The importance and benefits of implementing Agile methods into the company’s projects and workflows have become widely known. This is why a lot of companies decide to shift from the traditional methods of project management to a more Agile way. An organization can start the process of becoming Agile, but reaching the state of Agile maturity in most organizations has still not become a reality.
A recent survey conducted with 3,300 IT professionals concluded in their State of Application Development 2019 report that only 39% of companies that use Agile methods can say that their backlogs have improved, even though the demand for making new applications has never been higher. This means they have not achieved Agile maturity. This raises the question of what an Agile company actually is and if organizations can ever reach the level of maturity.
What is the need for assessing Agile maturity for companies?
Companies need to make sure their Agile methodologies are being implemented and executed properly and benefits are being realized for all their projects. This is the only way they can stay truly Agile. Agile assessments also help with finding flaws and improving their processes continuously so that they can stay updated with the latest trends in the market and ensure they have optimal output and delivery always.
Agile organizations need to be able to adapt quickly to any changes that may arise in the economy and the global marketplace. This will help them meet their customers’ needs and demands and keep their company ahead of its competitors. Measuring an organization’s Agility helps companies stay updated, which is why the Agile Maturity Model was developed.
The Agile Maturity Model to help measure how Agile an organization is
There are a lot of ways in which companies can check the maturity of their Agile processes to assess their agility. There are multiple Agile maturity models that can be used along with various guides to improve how the organization has adopted the methodology. The most common Agile maturity model is the five-level five-level maturity model for assessment.
The Five-Level Agile Maturity Assessment
This model of Agile maturity assessments checks various factors that make an organization Agile to see which level the adoption process is at.
- Level one is the initial stage where companies still lack the consistency to adopt Agile completely. Employees need to be trained properly to get them all aligned with the new processes.
- Level two is the stage where companies have just started adopting Agile processes but they haven’t been fully defined yet. This is the most rudimentary level of Agile adoption and organizations still have not synced up their development and testing processes.
- The third level has well-defined Agile principles and processes and they start working in iterations regularly.
- Level four includes adopting all Agile processes successfully and measuring all key measures such as code quality. The main focus relies on maturing all engineering processes.
- The last level is the optimization level. Here, all processes are working in line with the project deadlines. All parts of the project stay on schedule and the delivery is always on time. Organizations at this level have various automated processes in place to help with deployment and integration. The delivery process is consistent across all projects in the company. The teams are all self-organized and sustainable and they improve and update their processes continuously based on various relevant KPIs.
Around 60% of the respondents to the survey mentioned above have stated that their adoption and maturity level is still at a 2 or a 3, and less than 25% of the surveyed individuals stated that they had crossed that level and were at a level 4 or 5. The total average of the adoption of the Agile processes of all the surveyed individuals was 2.7. This means most organizations are still defining what Agile practices they need to follow instead of reaching the measuring and optimizing stage.
How can companies use the Agile Maturity Model?
The main aim of any organization is to keep improving with time and Agile processes help them do just that. Organizations using Agile are always ready to tackle and adapt to any changes, which is a necessity, especially with the constantly changing markets today.
When organizations use the Agile maturity model regularly, they can find faults and errors in their current practices that take up more time and optimize them. This leads to reduced cycle time for each iteration and Agile teams can respond more quickly to any changes that need to be made in the requirements for a project.
Companies can also reduce the defects in any project cycle with continuous assessment of their Agile maturity. This helps in improving the overall image of the company and also leads to fewer resources being spent on support. Companies also stay compliant when they follow Agile methods because they have to keep themselves updated regularly on the changes being made to all regulations.
Software risks can also be managed and mitigated more effectively, which leads to saving up on the extra expenses the company would have had to make in case of a threat actualizing. An Agile maturity model will help Agile teams and the organization stay on top of all of the issues mentioned above.
Why are more companies not achieving Agile Maturity?
There are many challenges that come with the adoption of Agile into an organization. It is an ongoing process that requires a lot of time and effort for the company. Changing the organizational culture and mindset is one of the biggest reasons why achieving Agile maturity is so difficult.
Top management employees and executives are accustomed to a vertical hierarchy for all their projects and they work with a command and control culture. This is extremely hard to break out of because they have to unlearn everything that they have learned in the years they have been working.
Letting Product Owners and their teams have the authority to monitor and execute their projects till they are delivered is a difficult concept to accept and it takes time to get used to not having everything climb a ladder for approval.
What are the main factors involved in achieving Agile Maturity?
The best practices that less than 25% of respondents of the survey followed to achieve some level of Agile maturity followed included the adoption of low-code. In the survey, the advantages of low-code were stated to be more than just assisting with the development process. The respondents said that they had achieved a superior software release cadence, improved the satisfaction level of business departments with increased release frequency, a higher number of advantages for improving backlogs, and an overall increase in the speed of software development.
Final Thoughts
To achieve organizational agility, the first step is training the employees in the Agile methodologies. Only when they have been trained they will be prepared to adopt the radically different practices that come with Agile adoption and work towards achieving Agile maturity.
Some of the popular Agile courses that professionals can take up for achieving Agile maturity in enterprises are:
- CSM Online Course
- Scrum Product Owner Certification Training
- SAFe Scrum Master Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Foundation Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Master Certification Training
- PRINCE2 Agile Foundation Certification Training
