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Agile offers promise of success

Agile delivery lets enterprises be innovative, adaptive to change and grow revenue.

Jaco Greyling
By Jaco Greyling, Chief technical officer, DevOps, at CA Southern Africa.
Johannesburg, 21 Jun 2016

Agile is a word getting a lot of attention in the business technology arena. But, what is its relevance? Is it just more IT jargon and hype?

Well, that question is easily answered - all businesses are operating in a market where their consumers are demanding, tech-savvy and discerning regarding their interactions and experiences with suppliers. Digital interaction with customers, partners and suppliers increasingly takes place through applications and online services.

In 2015, Zogby Analytics conducted the CA Technologies-sponsored study of 6 770 consumers and 809 business decision-makers in 18 countries across the globe. Results showed 58% of consumers say their tolerance for technical issues impacts their decision to use or purchase a brand's application, and 47% have dumped a brand's application for another brand due to a better feature or service.

In this environment, agile capability - or the lack thereof - cannot be ignored.

Why is that?

Agile technology is all about quick product launches, rapid iteration, satisfying customer demands, and addressing issues immediately when they arise.

Given the global proliferation of engaging - whether it's retailers, banks or insurance houses - via mobile apps, the emerging message is clear: companies need to offer more exciting digital experiences as well as faster, incremental delivery of value to create/retain competitive advantage.

This strikes at the very heart of the promise of agile delivery - it lets enterprises innovate those new customer experiences, be more adaptive to change and grow revenue. But, embarking on a journey towards agility is no small task. To do it well requires knowledge, cultural change and practice at all levels.

There are five key issues that companies must think about if they are to extract the full value from agile technologies.

Tie agility to a business initiative

Every business innovation originated from a clear business need. Companies considering taking on agile methodologies need to tie them to a particular business objective - especially if they want to achieve quicker returns on investment.

Culture

In order to fully embrace agile, companies must foster a culture that empowers individuals and teams, embraces change and does not punish failure, but encourages employees to learn from it. Companies should build a culture of collaboration, which helps break down functional silos, minimises dependencies and opens up channels of communication.

Encouraging a joint sense of accountability through shared leadership models will ensure support for agile is firmly rooted in the structure of the company itself.

Focus

Traditionally, agile is best suited to projects with a high degree of complexity and uncertainty, plus a requirement for adaptability. Most software development projects will fall within this category, as would most customer-facing functions.

Embarking on a journey towards agility is no small task.

However, agile should not be a default go-to solution. Systems of record or the backend might not be natural contenders for agile delivery and are usually much more suited to waterfall methods - which are the antithesis of agile processes. It is important that every company develops its own checklist of projects that are suitable for agile to make sure it applies it in the right way.

Leadership

Businesses need to identify an executive sponsor for agile transformation. Adapting company culture is one thing, but having someone at a senior level who believes in agile methodologies and is able to drive this, programme by programme, from the top down, is crucial. If the push for agile comes only from developers, the wider business won't see the benefits it can bring and this can significantly slow down adoption rates.

Planning

Finally, it's important to properly plan for tracking and measuring progress. Before implementing any agile projects, business executives need to set up key metrics that will measure how agile their projects have really become, a so-called "agile transformation dashboard". This will not only help businesses take corrective action when needed, but also enable them to demonstrate tangible businesses benefits brought on by the introduction of agile.

The deep understanding of how value flows across a company and the ability to reorganise people around the creation of this value are core principles behind agility.

By taking the steps noted, companies will be empowered to break down traditional functional silos, minimise dependencies, reduce waste and improve collaboration - all key milestones when it comes to preparing a business for the agile journey. Careful planning will pay off in the end - companies that achieve business agility note better alignment to their customers' needs and are able to regularly redeploy teams to work on the highest value initiatives with minimal upfront analysis and estimation.

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