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Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey: A Qualitative Study

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DOI: 10.1145/3422392.3422436

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 Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey - A Qualitative Study
Fabio Reginaldo
Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
(UNIRIO)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
fabio.reginaldo@edu.unirio.br
ABSTRACT
Context: The agile transformation of an organization is influenced
by different factors that can hinder the initiative's success, such as
lack of adaptation of agile practices to the organizational context,
selection of agile alternatives without using appropriate criteria,
and lack of knowledge of the associated challenges. Not all
organizations properly recognize these factors. Objective: We aim
to identify challenges that can impact the success of agile
transformations initiatives. Method: We executed a qualitative
study using thematic analysis. We interviewed key persons in
charge of the agile journey in four Brazilian organizations. Results:
We identified 26 challenges in five dimensions: People,
Organizational Culture, Processes, Scalability, and Technology.
Among the main challenges are inadequate training,
communication difficulties, a culture conflicting with agile values,
incompatible organizational structure, and lack of a process to
guide the transition. Conclusion: The results suggest urgency in the
treatment of agile adoption as a contextualized project for
organizational improvements.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Software and its engineering • Software creation and
management • Software development process management •
Software development methods • Agile software development
KEYWORDS
Agile software development, Agile transformation, Agile adoption.
ACM Reference format:
Fabio Reginaldo and Gleison Santos. 2020. Challenges in Agile
Transformation Journey - A Qualitative Study. In SBES’2020: Brazilian
Symposium on Software Engineering, October 21–23, Natal, Brazil. ACM,
New York, NY, USA, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3422392.3422436
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SBES '20, October 21–23, 2020, Natal, Brazil
© 2020 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to
ACM.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8753-8/20/09...$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3422392.3422436
Gleison Santos
Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
(UNIRIO)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
gleison.santos@uniriotec.br
1 Introduction
The economic scenario has driven organizations to seek
improvements in their process, culture, and technology park assets,
since increasing the organizational capacity to adapt in response to
changes is increasingly urgent [32]. To achieve improvements,
organizations have invested in changing the way they work with
the adoption of agile approaches [31][33]. The organizational shift
towards agility has become increasingly complex. If at first, the
focus was on software development teams [5], now it is focused on
integrating agility to the entire organization, to deliver value to the
customer in a satisfactory fashion [30]. The continuous or isolated
action of making an organizational change to agile alternatives is
known as Agile Transformation, also referred to as Agile Transition,
Agile Implementation, or Agile Adoption [26][28].
Adopting and using agile approaches in a single team carries
challenges that are amplified when organizations need to scale to
teams, different areas, or levels [11]. There is also a perception that,
as agile approaches mature, the challenges faced by professionals
and organizations change [1], which makes the adoption scenario
even more complex. In this way, identifying and addressing
challenges in advance can increase the chance that the agile
transformation initiative will provide the desired benefits.
Although almost two decades have passed since the publication
of the Agile Manifesto [5], there are still many dogmas [4] created
in the industry and a misunderstanding of what agile transformation
is [6]. Besides, the results of agile transformations are still timid [7].
This scenario can lead organizations to ignore or neglect challenges
such as: obtaining support for sponsorship and involvement of
senior management [7][21][37], changing the culture of
professionals who have experience and completely specialized
training [10], identifying which are the most suitable agile
alternatives for a given scenario [4], dealing with leadership styles
which are incompatible with agile values [12], characteristics and
restrictions of certain industries [18], and the appropriate
development of the involved professionals [4] [7][10][12][21].
The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges, the
dimensions of these challenges, and enablers factors that influence
the journey towards agile transformation. We present the result of
a qualitative study in which use used thematic analysis to analyze
interviews with 4 agile transformation agents from 4 different
Brazilian organizations. We identified 26 challenges, grouped into
5 dimensions. Based on the result, we identified issues that alert
about key points in the moment of agile pre-transformation which
 SBES’20, October 19-23, 2020, Natal, Brasil
can increase the risk of failure of the initiatives if they are not
addressed. Also, enablers were identified that represent actions or
characteristics of organizations with a possible positive effect for
the adoption of agile alternatives. Software organizations can use
the results obtained to support the development of better strategies
for adopting agile alternatives, such as a starting point to define
actions that enable the adoption and choice of agile alternatives, in
addition to mitigating the occurrence of possible impediments.
This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the
theoretical foundation; Section 3 details the planning and execution
of the study; In Section 4 we discuss the findings and related works;
Section 5 presents the limitations and threats to validity; and finally,
Section 6 discusses the conclusions.
2 Theoretical Framework
Many organizations are moving towards change to incorporate
agile alternatives that have been driven by the Agile Manifesto [5].
Organizations apply agile methods to allow themselves to react and
learn from changes while enhancing customer value [30].
The increase in the adoption of numerous agile alternatives can
be seen in reports such as that of VersionOne [7], which in 2019
had 1319 responses from organizations of different sizes. The main
benefits identified by companies that already make use of agile
alternatives were: the ability to manage changes in a prioritized
manner, improved project visibility, alignment between the
commercial and IT areas, increased team morale, improved
delivery speed, and time of placing a product on the market, greater
team productivity, project predictability, project risk reduction,
software quality, improvement in engineering disciplines, better
management of distributed teams, increased software maintenance
capacity and project cost reduction.
