations may follow one of these methods to undergo Agile Transformation. These are:

• All-in: This involves an organization-wide commitment to go agile and a series of waves of agile transformation

• Step-wise: This entails a systematic and more discreet approach

• Emergent: This is basically a bottom-up approach

Successful transformations start with an effort to aspire, design, and pilot the new agile operating model. These elements can occur in any order and often happen in parallel. Secondly, the impetus to scale and improve involves increasing the number of agile areas within the business. Organizations can iterate among these stages as they roll out agility across more and more of their component parts.Here is how Ideas2IT embraces agile processes beyond the principles as well as the methodologies that drive the agile ecosystem.Imagine a Project Manager, coming up in the common room, gathering every member of the team, and then ideating with them on the further processing of the project. It's more like telling them what to do, and the members follow the instructions without much intervention. This is what we call doing Agile.

On the other hand, imagine the Project Manager talking about the progress of the project, highlighting issues, and when you do this, the members take the initiative to solve the issue, irrespective of the fact whether or not the problem is associated with their work. This is what we regard as being agile. One where you follow the mindset of teamwork and collaboration to benefit as one entity and not individual.

‍Sounds awesome, right? We at Ideas2IT started with the following features:

• Transparency: Solve Problems in a way that is specific to the context and not by predefined rules.

• Being adaptive: Adapt itself as required with changing times without worrying about the domain of the problem.

• Start Quick: Ideas2IT does not wait for the right ecosystem or the right environment; we start as soon as the need arises and use the minimum information available to do the project.

• Collaboration: Being agile stresses the need to engage effectively across the team. People working in Ideas2IT work as a team and not as an individual.

• Data-based decision modeling: Ideas2IT is moved by decisions taken based on facts and figures, let alone the evidence. The Agile infrastructure is different from the traditional ones as it does not rely on predefined policies for decision-making.

• Practicing value-driven development: Ideas2IT shares values in terms of transparency, openness, commitment, courage, and lastly, responsibility.

• Communication: Interaction in agile teams is far more informal and direct. On the other hand, an agile methodology involves formal, written communication.
• Continuous Improvement: Unlike the agile methodology, being agile believes in regular improvement and not just the ad hoc form of enhancement. Feedback, both external and internal, promotes improvement in the overall functioning of the system.

Usually, the decision-making process in companies is dependent on the project they are presently working on — this is what we call agile. When Ideas2IT, made the shift towards being agile, we started to focus more on the effect of the decision on the team and the organization, on the whole.To be agile, we need to have a team where every member is convinced to do and to do the right thing in a sufficient amount. Another important aspect of being agile is building trust.In simple terms, you need to get away with the adversarial relationship among all the organization’s members so as to drive maximum benefit with the shift from doing agile to being agile.

6 Steps to Get Started with Your Agile Transformation Journey

The four pillars of Agile Transformation would eventually become the foundation of your Agile organization. Planning is the key to getting the proper head start. All four pillars need to be strengthened right from the start. Most of the Agile Transformation initiatives fail to take off either due to a lack of proper planning or a lack of adequate focus on even one of the four pillars. The journey consists of two iterative parts - Visualize, design, pilot, scale, and improvise.The Agile Transformation journey follows a top-down approach where the higher management first realizes the need for the Agile shift and then builds a plan based on that aspiration. A successful Agile Transformation initiative needs powerful and aligned leadership. The leadership team needs to have a compelling, commonly understood, and jointly owned aspiration. It is the most critical element for success.

• Step 1: Build a united top leadership team with a common goal

A strong leadership team is essential to get started. Get the leaders together. Present the idea of Agile Transformation, explain how it will benefit the organization, and list down the end goals. Get the leadership team to do their research and ensure that all executives are on board.

• Step 2: Define a clear end-state vision

It is obviously impossible to accurately predict the end goals of the Agile Transformation journey as it is going to be an iterative process. You can create a basic directional system to keep a check of whether the initiative is headed in the right direction. This plan includes a working hypothesis for the structure and governance of the organization. It would be great to have a list of measurable metrics that the leadership can map progressively throughout the Transformation. You can refer to case studies of Agile Transformation journeys of other organizations and gain a basic understanding of how to form teams at scale and how to orchestrate those teams to do work.

• Step 3: Build a detailed roadmap for the journey

The next step is to map the Agile Transformation journey with a clear plan. For each phase, a group of teams or individuals will go first and their immediate outcomes will help further iron out the strategy. These focused groups are called basecamps. A few key questions that need to be answered during this planning phase will be

• What teams will be a part of the basecamps?
• What benefits does the organization expect to see in the short-term and the long-term time?
• How long will it take?
• How much investment will be required at various stages?
• How long will each stage be and what will be the points of focus?

Once the roadmap is ready, you have to explain the aim and the transformation journey to the rest of the organization. Make everyone understand their roles during the transition and how they can gear themselves up for the upcoming challenges.

• Step 4: Plan the first phase

Once the roadmap is in place, it is time to start planning the first phase. The planning for the first phase will require more time and brainstorming. Try to keep the phase limited to a 60 to 90-day plan. In this plan, you will have a reasonably specific view of what should be done. The plan will be similar to an Agile team sprint on a large-scale basis. You will first enumerate all the target points for the phase, run an Agile pilot for the basecamps, and then based on the observations and learnings from the results of the pilot, scale it.

• Step 5: Add checkpoints, evaluate, learn, and adapt

Similar to the Agile sprint cycles, set up checkpoints every 15 or 30 days to evaluate the progress of the Transformation, retrospect, and adjust according to the results. Along with this, keep on re-assessing and editing the end-state vision of the Transformation based on how your understanding has evolved during these checkpoints.

• Step 6: Connect activity to outcomes and outcomes to end goals/business objectives

The sole purpose of Agile Transformation is to yield better outcomes from the business point of view. It is at times easy to lose sight of the end goal while focusing on smaller details and activities. So, while planning, you need to hypothesize outcomes based on the activities to be performed. By the end of every phase, you either have to demonstrate the results to prove your initial hypothesis or pivot based on the learnings from the outcomes. All these outcomes should eventually be linked to the end goal you had in mind when you started the Agile Transformation journey.

Conclusion

The Agile Transformation journey is one for the long haul. But the final outcome is worth all the efforts. Have a clear vision, set realistic goals, follow the above-mentioned steps, and execute your plan. You will soon be on the path to building an Agile organization.