Agile really shouldn’t be a goal, but there are a lot of companies right now that are adopting Agile principles with the goal of improving speed to market, adaptability and ability to innovate. For many traditional companies this can be a tremendous paradigm change that requires cultural, process and engineering changes to be effective. I’ve outlined 10 common barriers that I see when trying to implement Agile and some of the tactics that can be used to overcome them.
Barrier #1 – Culture isn’t ready (e.g., not collaborative, functionally silo’d, seeks perfection up-front, etc.)
Executive buy-in and support is key
Strongly discourage non-collaborative or team-oriented behaviors (e.g., “I can’t start X until they complete Y”, etc.)
Setup dedicated, cross-functional Agile teams and make the teams responsible for certain outcome
Barrier #2 – Traditional project-based governance and staffing has trouble getting Agile traction
Shift to more of a “product focus” instead of “project focus” and assign a Product Owner
Create a cross-functional Agile team (e.g., Product Owner, Business Analyst, Dev, QA, etc.) and feed them work to do (backlog)
Barrier #3 – Attempting to scale at the start
It is difficult to change the mindset, culture and practices of a single team, let alone the whole organization
Start with pilot teams / projects, learn from these and expand from there
Barrier #4 – Resources are still organized in functional pools and there is a lack of clarity around who the actual resources are or lack of continuity from month-to-month
Agile teams function best when there is consistency in the resources so that they can adapt and learn together over time
Create Agile teams with dedicated (full-time whenever possible), cross-functional resources
Barrier #5 – Core team members spread across too many locations / time-zones makes getting started really complicated
Whenever possible, start with core team members being co-located or in near-same time-zones to encourage collaboration and the feeling of a cohesive team
As Agile becomes more of the norm it is possible to expand to broader, more geographically distributed teams (co-location is still most effective)
Barrier #6 – Product Owners are not identified, not empowered or don’t spend enough time with the core team
Every Agile team should have a clearly defined Product Owner that is responsible (and authorized) to manage the priorities for that team and make decisions on scope, functionality, user experience, etc.
Product Owners are responsible for working through governance or other functional leadership to gain approval / direction
Barrier #7 – Lack of understanding of the practices and principles involved with Agile
Conduct training for all stakeholders and the core teams
Coach teams through real delivery to refine understanding
Barrier #8 – Lack of Agile experience because everyone on the team is new to Agile
If a team consists of only resources that have no previous experience with Agile there is a high likelihood for misinterpretation of principles and fallback to old practices
When possible, seed a new Agile team with resources with some successful Agile experience
Agile coaches can also help
Barrier #9 – Lack of focus or attention to good Agile engineering practices (e.g., continuous integration, automated deployments, refactoring to reduce technical debt, code reviews or pairing, automated tests, etc.)
Train the team on the appropriate practices
Plan these activities into your sprints
Implement reviews or check points for these metrics
Barrier #10 – Physical workspace is not conducive to Agile (e.g., teams do not sit near each other / team room, not easy to obtain meeting spaces for impromptu working sessions, etc.)
Setup “team rooms” for Agile teams that encourage and almost enforce heavy collaboration and team work
Equip with necessary whiteboards, projectors for demos, etc.
Contact Us
Let's talk!
We're ready to help turn your biggest challenges into your biggest advantages.
Searching for a new career?
View job openings
