In an agile transformation, the focus is usually on the benefits to the sponsor or to delivery team members.
However, in most organizations there are multiple internal stakeholders beyond these who will help or hinder your progress towards becoming agile. Control partners, such as Finance or Risk, might be sceptic or absolutely resistant to radical changes to delivery approaches.
So, what’s in Agile for these stakeholders and how do you sell it to them?
Finance departments want to ensure that the company’s funding resources are being utilized effectively and that good accounting principles such as writing off sunk costs are being practiced. They also want to know that project investment decisions are delivering expected business results. Hence, they are likely to be somewhat leery of approaches which eschew traditional safety blankets such as detailed requirements baselines or multilevel Gantt charts.
Agile delivery focuses on early realization of business value, but also early objective indication of critical issues which can trigger timely project termination decisions. Furthermore, Agile supports changing the traditional project funding model from full scope commitment to a value-driven tranche approach which can reduce non-value add ‘gold plating’ or the use of excess project budgets to fund unnecessary project change requests.
HR departments have significant effort invested in programs such as performance management or individual recognition. The transition of delivery staff from specialists to generalizing specialists as well as the need to recognize teams as much as individuals might concern HR professionals from both a work effort and an attrition risk perspective.
While there is little doubt that there will need to be effort spent in changing the current state, effective agile delivery can result in higher levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction which in turn can reduce common challenges for HR teams such as low employee morale or unplanned time away from work.
The agile transition can also generate other more subtle benefits such as a broader pipeline for leadership talent which results from delivery staff taking on greater ownership for team development and self-organization, as well as better business continuity and succession planning through the cross-training and broader learning that are natural outcomes of becoming generalizing specialists.
Risk partner concerns with agile delivery relate to the potential impacts of poorly designed or implemented changes as well as the potential change storms which can result if the frequency of changes exceeds stakeholders’ ability to adopt changes.
While these are valid concerns, they assume an undisciplined approach is taken to agile delivery.
Disciplined agile advocates early and regular engagement of key enterprise stakeholders to ensure that a fulsome set of requirements is incorporated into solution design.
Agile reduces delivery risk by requiring teams to sufficiently explore key areas of technical and operational concern early in the project lifecycle. On traditional projects, such risks rarely get effectively addressed till late in execution phases by which point the organization has expended significant funding .
Agile also reduces the magnitude of changes through an increased frequency of delivery. Obviously, the first implemented change might be significant, but subsequent releases will incrementally evolve capabilities, making it easier for operational teams to absorb the changes.
Finally, with a greater emphasis on quality throughout the lifecycle, there is a reduced likelihood of hidden defects which are a common source of operational or reputational risks.
Procurement groups will be concerned that earlier engagement of vendors might increase delivery risk due to a lack of a fully detailed requirements baseline. They might also worry that changes to funding approaches will reduce their ability to negotiate cost effective deals with vendors who were used to trading pricing reductions for long-term contracts.
Procurement approaches will need to evolve by moving away from traditional full lifecycle fixed cost contracts to incentive-oriented contracts, which encourage vendors to deliver the highest value and highest risk items early and frequently. This can in turn result in a healthier relationship with less procurement headaches, as vendors will be less inclined to low ball bids and then use costly project change requests to make their profit.
Agile also increases transparency of vendor delivery through frequent demos, business value milestone-based payments and backlog visibilitywhich will make it easier for procurement teams to administer active contracts.
As with any change, it is crucial to start with answering why it is beneficial to not just the organization as a whole but to individual impacted stakeholders who are needed to support the transition to agile.
Do you need further information about Scrum and Agile methodology? Please Click here.
Do you want to start learning about key concepts in Scrum thanks to a free online course, getting a free basic certification (SFC™) and also being provided with 10 PMI® approved PDUs (professional development units)? Please Click here.
Are you interested in knowing our whole Scrum and Agile training program – on line, physical classroom and the innovative virtual classroom? Please Click here.
PME Staff
Project Management Europa S.r.l. is Authorized Training Partner of VMEdu and SCRUMstudy
Scrumstudy, SFC, SDC, SMC, SPOC, AEC, SBOK are registered trade marks of VMedu Inc.
All the contents of this blog, unless explicitly stated otherwise, come from the wealth of knowledge, skills and experience of our team.
PME provides goal-oriented, cost-effective consultant services to support change management throughout the organization, promoting the implementation of a hybrid methodology – with traditional planning and agile delivery. For further information, please download the brochure or contact us.
