Why Agile Digital Transformation Fails
Using Agile in an Age of Digital Transformation
Agile frameworks drive digital transformation, reinventing businesses through technology-centric approaches. It transforms collaboration, culture, and customer engagement but presents challenges with software glitches and regression bugs. Agile transformations can fail due to core reasons.
Sloppy Regression Testing in Agile Transformation
Modifications can send out surprising ripples in your source code, so regression bugs require a no-tolerance approach in agile practice, where every glitch builds on the glitches before it. Agile regression testing must keep your functions in play by the end of each sprint while trying to break the software with a series of demanding scenarios. Agile transformations that adopt scrum rules without adopting their principles often fail. No amount of iterative planning can remove the controlling mindsets of teams who haven't adopted an agile way of working. For agile digital transformation to work, everyone involved must support their flexibility wholeheartedly.Letting Your Intentions Rule Your Process
Agile development requires you to let go of your control of the future so that you don't cling to initial objectives at the expense of agility. Regression tests must account for volatile changes that may wipe entire iterations out. IT teams can't allow themselves to be ruled by their regression tests or their initial goals. The balance is a subtle but important one. For large organizations, manual testing is only a starting point. Automated testing is an important way to test sub-systems, but it comes with a heavy investment that may not serve smaller, less profitable projects. Scaled agile can adapt to the size of your project, but automation should be chosen on its merits, and not merely to save time. Automating bad tests only creates the illusion of efficiency. Smoke testing uses a subset of test cases to cover core workflows, while sanity tests run through basic functionality to confirm that it does what it was intended to do. Both can be handled at a rapid pace, preparing for regression testing on systems that aren't performing as expected.An agile way of working leaves no room for error. New functionalities can be continuously innovated to improve user experience, but agile teams must find a delicate balance between quality and speed. Regression testing is prone to subjectivity and maladaptation, so an empirical approach is needed to overcome subjectivity at team level. Test engineers and agile teams must prepare test cases objectively, always with an eye to the first prize: user satisfaction. Regression testing is the perfect tool for digital transformation as long as it's empirically managed. Testing should be run, not with the goal of succeeding, but failing. Only with a tough barrage of tests can your agile process achieve its true intent. Empirical feedback will keep your sprints functional, ensuring that your digital transformation achieves its highest possible efficiency.