It is not enough to simply be aware of the benefits of agility. It
is also necessary to enable a project structure that promotes and is
capable of measuring the results of the transformation actions [30].
Despite the perceived benefits in [7], most participants (83%)
responded that their organization's competence in the use of agile
alternatives was still less than ideal, revealing opportunities for
improvement through training and coaching.
To carry out the agile organizational transformation, a set of
strategies, structures, and methods is needed to guide organizations
towards greater performance and business agility [30]. Such items
are not always widely known. It is worth noting that the agile
methods and practices that were the basis for the Agile Manifesto,
such as Extreme Programming (XP) [9], Scrum [8], Dynamic
Systems Development Method (DSDM) [23], ASD [25], Crystal
[22], Test-Driven Development (TDD) [24], Feature-Driven
Development (FDD) or Pragmatic Programming [27], were not
widely used by organizations, not least because these methods were
new at the time of the manifesto [21]. In an attempt to adopt agile
methods, organizations have encountered great challenges, as there
is a need to adapt culture, the knowledge of people, processes, the
collaboration between areas, organizational structure, technology,
and other factors that depend on the organizational context [7][12].
Relevant proposals for mechanisms for agile transformation
Fabio Reginaldo and Gleison Santos
initiatives can be seen in the literature, as shown by its systematic
review by Jovanovic et al. [21]. The results reinforce the concern
not only with the use of agile alternatives per se but with how an
organization structures the adoption of alternatives in a planned
manner, with the desired and defined visibility and benefits.
The stages of the agile transformation process are not widely
reported in the literature, since they are very dependent on the
context of each company. As agile adoption depends heavily on
specific aspects, such as environment and organizational culture
and knowledge of those involved, agile alternatives generally need
to be adapted to be integrated into the organization's already
established processes [21].
Although studies on agile transformation have emerged in
recent years, cultural, organizational, and technical changes would
benefit from more studies that support understanding the
complexity and possibilities for an organization to effectively
benefit from the adopted agile alternatives [1]. In this way, the
mapping of organizational challenges can unlock agile
transformation actions.
Works that cite challenges, impediments and problems an agile
transformation initiative faces have received emphasis
[4][6][10][12][13][14][15][21][28][30][31]. Some of these works
are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Mahanti [10] describes the challenges of traditional
organizations that are undergoing an agile transformation process,
such as sequential thinking, closed-mindedness, and fear of change.
Nerur et al. [12] stress the need to carefully evaluate issues such as
leadership style, organizational structure, reward systems, and the
selection of the most appropriate agile methods before starting a
transformation journey. Other authors also address challenges for
transformation with more specific focuses, such as Smeds et al. [13]
and Nybom et al. [14] who discuss challenges for DevOps.
Karvonen et al. [15] and Moe et al. [30] address the challenges in
case studies with a focus on organizational and scalable adoption.
To obtain a holistic view of the challenges of adopting agile
practices, we also considered the systematic reviews of the
literature proposed by Jovanovic et al. [21] and Dikert et al. [31].
To classify such challenges, Nerur et al. [12] proposed the
following dimensions: Management and Organizational, People,
Processes, and Technologies, where they included tools and
techniques. According to Smeds et al. [13], DevOps adoption
challenges are divided into Resources, Culture, and Technology. In
the systematic review of the literature by Jovanovic et al. [21], the
following classification is used to group obstacles and results of an
agile transformation: Development Process; those related to
Customers; Developers; Management and Organization; General
Challenges; and, General Benefits and Results. Nybom et al. [14]
identified more specific dimensions such as Development Tools
and Ways of Working. Karvonen et al. [15] define dimensions of
corporate agility, such as Dynamic Resources, Detection and
Response Resources, Strategic Meta-capacities, Leadership
Principles, and Management Processes. The authors also endeavor
to detail the dimensions to propose some form of measurement
mechanism [15].
Other authors still cite different classifications
 Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey SBES’20, October, 2020, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, BRA

[16][17][18][20], and some recurrences are observed, such as Table 2 - Questionnaire applied in the Organizations
Culture, Process, and Technology. Part/Focus Questions
Part I - Planning (Q1) In a macro way, how is (or was) the process
the adoption of of transition to the current state of the organization
agile when adopting agile practices?
3 Study Planning and Execution alternatives (Q2) Was there an assessment of the current status
of the process? How was it done?
3.1 Study Planning (Q3) How was the decision to adopt the practices
communicated? What was the perceived impact on
The objective of the study, according to the GQM paradigm the organizational climate in the face of this
[19], is to analyze reports of the process of adopting agile challenge?
alternatives, to identify challenges and enablers for Agile (Q4) Why did your team/organization adopt agile
Transformation, classifying the challenges in dimensions, from practices?
