#AI@Work: Is Agile Transition Possible?
Currently, AI application is limited. It supplements or eliminates an activity. It replaces a task or provides a niche service. But it won’t be long until this progresses beyond the activity level. The magnitude will be much larger. Leadership with be critical in the Agile transformation. Leadership will need to set expectations, define outcomes and provide feedback. All this is critical to interactive performance. AI will find the way into many different areas. AI transformation will not happen without innate challenges. Many organizations will not be able to meet the demands of new technologies. From the beginning, companies need to ask “Why are we integrating these technologies? How will we measure success?”
For many organizations, transitioning to Agile and managing change takes a big effort. Many technologies will be replaced to incorporate AI. Many processes will be changed. People will have to be trained and retrained and then trained again. The term lifelong learning will take on a new meaning. Frequently companies just focus on new technology. AI will require most of the change to center on culture and organizational management. Technology will play a very small role in the AI transformation. The focus isn’t and shouldn’t be on the technologies. Instead, the focus should be on breakthroughs that AI is expected to help the organization achieve. All this will need to be tempered by an awareness of and empathy for the organization itself and the capacity to change. This is where humans come in and can add knowledge, expertise and insight. It’s not a question of doing. It’s more a question of AI forcing organizations to be Agile: to put people first, to have defined outcomes, to collaborate with each other and to be ready to respond to changes while following a plan
Agile organizations come together to achieve outcomes and are organized around results. What does it take to own an outcome? It takes buying into the vision. It takes putting a plan and the talent together to make it happen. When organizations are departmentalized in the traditional way, each silo has its own priorities, and each function is a handoff. This takes up time. It slows everything down. Agile organizations are about organizing around outcomes not functions or specialties. This is where the term “DevOps” (Development Operations) comes into play. DevOps is the union of cross functional teams organized around outcome delivery. DevOps is people, process and technology coming together to add value. Setting up new structures in traditionally controlled organizations can take time and some effort. When it comes to change, these efforts will pay off .
