[Ed note: For more on advanced Agile at insurers, pre-register for Novarica’s upcoming webinar on February 20.]
Unanticipated roadblocks often arise as insurers migrate from Waterfall to Agile delivery models. Carriers at a higher state of maturity as defined in the Novarica Agile Maturity Model, experience obstacles, as do carriers in emerging and evolving states. Agile challenges long-held practices in decision-making, governance, and reward structures. Most insurers aren’t comfortable changing these practices to support a different model for software delivery. However, tackling the roadblocks is important to achieve the full value of Agile.
Organizational Roadblocks
Decentralized decision-making is often the first roadblock carriers face in their Agile journey. Empowering teams to make the right decisions contradicts the hierarchical decision model in place at many carriers, but enabling decision-making at the team level is crucial to maintaining productivity and delivery cadence. Senior leader engagement at inception, at product demos, and at release kickoffs is an important tactic to keep everyone in alignment. Engaging all levels of management in the transition to Agile helps remove the mystery and can create broader advocacy.
Governance Roadblocks
Traditional stage gate and annual funding governance processes are another barrier to Agile maturity. Agile practices anticipate acceptance of features throughout the delivery cycle focused on prioritized business value, not approval to move to the next stage. Some organizations have been successful in turning the governance conversation into one that describes value delivered coupled with the cost of the Agile teams. Changing the dialogue for governance is an important step in the migration from annual project budgeting to funding Agile product delivery.
Cultural Roadblocks
With the emphasis on team results, salary and bonus programs solely oriented to individual contribution can also be a challenge. Incorporating elements of team recognition, which may be as simple as pizza lunches for improving delivery velocity, helps support the team concept until financial reward systems catch up. Having your HR partner engaged in the Agile journey is also important. Corporate HR policies are slow to change, and an HR advocate who understands the human resource benefits of migrating to Agile is critical.
Novarica’s recent research brief Agile Maturity Model for Insurers provides a rubric for insurers to evaluate their capabilities across multiple dimensions. Tackling obstacles as well as building out practices and advocacy are critical for carriers to continue to evolve in the Agile journey.
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