Part II – (Q5) Were the technical disciplines (requirements,
professionals responsible for leading and directing the adoption of
Implementing analysis, and projects, tests, codification, and
agile practices, in the context of organizations that develop the adoption of implementation) prepared for the adoption of agile
software and are at different stages of the adoption of agile agile practices? What were the adjustments?
alternatives. alternatives (Q6) How was the adaptation of traditional
Three research questions were defined, as follows: management roles, more specifically Functional IT
Management, Human Resources, and PMO -
• RQ1: What are the main challenges associated with the Project Management Office?
adoption of agile alternatives in the interviewed (Q7) What best agility practices have been adopted,
organizations? or are in adoption? And why were these practices
• RQ2: What dimensions are associated with the challenges selected?
Part III - Issues (Q8) What were the main challenges/problems?
of agile transformation? in the Agile (Q9) In terms of organizational structure, cite 3
• RQ3: What actions or characteristics of organizations have Adoption points that helped the most and 3 that became
the potential to enable agile transformation? Journey impediments or challenges to be overcome.
The selected participants are members of organizations in (Q10) How was the process of training those
involved? Did you find it satisfactory? What would
different stages of adopting agile alternatives. Table 1 presents the you recommend differently?
profile of the participants and the selected organizations. Part IV - Best (Q11) Does the process being adopted (or which
Participants are, to a greater or lesser extent, influencers, practices of was adopted) have a measurement mechanism to
responsible or co-responsible for the transition from traditional continuous capture what worked and what needs to improve in
models to agile models in their organizations. improvement the process (not in the product)? Are there
during the agile scheduled cycles? Is there a backlog of changes,
transition risks, and improvements?
Table 1 - Participants and Organizations (Q12) Do you think that the values and principles
Part./ Interviewee’s Organization's Size of the of agility are known and followed by the team?
Org. Position Business Area Org. Part V - Future (Q13) What are the next steps in adopting agility?
#1/A Project Manager Software House ~400 planning (Q14) What are the new challenges, in your view?
#2/B Business Manager Public Software ~700
Company 3.2 Data Collection and Analysis Procedure
#3/C Digital Insurance Company ~800 Data collection was carried out through semi-structured
Transformation (Digital) interviews. The interviews were individual and lasted about 45
Director
minutes. The interviews were recorded with the consent of the
#4/D Squad Financial Institution ~5000 (IT)
Leader/SRE
participants. For confidentiality reasons, the names of
organizations and participants have been omitted.
The organizations selected for the study are at different stages The Transcribe tool was used for the automatic transcription of
of the adoption of agile alternatives. Organization A is at the early audios, with some manual adjustments to correct the texts. For
stages of adoption, still at the time of obtaining approvals and codification, the Atlas.ti tool was used, which helped in the creation,
autonomy for involvement and changes. Organization B is in the organization, and analysis of codes and their citations. Each
process of resuming the agile transformation project, as the relevant quote from the interviewees was associated with open
codes representing the findings regarding RQ1 and RQ3. The codes
previous initiative was canceled about 3 years ago. Organizations
were revised along the codification process until the final form
C and D already have more advanced organizational scale
activities, with strategic planning influenced by agility, changes in presented in this paper. Subsequently, the codes referring to the
challenges were associated with dimensions (RQ2) which group
organizational policies, and career plans.
To facilitate data collection, we created a base questionnaire them by subject similarity.
(see Table 2) to guide semi-structured interviews. We decided to The data analysis used thematic analysis procedures [34].
have open questions to give interviewees autonomy to speak openly Excerpts from the interviews gave rise to citations and open codes
about the experiences lived in the agile transformation journeys. created to represent their meaning. A pre-defined alphanumeric
pattern was used, consisting of an acronym and a sequential number
to identify each code. The themes used for data analysis were
 SBES’20, October 19-23, 2020, Natal, Brasil Fabio Reginaldo and Gleison Santos

dimensions (DIM), challenges (CHA), and enablers (ENA)

associated with agile transformation.
The data was interpreted, codified, and recorded by the first
author. Both authors have experience in agile methods and agile
transformation. Both data collection and analysis were discussed
and verified by the second author, who is experienced in qualitative
analysis. The codification was performed by the authors in several
improvement and revision cycles. In Cycle 1, the initial
codification was executed by the 1st author. The codes were named
freely without using pre-established lists of challenges or enablers.
The 2nd author read the first version of the code, making
suggestions for improvements and new approaches to codification;
in Cycle 2, the 1st author revised the coding based on the comments
in Cycle 1 and the list of challenges found in the literature review,
connecting the challenges found in the interviews and the literature
by similar themes. This review generated new challenges, review
of challenge names and new groupings, while also confirming the
dimensions for classifying the challenges. The 2nd author read the
Figure 1 - Example of Codification of Interviews
transcripts again, confirming that identified codes adhered to the
way they are treated in the literature and suggesting inclusion, 3.3 Results
exclusion, and modification of codes. In Cycle 3, new rounds of
codification review and refinement were carried out until reaching Below we present the answers to the research questions.
the final form, presented here.
The complete list of citations and codes, co-occurrence tables, RQ1 - What are the main challenges associated with the adoption
and comparison with the literature are not presented in this paper of agile alternatives in the interviewed organizations?
due to space restrictions. This material can be consulted at
https://bit.ly/2R9d5bo. We identified 156 citations which correspond to 26 challenges,
The following excerpt, included in the transcript for the as shown in Table 3. The number of citations in the interviews (Cit.)
question “In terms of organizational structure, cite 3 points that and the organizations (Org.) where they were identified are
helped the most and 3 that became impediments or challenges to be presented. Note, however, that it is not possible to assess the degree
overcome,” presents an example of how the codification was of criticality or importance based on this information, as this was
implemented. The underlined excerpts originated the codes not the object of this study.
identified in parentheses.
