6 Reasons Why Agile fails

Would you like to know why Agile fails?

17 years since the Agile Manifesto and 96% of agile transformation projects fail because of their inability to rapidly adapt to market and environmental changes in a productive and cost-efficient manner.

Here are the main reasons why Agile fails:

Lack of Agile Methods Experience

Agile is first and foremost about how you think, but it also affects what you do and how you do it. Teams who cannot implement basic agile techniques are more likely to have problems. Investing in excellent core agile methodologies training and professional coaching on how to apply them effectively is money well spent.

Core Agile Values at Odds with Company Philosophy or Culture

We understand that agile is first and foremost about “how you think,” followed by “what you do.” If your company’s culture is either unaware of or antagonistic to agile ideas and ideals, chances of success outside of isolated agile teams are small. Understanding how agile affects corporate values and encouraging that change is the first step toward broader agile adoption and more success with agile as a delivery method.

Inadequate management support

This is most often associated with “middle management.” It’s not uncommon for there to be a lot of enthusiasm for agile on the team level and general support for agile at the executive level in a poorly planned agile transformation, leaving project and program managers, functional “resource” managers, and others in the middle of a messy “change sandwich.” Without strong executive leadership, this management layer may feel isolated and revert to survival mode. Executive leaders must model the conduct they want their management team to exhibit, embody the values they want them to adopt, and assist them to understand how they fit into the changing organization throughout an agile transition.

External pressure is exerted on traditional waterfall processes to be followed

This is especially frequent in large organizations when agile teams and traditional waterfall teams are both working on the same portfolio. In such circumstances, agile initiatives are frequently grafted into an existing traditional portfolio and project management (PPM) methodologies, rather than the PPM methodology being transformed to an agile approach. This isn’t to say that agile won’t succeed; it just means that it’ll have to survive alongside (and, to some degree, within) established methodologies.

Lack of Cultural Transition Support

Organizational values and norms evolve, and as they become entrenched, they strongly oppose change. This is connected to #2 and #3 above. Senior management has the most clout when it comes to transforming an organization’s culture to one that values agility. Cultural reform requires tangible, active engagement at the executive level.

A More General Organizational or Communication Issue

To reaffirm what we’ve discussed in multiple previous sections, agile’s efficacy is contingent on larger and deeper corporate buy-in to agile ideals and principles than one-off teams.

The unwillingness of the Team to Follow Agile

When members of a team continue to define themselves by function, this is what happens (Dev, QA, etc.). When a team member with a “strong personality” insists on maintaining his or her position at the top of the pecking order, this can lead to team-level resistance. It boils down to a sense of loss of identity or control in both circumstances. To overcome these hurdles, executive leadership’s effective impact on the culture and management team, rigorous training, and skilled team-level mentoring are required.

Insufficient education

Insufficient training was attributed by 30 percent of respondents in the survey for failing agile initiatives. There are three types of “insufficient training”:

No training was provided;
Not everyone who required training received it; or
Some/all training was provided, but it was inadequate.

Such an increasing agile transformation failure rate is alarming for many.

If you want to learn why Agile Fails and to find answers to these questions:

Why does agile fail?
Why Agile Projects Fail?
Why Agile Fails in Large Enterprises?
How Agile Fails in Practice?
Why Agile is Failing in Large Enterprises?
Why Agile Transformations Sometimes Fail?
Why Agile fails: its dark side and how to avoid it?
Why Agile Often Fails: No Agreed Metrics?
Key Reasons Why Agile Projects Fails.
Brilliant ways to fail with Agile.
Why 47% of Agile Transformations Fail?
Reasons Why Agile App Development Fails and How to Fix It.
Why Agile Teams Fail?
How to Fail with Agile?
Waterfall vs. Agile — Why do projects fail?

Stay with me, in the Agile and Scrum Masterclass, we will cover most of these things.