Way back in my early product days, the company I worked for rolled out perk after perk for employees: omelet day, all-you-can-encouraged-to-drink happy hours, catered lunch and learns, summer hours, the works. One of the lesser perks was a dried fruit and nut bar. When the young company polled it’s equally young employees, the number one feedback was there weren’t enough pineapple slices in the dry food bar and it was really affecting morale. DiD tHe ComPaNy EvEn CAre?
Free food as a perk was all the rage at the time and companies were eager to deliver the latest fad to their employees. In retrospect, the dried fruit bar was short lived and was replaced with beer bitch Fridays and luau themed holiday parties. Corporate flavors of the week come and go but the general idea remains: how does a corporation motivate workers and improve processes? This agilest submits the latest corporate fad for review, one considerably more expensive than dried pineapple slices: Agile Transformations.
A Fad is an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object’s qualities. The “Agile Transformation” is anything but short-lived. Transformations take years to undergo and are extremely costly and time consuming. I’d argue that Agile Transformations are even more difficult as it’s not about making people go faster or produce more, it’s about being more deliberate and smart about what work is done, how, and when, and most importantly by whom. A great agile leader once told me that above all Agile is a mindset, one that everyone must adopt to be successful.
Many corporations have the capacity and desire to go Agile but where corporations have failed is in the implementation. It’s not a thing you can pluck off a shelf and install. It takes executive buy in, consistent trainings, incremental improvements to people and processes, and a lot of time and money. Results of any investment in Agile can take years to see, even though employee morale and team engagement might be up and bought into it (as a good quality of Agile is teaming and focused projects and objectives). Instead companies think Agile will be their magic wand and solve all their problems. It’ll be easy! They said. It was help us do more and go faster! They said. Narrator: They were wrong.
Agile comes in many different flavors and spices these days: Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Agile OG (not a thing…yet). Another new big box Agile solution pops up claiming to have all the links worked out. But no matter what flavor you prefer there’s a similar ingredient to all: Agile was meant to mold to what works for a team, an org, a corporation. If you look at the Agile Manifesto‘s values and principles, it strives for simplicity and common sense, and serves as the gospel for this entire Agile genre. But like any Fad, the manifesto could be over as it approaches it’s 20th anniversary this year. The again, with the prevailing call of humanism emerging from workers of all generations in today’s corporate world, Agile is a compelling and alluring concept, even if it is still elusive. it could see a revitalization if corporations get their Transformations right, or at the very least make a concerted effort.
Time will tell whether this Fad is here to stay or not. But take a look at job postings and in your own org to see the signs or rumblings of “Agile Transformations.” Some companies will adopt the mindset and really be truly Agile. But those corporations that fail know that if and when they fail, they can always buy more dried pineapple slices to improve company morale.
Product Offensive 