Three points that had an impact and did not help were the Table 1 - Challenges in Agile Transformation
Challenges Org. Cit.
middle management that was not convinced. I believe that in the CHA01: Behavior, beliefs, and dogmas ABC_ 8
beginning, the IT area was somewhat resistant (Dimension: CHA02: Insufficient or inadequate training ABCD 19
Organizational Culture; Challenge: Resistance to change). We had CHA03: Inadequate support and sponsorship from
ABC_ 5
some problems with IT people who didn’t believe in agile, management
especially [redacted for confidentiality] who was very traditional CHA04: Insufficient communication and collaboration
ABCD 12
with teams or clients
(Dimension: Organizational Culture; Challenge: Dissemination of CHA05: Leadership style _BCD 8
traditional methods of development) the time we did the rollout, CHA06: Dissemination of traditional methods of
and some corporate directors, mainly from finance and compliance ABCD 8
development
who did not believe this would work (Dimension: Personal; CHA07: Internal policy, industry, and government
AB__ 5
Challenge: Behavior, beliefs and dogmas; and Dimension: restrictions
CHA08: Culture not compatible with agile values ABCD 21
Organizational Culture; Inadequate support and sponsorship from
CHA09: Resistance to change ABCD 14
management). CHA10: Reduce turn-over _BC_ 2
As can be seen, sometimes the same section originates more CHA11: Organizational structure AB_D 11
than one code. Likewise, many of the identified codes come from CHA12: Agile approach not adapted to a specific
ABCD 8
multiple interviews. Figure 1 shows that the challenge “Inadequate context
CHA13: Adoption of agility with a commercial focus A___ 1
support and sponsorship from management” was noticed in 5
CHA14: Organizational initiatives dependent on
different moments of 3 interviews (for example, the section ___D 1
individual initiatives
beginning with 1:51 is the 51st codified section of Interview 1). CHA15: Inconsistent, divergent, or non-existent
ABCD 8
Note that, due to confidentiality concerns, the number of interviews transition processes and practices
conducted in Figure 1 does not correspond to the identification of CHA16: Difficulties in identifying alternatives and
ABC_ 5
requirements for adoption
the participant in Table 1 to ensure his privacy.
CHA17: Method, clarity, and autonomy in defining the A___ 1
Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey SBES’20, October, 2020, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, BRA

Challenges Org. Cit. finally Organization D “Concerning impediments, it was

business value people's resistance given the absence of knowledge, the
CHA18: Monitoring the adoption of agility AB__ 4 very absence of knowledge of the framework, and
CHA19: Adaptation of Software Engineering practices
by adopting agile approaches
ABCD 14 difficulties with functional management that sometimes
CHA20: Adaptation to project or program was not within the community;”
A___ 2
characteristics • CHA04: issues such as lack of access to the people
CHA21: Management of large and scalable projects ABCD 21 involved, relationships, and availability between those
CHA22: Bringing agile culture to areas of operation
_BCD 3 involved also appear regularly. In Organization C there
and maintenance
CHA23: Work with multiple teams _BCD 3 was a constant disagreement between the IT area and the
CHA24: Underestimate scalability _B___ 1 business areas, as mentioned by participant #3 in “The
CHA25: Adequacy of existing technology and tools _B___ 1 business area did not understand what or how it needed to
CHA26: Technical debt generation _B___ 1 ask the IT area, and IT are did not understand how the
business area needed what was done;”
The most cited challenges are discussed below. • CHA11: the existing organizational structure may be
• CHA08: which refers to the compatibility between the incompatible with the selected agile alternatives. The
necessary values in agility and the culture rooted in the problem may be more critical if there are IT structures
organization. Organizations B, C, and D reported it as organized on strong silos that do not interact openly.
having been one of the most difficult to face, as we can Participant #2 comments that “as an organizational
see in the statements of participants #2, #3, and #4, structure, the organization is still very functional. And
respectively: “People didn't want to stop doing things the changing the minds of some command and control
way they were, they were involved in the day-to-day managers was very difficult,” showing clear evidence of
operations, and thinking about change was very difficult,” the challenge;
“So we had a problem of persuasion and culture at all • CHA12: there are great risks when the strategies for
levels with some people from the financial board, at the adopting agile alternatives are not properly adapted to the
time the superintendence of the IT department itself that reality of the organization. We can see in the statement by
we had to change,” and “So far the business area has been participant #2 how confusion can be caused when
protected and the PO's [Product Owner] of the squads communications and adaptations are not considered: “We
observe the needs and prioritize according to the size of are, in the areas of management, business management,
the project. So, in my point of view, this is the next development management, infrastructure management,
challenge. Business and an integrated squad;” with greater proximity, but it is very unclear what the
• CHA02: the lack of knowledge about agile alternatives situation agility of is. What it means to be agile is still
causes organizations to experience difficulties in agile unclear in the current situation;”
transformation. Agility brings as a precondition a new set • CHA15: this challenge is associated with not treating agile
of skills needed by professionals, Organization B reported transformation as a project. The lack of plans, processes,
internal confusion in understanding the roles proposed by or guidelines for carrying out an agile transformation is a
agile methods, as mentioned: “They were a little tense major risk to the initiative. As an example, when
when they learned what roles they would have to play participant #1 is asked if there was a concern with software
because they had not been asked about it.” Organization engineering processes in the agile transition, he comments
D explicitly mentions problems due to people's lack of that “[engineering areas] were not prepared to adopt agile
knowledge; practices, there was no such concern.”
