Recognising the Need For Agile Practices

Summary

Our busy working day and previous success will blind many workers to the threat companies face, the ability to realise the need for change before the ship starts to sink is crucial for our continued success.

Recognising the Need For Agile Practices

The first step on the road to adopting agile practices and implementing Scrum, is the realisation that the way you are currently doing things isn’t working. This realisation will lead you to understand that something has to change, but the realisation itself is the primary hurdle. If you aren’t turning around project requests fast enough, you need to find a new way so that you can. If a decline in your sales looks likely because of changes in markets, you need to change quickly to stay ahead of it But this is harder than it sounds.

Get real

Seeing what’s right in front of our nose isn’t always easy. Sometimes we deny the obvious because we are afraid of change and because we believe things will improve without us having to change. ‘We’ve always done it this way in the past and it’s always worked fine’ is a complacent attitude, but it’s one that many companies live by. The reality for such companies is usually that they are keeping their head above water when they could be flying. You could bumble along plugging gaps and barely surviving, or you can look ahead to the horizon and realise that things could be better than they are, much better. Just because you are busy at work and the appearance of productivity is there, doesn’t mean you are actually being productive. We are busy, yes, but does that mean our system is working? Does it mean we are being the best we can be?

It isn’t obvious

Not everyone will be able to see this need for change at first. Some will believe that previous success guarantees future success or that new companies aren’t a threat, or that because the company appears to be doing fine, that’s good enough. Teams may even be celebrating a current success and so will have no idea of the road ahead. Just because you have success right now doesn’t mean there isn’t a fall coming. The ability to predict what could happen next is an important one. As someone who can see ahead of time and the need for change you can help others to see this too. This might not be easy, but you need everyone on board if you are going to transition.

How to persuade others

Some companies use employee satisfaction surveys, turnover, revenue per employee, and other methods to illustrate the need for change. Spreading awareness of the problems you face as a company and how you can implement agile practices to solve those problems, is crucial. Others aren’t necessarily going to know about this until you point it out, and as everyone goes along busily in their day, they won’t always be raising their head above the parapet to see it. If you are in the fortunate position of understanding what’s going on and how you can build a better future, share this and do everything you can to sell it to others.