August Study Reveals 9 Key Insights For Successful Agile Transformation

I’ve always been a curious person full of questions – in fact growing up my parents joked that I “slept with my hand in the air.” 🙋🏻‍♀️

So it was a real joy to put my question-asking skills to use in helping lead August’s research study on the State of Organizational Agility.

This study gave me the chance to nerd out on a brand-new data set on a question that August is super curious about: 

Where do large companies stand with agile transformation today? 

Agile transformation broke out of its original software development niche in the early 2010s, as organizations began to understand how these principles could be applied more broadly.  

Since then, an entire organizational development discipline has emerged, including leadership roles, theories of change, academic research, and expert partners (like August).

But recently, new challenges and opportunities, like generative AI, have started to steal focus away from agile transformation. 

At this moment of maturity and perhaps inflection, we decided to conduct a study to find out:

🔎 What is the current state of agile transformation?

🔎 Where are organizations in their journey?

🔎 Which agile ways of working are used most often? 

Being a newer August pal myself, I jumped at the chance to help lead the survey. It gave me a chance to learn more about August’s unique approach to agile transformation, while dusting off my research skills. 

We conducted the survey in October-November of 2023, and I spent the subsequent weeks excitedly cutting into the data and seeing new stories emerge. 

Here are our top 9 takeaways.

1. Agile has come a long way, but it isn’t just a trend of the past.

Agile transformation rose into prominence from approximately 2010-2015, as organizations began to appreciate how the underlying principles of agile software development could be applied more broadly.

As of late 2023, we found that 67% of organizations have undertaken an agile transformation.

Our survey reached 313 large enterprise business professionals. Of those, 209 responded that their organization had "made a focused effort to be more agile."

Of those who have been through an agile transformation, 69% told us that their organization started their transformation within the past 5 years.

Our takeaway: Agile transformation is far from over. In fact, it’s now more relevant than ever.     

2. Successful agile transformations play the long game.

Agile transformations are long-range, multi-year efforts. Becoming agile isn’t a “quick fix” but a deep transformation that builds over time. 

Case in point: Although 93% of the large enterprise orgs we surveyed said they began their agile transformation more than a year ago, only 49% believe the effort has now reached or neared completion.

Our takeaway: The best time to start your agile transformation was several years ago. The second best time is right now. ⏳

3. Senior leaders see the value of agile.

Overwhelmingly, senior leaders agree that organizational agility is a top priority. 

96% of senior leaders told us that becoming more agile has been a high or essential priority for their organization compared to other priorities over the past 5 years.

Additionally, senior leaders see a dramatic positive impact of organizational agility on their business:

📈 82% report a positive financial impact on the business 

📈 82% report a positive cultural impact on the business

📈 78% agreed that their organization is quick to respond when changes need to be  made

📈 74% agreed that their organization is equipped to deal with uncertainty

Perhaps the most telling statistic of all:

92% of senior leaders who took our survey said it’s either VERY or EXTREMELY important for them to work at a company that is committed to being agile. 🔥

Today’s top leaders want to work in top-performing organizations. And they’re pointing to agile as the way to get there.

4. Agile is the future of work.

A whopping 94% of senior leaders believe agility will be even more important in the years ahead than it was in the last ten years. 🚀

The near-unanimity of senior leaders on the criticality of agility for the future of work really stood out to us.

We completely agree, and we want to know more about what’s driving leaders to this conclusion.

5. Successful agile transformation is built on these 8 strategies.

There’s no silver bullet for a successful agile transformation. But the leaders who took our State of Organizational Agility survey identified 8 core strategies that are most useful in supporting the effort:

🤖 Technology

Implement technology and systems to support the new ways of working. 

🔭 Leadership

Senior leaders need to advocate for the change and walk the walk in their own practices to drive organizational adoption. 

☎️ Communication

Create an effective internal communications strategy to convey the desired behavior changes. 

👩🏻‍🎓 Training

Provide effective training on the desired behavior changes, so people can practice in an educational context first.

🛠️ Easy-to-adopt behaviors

Introduce simple behavior shifts that are useful in day-to-day work, to help the company transform on a micro scale, with macro results.

🏗️ New organizational structures

Minimize the impact of bureaucracy and hierarchy to support agile ways of working on a structural level.

👨🏾‍🔬 Learning culture

Create a culture of learning and experimentation to help infuse the organization with greater responsiveness and creativity.

🧩 Action-based strategy

Effectively translate strategic plans into actionable behaviors to keep the transformation practical and rooted in reality.

6. Agile transformations get derailed by 5 common barriers.

Our survey revealed a wide array of barriers that organizations face in their agile transformations. 

