It is easy to appreciate why Agile has become the default project management style for so many technology initiatives. Fast iterations, continuous feedback, and adaptable requirements seem like obvious advantages. Agile revolutionized software development, but when applied to Identity, Access, Governance, and Management (IAM/IGA) projects of significant scope, it often collapses under its own weight, becoming a liability rather than an advantage. IAM projects are not ordinary IT rollouts. They are compliance-driven, audit-heavy, and deeply integrated into the core fabric of an organization's operations. Here, “move fast and break things” isn’t innovative - it’s dangerous.
Identity projects differ fundamentally from application development projects. In a conventional software sprint, missing a feature or shipping with known defects can be corrected through future iterations. Identity, however, touches every system, every user, and often every audit trail across the enterprise. When access control breaks down, or identity governance is only partially implemented, the consequences are not a minor inconvenience, they are material risks to security, compliance, and operational continuity. Attempting to "iterate" over core identity processes or access rights almost guarantees inconsistent states between systems, gaps in governance, and ultimately loss of trust in the identity system itself.
Typical Agile emphasizes flexible scope, self-contained team autonomy, and minimal viable product delivery. But IAM/IGA projects depend on locked scope, cross-organizational coordination, and full validation at every stage. Identity spans legacy systems, hybrid cloud environments, third-party integrations, and regulatory controls. No single "sprint team" owns all the necessary pieces. No user story can fully capture the cascading risks that emerge when an entitlement misfires or a governance workflow breaks.
The larger the IAM scope, the greater the danger. When you are managing hundreds of applications, thousands of roles, or millions of entitlements, Agile’s preference for incremental building without rigid stage validation only increases technical debt. And by the time a misstep is discovered during production rollouts or audits, remediation costs have already skyrocketed. I know of one healthcare organization that added two years to its IAM project due to the strict adherence to an Agile only process. A lot of early work had to be redone due to requirements that were not captured or tracked earlier. The next big failure was the work the client had to do to update their API’s to work with the new system was never started because it was not thought about until a late sprint. The new IAM system was ready to go but the API’s were not there. On paper the project looked like it had high productivity but in reality, Agile just hid the truth of where they were. Because none of the work done so far reflected the work on the API’s the project had to be restarted. As a digital transformation led project it was a failure of process over production.
IAM and IGA demand more than speed, they demand control, precision, and stage-by-stage risk management. That’s why Stage-Gate Agile was created: to merge the best of Agile's adaptability with the discipline of structured phase gates. With Stage-Gate Agile, organizations can move fast, but only when checkpoints for governance, risk review, and stakeholder alignment have been satisfied. It’s not about slowing down innovation; it’s about ensuring innovation doesn't leave critical systems, and people, exposed.
Identity is too important to gamble with.
If your organization is preparing for a major IAM, access management, or governance initiative, it’s time to rethink how you approach project execution. Don’t try to "Agile" your way through. Adopt a Stage-Gate Agile approach, and deliver security, compliance, and trust—by design.
