Why Agile Fails: The Mindset Shift Organisations Miss
Exploring Why Agile Isn’t Dead – It’s Misunderstood
While listening to Jimmy Carr on The Diary of a CEO, his quote, “People crave the success, not the journey,” really struck a chord with me. This perspective sheds light on a common issue I’ve observed: why Agile fails in organisations.
Many organisations jump into Agile without fully understanding why they’re making the shift. They often focus on quick results and overlook the crucial journey of transformation that change demands. This misunderstanding is widespread, affecting not just a few individuals but the entire organization. The eagerness for success can overshadow the essential work of realigning values and mindset. It’s a lesson that highlights why embracing the full journey of change is so critical for lasting success.
The notion that “Agile is dead” was popularized by Dave Thomas in his 2015 GOTO talk, where he critiqued how Agile has been commercialized and misunderstood. Thomas wasn’t suggesting that we abandon Agile but rather pointing out that the focus had shifted away from Agile’s core values of adaptability and delivering value.
Many people jump on this notion too that “Agile is dead” without fully engaging with Thomas’s video or blog (Agile is Dead Long Live Agility), often missing his deeper message. Similarly, we believe the issue isn’t Agile itself – it’s how organisations approach it. They frequently concentrate too much on practices and not enough on the underlying values and cultural shifts required for true business agility. Understanding and embracing these values is essential for meaningful transformation.
Business Agility: Beyond Agile Practices
At b-agile, we prefer the term business agility over Agile:
Would you like your organisation to achieve true business agility, with the ability to quickly respond to market changes?
Are you interested in an approach that helps you maximize value and reduce risk, allowing you to build great products or services for your customers?
Agile isn’t just a set of practices; it’s a mindset shift. This transformation toward Agile values and principles ultimately changes culture and leadership, leading your organisation toward value-driven decision-making.
Case Study: ING’s Transformation
A great real-life example is ING, a global bank that successfully transformed through business agility. ING focused on fostering a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. By empowering small, cross-functional teams and encouraging experimentation, ING became more responsive to market changes in a highly regulated industry. Their success lay in continuously adapting and improving their approach to deliver long-term value
True business agility is about embracing this journey of transformation, just as ING did. It requires organisations to move beyond rigid frameworks and empower teams to continuously improve and adapt, driving sustainable success.
Common Pitfalls Observed
Many organisations struggle with Agile because they:
- Focusing on Practices, Not Values: Adopt Agile values, not just practices.
- Prioritising Speed Over Learning: Focus on learning and delivering value early.
- One-Size-Fits-All Frameworks: Flexibly adapt Agile to your needs.
- Ignoring Culture: Leaders must model Agile values to enable lasting change.
Explore more here: Agile and Scrum: Unravelling the Misconceptions,
The Project Paradox: Kickstarting a Shift in Thinking
One powerful learning moment in our Agile & Scrum training courses is discussing and drawing of the project paradox:
Why do we make the biggest and most critical decisions at the start of a project when we know the least about what we’re building?
Why do we make the fewest decisions when we know the most?
Our follow-up question: “Have you ever worked on a project that was delivered on time, within budget, and exactly as planned?”
The answer is almost always no. Yet as organisations, we continue to rely on a project-based approach that doesn’t account for the uncertainties and complexities involved in building something new – such as innovative products. This rigid mindset often leads to missed opportunities for creating real value.
To navigate this paradox, Product Owners must grapple with the 3 V’s (Vision, Value, and Validation) recognising that genuine value goes beyond mere output. Our blog on Escaping the Product Owner’s Trap discusses how Product Owners can shift from managing components to owning a product that delivers real value.
This shift helps organisations align with customer needs. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a key tool here, enabling teams to identify bottlenecks and improve workflows. By using VSM, organisations can focus on outcomes that truly matter. For further insights explore our post on Value Stream Mapping and how it can enhance your Agile journey.
The Result-Oriented Trap
This ties back to Jimmy Carr’s observation: “People crave the success, not the journey.”.