• CHA09: agile alternatives propose changes in the ways of It is important to highlight that even companies that have more
working, in how requirements are defined, distribution of practice in experimenting and using agile alternatives show that
tasks, and other paradigms that generate resistance to these challenges are still present, as described by the participant
change. Resistance as part of the culture was also cited in from Organization D when asked about whether the values and
all interviews; Organization A commented that principles of agility are known and followed by the teams of the
“Preliminarily the staff mentioned that it would be very organization. He says that “It depends a lot on the team, the
difficult, as many of them lacked the knowledge of what it leadership of the squad. Because the squad leadership does not
was. Those who already knew it thought it was very cool, know the methodology they will follow it in a very unusual way, just
but those who didn't think of it as another change in the trying to fulfill the rituals out of obligation, but in their daily lives,
way we work and this would not bring any benefit,” they are not adopting the real culture. It depends a lot on the
Organization B said that “there was a moment in which leadership.” A connection with several challenges can be observed,
even the rearranging of people within the team was but mainly that there are cultural issues to be dealt with, as well as
necessary to make it a little smoother because the the training of those involved has to be adapted and how to scale
challenge was very big;” Organization C mentioned that these solutions organizationally has to be planned. This requires
“at the beginning, the IT area had some resistance,” and
 SBES’20, October 19-23, 2020, Natal, Brasil
processes and continuous improvement at the heart of the adoption
project.
QP2 - What dimensions are associated with the challenges of agile
transformation?
We have classified the challenges for agile transformation into
dimensions to facilitate understanding and to group by related
subjects. Table 4 presents the 5 dimensions identified and their
respective challenges. The dimensions are:
• Personal: encompasses individual characteristics such as
behaviors and learning needs;
• Organizational Culture: encompasses cultural and structural
factors of the organization;
• Processes: includes challenges associated with defining roles,
continuous improvement, ways of working and practices;
• Scalability: associated with items related to team distribution,
the involvement of multifunctional areas and DevOps culture;
and
• Technology: includes items related to technological structure
and tools.
Table 2 - Dimensions of the Challenges
Dimensions Related Challenges
DIM01: Personal CHA01, CHA02
DIM02: Organizational CHA03, CHA04, CHA05, CHA06,
Culture CHA07, CHA08, CHA09, CHA10,
CHA11, CHA12, CHA13, CHA14
DIM03: Processes CHA15, CHA16, CHA17, CHA18,
CHA19, CHA20, CHA26
DIM04: Scalability CHA21, CHA22, CHA23, CHA24
DIM05: Technology CHA25
Most of the citations associated with the Personal dimension
(DIM01) refer to the CHA02 challenge, associated with the ability
to execute agile methods and practices, including negative effects
for the initiative being conducted. This can be seen in the quote
from Organization D: “In my team, [there were] two people who
did not agree and were very resistant, but mostly because they
didn’t know the framework.” The need for a training policy is also
evident, especially at the beginning of the agile journey, as can be
seen in the quote from Organization B: “with greater proximity
[with the areas], but it is very unclear what the situation agility of
is.”
Regarding Organizational Culture (DIM02), the references to
inadequate organizational structure (CHA11), absence of clear
policies (CHA07), or sponsorship (CHA03) are recurrent
challenges with great potential to hinder initiatives for adopting
agile alternatives. This can be seen in the following excerpts from
Organization B: “We came to create this framework, but
unfortunately with the change from one board to another, this
project ended up being forgotten for about a year” and “the
organizational structure of the organization is still very functional.”
The participant from Organization C explains in two excerpts that
communication created conflict, as we can see in: “The fact is that
this communication was a bit top-down and created a tense impact
on the team” and “[the involved areas] were a little tense when they
Fabio Reginaldo and Gleison Santos
learned what roles they would have to play because they had not
been asked about it.” The importance of efficient communication
(CHA04), as well as a leadership style (CHA05) that has more
possibilities than command and control, are fundamental to
minimize resistance to change (CHA09), as can be seen in the
Organization B report: “People still think that one has to lead the
other, that there is still a boss” and “Changing the minds of some
command and control managers was very difficult.”
Challenges connected to processes (DIM03) were also
identified, related to the software development process, governance
and the process to guide the agile transformation itself.
Organizations A and D, when asked if the requirements, analysis
and design, testing, coding, and deployment disciplines were
prepared for an agile transformation, were straightforward in
answering: “They weren't ready.” Organization A, for example,
recognizes the lack of a strategy for adopting practices, as can be
seen in the following excerpt: “The transition process of the current
organization was not something planned for agile practices, it
came from a person who had greater knowledge than the others
and ended up disseminating it (...) at least in the area where he
worked.”
