Ep. 122: Has the agile shine worn off in the sprawling corridors of big business?

Has the agile shine worn off in the sprawling corridors of big business? In this episode, we unpack the startling findings from Digital AI's latest state of agile survey that show people's satisfaction with their organization's agile practices. Join us as we scrutinize the complexities that have dulled the luster of agile methodologies and debate the crucial adjustments needed to reignite its promise. From the necessity of strong leadership advocacy to the bespoke tailoring of agile for the multifaceted needs of large organizations, we lay bare the pivotal elements in crafting a triumphant agile metamorphosis.

This week's takeaways:

• Technical Adoption Curve: Expect a decline in satisfaction as Agile reaches a broader audience, particularly the late majority, causing discomfort and peaking expectations.
• Organizational Size Matters: Satisfaction correlates with organizational size. Agile is a significant improvement in smaller organizations, but in larger ones, it becomes one tool among many, increasing the risk of misapplication.
• Not All or Nothing: Agile is not an all-or-nothing solution. In larger organizations, it coexists with different methodologies, challenging the idea of a universal fix and emphasizing the need for tailored solutions based on context.

Resources:
Agile development is fading in popularity at large enterprises - and developer burnout is a key factor- https://www.itpro.com/software/agile-development-is-fading-in-popularity-at-large-enterprises-and-developer-burnout-is-a-key-factor

Join us for an episode that will broaden your understanding of how large enterprises can adapt and embrace a more efficient and fulfilling agile culture. We love to hear your feedback! If you have questions or would like to suggest a topic, please feel free to contact us at feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com.

Transcript

Peter: 0:05

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello Dave, how are you today?

Dave: 0:15

You sound very.

Peter: 0:16

we were just having a very energetic conversation and that sounded a little slower and oh, so I was just trying to calm it down because we were getting all riled up.

Dave: 0:25

So what were you getting riled up? About? What was I getting riled?

Peter: 0:28

up about.

Peter: 0:29

Well, we had an interesting article across my feed that I sent over and it was basically a review or summation of a recent state of agile report by Digital AI and out of that we were having an interesting conversation about some of the results, which lined up with some of the things we've been talking about on this podcast over some of the last recent episodes, and we thought it might be a good chat about what we see as some of the reasons behind that, and we'll include a link to the article in the show and if I just kind of draw out one of the key numbers that was listed or discussed that state of the agile survey, we've followed this year on year and I don't know if anybody's had a chance to read them.

Dave: 1:11

They're really very interesting read about how agile is being adopted and they normally have hundreds, if not thousands of recipients through that survey. And I think in until very recently the numbers have always been going up, you know, satisfaction with agility, adoption of agility, etc, etc. It's always been going kind of on this trajectory upwards and I think in the last year or two years that it's sort of peak agile. It's just beginning to work out the top. And one of the interesting numbers that this article jumped on was the drop in satisfaction with agility this 72%. If you look at the last state of agile survey, 72% of recipients were satisfied with the agile methods they were using and that number in the current, the latest, report is 59% and obviously that's a big draw.

Peter: 2:01

Yeah, the agile practices that the organization uses, and it's this correlation that's listed there too between the potentially the size of the organization. So those organize parts of the organization that are smaller, those types of organizations are more satisfied than larger organizations, larger organizations being the ones that are less satisfied.

Dave: 2:23

Well, and I think this has so much to do broadly with that adoption curve, the technology adoption curve that has been everybody's referenced in many different ways, and I think when we look at the adoption of agile practices, we're way past, you know, the the chasm and we're definitely in this sort of late majority and creeping to the end of that adoption curve in terms of agility. So the two things that come out of that is one is we're seeing adoption in much larger organizations and of course, these large organizations have a have many, many different arms to what it is that they do and they need many different approaches, solutions to, to, you know, to to solve the environments they're working in and then secondly, of course, as you go into that late adoption, you're getting less satisfaction that late adopters, not because they're really excited about adopting something, but because it's the last thing they want to do, so they do it late.

