Why is culture the biggest impediment to Agile adoption?
Understanding Agile and Organizational Culture Clashes
The 2022 State of Agile survey, similar to its predecessors, states: "Statistics show that Agile practices often conflict with company culture, which is the leading cause of unsuccessful Agile delivery."
Organizational culture can be succinctly defined as "the way we do things around here." It includes behaviors, habits, beliefs, language, rituals, and symbols that uniquely identify a company. So, what aspects of this identity frequently clash with agile practices, and why are they so challenging to overcome?
One common belief is that a company's culture must align with agile practices (an agile culture) for the transformation to succeed. If this were true, agilists would have long ago developed a model for an ideal culture and a framework to establish it through agile transformation.
Strategies for Navigating Culture During Agile Transformations
However, this has not occurred, primarily because the focus often shifts to merely selling an agile methodology.
Organizational culture is intricate and varies significantly across different departments—HR, R&D, Sales, Finance, and Technology. For instance, a Software Development department will inherently have varied cultures influenced by leadership style, the products or services produced, geographic distribution, and more.
Thus, expecting a specific culture to be in place when starting an agile transformation is unrealistic. In reality, a successful and sustained agile adoption will likely alter the organizational culture, despite the initial resistance.
Key Questions:
Why is culture often seen as the primary cause of agile 'failure'?
What strategies can be employed to mitigate this conflict?
Culture encompasses values, beliefs, behavioral norms, traditions, and rituals. It is the organizational identity, deeply ingrained and resistant to change.
Organizations trying to enhance agility may see the transformation as imposing new practices, roles, and tools on development teams, which can be perceived as a threat to established departmental cultures that value control and predictability over autonomy and flexibility.
This imposition and the subsequent criticism of existing practices by coaches as 'wrong' or 'outdated' only exacerbate resistance. Insulting someone's culture is never effective.
Expecting an organization to abandon long-standing beliefs and practices quickly just because of 'agile' is unrealistic. Change is difficult, especially when it challenges the fundamental ways of working that have been in place for years.
Strategies to Avoid Conflict:
Respect the Existing Culture: Acknowledge the reasons behind established roles, power structures, and practices. Understand why things are done a certain way and explore alternatives without being dismissive.
Engage in Constructive Dialogue: Instead of telling someone they're wrong, encourage them to think about other methods and the reasons behind their current approaches.
Utilize Cultural Assessments: Before starting an agile transformation, consider using tools like the Denison Organizational Culture Survey or the Competing Values Framework to understand the existing culture and identify areas of potential alignment or conflict.
Adopt Outcomes, Not Practices: Focus on agreeing upon specific outcomes like faster time-to-market or improved customer satisfaction rather than enforcing a strict set of agile practices.
Implement a Minimum Viable Framework (MVF): Establish a minimal set of agile principles that align with the organization's goals. This approach reduces resistance by not directly conflicting with the existing culture.
In summary, understanding and respecting the existing organizational culture is crucial when attempting to introduce agile methodologies. Mapping out both the current and ideal cultures can facilitate a smoother transformation, or alternatively, focusing on agreed outcomes can empower change from within without direct conflict.