Scalability (DIM04) presents challenges of great complexity,
as can be seen in the quotes from Organization B, referring to
CHA24 (“The main difficulty was how to accomplish a migration
for the entire organization. Thinking agility for the whole company
was always a problem.”) and Organization C, referring to CHA21
(“The next steps in agility I believe are scalability and maintenance
of culture” and “how to work sustainability [i.e., continued
maintenance] with innovation”).
In the technology dimension (CHA05), issues were reported
that could put transformation initiatives at risk, as can be seen in
the quote from Organization B: “(...) it was not integrated with
the GIT tool, and this caused rework and some discomfort for the
technical team to have to register it in two tools.”
RQ3 - What actions or characteristics of organizations have the
potential to enable agile transformation?
Table 5 presents the identified agility enablers, i.e., actions or
characteristics of organizations with a potentially positive effect on
the adoption of agile alternatives.
Table 3 – Enablers of Agile Transformation
Enablers
ENA01: Definition of agile processes
ENA02: Appropriate organizational structure for agile adoption
ENA03: Pilot project creation
ENA04: Training/knowledge transfer
ENA05: Conducting assessments
ENA06: Support from top management
ENA07: Mechanism for improvement and adaptation of the adopted
agile processes
ENA08: Agile climate assessment
ENA09: Dissemination of agile principles and values
ENA10: Appreciation of people
ENA11: Adequacy of the physical or virtual work environment
 Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey
Organizations C and D, which already had some years of
experience in the agile transition, experimented with some
initiatives in preparation for the adoption of agile alternatives,
which helped to overcome the scenario of decision and inertia in a
more structured manner.
Participant C emphasizes that what triggered the decision was
the need to develop new innovative products and services, in
addition to the creation of a Digital Transformation board (ENA02)
and repositioning of the brand by the organization. Thus, they
concluded that one possibility would be the creation of a pilot
strategy (ENA03) to experiment with agility, as can be seen in the
transcript: “we piloted for a year with a squad model starting by
using Sprint design methodologies.” Besides, the same participant
points out that there was an investment in training (ENA04) and in
organizational restructurings, such as changing HR functions
(ENA02). Organization D, which shows a higher level of maturity
given the responses, made investments in assessing its current
status (ENA05), changing processes (ENA01), and creating areas
with profiles dedicated to supporting and facilitating the adoption
of practices (ENA02), in addition to having the involvement and
support of senior management (ENA06), as can be seen in the
section: “[The Agile Transformation Initiative] was communicated
through an event gathering all of the top management, the
technology area, at different times, and invited practically a
thousand people a day, where games were played to explain how
the process worked and why we were going to a different model of
performance.”
4. Discussion
Agility aims to “horizontalize” teams and structures through
multidisciplinarity and self-organization, breaking dependencies
and increasing the productivity and freedom of innovation for
organizations. Today numerous companies use some agile
alternative not only applied to software development processes, but
also as an agent of administrative evolution in other sectors of the
organization. Thus, it warns of the importance of a new way of
thinking about organizations and their ways of working, not only
for software development but for effectively better integrating the
components of the organizational structure by objectives. The
results of this study alert organizations to the need to combine,
customize, learn, and relearn about agile methods to better apply
them. The challenges discussed in this paper are faced during an
agile transformation, to a greater or lesser extent, regardless of the
type of business line of the organization. Identifying and planning
for these challenges throughout the adoption lifecycle can increase
the chances of success for agile initiatives.
Since the beginning of the research, there was a perception that
certain challenges could influence other challenges grouped in
different dimensions. At the end of the thematic analysis, this
influence can be confirmed by the high co-occurrence rate of
challenges between different dimensions. Challenges such as
CHA01: Behavior, beliefs, and dogmas, CHA04: Insufficient
communication and collaboration with teams or clients, CHA08:
Culture not compatible with agile values, CHA09: Resistance to
SBES’20, October, 2020, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, BRA
change and CHA12: Agile approach not adapted to a specific
context, occur in conjunction with other challenges of 3 different
dimensions each, giving a perception of multidimensional
influence. In Organization C, the participant says that: “[The people
from the team] were a little tense when they learned what roles they
would have to play [in the new approach] because they had not
been asked about it.” In this quote, we identified challenges such
as CHA04: Insufficient communication and collaboration with
teams or clients and CHA02: Insufficient or inadequate training. It
is understood that these co-occurrences point to the fact that the
greater the lack of adequate training, the more problems with
communication tend to increase. Thus, it becomes even more
urgent for organizations that want to invest in agile transformation
initiatives to identify and plan to overcome these challenges,
because the more people and areas are involved, the more,
processes, different cultural contexts, and technologies, the more
likely these challenges are potentialized by the influence of other
challenges and other dimensions. All co-occurrences found in this
work can be observed in https://bit.ly/2Y863aZ.
