The Agile transformation process should be handled in a careful and disciplined manner from different perspectives, especially when it is attempted to be carried out on a significant part and/or on the entire IT of an enterprise. Otherwise, it may easily become unforeseen and uncertain why and where the journey of agility started, where you attempt to go, where do you stand in the transformation journey, and what needs to be prioritized in the transformation. In order to achieve success in transformation, transparency and value-driven improvement values of the Agile perspective should be kept alive during the transformation process itself. In this respect, to ensure the transparency and to guide the transformation efforts in the best optimum, we have created Agile Transformation Governance Model consisting of 5 main focus areas. Let us briefly look at these 5 focus areas:
Leading Transformation:
As John Kotter has described in his 8-Step Process for Leading Change, a team which will embrace and lead the transformation should be set up; this transformation should be promulgated inside the company under the leadership of that team. The members of this team who will take an active role in the transformation should be identified and the transformation should be owned throughout the whole organization. In line with this, transparency for all transformation-related efforts will be ensured and the transformation awareness will be enhanced throughout the company.
Focus on Customers:
Customers should be involved in the production process in order to achieve true agility and to ensure fast production of correct value. At this point, it is targeted to mitigate the differentiation between software teams and business units via improving communication and empowering teamwork. This is achieved by means of efforts to make sure that an Agile work model is understood within the business units, and business unit’s perspective and its market understanding in the IT is developed.
Measurement & Transparency:
In brief, Agility may be defined as an ability to change for the better and to yield higher values. This mechanism will fully function in case high-level transparency is basically achieved. In this sense, speed, priorities, problems, performance and quality are transformed into a process that can be easily tracked and understood at both team and corporate level. Efforts are undertaken to create a self-organizing and automated transparency.
KAIZEN Culture:
Along with the achieved transparency, there is also a need to trigger continuous improvement (KAIZEN) culture in the corporation to ensure improvement and sustainable progress. Agile transformation targets to create a learning and developing organization. To support this culture, self-organizing expertise will be created and made functional based on the needs of communities.
Quality:
Agile transformation is a “cultural change” process. There will be both managerial and technical repercussions of this transformation. In order to achieve the agility in true sense, it is more important to further improve engineering capabilities in the organization. Therefore, while there are works on managerial culture and process, there are also efforts to secure that Agile engineering practices are absorbed and commonly embraced inside the organization.
Mehmet Yitmen
Managing Partner
