What is essential to secure leadership buy-in for scaling up agile?

To secure buy-in from leadership for scaling agile, it is essential to communicate in terms they understand and value. Leadership is typically focused on business outcomes such as return on investment (ROI), risk reduction, market responsiveness, and overall business value. Presenting the benefits of agile using this business-oriented language, rather than focusing on agile-specific jargon or processes, makes the case more compelling and relevant to their strategic objectives. This approach demonstrates a clear link between adopting agile and achieving the organization's goals, which is crucial for gaining their support and commitment.

B. Agile promotes empowered teams and decentralized decision-making, which is the opposite of having all decisions made by leadership.
C. Emphasizing 'doing agile' (practices) without linking it to business value ('being agile' mindset and outcomes) is unlikely to persuade leadership.
D. Empowering teams is a feature of agile, but it is not the primary argument to convince leadership; the business benefits are.

AXELOS. (2015). PRINCE2 Agile®. The Stationery Office. Section 29.3.3, p. 244. "Gaining trust and buy-in... This involves understanding what is important to them (e.g. reducing risk, looking good, achieving a specific business benefit) and then explaining how PRINCE2 Agile will help them."