Many organisations focus on the results others have achieved using Agile – faster delivery, better market responsiveness – without appreciating the journey it took to get there. They think they can copy the visible outcomes without recognising the iterative processes, failures, learning, and adjustments that shaped those results. They also overlook that true agility isn’t just about speed. It’s about creating a culture where continuous improvement, adaptability, and delivering value become second nature.
Every organisation and every team within an organisation is unique. You need to figure out what works best for you and your teams, as no cookie-cutter solution will suffice. Tools like Scrum encourage an empirical approach, allowing you to inspect, adapt, and continuously improve to find what works best for you.
It’s not just about delivering faster; it’s about delivering value faster, learning from feedback, and pivoting when needed.
Agile Requires an Empirical Approach
One of the key aspects of Agile that organisations often miss is its reliance on an empirical approach. Successful Agile teams test their assumptions, gather feedback, and adapt based on what works. The process isn’t fixed – it’s fluid, allowing teams to pivot as new information emerges.
While some areas of the organisation, like HR, may not traditionally operate in an Agile way, they too can benefit from aligning with Agile principles. For example, lengthy hiring processes and slow approvals can create bottlenecks that disrupt agility. By focusing on removing waste and reducing delays, HR can support an Agile organisation without necessarily adopting every Agile practice. On the other hand, certain areas that are more predictable and repeatable may not need Agile at all, such as compliance or routine operations.
A hybrid model may be part of the journey, but it shouldn’t be the final destination. Mixing Agile with rigid frameworks can hinder the full benefits of agility, especially in areas requiring responsiveness and flexibility.
One of our favourite courses to help shift this approach and start having the right conversations around outcomes and data-driven decisions is our Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PALE) and Evidence-Based Management (EBM) courses. These courses empower teams to adopt a more outcome-focused, empirical approach to their work.
Start with a Reset: Back to the WHY!
Many organisations chase quick results, overlooking the mindset shift Agile demands. Without aligning on the why, practices can become empty rituals, leaving teams questioning the value of change.
That’s why starting with a reset, a deliberate pause, can make all the difference. A reset isn’t just a stop; it’s an opportunity to:
- Align with Purpose: Teams benefit from a shared understanding of why they’re embracing Agile. Purpose provides direction and meaning, making the journey feel worthwhile.
- Inspire Curiosity: Transformation can feel overwhelming. A reset helps leaders open conversations that encourage teams to see opportunities rather than obstacles.
- Support Change Champions: Identifying individuals who naturally embody Agile values can help sustain momentum. These champions can inspire others by demonstrating how autonomy, mastery, and purpose are attainable.
Before diving into frameworks, organisations may want to reflect on:
- Why Agile matters
- The values it promotes
- How it enables business agility
By starting with a reset, organisations create an environment where meaningful change can happen. This approach nurtures autonomy, mastery, and purpose – factors that contribute to motivation and sustained progress.
Curious about how to start? Learn more about our Agile Fundamentals (ICAgile) course here.
Why People Think Agile is Dead
The claim that “Agile is dead” often comes from misunderstanding. Many organisations mistake Agile for a set of practices rather than a comprehensive mindset shift. When they implement the practices without embracing Agile values – like collaboration, responsiveness, and continuous learning – they don’t see the benefits and then conclude that Agile doesn’t work. But the truth is, Agile isn’t dead; it’s just being misused.
Agile requires a shift in how organisations operate. Without this shift, organisations struggle and often revert to traditional methods.
The True Nature of Agile
Agile isn’t about rigid frameworks or prescriptive practices. It’s about adopting a mindset where the journey -learning, adapting, and improving – is as important as the result.
At b-agile, our mission is to make agility part of your organisation’s DNA.
We can help you:
- Understand how tools like Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps can be enablers for agility when used correctly.
- Foster deep transformations that drive collaboration, continuous improvement, and value-driven decision-making.
If you’re ready to go beyond delivery and embrace real business agility, get in touch