Agile problems with AAG

Like most other companies, AAG too has been on the path to Enterprise Agility for several years, which is quite evident in the ways of working (Purple) of teams. Most teams have some sort of autonomy, are multi-skilled (full stack developers at least), and the deployment releases are fairly regular (with excellent CI/CD tool usage) and predictable. The feedback from the business too has been early, and adds value to the unit of work delivered. Encouragingly, it's fairly a widespread phenomenon, unlike in other companies where excellence is limited to certain pockets. 

While those are the positives, the negatives aren't too few, nor something that can be disregarded. Here I list some of the things that could still be improved with intent, right mindset and responsible leadership.

1. Lack of demand funnel. 
2. Program level prioritisation is cowboy-style individual feat (in that the heavyweights have significant say) than a collective exercise.
3. Leadership may not be democratic and likely non-aligned with goals and aspirations of teams.
4. Constant team flux, changes, team-movement.
5. Frequent ways of working model changes. 
6. Poorly defined feedback mechanisms for contractors. 
7. Perception-based judgements. 
8. Over-reliance on business analysts who double up as iteration managers.
9. Not an open culture in some teams, and fear lurking on the flanks with respect to team bigwigs. 
10. Last but not the least, Business agility is still in the stone age.

Books that take a critical view of Agile

1. Questioning Extreme Programming - McBreen
2. Extreme Programming Refactored - The Case Against XP - Stephens and Rosenberg
3. Balancing Agility and Discipline - Boehm and Turner
4. Agile - The Good, the Bad and Ugly - Bertrand Meyer

Starting Agile Journey

1. Start without calling yourself Agile.
2. Don't buy into standard stuff practised elsewhere and adopting in your workplace -- Spotify, Netflix, etc. have a context; Simply monkeying them in your organisation won't make you agile.
3. Grow your Agile organically.
4. Understand the context of your organisation, the whys and wherefores and why exactly you want to go Agile.
5. Implement a holistic agile framework --
1. Make your entire organisation agile
2. Consciously and diligently remove organisational impediments to agility
3. Restructure your teams -- self organising, self sufficient teams, fix procurement, fix operations teams, fix support teams, etc.
4. Fix your funding model
5. Fix your procurement
6. Fix your portfolio management; make it lean
7. Define agile framework pertinent to your org.
8. Grow home capability; if you must hire, hire people including agile ones in permanent roles.
9. Kick out consultants, you don't need them. 
10. Coaches are good, however ensure you have only very senior folks who have implemented it in other organisations. Get them into the organisation fold instead of contracting. 
11. Avoid remote work for Agile coaching. It won't work.
12. Likewise as far as possible avoid remote work even for day to day Agile.
13. Remove the stupid concept of hot desks. It isn't working anymore, and for Agile it definitely doesn't. Instead have a dedicated room / space for the teams. 
14. Reduce vendor dependency. Bring down the vendor count.
15. Don't allow HR to lead the Agile transformation. 
16. 
    

Org culture - and Change