In an agile transformation, the focus is usually on the benefits to the sponsor or to delivery team members.
However, in most organizations there are multiple internal stakeholders beyond these who will help or hinder your progress towards becoming agile. Control partners, such as Finance or Risk, might be sceptic or absolutely resistant to radical changes to delivery approaches.
So, what’s in Agile for these stakeholders and how do you sell it to them?
Finance departments want to ensure that the company’s funding resources are being utilized effectively and that good accounting principles such as writing off sunk costs are being practiced. They also want to know that project investment decisions are delivering expected business results. Hence, they are likely to be somewhat leery of approaches which eschew traditional safety blankets such as detailed requirements baselines or multilevel Gantt charts.
Agile delivery focuses on early realization of business value, but also early objective indication of critical issues which can trigger timely project termination decisions. Furthermore, Agile supports changing the traditional project funding model from full scope commitment to a value-driven tranche approach which can reduce non-value add ‘gold plating’ or the use of excess project budgets to fund unnecessary project change requests.
HR departments have significant effort invested in programs such as performance management or individual recognition. The transition of delivery staff from specialists to generalizing specialists as well as the need to recognize teams as much as individuals might concern HR professionals from both a work effort and an attrition risk perspective.
While there is little doubt that there will need to be effort spent in changing the current state, effective agile delivery can result in higher levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction which in turn can reduce common challenges for HR teams such as low employee morale or unplanned time away from work.
The agile transition can also generate other more subtle benefits such as a broader pipeline for leadership talent which results from delivery staff taking on greater ownership for team development and self-organization, as well as better business continuity and succession planning through the cross-training and broader learning that are natural outcomes of becoming generalizing specialists.
Risk partner concerns with agile delivery relate to the potential impacts of poorly designed or implemented changes as well as the potential change storms which can result if the frequency of changes exceeds stakeholders’ ability to adopt changes.
While these are valid concerns, they assume an undisciplined approach is taken to agile delivery.
Disciplined agile advocates early and regular engagement of key enterprise stakeholders to ensure that a fulsome set of requirements is incorporated into solution design.
Agile reduces delivery risk by requiring teams to sufficiently explore key areas of technical and operational concern early in the project lifecycle. On traditional projects, such risks rarely get effectively addressed till late in execution phases by which point the organization has expended significant funding .
Agile also reduces the magnitude of changes through an increased frequency of delivery. Obviously, the first implemented change might be significant, but subsequent releases will incrementally evolve capabilities, making it easier for operational teams to absorb the changes.
Finally, with a greater emphasis on quality throughout the lifecycle, there is a reduced likelihood of hidden defects which are a common source of operational or reputational risks.
Procurement groups will be concerned that earlier engagement of vendors might increase delivery risk due to a lack of a fully detailed requirements baseline. They might also worry that changes to funding approaches will reduce their ability to negotiate cost effective deals with vendors who were used to trading pricing reductions for long-term contracts.
Procurement approaches will need to evolve by moving away from traditional full lifecycle fixed cost contracts to incentive-oriented contracts, which encourage vendors to deliver the highest value and highest risk items early and frequently. This can in turn result in a healthier relationship with less procurement headaches, as vendors will be less inclined to low ball bids and then use costly project change requests to make their profit.
Agile also increases transparency of vendor delivery through frequent demos, business value milestone-based payments and backlog visibilitywhich will make it easier for procurement teams to administer active contracts.
As with any change, it is crucial to start with answering why it is beneficial to not just the organization as a whole but to individual impacted stakeholders who are needed to support the transition to agile.
Do you need further information about Scrum and Agile methodology? Please Click here.
Do you want to start learning about key concepts in Scrum thanks to a free online course, getting a free basic certification (SFC™) and also being provided with 10 PMI® approved PDUs (professional development units)? Please Click here.
Are you interested in knowing our whole Scrum and Agile training program – on line, physical classroom and the innovative virtual classroom? Please Click here.
PME Staff
Project Management Europa S.r.l. is Authorized Training Partner of VMEdu and SCRUMstudy
Scrumstudy, SFC, SDC, SMC, SPOC, AEC, SBOK are registered trade marks of VMedu Inc.
All the contents of this blog, unless explicitly stated otherwise, come from the wealth of knowledge, skills and experience of our team.
PME provides goal-oriented, cost-effective consultant services to support change management throughout the organization, promoting the implementation of a hybrid methodology – with traditional planning and agile delivery. For further information, please download the brochure or contact us.