Peter: 3:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and I think, as you were just saying there, that one of the problems is this idea that it's one size fits all and and that's that's where, in large organizations, they start to enter a problem, because in a large organization you have working systems that function and generate revenue for the organization, that are and which are well understood, and process and systems in place that manage and continually generate that revenue for the organization, and try trying to directly come in and make rapid changes into those environments may not necessarily be the best idea. It may not be the best method to apply to that, at least in a sort of holistic, direct sense.

Dave: 3:58

Well, and I think when you're sort of driving the adoption of something new, taking the blue pill or the red pill you know all all in or all out is is a very reasonable way for kind of driving that adoption, but in once it is the norm and it now becomes something which is more nuanced, right, and we now have to think about a lot more about what the intent is, what's being incentivized, because you know it isn't just about I think this is just touching on this. It's something that we sometimes misread, like satisfied with agile means maybe there's something that agile is not suited to, or it is suited to or whatever, and a lot of the behaviors certainly we've been discussing is it isn't as simple as saying this is really suitable to an agile approach or an agile methodology. This is what should be done, because it depends how that agile methodology is recognized, rewarded, supported in an organization.

Peter: 4:52

Yeah, and that's exactly it I mean. For it to work, it requires a lot of fundamental pieces to be in place. It needs leadership but support and guidance. It needs practices supporting the technical excellence of the teams. It needs the ability and understanding within those areas. It needs guidance all through that. It needs self-sufficiency of teams. All of these things, to be true, is a lot. It's a lot to put all of those in place, and if some of the key components are missing, then trying to execute it into that environment is going to be very difficult, if not impossible.

Dave: 5:29

And I think this is one of the things again, anybody who's followed the state of agile surveys one finding consistently in the last few years has been you will not succeed if your leaders are not bought in and supporting and proactively driving that change across an organization.

Peter: 5:45

Yeah, and we see this time again, right when it's like, hey, I can. When you've got the leadership at the top and he's saying, okay, I got these five leaders, you go make a billion, you go make a billion, you get a billion, you go make a billion, you go make a billion. It's the same billion you had to make last year. Go make that money. But it's like, by the way, could you do that sort of transformation piece on the side and the leaders just sitting there? If they've got no other incentive, they'll go. Well, I know how I did it last year. I'm not going to change how I did it because that might mean I don't get my bonus. That's based off that. So I've got no incentive to change at this point. I'm just going to do the same thing I did before.

Dave: 6:21

It's interesting that whole comment on incentives. I'd say that one of the most significant adjustments that I've made in my own approach to transformation projects and programs has been the time that we will spend to understand the objective and what's driving that change. And if I look back over my career, if I look earlier on in the career, the kind of agile label was its own objective in the sense that they were small organizations or they're bringing it on in the early adopter phase and it's really the primary reason for making the change.

Dave: 6:55

Whereas more and more nowadays we have to understand are the objectives aligned with that sort of a transformation to the way you're working, or is the way you're working good enough for what you need to your point? Is it going to get the attention let's add this as the 13th sub-bullet to our strategic objective or is it something that's really getting airtime and attention, budget and so on?

Peter: 7:19

Yeah, because when it doesn't, it doesn't go anywhere. There's got to be some kind of hook to change. There's got to be something that's going to be there to help drive it and to make it, because it's a lot of work, there's a lot of work involved in making these things, these types of changes, happen, and if it's something that's sort of an afterthought in the overall organizational goals, then it isn't going to go anywhere.

Dave: 7:44

Well, I think if we take the start with that statement that you made about once, one site does not fit all, we, all you know that's that sort of start where people are but also understand what the changes, the intention is, and then understand that journey will vary depending on what your objective is. I think we get into it a really interesting conversation at that point about how you design that journey. But I'm also it's very easy to go and grab the thing that's right in front of people to say this is what we need to to have that journey happen, whereas actually this is that piece that I tell about us being more. It takes longer to decide what that journey should look like, because we need to be more thoughtful about maybe it's a lean approach, maybe it's an agile approach, maybe it has nothing to do with any of these performance improvement, because what you actually have to do is build a, let's say, a digital product perspective, some sort of you know, a digital customer mindset in the organization, before you can worry about how you get worked up.

