Transformation to Agile is not easy

I had the opportunity to meet Peter Measey as trainer of my Certified Scrum Product Owner course and since then I started to read his blog. Some time ago I read an article about how the transformation to agile can be difficult and he made me think about it. I know that the transformation to agile is not easy for large organizations that worked many years with a waterfall methodology. It requires time and it requires a change in all the level of the organization and after all these changes it can happen that the organization is still far to be really agile.  One important aspect of the transition is overcoming the individual resistance and it’s not easy because human being are involved. From Peter Measey’s blog:

“If you think that transforming an IT system from one technical platform to another is challenging, try doing a technical transformation where the platforms have a mind of their own and may not want to change, or even have the ability to change!”

Working in a large organization that wants to go towards agile and knowing that the transformation is complex I always had one question in my mind:

Can a large organization, alone, be successful in the transformation to agile?

When I say “alone” I mean without asking for help from external agile transformation experts.
Maybe the transformation is possible but more painful and longer because you cannot rely on lessons learned or common patterns among different organizations or maybe it will end, as Peter says, to what is known as “FRAgile” or “WAgile” where organizations are not really agile even if they think to be. I don’t have my personal answer to this question right now… In the meanwhile I’m still thinking on Peter’s questions:

“Would you try to write a software system without employing expert software developers ? So why would you think that something much harder (such as transforming an organisation of human beings) can be done by people who don’t understand transformation? ”