Many challenges need to be addressed for the agile journey, so
the planning and strategy of why and how organizations should
choose agility needs to be very well defined and communicated to
everyone. It is noted that the challenges, despite being sometimes
equivalent between organizations, have different characteristics
and contexts, meaning that their solutions should not be designed
in the same manner. The problems that can prevent the successful
adoption of agile alternatives are essential difficulties (to
paraphrase Brooks [2]) and these can not be solved with a simplistic
approach and without first having considered the organizational
context. According to Brooks [2], the essential difficulties are less
obvious and have a changing complexity, as they can be influenced
by numerous different factors. The challenges discussed in this
paper should not be underestimated, as an agile transformation
affects an organization in many ways and at different levels.
Confronting this concept with the challenges for Agile
Transformation leads us to try to understand if the set of alternatives
and possibilities that arise with agility are not being used
unconsciously as 'Silver Bullet' [2] solutions. If so, organizations
may end up missing real opportunities for improvement through the
effective adoption of agile alternatives.
A large investment may be necessary to achieve agile
transformation in a short time, as done by Organization D. This set
of investments tends to minimize all challenges in general, such as
CHA01, CHA02, CHA04, CHA05, CHA06, CHA11, CHA15, and
CHA19, but mainly CHA09, which deals with resistance to change.
Because fear of change is often associated with a sense of loss, most
people protest agile introduction and try to undermine any related
effort in organizations where this challenge is common and there is
no prior planning or preparation approach, according to Mahanti
[10].
Another point to be highlighted involves the potentization of
organizational challenges for agile adoption. Such challenges can
happen in two directions: internal or external to the organization.
Challenges that are internal to organizations are generated by
cultural issues, profiles of people, lack of processes o,r others.
 SBES’20, October 19-23, 2020, Natal, Brasil
External challenges are enhanced by actions and influences that
take place outside the context of the organization. As the agility
movement has succeeded more quickly than any of the authors of
the manifesto could have predicted [6], there is a heritage that is
shaped by the community itself and by organisms outside the
organizations. This entire communication and relationship network
end up generating, or enhancing, the challenges that hindered the
adoption of agile practices. The fluency of agility itself is measured
superficially and by fragile perceptions, enhanced by certifications
and social networks. Lockard et al. [6] collect in one of their
interviews with the signatories of the agile manifesto, in 2017, that
the “manifesto attracts [...] [those] who wanted to [...] code and
not document [and] who wanted to [...] talk to users separately
from the organization's structures. And as a result, it became a
thing.” This sentence captures that the essence of the manifesto was
never to create a new order on project management, let alone
organizations as a whole, thus raising a series of questions that still
need answers.
Another reflection to be highlighted is that an expectation of an
agile transformation bringing immediate cost reduction may be a
misguided objective for these journeys. It is worth noting that
Organization D, the most advanced in adopting agile alternatives
among the interviewed organizations, made several investments in
the context of the initiative. It is somewhat naive to expect that the
journey of agility will bring savings early on.
4.1 Related Works
In general, many of the works on agile transformation are
related to specific contexts, and their results may not be applicable
in different organizations. The challenges presented in Section 3.3
are somehow related to those identified in the literature, but with
different formulations and granularities and not always in an
organized fashion. However, the challenges found in the literature
supported this work to confirm and revise the findings in the coding
of the interviews. For example, challenge CHA03: Inadequate
support and sponsorship from management relate to the following
challenges identified in the literature: Inadequate management
support and sponsorship [7], Management support [21],
Management Commitment [21], Management buy-in and
understanding [37] and Lack of investment [35]. CHA07: Internal
policy, industry, and government restrictions were created based on
the interviews, but later had its name and scope changed, based on
findings in the literature: Regulatory and governmental compliance
issues [7]; Policies [4]; Viability and Industry Restrictions [18]; and,
Contract type [21].
We use similar references to understand what challenges these
studies have already discussed, with a focus on organizational agile
transformation. Other references brought us a timeline to interpret
the facts that are occurring in organizations that are currently
adopting agile practices.
The challenges cited by the co-signers of the Agile Manifesto
in 2011 [4][5], which have been reiterated in research in 2017 [7],
may not be the only challenges to be faced in agile adoption.
However, these challenges may not be receiving due attention by
organizations when planning their journeys. The 'elephants in the
Fabio Reginaldo and Gleison Santos
agile room' mentioned by Krutchen [4], such as Culture, Lack of
Contextualization, Inadequate training based only on certification
structure, the lack of commitment and support from top
management, among others, have been common variants in all
surveyed organizations.
With the same concern, Gregory et al. [37] consider that several
authors have observed the predominance of reports of industrial
experience in the literature on agile methods, but that an important
limitation of this type of literature is that the reports usually tell
positive stories of problems which have been solved, instead of
describing persistent difficulties, aggravation of situations or
failures. The authors present a thematic analysis to identify and
classify challenges based on interviews in an agile conference.
However, the paper presents an analysis more focused on the
identification of themes and subthemes than on the challenges.
