Now that things are getting back to normal, I met a potential new client, a senior exec of a large org, in a Starbucks downtown. The conversation was a “re-run”, a common narrative I frequently encounter in these post-COVID times.

The exec said “We need to transform… and fast!”

“Why? What’s driving this?” I posed a standard lead-in question.

The exec shook his head “We are terrible at delivery. Our market is far more competitive no. We need to be faster and we need to fix our delivery predictability.”

“That totally makes sense. What’s your plan so far?”

He took a sip of his coffee then stated confidently “We want to implement SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) company-wide.”

I probed further “What existing support do you have to drive this transformation?”

He hesitated then said, “We had to let go of most of our Scrum Masters and Coaches due to budget cuts. That’s where you come in…”

The rest of the conversation is not important. How this conversation evolved over the last five years is…

How we transform organizations is well, transforming. COVID, WFH, and the Great Resignation (also numerous market and financial shifts) are changing how we implement and even use Business Agility. So let’s look at these patterns and the next five years. Here are my top five humble predictions:

#1 Experienced Coach skill-shortage + shrinking budgets = Pressure for expert-less Agile transformations

At the moment I’m writing this article, there are 1000 open postings on LinkedIn for “Agile Coach” in Toronto… almost 4000 in New York… almost 2000 in London UK… 1000 in Berlin… almost 7.5k purely remote positions in USA alone. What’s more interesting is the Release Train Engineer. Even 5 years ago this position was virtually unknown. At the time of writing, LinkedIn is showing over 15k RTE positions in the USA alone. These are crazy ridiculous numbers! But here is what’s even more interesting: The delivery-facing roles like RTE are growing exponentially faster than the Agile coach roles that train and support them. Why? Because as much as we want to transform, our budgets for roles not directly driving delivery/execution have been severely cut. And this trend will continue.

The underlying problem is that most organizations can no longer fund large properly-executed transformations. What they are willing to fund is more tactical and something with lower perceived risks.

#2 Overburdened leaders will embrace frameworks like SAFe… yes even more than now

Now imagine you are a senior leader with limited experience or knowledge? You have no budget to hire an experienced Agile Coach or consultant to aid in your transformation. How would you pursue and accomplish such a significant complex change? How would you fill your information gaps, lack of experience, and the ambiguity that’s keeping you up at night? That’s right – a framework… something that creates the perception of clarity and predictability in the ocean of unknowns. Agile Frameworks themselves are good. It’s how we use them, or rather misuse them and expect of them, that’s the problem.

#3 “Bad” Agility will become mainstream

Not “bad” in terms of poorly intended or failing Agile principles (though I’m sure those will happen as well). Actually I am talking about poorly planned, unfinished, rushed, purely tactical, compromised, and abandoned transformations. Why? Because well-meaning yet untrained and inexperienced leaders will be pressured to implement complex transformation without the support of good Agile experts (like Agile Coaches). Consequently, these shiny transformations will fall short of promised outcomes. Further, they will be cut early or totally abandoned.

#4 Diversification and Integration of Agile approaches

On a more positive note, by breaking the critical mass point, Business Agility will bring a renaissance of ideas and new approaches. These will include niche and integrated approaches like…

Agile Marketing Navigator led by Michael Seaton – “A practical framework for navigating agile marketing”

Renaissance Approach led by a group of experts integrates six different domains including emotional vitality – “We accelerate business transformations that powerfully combine productivity and purpose”

Enterprise Agility University led by Erich R. Bühler integrates mental agility & neuroscience – “Where science meets organizational change”

#5 Many Unsuccessful Ugly Agile Transformations

You can already guess where this is going…

First the bad news: Do you remember when Amazon opened up the flood gates to self-publishing and everyone and their uncle could publish their books (no matter how terrible and trashy)? Do you remember when Microsoft released Windows 95 and everyone and their uncle could build applications (no matter how strange and buggy) for it to digitize their strange business processes? Do you remember when HTML 4 came out and everyone and their uncle could now build websites (no matter how ugly and terrible to use)? Yep now everyone can be an Agile coach and everyone can lead Agile transformations! What will we get?… chaos of unsuccessful ugly Agile Transformations!

Here is the good news: This is a necessary evolutionary step. Mass adoption of specific practices, while chaotic, is what will help us to evolve and advance these practices.

Now you may be thinking “Why is this last good news not a prediction?”

Here is my answer “Because it will take more than five years!”

Now it’s your turn… What predictions do you have about the next five years of Business Agility?