Fail Fast and Cheap to Modernise Enterprises

Agility is one of the primary pillars in our enterprise modernisation framework. As Enterprise Architects in this economic climate, we must be agile, act quickly, and think on our feet at all times. This agility can help us be more influential, competitive, and productive to create expected business value.

Our key question is how to make our IT footprint more intuitive, responsive, and agile day-to-day. This approach is a foundational requirement of modernisation initiatives. Whist dealing with legacy IT footprint to understand it in an agile manner, as Enterprise Architects, we also need to have the vision of well-functioning modernisation and put our energies on rapid-paced iterative modernisation initiatives.

It is not feasible to undertake successful modernisation initiatives with old methods. As this became a reality, many organisations embraced agility and matured in delivering rapidly. Agility became a particular concern for modernisation and digital transformations as consumer demands are increasing based on fast-paced delivery requirements.

Speed to market is one of the most fundamental requirements of businesses nowadays. Agile became the new norm in modernising enterprises. Products are expected to be released faster than they were in the past. Security updates and bug fixes are required more frequently. Agility affects all aspects of enterprise modernisation. Besides, Enterprise Architects need to act, behave and approach in agility to every aspect of the modernisation solutions.

Promoting agile in enterprises nowadays is reasonably easy due to its nature and compelling reasons. Agile is a particular interest to the new generations as they grow with agility in all walks of life. However, the older generation still has a sentimental attachment to waterfall methods. There appears to be some comfort zone created for using waterfall methods.

There is a common perception that Agile methods cut things short hence reduce the quality; however, this is not true, or at least context-specific. An Agile approach increases the quality due to iterative approaches and checking quality more frequently in every iterative milestone.

Enterprise Architects can articulate the benefits and compelling reasons to use the Agile approach, especially for modernisations leading to digital transformations. It is not feasible to wait and see the end of gigantic digital transformation projects. There are many unknowns; hence, it is not possible to see the end product without experimentation and constant trial and error in smaller scales for modernisation.

An agile approach allows the team members to test their ideas iteratively. If they fail, they fail fast and cheaply without costing lots of funds to the initiatives. This business value needs to be understood well and needs to be embedded in the culture of the organisations striving for modernisation goals. Enterprise Architects must be the catalyst for conveying the message and making the necessary cultural adjustments effectively.