How Agile Helps Drive Digital Transformation Forward

In this Digital Era, Organizations are more inclined towards quick and responsive solutions to consumer feedback. To full-proof against the continuously changing internal factors, competitors, industry trends, and advanced technologies, organizations need to adopt agile methods and quickly roll out initiatives to meet these demands. 

Google defines Agile as “able to move quickly and easily”. Almost whoever has worked around an IT cell must be familiar with the concept of agile – when new software is being developed, the members need to review and quickly respond to any unpredictable circumstances. Realizing its importance, the concept of agile has been adopted by organizations beyond the IT cells. 

How did Agile come into the scene?

The roots date back to the 1990s when developers were frustrated with the traditional model of operations and wanted a more flexible approach. The period welcomed the earliest methods of Agile – Scrum, Rapid Application Development, Extreme Programming, DSDM, etc. The Oregon meeting in 2000 of 17 developers became a critical milestone in the history of agile. The meeting sought 2 objectives – shorten the delay of benefits to users, and get feedback from users and make improvements accordingly.

The team met after a year and gave birth to the spine of Agile – ‘Manifesto for Agile Software Development’, also known as ‘The Agile Manifesto’. To spread the word, the founders established the Agile Alliance that still exists today and provides information about the methodology to teams. It did not take much time for development teams to pick up the steam and real-life examples recounted the history of Agile. 

Agile and its Principles

The Agile methodology encourages an organization to adopt a nimble and reactive approach based on the Agile principles. The process entails designating leadership roles, setting end-goals, paving the project roadmap, etc. Necessary adjustments and frequent progress check-ins are required for the organization to deliver a valuable product without any glitches. 

The four core principles of the Agile Manifesto include:

• Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools
• Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation
• Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation
• Responding to Change over Following a Plan

A wisely drafted strategy works great, but it can become a useless piece of paper when obstructed by innovation. The most important goal of every organization is survival. Survival is possible when it can respond and adapt to the circumstances along the way. The fourth principle gives more importance to ‘responding’ than blindly following a piece of paper.   

Agile to drive Digital Transformation

The pandemic has made it clear that organizations need to digitalize their operating model. Digital transformation, in a general sense, means integrating digital technology across all areas in a business. That is to say, a fundamental change in how businesses operate and deliver value to their customers. 

The traditional waterfall approach might not be suitable for driving digital transformation. This approach was introduced by Winston W. Royce – a linear sequential approach where the customer requirements are gathered at the beginning and a sequential plan is devised to accommodate those requirements. 

Digital transformation entails iterative experiments and failure. The failure will help the teams to absorb the learnings and make improvements. The traditional methodology, however, does not encourage failure and experiments. Businesses based on traditional culture declare unsuccessful results as victories and do not strive for improvements. Naturally, their digital transformation is built on a foundation of lies and they fail to deliver value to their customers.

Moreover, the long processes and delay in consumer feedback lead to dangerous loopholes in the project development and the organization is outweighed by the competitors. 

To effectively digitalize the operating model, the organizations need to adopt the Agile Philosophy. Companies need to embrace the beauty of failure. Only when they fail, they can learn and strive for improvement.

The agile approach also embraces change. If the team comes with an entirely different solution that can provide better results, they are flexible to test and switch without hindrance. This approach only sets the end goals, and not the time and cost. 

Digital transformation can be enabled through unison between teams and individuals. Agile encourages smooth communication, discussions, collaboration, and engagement between teams, which are required for any project development. 

Today, many companies have come up with innovative technologies to provide an agile environment in different organizations and drive digital transformation, helping innovation meet business value. The US-based IT house, Xebia USA has a keen vision to assess companies, teams, and people and define an agile roadmap with goals, objectives, and results. They have coached – the IT staff of a leading telecommunication giant on development team, scrum master and product owner, the team of foreign exchange specialist for transformation of delivery process and technical practices. Their Agile transformation management and services have also helped already helped an investment banking and financial service institution establish fast-paced digitization of several of their initiatives through a robust set of engineering and management practices.

An agile environment provides continuous learning, time to reflect, room for creativity, knowledge sharing, and interaction. With all these factors, employees are highly motivated and have a keen approach to high-quality performance. 

Digital transformation can be a tough journey. As technology has become mainstream and the day-to-day activities are mostly dependent on its use, organizations need to be digitally upgraded.

Meanwhile, responding to new technology after long been dependent on traditional values can be daunting and tiring. With agile/scrum methodology, the transformation can be brought out of the IT department into the whole organization. Raconteur has stated in a special report, “Staying agile is essential as the tech revolution has much further to run while the mobile internet and powerful cloud-computing become ubiquitous.”   

As Winston Churchill has rightly said, “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often”, tapping into agility is no longer an option for organizations but a necessity to stand out of the crowd and deliver value to the world.

Author Bio:

Xebia USA explores and creates’ new frontiers in IT. They provide innovative services and strive to guide the customers into the transforming world of technology.