The lack of any single common barrier affirms that each organization needs a customized approach that fits their unique culture.

Among the different barriers respondents identified, these 5 barriers come up most frequently in our survey:

⛔ Lack of mindset shifts

Underlying mindsets stay stuck in the old ways of doing things.

⛔ Lack of modeling 

Leaders fail to model the new behaviors they want the organization to adopt.

⛔ Lack of advocacy

Leaders fail to advocate for the change or lead the way in positive messaging.

⛔ Lack of systems support 

Organizations fail to effectively implement technology or systems to support the new ways of working.

⛔ Getting stuck in the planning phase

Organizations fail to translate their strategic plans into actionable behaviors everyone can adopt.

Agile transformation failures are as complex and unique as organizations themselves. 

This is why it’s so critical to have an approach that’s purpose-built for your organization.

An off-the-shelf solution won’t be calibrated to your unique blend of challenges and strengths, and therefore won’t be able to respond and adapt along with you.

7. Successful agile transformations employ 7 core ways of working.

You know those second-nature work behaviors you don’t even think about? The personal and team habits that develop organically and become embedded in the DNA of how you and your org do business? 

Well, our State of Organizational Agility survey reveals 7 agile ways of working that are becoming regular habits for large organizations that have undergone an agile transformation.

A variation of these practices are done “often” or “always” by at least 75% of survey respondents*.

In fact, when we looked at a subset of users who said they were VERY SATISFIED with their organization’s agile transformation, at least ~90% of those users said they use these practices “often” or “always!”

✅ Rounds

Agile teams use a reliable method to make sure everyone has a chance to speak in meetings.

✅ Meeting Purpose

Agile teams set a clear purpose for each meeting (e.g. capturing actions and owners, collaborating, making decisions, or reflecting and learning).

✅ Retrospectives

Agile teams make time to reflect and discuss how to improve the work.

✅ Action Meetings

Agile teams hold standing (e.g. weekly) team meetings to reprioritize work based on the most pressing needs.

✅ Experimentation

Agile teams make learning, experimentation, and iteration part of their approach to work.

✅ Sharing work in progress with your team

Agile teams regularly share draft work with colleagues and leaders, even when it doesn’t feel “ready.”

✅ Sharing work in progress with end users

Agile teams frequently share work in progress or working product designs with end users (e.g. customers) for their feedback.

*Respondents are either senior or junior leaders within large (500+ person) organizations that have undergone an effort to become more agile.

8. Successful agile leaders know how to tolerate uncertainty.

Agile transformations offer an empowering framework for dealing with uncertainty. It’s a huge part of why they’re so popular! 

But most humans struggle with this mindset. It’s one of the biggest barriers to agile transformation success.

Of our respondents who work in large enterprise orgs that have undergone an agile transformation, only 36% agreed that their company does NOT need certainty to move forward.

When we dug deeper into the 36% who *are* able to make progress in the face of uncertainty, we found that this group has unlocked a treasure trove of agile benefits that other orgs haven’t, including: 

💫 Employees are more likely to enjoy working at the organization

💫 Employees rely on one another

💫 Employees feel more comfortable speaking up

💫 Employees share when mistakes are made 

These organizations are also more likely to report that working in agile ways has had a positive cultural impact on the business.

Moving forward within uncertainty is a critical skill for agile success. But learning to do so means confronting our ingrained need for certainty and perfection. It’s a tough ask, and a tougher personal shift.

But imagine what could be unlocked if organizations were more open to taking chances and making progress without knowing everything.

Imagine if people had enough trust in their companies and teams to release perfectionism and engage the unknown with curiosity and joy.

9. Successful agile transformation is an everyday practice.

The theory of agile makes sense to most of us. Of course we all want to…

🤩 Be more responsive to change

🤩 Adapt to our customers' evolving needs

🤩 Make better, faster decisions

🤩 Efficiently target new opportunities

The hard part isn't getting on board with these bullets; it’s putting them into practice in simple, everyday ways.

According to our State of Organizational Agility survey, it’s the companies that effectively translate these big ideas into actionable behaviors with effective training that achieve agile success.

Summary: Successful Agile Transformation is a Human-Centered Effort.

At August, we focus on breaking down agile ways of working into simple, easy-to-adopt behaviors. 

When we partner with organizations to help them become more agile, we identify a set of these behaviors that we call ‘practices’ and help individuals and teams make small adjustments to their day to day ways of working.

Over time, these small changes make a big difference.

Please reach out to me to discuss how August can support your organization’s agile transformation!