The document discusses 5 organizational dysfunctions that can occur during an Agile transformation: 1. Organizational hierarchy with multiple regulatory bodies can cause a traditional structure and lack of trust. 2. A command and control structure leads to a lack of trust in employees and focus on individual accountability over teams. 3. Business and technical teams often work in silos, lacking communication, transparency, and a shared roadmap. 4. Resistance to change can come from individuals, groups, and the entire organization due to a lack of psychological safety and job security. 5. Poor resource management assigns project members to multiple projects simultaneously without prioritization, estimation, or focus on automation.

1. Organizational Dysfunctions
During Agile Transformation
Abhigya Pokharel
(CSM, CAL1, CSP, SAFe 4.5, ICP-ACC, PRINCE2 Practitioner, ITIL Foundation)

2. Dysfunction 1
Organizational Hierarchy:
1. Multiple regulatory bodies.
2. Traditional approach to
organization structure.
3. Lack of trust.
4. Need of role specialization
due to stringent.
compliance requirements.
5. Complex business
functionalities.
WHY
1. Map job values to job description, which supports agile function.
2. Leadership coaching at executive levels.
3. Educate mid level management on Agile Leadership, Agile Culture and
Agile Teams.
4. Create a culture where trust could be built between teams and
individuals.
5. Don’t be afraid of experimenting.
MITIGATION

3. Dysfunction 2
Command & Control
1. Lack of trust.
2. Lack of desired skill sets in
employees.
3. Accountability associated
with specific individual.
4. High risk and regulatory
environment.
5. Strict appraisal process.
WHY
1. Learn to trust your employees.
2. Empower teams.
3. Focus on self organized team.
4. Stress on autonomy.
5. Empower teams to make decisions.
6. Don’t play the blame game.
7. Educate mid level management on Agile
Leadership, Agile Culture and Agile Teams.
8. Hire Agile coach, to check where things are
not going well.
MITIGATION

4. Dysfunction 3
Misalignment of Business and Technical Teams
1. Teams work in Silos
2. Lack of communication
3. Lack of transparency
4. Lack of proper roadmap
5. No time for Agile
Transformation.
WHY
1. Inter departmental collaboration during planning stage.
2. Communicate frequently with the teams.
3. Set clear KPIs, and assign a business owner.
4. Use agile practices, like Scrum, SAFe.
5. Conduct regular meetings with the teams to check on work updates,
and action items.
6. Set up cross functional teams to work on the business needs.
MITIGATION

5. Dysfunction 4
Resistance to Change
1. Individual resistance.
2. Group resistance.
3. Organizational resistance.
4. Lack of psychological safety.
5. Need for security
6. Easy hire and fire
7. Politics and internal
conflicts
WHY
1. Education and communication.
2. Participation and involvement.
3. Facilitation and support.
4. Clear up misunderstandings.
5. Structuring events in favor of
desired change.
6. Actively listening to problems and
complaints.
MITIGATION

6. Dysfunction 5
Resource Management
1. Project members are
allocated in multiple
projects simultaneously.
2. Management needs quick
results.
3. Lack of prioritization of
work.
4. Automation is not the
priority.
WHY
1. Focus on value of delivery.
2. Proper estimation and planning.
3. Clear communication of the resource
requirement.
4. Proper estimation of resource required.
5. Making schedules that meet the deadline.
6. Cost and benefit tracking and status
updates.
7. Calendar planning of projects.
8. Prioritization of works.
MITIGATION

7. Thank You!