Agility Is Increasingly Adopted By Business Departments

Agility, carrying the product approach, is increasingly acclaimed as a real accelerator of transformations at all company levels. But is this approach based on a true culture of agility Initially initiated by mainly IT teams, agility gradually received support from all entities. These IT departments are no longer the sole guardians of agility, and more and more companies are making agility a real transformation issue.

The covid-19 crisis has entrenched agility in long-term business practices. The evolution of professions and user needs is thus the first necessity for adopting an agile approach, far ahead of other necessities linked to a reflection on project management methods or even the search for performance. Between ambition and reality, EY Consulting questioned the practices implemented to stimulate agility and the limits to be exceeded for such an approach. The objective of his study is to explore the development of agility within organizations and to question their real progress.

Based on data provided by the CSA to 150 digital transformation players and around fifteen large companies and public entities at the end of 2021, the study draws up an inventory of the current agility maturity within organizations. The study also shows that the launch of an agile approach motivated by a desire to change the corporate culture or a management decision is insufficient to involve the entire company.

Despite a gap between the different departments, 46% of companies now operate in an agile environment. But the perception of agile maturity remains heterogeneous since half of the respondents evaluate the level of maturity of the IT department as “high.” At the same time, this rate is 32% for the business departments.

However, this study finds that 80% of companies that have not succeeded in adopting an agile approach have not adapted their organization and their processes. And it’s not for “technical” reasons, and resistance to change is the main cause (54%), unlike lack of resources (1%). Guarantee of success of this mutation? The establishment of bodies allows continuous improvement. This is the opinion of 73% of the professionals who took part in this survey and work in an agile context.

The Main Findings Of This Survey Are As Follows:

• The expansion of agile approaches in support of transformations is accelerating within organizations
• Initiated by IT departments, agility is being adopted more and more widely by business departments
• Adapting the organization and processes to agile approaches is a key prerequisite for a successful ramp-up
• The implementation of a modular IS coupled with agility guarantees an acceleration of delivery
• Agility contributes to the construction of a favorable context for innovation

The Scrum and Kanban frameworks remain the most widely adopted frameworks (51%), followed by so-called hybrid frameworks (36%), inspired by existing frameworks and adapted to the operation and specificities of organizations.

Regarding the trajectory followed, EY found that initially, teams are given great freedom to experiment with the frameworks that seem most appropriate to them. However, when organizations progress in agile maturity and the number of projects carried out in an agile approach, structure, and governance are needed.

Also Read: Applying Agile Practices Can Make Workers More Productive