When coaching an organization at the beginning of their Agile Transformation, coaches turn their attention to getting the organization to focus on delivering business value. While creating a culture that focuses on delivering the maximum business value is the ultimate objective, often the organization suffers from a “trust deficiency” between the business and the IT organization.
In order to drive change, most Agile Coaches start with identifying a “Burning Platform” or the core business reason that drives the organization’s need for change. Reasons, such as market competitors’ ability to deliver and adapt products to customer changing needs faster, changes in regulations such as new tax laws, or a company merger, are the ideal Burning Platforms, there is usually a more common root cause or dysfunction that existed prior.
In my experience with IT organizations, there often exists a large “trust deficiency” between IT and the business. Usually IT has been unreliable in the delivery of software applications and infrastructure. When the IT organization delivers software it is does not meet expected functional expectations, quality standards, and at times may be of less quality than what was already in production. I have experienced some IT organizations that are unable to reliably deploy changes to infrastructure. Add to this scenario that a lot of IT organizations are still delivering software using waterfall or hybrid agile methods where the business has to wait months for the delivery of the low quality and defect-laden applications, there is no wonder why there exists a lack of trust.
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These environments are large part of the the reason that most Agile transformations begin in the IT organization. The CIO realizes something must be done to improve the reputation of their organization, improve the lives of the people that work there, and reduce the probability they will be shown the door.
In these circumstances, the CIO and the people in the IT organization are often reactive in their operation. The IT organization may also suffer from a demand management issue where the CIO is at such a trust disadvantage that they are unable to refuse or properly prioritize any request from the business. The CIO may even be forced into deadlines by the business that they know in their hearts they are unable to achieve. You have an IT organization where everything is the top priority because the business and the CIO cannot trust the IT organization’s ability to delivery anything. This is where the CIO turns to an Agile transformation as the answer.
When committing to an Agile Transformation, the Agile Coach will come into the IT organization and try to identify and validate the “Burning Platform” for the Agile transformation. This is very difficult when the IT organization is as dysfunctional described and there is a trust deficiency with the business. This is made more difficult when the Agile Coach comes into the organization and tries to get the IT organization to turn their attention to delivering based upon business value. Given the reactive nature of the IT organization, there is often a struggle for the people in the organization to maintain the connection between their everyday work and the business value it contributes. The push by the Agile Coach to focus on business value only exacerbates an already overwhelmed IT organization.
Rather than immediately trying to turn the IT organization to focus on delivering business value, I recommend first try to repair the trust deficiency. As an Agile Coach, focus the IT organization on stabilizing software delivery with delivering software in small increments with limited variability. Focus on delivering small sets of features often and reliably. This could mean that rather than delivering the highest business value first based on an economic outlook using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), develop a strategy for delivering what is already ongoing in smaller and smaller increments in order to reduce variability. This will begin stabilize the practice of delivering software incrementally, begin to address the lack of trust between the business and IT organization, and increase the confidence of the IT organization.
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After establishing some trust between IT and the business, the Agile Coach can then begin to turn the attention of the entire organization (not just the IT organization) to focus on delivering and contributing to based upon business value.
