What to expect from agile

Birkinshaw, J (2018) What to expect from agile. MIT Sloan Management Review, 59 (2). pp. 39-42. ISSN 1532-9194

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to shed light on agile as a management practice. To do this, I report on a detailed case study of the operations of ING bank in the Netherlands, which has adopted agile across its headquarters in Amsterdam. Though ING's Dutch operations are less than three years into the process -- and it's therefore premature to declare the initiative a success -- taking a deep dive into the organization's early experience with adopting agile is nonetheless instructive. Most IT departments in large companies today are adopting agile techniques to some extent, although with varying degrees of success. In this article, I highlight key learnings at ING in the Netherlands, largely from the point of view of the senior executives of the bank during this transition period, and I reflect on some of the broader implications. ING also conducted an internal study, which highlighted how bureaucracy, silos, and risk aversion were cultural problems.