Nadir has contracted with us on many occasions and brings great knowledge and insight in his area of specialisation – Agile Coaching.

Here are a few questions I put to Nadir to get his views on the Agile revolution we are experiencing in the Tech industry.

A lot of large organisations are undergoing Agile Transformation. Do you think these enterprises truly transform?

The answer depends on how you’re defining “Agile Transformation”? To most (not all) organisations in Australia these days, Agile Transformation means a floor-to-ceiling adoption of any Agile framework (SAFe being the most popular choice at the moment). The success of transformation in these instances is measured by how religiously ceremonies are followed, how frequently features are shipped to production, whether there are prioritised backlogs of work at portfolio, program and delivery levels and so on. If this is how you define enterprise transformation then yes, many organisations can and have truly transformed. Whether these transformations have helped these companies or whether the change will “stick” is a completely different story.

Do you then think Agile Transformations are here to stay or are they just another fad?

In the last seven years or so I have seen many organisations fund programs like: “Future ready IT”, “Next Generation Program”, “New ways of working”, “Customer Transformation Program”, “Innovation hubs” etc. If anything, the momentum has picked up even more in the last two to three years with some large businesses undergoing a second or even third wave of “Agile Transformation”. These programs are heavily funded and typically run for a period of two to three years. My read is, that Australian organisations will continue down this path for another three-five years, after which most organisations will be ‘change-fatigued’ and you’ll start to see Transformation programs trending downwards.

So what does that mean for Agile recruitment in 2018?

You will see an unprecedented demand for Agile coaches, Iteration Managers, and Scrum Masters. With a shortage of experienced practitioners, you will also start seeing a lot of Project Managers moving into Agile Delivery Manager and Iteration Manager roles. LeSS and SAFe certified practitioners will be in high demand as well.

Gideon Donaldson is a Senior Consultant – Enterprise Systems at Davidson Technology