The 2017 work by Lockard et al. [6], brings a view of the co-
signers of the Agile Manifesto on agility in the form of interviews
and consolidation of results of challenges, a vision of the future of
the agile manifesto, in addition to trends for the world of agility. In
the view of the co-signers [5], the challenges faced by organizations
persist over time without major variations in terms of the
mechanisms to face them. Thus, realizing that most of the identified
challenges are also pointed out by the signatories [4], reinforces the
importance of the alerts and findings described in our work in the
context of an agile transformation. Of the challenges grouped and
confirmed in our work, 11 are cited by the co-signers, such as an
approach not adapted to a specific context; insufficient or
inadequate training; and difficulties in identifying alternatives and
requirements for adoption.
Different authors [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][20][21]
propose different dimensions associated with the challenges, not all
of which encompass the stages or just specific to a set of aspects of
the agile transformation. For example, Nerur et al. [12] and
Jovanovic et. al. [21] proposed dimensions to classify agile
transformation challenges, Smeds et al. [13] proposed dimensions
focusing on DevOps adoption, Nybom et al. [14] present more
specific dimensions such as Development Tools and Forms of
Work, and Karvonen et al. [15] focus on scalable corporate agility.
To convey a comprehensive view of the challenges, we proposed a
set of dimensions that is related to different moments of agile
adoption, whether in high-level planning or support and
infrastructure.
In the work proposed by Jovanović et al. [21], an extensive list
of situational factors identified from a systematic literature review
is presented. These factors include findings regarding challenges
and enablers for agile transformation and both are consolidated on
the same list. Jovanović et al. [21] also propose as opportunities for
future work the verification of these factors in the organizational
environment, in addition to an additional grouping of factors.
Smeds et al. [13] proposed enablers for agile transformation with a
focus on DevOps culture.
 Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey
5. Limitations and Threats to Validity
Every study presents threats to the validity of its results [3]. The
interviewees were aware of the terms we used in the interview
script. Besides, before all interviews, the interviewer made a brief
introduction to explain some of the concepts involved and the
objectives of the research. There was no time limit for the
interviews, which allowed the interviewees to speak freely. The
interviewees were also assured of the confidentiality of the
interviews. A transcript of the interview was initially made using
software and later verified by the first author and interviewer. To
reduce interpretation bias, all codification and analysis were
discussed between the authors and verified by the second author,
who is experienced in qualitative analysis. Both authors are
experienced in agile methods and agile transformation. A literature
review was also conducted before the codification. While this may
have facilitated the execution of the interviews and the
identification of the findings, it may also have introduced
interpretation bias. The results, and its discussion, were revised to
eliminate this type of bias. To guarantee the consistency of the
results, the literature was consulted again after the initial definition
of the findings. When necessary, the codes were revised and
improved. The interviews were conducted with 4 people with
experience in their roles and in the application of agile alternatives,
all with a high degree of participation and/or responsibilities in the
agile transformations of the four different organizations. To
increase the scope of the findings, we chose organizations that were
at different stages of the agile transformation journey. The diversity
of stages of organizations provides a wider range of findings. The
agile transformation journey cannot be thought of as a predictive
project of a beginning, middle, and end. It is understood that
organizations that advance in the agile transformation initiative,
enter into continuous learning cycles, wherein challenges can arise,
decrease or increase, regardless of the stage. There are no elements
in the reported results that make it possible to state whether the
challenges and enablers act only in part of the stages. We also
cannot affirm the direct relationship between the enablers and the
challenges, as it was not the objective of this phase of the research.
Although the reported findings are not exhaustive, they are
representative of organizations undergoing an agile transformation
process, as can be seen from the comparison with the literature.
6. Conclusion
This paper presents a qualitative study to identify the main
challenges associated with different stages of the agile
transformation journey in software organizations. A qualitative
analysis was carried out, based on thematic analysis, with 4
Brazilian organizations surveyed to seek evidence of the challenges
identified and organized in the different processes and moments of
agile transformation.
The related works found in the literature had the following
characteristics: a) the approach was contextual in a specific type of
project or industry [10][18][30], b) the work addressed specific
themes of agility or proposed to do only an informal review of the
SBES’20, October, 2020, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, BRA
literature [6][12][13][14][15][28], c) two systematic reviews of the
literature, where the most recent contributes with a list of
challenges encountered without classifying or using it [21] and the
oldest with a specific classification by the authors [31], and d) some
informal literature which presented relevant information for study
[4][7]. As for the dimensions of the challenges, only part of the
works classified or identified classes for the challenges. In this
paper, we present the result of a qualitative study in Brazilian
organizations comprising the identification of challenges of agile
transformation, classification of the challenges found in the
dimensions, and identification of agility enablers which can benefit
organizations that are engaged in agile transformation.
We identified 26 challenges, in 5 dimensions, in addition to 11
enablers, which represent actions or characteristics with the
potential to facilitate the agile journey. Such findings can be used
by the industry to define actions aimed at minimizing possible risks
and negative impacts that can lead to the failure of the initiative.
The results can be used by the academy to understand the adoption
of agile alternatives in organizations and to propose new
frameworks or agile techniques.
The results presented are part of ongoing doctoral research.
New interviews, covering more organizations and situations
experienced by them, will be conducted. We plan to create a model
of challenges, organizing and correlating them with the other
research findings. Also, we intend to provide guidelines for using,
identifying, classifying, and addressing the listed challenges of
agile transformation journeys.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been financially supported by UNIRIO (PPQ-
UNIRIO no. 01/2019).
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