According to Lyndon King, Software Delivery Manager of BSG: "South Africa is at the forefront of agile adoption when compared with international markets; however existing pressure on business and the lack of the required skills mean that organisations often don't take the opportunity to transition to agile. I believe there is a general market understanding that an agile approach offers a company more flexibility and responsiveness to deliver working software on a consistent basis."
Creating continuous business value accelerates time to market, increases productivity and allows IT and business to align better, so that changing priorities can be better managed. The true challenge, however, is to create more market understanding on what an agile approach is - and what it takes to succeed. Most people recognise that agile can be beneficial to businesses and, as such, the adoption of an agile approach to software development by companies in key sectors has been bubbling under for some time. However, some companies have experienced less than successful agile transformations because of issues most notably related to culture and resistance to change.
King continued: "As expected, the same reason that agile projects fail is also what keeps companies from agile adoption: culture and structure, which are inextricably related. Conway's Law applies here: "Organisations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organisations." Agile seeks to change how communication happens and, to succeed, will require changes in the organisational structure. Culturally, people are concerned about a perceived lack of up-front planning and a loss of management control, stigmatised with agile. Insufficient change management will lead to resistance to change and a lack of understanding."
Additionally, the success of an agile project is dependent on the project team having an understanding of both the business objectives and the market or time-related pressures, as well as delivering on the full scope of the project, in line with prioritisation. Finding people with the right skills, however, still presents a major challenge in the technology industry.
"We are in a seriously resource constrained environment," said King. "Not only are we faced with an acute shortage of IT skills in South Africa, but also skilled agile practitioners are incredibly scarce. Project managers transitioning to scrum master roles may find that they lack the soft skills required to move from a command-and-control style to growing and developing self-organising teams. Similarly, developers require additional soft skills due to increased reliance on team planning and organising. Developers also require additional technical skills to be able to adopt agile practices, such as Test Driven Development and Paired Programming. The reality is that the lack of sufficiently skilled practitioners can have a debilitating influence on the adoption of agile - or, in the worst case, lead to a significant failure of agile over the coming year. Immediate intervention is the only avenue for prevention and this will require far more engagement between the private and public sectors, and academia, to develop the skills the industry needs.
"While more widespread adoption of agile is still emerging, it's up to skilled practitioners to guide the transition through market education and drive it based on successful projects. As only by getting this right will the software and business industries, alike, reap the true benefits that Agile offers - and we'll be able to sway the pendulum more favourably," concluded King.
