Chapter 5. The importance of obtaining executive support
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Those of you with significant business experience know that nothing great was ever achieved without executive support. This is not true because of executive team impact; rather, it’s true because executives will stop any initiative they have not endorsed. They will want details, justification, meetings, and more meetings if they are caught by surprise on a major initiative—and a migration to agile would be considered a major initiative in most companies.
If you surprise the executive team, they may still let you go forward, but you’ll lose energy and momentum if you get sidetracked by not involving them at the start.
Executives are just like everyone else. They have specific needs, and whenever a major initiative is suggested, they want to know what the benefits are for the company and for themselves. In this chapter, we’ll show you how to obtain executive support for agile by addressing the specific needs of your company’s executives.
A few things are guaranteed when you meet with your executive team. They will want answers to the following questions:
- Why are you pursuing this initiative?
- What is the value of this initiative?
- What are the costs?
- What are the risks?
- What will it do for me?
Let’s look at some potential answers to these questions and determine which ones best fit your situation.