Agile methods are used in product development for their benefits – efficiency and effectiveness. However, practitioners face a variety of challenges in successfully transitioning into agile mode of thinking and working. This article attempts to summarize the various challenges that agile teams face leaning on the author’s experience and referring to few published articles in this regard. The challenges are grouped into three areas – Alignment, Enablement and Operationalization.
1. Lack of Alignment within the organization and with external stakeholders on the agile transformation initiative
Transition to agile requires alignment across the organization (across levels & functions) and with stakeholders outside the organization as well. Top management commitment and support is to be obtained right at the start. While it is an advantage if the trigger for agile transformation comes from top management, the risk with that is that the organization may be forced into Agile transformation even if it is not suitable for the organization (or) without adequate enablement (or) with agile approaches chosen without adequate consideration of the organization’s business context. Adopting Agile methods should not be seen as the end in itself but as a means to achieve better business results. Leaders need to cascade the vision down to the teams clearly stating the benefits to the organization and employees, the strategic objectives, goals and the enablement plan. This will avoid the lack of ownership within the team members. Alignment with customers is crucial as agile methods heavily depend on the customer participation. Even in the case of internal IT projects, alignment with internal customers is required. Lack of alignment across other functions in the organization will lead to operational issues. This needs to be thought through and discussed well in advance.
2. Lack of Enablement through training & coaching for translating the agile philosophy into practice with appropriate changes in systems, processes and tools
Agile approach is basically a bunch of guiding principles and rest is to be derived and applied considering the context. Without training and coaching by professionals who have good experience in applying agile approach, teams will not be able to successfully apply agile approach. People playing critical roles like Agile Evangelist, Agile Coach and specifically in the case of SCRUM method the roles of Product Owner and SCRUM Master should be carefully chosen with required mindset, expertise and experience. Team members tend to overcommit without experienced people guiding them and this potentially leads to burnout. The project and program governance structure dashboards that are required for different levels are to be worked out carefully maintaining the spirit of the Agile philosophy. This needs the involvement of a good Agile coach. The agile transformation needs a cross functional team to guide in updating the systems and processes to enable the transformation and the teams. Specific tools are also to be introduced with the guidance of the Agile Coach. Even business models need to be worked out for the Agile context as discussed in detail in the post Agile product development: Sharing risks and rewards. In Agile methods, people important and hence the HR policies & processes need to be fine tuned.
3. Operationalization
Besides Alignment and Enablement, as they say ‘when the rubber meets the road’ there are several critical challenges during Operationalization. The challenges are specifically in:
Bringing about the changes especially in the Mindset
Many transformations fail to achieve desired results due to the gap in good change management. While Alignment and Enablement set the foundation for the changes to happen, special attention should be given to this aspect during the operational phase. The critical part in this is in bringing about the changes in mindset across all levels especially due to the heavy dependency of the Agile methods on a different mindset. Changes will definitely be possible if the concerned individuals understand what is in it for them and if there is a win-win situation. It is the responsibility of the concerned leaders and task force to do this through effective communication.
- Ensuring good communication within team and with stakeholders
Communication starts from the beginning as early as the Alignment phase. During the operations, relevant and sufficient communication is to be ensured with all the parties involved. Of course, Agile methods rely heavily on the close interactions with customers and between team members and hence communication and collaboration is part of the approach. It needs to be ensured it happens and is effectively done.
- Managing Scope, Cost, Schedule, Quality and other issues
Typical challenges associated with any project management activity involves Scope, Cost, Schedule and Quality. In agile projects, since change is welcome as a philosophy, as mentioned earlier, the business model needs to be worked out to handle changes in scope well to avoid effort overruns. As evident these parameters are interlinked and they need to be managed in totality. From the cost perspective, budgeting for the total project is a challenge and some approaches are discussed in Agile product development: Sharing risks and rewards. Planning the budget, timeline and scope and adjusting is enabled well by agile methods but only if they are managed with right approach and mindset with good cooperation between the stakeholders and collaboration between team members.
Specifically, agile is not easy to be adopted in large projects as they are invariably distributed across geographies with many teams. Agile methods have evolved to address these challenges for such large and distributed projects. With support of the experienced Agile coach such projects can be accomplished successfully. Quality in agile methods stress on product quality with the emphasis on the process quality not so visible – to the extent that sometimes processes tend to be ignored in projects leading to different set of challenges. Team needs to ensure that value adding process steps – focused on product quality and other project objectives – are identified and followed.
A partial list of articles referred is provided below for additional reading – this list is by no means exhaustive!
- Miller, G. J. (2013). Agile problems, challenges, & failures. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2013—North America, New Orleans, LA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
- https://blog.ganttpro.com/en/agile-project-management-challenges-how-tackle-them/
- https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2019/10/agile-project-management-10-challenges
- https://kanbanize.com/blog/agile-challenges/
- https://mymanagementguide.com/10-challenges-and-solutions-in-agile-project-management/
- https://premieragile.com/challenges-in-agile-scrum-implementation/
- https://www.agilealliance.org/8-reasons-why-agile-projects-fail/
- https://www.brighthubpm.com/agile/63681-top-agile-development-problems/
- https://www.cio.com/article/2385322/agile-development-why-agile-isn-t-working-bringing-common-sense-to-agile-principles.html
- https://www.cio.com/article/3156998/agile-project-management-a-beginners-guide.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/09/08/the-five-biggest-challenges-facing-agile/?sh=2026c19a7b04
- https://www.invensislearning.com/blog/agile-challenges-problems-and-failures/
- https://www.vivifyscrum.com/insights/agile-project-management-problems
Dr. Selvaraj Vadivelu 