Most agile transformations fail
Big or small, most transformations fail. More precisely, most transformations fail to deliver on their expectations. They get terminated. They fizzle out. They are prematurely perceived to have delivered already. They are trumped by higher priorities. Rightly or wrongly, very few get to run their course and maximise their potential.
The root cause is usually a perception of not delivering the value promised, or sometimes, of having already delivered as much value as they can. These misguided perceptions are the biggest challenge facing those attempting a transformational endeavour. This is your organisation running out of patience with your undertaking, or not understanding the goal.
The game you are playing is not "doing Agile", it's obtaining permission to try to "be more Agile", each day. Not exhausting that permission. Not allowing that endeavour to be undervalued, and, therefore, overridden by other priorities.
Lifeblood
There are a number of things you will need your company, and people within it, to give you while you strive to make progress towards a better way of working. These are time, money and their patience.
In order for this deal to be more equitable, and for you to maximise their ongoing support, you will need to pay them back in the form of on-going, demonstrable progress towards your joint goals. This is completely on you. And this is why splitting a multi-faceted, multi-year journey into phases is needed because you need to deliver early and on-going value throughout each phase. The phases help to retain focus on the stage of the transformation that your company is at, enabling small gains to be realised, and preventing the "Big Bang" effect.
If this exchange - time, money and patience for demonstrable progress - pays off, you will have built the ultimate factor for success - trust. Once trust is established it needs to be maintained, and built on, but this trust is the magic multiplier that can propel a good outcome to a great outcome.
Don't forget that as always with trust, it is slow to win and very quick to lose.
Sponsorship
You need a sponsor. In fact, you may need more than one.
In order to take company time and money to do something new you need someone who deeply understands 'The Why' and will represent and defend your efforts to anyone who challenges. They will help educate the rest of the company on your behalf.
Your job in this relationship is to provide the ammunition that they need to be able to represent and sponsor you.