Peter: 8:46

Yeah, one of the one of the indicators that we often look for is that kind of first stopping point is how, when you watch the leaders, how willing are they to put their hand up and sort of do me a culpa, something's gone wrong, I'm accountable for this, let's look at what we could do about that. And they actually their problems aren't. Problems aren't something to go find somebody to blame for. Problems are something to be understood, explored and learned from, and that key piece there is absolutely essential to really have any agile practice start to move forward.

Dave: 9:25

Well, any change right. So we've done limited to agile and I really like what you said.

Dave: 9:31

So if I just pull out one thing there, because I think organizations there are, there are things that they do that they don't expect any problems, whatever that is, and if they're and they're very impatient with challenges in those areas, and that's because they don't expect to change those they just feel that that is the norm, whatever it is, this is what we do really well. So how do we? You know, when there are problems there, it's a lack of competence, rather than anything else.

Dave: 9:59

But if you then go, like into the next meeting room to discuss a different place, maybe they're trying to enter a new market or they're trying to to expand the product. You know the the suite of products. They have to take on some new, new type of service, whatever it might be. In those contexts they often a very understanding of missed objectives, missed goals, problems that come up and so on, because they understand that's much more of an explore. We've got to figure out how to solve this and it's not clear. So there's this interesting. I really like what you're saying about listening to the tone and the vocabulary and what the leaders are responding to, because it tells you are you in a space where they just expect things to work the way they've always worked? And a problem? There is a problem, and it's not something that we want to hear about.

Dave: 10:47

We just expect you to deal with it versus the area where they know they have to go and discover and uncover and change and whatever it might be, and they're open.

Peter: 10:57

It's interesting. I mean from a coaching perspective. We think of this being more, more open, like they're holding space itself to listen. They're listening and learning. There's a much different approach, right, it's they're approaching the conversation in a different way. So it's I like that. That's quite a good way of thinking, especially when you consider that these can be two meeting rooms and potentially even the same person moving between the meetings.

Dave: 11:21

And it often is, isn't it? It's often, you know, which is. I think it all speaks to that idea that we have to be listening, observing, and I just think of that jumping to the to the solution all the time. How do we prevent ourselves jumping to the solution? How do we listen and then reflect back and think about what's really needed?

Peter: 11:44

Yeah, and I mean I mean a part of that is jumping on a solution, the part of that is thinking about the. Have we given space for that to even happen? And one of the big problems you see when you run into those types of crises and we're going a little off topic here but is that you? You see people immediately jump through that without thinking about it, investigating and trying to truly understand the problem before they dive into the solution. But anyway, back to back to. You're absolutely right.

Dave: 12:16

Yes, definitely.

Peter: 12:17

So the, so the 72 to 59 team satisfied with their agile. And how would you sum up some of the things that we've been talking about here today?

Dave: 12:25

Yeah, and I think maybe there's. There's three things that sort of jump to mind. One is the technical adoption curve means we would expect people at some point as we add more people to the agile ways of working community, if you like that at some point there'll be more and more people who are frustrated by it. It's uncomfortable, it's not what they feel happy with.

Dave: 12:46

So you would expect it to peak and then drop as you bring more and more of the late majority into into that community. That's one side. I think the second point is the correlation with the size of the organization. A smaller organization, simpler context, agile, devops whatever thing that you're talking about may well be a significant improvement in that environment. Everybody's happy. You get to larger organizations, there's just much more different things they have to solve for and they'll need different tools in different contexts. So it's not all or nothing. It's one more tool set, one more methodology or approach in a range of different ones that they're using, and so there's a lot more chance that it's being used in the wrong context.

Peter: 13:32

Yeah, there's a lot more variety of w hat the opportunities are, and so, yeah, in larger organizations, it would be naive to think that you can just take this and just blindly apply a particular model of methods across the whole organization. It's just not going to happen. And so, thinking about, are we applying the right ways of working to the right problems? Is it a critical one, or to adopt them in the right ways? Well, thank you, as always, for the conversation, dave. It's always fun and we'll chat again soon. Yeah, for sure. Until next time.