Why aren't my products not getting to market faster?

One of the benefits of agile is a faster time to market. There is an essential component of agile in this scenario that is not in place; you need to identify it. Though agile is tailored for your particular context, the indispensable agile values, principles, and practices must remain intact.

In a genuine agile working environment, a team follows agile values, principles, and practices.

Values

Is the team following the four agile values from the Agile Manifesto? Or perhaps they are following a set plan instead of responding to change.

Principles

Is the team following the twelve agile principles? Or perhaps the team has begun to release less frequently, forgetting to satisfy the customer with continuous delivery.

Practices

By continuously reprioritizing the team’s current work, the team can incrementally release work valued by your customers. This prioritization is done during backlog grooming and Sprint Planning. The team delivers release-ready stories during each iteration.

In Scaled Agile, teams release features at the end of every Program Increment (PI). Release-ready means that the work – whether the Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) or Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – is developed, tested, and has undergone system integration. It is truly ready to release to the customer.

If this is not what is happening on your team, then one or more of the agile values, principles, and practices is missing. In your regularly cadenced improvement activities, such as Retrospective, Inspect & Adapt, and assessments, what concerns are being raised? Scrum Masters or Release Train Engineers coach agile and build an improvement backlog.

By working within the agile values, principles, and practices, you’ll be able to reap agile results. As you move forward, continually assess to ensure you improve your agility.