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How to Convince Top Management to Support Agile
Originally published in GoRetro
You may find many reasons why several Agile transformations fail, but one is more than a cause — it’s a precondition: top management buy-in. Without full support from your company’s leadership, no Agile implementation can thrive.
The million-dollar question is how can you convince the top level to support your agile initiative?
In our dream world, an Agile transformation kicks off after management realizes a massive change must happen. Sadly, that mainly occurs in our dreams. Most transformations I’ve seen happen either bottom-up or with mid-level management, and the challenge is convincing the C-level to work differently than they are used to.
I wouldn’t dare promise a recipe to get buy-in from your management, but I’ve learned some techniques that helped me during my journey. And I’d like to share them with you.
Bring the Costs to the Table
First and foremost, do you know why leadership is resistant to a real Agile transformation? From my experience, they think Agile is more expensive than a traditional approach. They believe teams can work more efficiently if they have clear directions. Also, they are often skeptical…
