Beyond IT: Why Your Least Agile Department Limits Your Entire Organization

Introduction

Why do some Agile transformations stall—even after teams adopt Scrum, Kanban, or DevOps? According to Evan Leybourn’s Theory of Agile Constraints, the answer lies in a surprisingly simple truth: your organization’s agility is only as strong as its weakest link. Often, that link isn’t where you expect it.

The Theory of Agile Constraints: A Holistic View of Agility

Agile isn’t just about software teams anymore. Leybourn’s insight reframes agility as a system-wide flow problem, where improvement depends on identifying and addressing the biggest constraint, regardless of which department it lives in.

🔍 Identifying the Constraint

• Every organization has a bottleneck that slows the entire value stream from idea to delivery.

• Twenty years ago, this was often IT. Today, it’s more likely to be HR, Finance, Legal, or the PMO.

• Think of the organization like a traffic system—if one major intersection is blocked, it doesn’t matter how fast other roads are.

🔧 Addressing the Constraint to Improve Flow

• Once identified, the constraint must be addressed to improve throughput.

• For example:

• If development is slow, introducing Scrum may help.

• But stopping there is a mistake. Scrum improves dev teams, not the full system.

• Organizations often stall here, failing to search for the next bottleneck.

🔁 Iterative Improvement Drives Agility

• Fixing one constraint often reveals the next—this is the heart of continuous improvement.

• Examples:

• After streamlining development, deployment becomes the issue—cue DevOps.

• Budgeting slows down: cue Lean Portfolio Management or Beyond Budgeting.

• True agility means moving from isolated improvements to an iterative, systemic evolution pattern.

🧠 It’s Not Just About Adopting Agile Frameworks

• Simply asking HR or Legal to “go Agile” won’t cut it.

• Cultural, operational, and experiential differences make plug-and-play frameworks ineffective in non-IT contexts.

• Instead, rethink how these departments contribute to outcomes—not just how they work.

🌍 The Payoff: Organizational Agility

• Removing cross-functional bottlenecks increases adaptability.

• The organization becomes better equipped to navigate market ambiguity, shift priorities, and seize opportunities.

• In short: agility stops being a team-level capability and becomes a business-wide advantage.

Agility isn’t a tech problem—it’s a systems problem. As Agile leaders, it’s our job to look beyond team-level velocity and into the flow of value across the whole organization. The next constraint might be outside your lane, but ignoring it stalls everyone. Start mapping your bottlenecks. The future of your organization’s adaptability depends on it.