The pace of change in energy, telco and media industries is increasing more than ever, with the evolving competitive and regulatory landscape. Business change needs to be delivered in weeks and months, not years. This can be a real challenge, particularly for large companies with complex organisational structures and processes, or external factors such as lengthy regulatory consultation periods that impact the organisations ability to execute change.
An Agile methodology can help deliver change faster, by breaking a large project into short phases of work with regular deliveries of business value, along with flexibility to adapt to evolving (and emerging) requirements so the ‘right’ things are delivered, not just what the business had originally anticipated.
But with business complexities and perceived impediments, some leaders struggle to understand how compatible their business is to embrace Agile. This is further confused by the multitude of conflicting (and passionate) viewpoints on the “right” way to do agile, that are often idealistic and disregard the constraints most businesses operate within. A good approach is not to see Agile as a ‘one size fits all’, but to define the expected business outcomes first and foremost. This provides an anchor to validate how specific agile methods can apply, what obstacles to overcome and what change management needs to occur.
In Hansen, we see a very wide range of Agile adoption across our global client base. We understand that each organisation is unique and clients have different preferences. Some clients have joint co-located Scrum teams. Some clients work with us in globally distributed ‘virtual teams’. Some clients have hybrid agile/waterfall approaches. These experiences have identified great initiatives than can be applied to assist other interested clients with their Agile journey.
Ultimately, a shared common goal of continuously delivering an experience that customers (both internal and external) value keeps the joint effort aligned.
By Raymond Hayter, GM for Hansen CIS – Peace Version.