Breaking Through the Barriers Agile calls for sweeping changes in deep-rooted ways of working. It starts with leadership. Used to a command-and-control management structure and its associated behaviors, the C-suite has a propensity to attribute the barriers to agile to ‘somewhere down there’ within the organization. Instead top executives need to be ready to model the following behaviors: € Values-based leadership € People empowerment and distributed leadership € Test and learn leadership € Product leadership € Partnership and engagement among bus iness and technology experts Agile leadership also demands empowering change agents in agile teams, and providing support so they can drive transformation. This work is not easy. Here are seven ways retail organizations can overcome the most common barriers to agile adoption: 1. Espouse strong leadership commitment. Paying lip service to agile is not sucient; the CEO, and all top-level executives, must be committed and engaged. This commitment begins with education: engaging coaches and trainers who can teach business stakeholders the principles of agile, and conduct exercises to practice and inculcate its collaborative and inclusive methodology. All business leaders should understand and internalize both the need for change and the essence of the agile approach. They must assume product ownership, including responsibility for defining the product roadmap and instituting short feedback loops to learn from and act on end-user feedback.