The last decade has seen the emergence of different schools of thoughts. In recent time, these new approaches continue to cause changes in the way we build service offers. The introduction of many frameworks and methodologies forces us not only to modify our work processes but also to revisit the place that people take in our companies.

If we pay attention to the trends in the different sectors of our economy, we can notice that the Agile movement shows no sign of slowing down. On the contrary, considering that being Agile helps the industry being more productive, the companies continue to massively invest in order to « agilify » their services. Agile is now widespread and the days are long gone since being Agile was only a thing of software development.

That said, Agile doesn’t solely rest on the daily scrum. To produce a maximum of benefits, the teams providing services cannot be the only ones shouldering this important change in orientation.

Information technology continues to generate growth and opportunities. This industry places itself in an environment of constant innovation favourable to the implantation of agility. Notwithstanding companies’ diligent efforts to deploy the Agile way, on the field, there seems to always have a gap to fill. Since there is no cookbook that one team can follow, developing the Agile mindset is not an easy task.

Unfortunately, which is true for Agile is also true for other new ways of tackling old problems. How many development teams only focus on automation when it comes to DevOps? How many companies promote Lean but only to reduce their waste?

Beyond the set of practices adopted, it all comes down to a mindset problem. Let’s take as an example a company that releases new products early to test market fit. Following to the feedback it receives from its consumers, adapts the service offers to stay ever more competitive. From that perspective, does it really matter that this company ever heard of Agile?

At the time where challenges are piling up, it’s all too natural to see a myriad of agile coaches being deployed to help the business with the problems they face. Nevertheless, there is no absolute guarantee that this strategy will make a return on investment without an actual cultural change from within.

As a society, we tend to put most of the emphasis on a set of technical skills. On the other hand, we should be asking ourselves if we do enough to promote and to train on the very values that are changing the way we do business.

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