Post by clickarest

Why many organisations call it agile — but still work in waterfall If you spend some time in organisations that have transitioned to an agile setup, you start to notice that the terminology changes much faster than the way work actually gets done. There are agile ceremonies, feature teams, ATCs and clearly defined roles like Product Owner or Scrum Master. On paper, the structure looks modern and aligned with current frameworks. In practice, however, many of these organisations are still heavily shaped by their original structures and dependencies. Work is often still organised along functional lines, decisions move through established hierarchies and delivery depends on multiple handovers between teams. The result is a setup that carries the language of agile, but operates with a mindset that is much closer to waterfall. One of the more complex aspects in this transition sits with the business side. Many departments are used to owning processes in a more isolated and centralised way. In an agile environment, their role changes fundamentally. Instead of defining complete processes upfront, they are expected to work much more closely with development, contribute in smaller increments and stay involved throughout the implementation. This shift is not trivial. For many people in business roles, thinking in terms of technical implementation has never been part of their daily work. Expecting them to suddenly translate business needs into something that fits directly into development is often unrealistic without proper support and alignment. At the same time, development teams sometimes expect a level of technical clarity from business or BA roles that goes beyond what those roles can reasonably provide. The expectation that requirements arrive as a fully thought-through technical design ignores the fact that translation between business intent and technical implementation is a shared responsibility. What emerges is not a single problem, but a combination of mismatched expectations. Business expects guidance, development expects clarity and both sides operate within structures that still reflect older ways of working. Calling this setup agile does not automatically make it so. Real agility only starts to show when structures, responsibilities and expectations begin to align with the way work is actually executed — not just with the terminology used to describe it. ⸻ #ChangeAndStructure #Agile #Scrum #Organisations #ProcessDesign #OperationalReality #Execution #clickarest