My time these days is spent helping clients who want to introduce an iterative methodology into their IT departments.Time after time, I have noticed that a few factors serve as good leading indicators to the eventual success of the engagement. These factors in decreasing order of importance are:

1. Executive and Senior Management support and commitment
2. Team makeup
3. Front-line staff commitment
4. Degree of change being introduced

1. Executive and Senior Management SupportAt the start of an engagement, the most important determinant is the level of executive buy-in. Forming a judgment of their behavior, feelings, and real motives is easier said than done. All too often, the real motives and underlying political issues remain unstated; it is up to the change agent to quickly determine who is for and against the initiative and why. Some managers may be for the initiative but for the wrong reasons — a CIO at a previous client was interested in the change not to improve the division, but to earn brownie points with a key internal customer.Often times, an organization introduces change (Agile methodologies in this example) but does not change the way it evaluates and rewards performance. The cliche, “you get what you measure” is absolutely true. For example, all Agile methods depend to a large degree on teamwork; this can be easily undermined if the senior managers cherry-pick and reward their favorites during the annual evaluation cycle or if management decisions are made not with the ultimate product but with the functional roles in mind.

A leading provider of strategic HR, payroll, and talent management solutions, in Florida, has successfully done away with individual rewards —- teams are rewarded based on their performance.

The goodness of Agile methods is that they quickly spotlight major problems in the way the organization is structured and managed. Executives and senior managers then have the option of either fixing the underlying problem or ignoring the problem — switching off the spotlight — and hoping it will go away. Their actions when faced with such situations speak louder than their words.

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