Develop an Agile Transformation Roadmap
By clarifying the vision and charting the agile transformation, the change agent will build executive pull.
Transform Incrementally
Development of the delivery of value requires iterative training designed to isolate and train all teams. These teams are trained separately before replicating across the organization.
Assign a smaller Agile Pilot team that works ahead. Create the framework that will live on, and take a slice of the organization and iterate. With the Pilot team, develop trust and predictability within the organization by developing a delivery framework. Strong governance and product ownership will ensure clarity of the product backlog. The addition of team accountability and metrics guarantees coverage of the basics.
While reducing barriers to agility, such as shared resources and demand-capacity mismatches, on subsequent iterations, the Agile Pilot team should stabilize velocity, reduce batch size, and break dependencies with other teams.
After several iterations with the Agile Pilot, initiate the Agile Rollout across the remainder of the firm. The team should work to bolster governance immediately when the vision of the product becomes unclear.
Structure / Team
Service Teams support common services across product lines, and the needs of the product teams.
Product Teams, the prototypical Scrum Teams, integrate services and write customer facing features.
Program Teams define requirements, set technical direction, and provide context and coordination.
Portfolio Teams govern the portfolio and ensure that work is moving through the system.
Governance/ User story creation
Wrap the Scrum Teams in a Kanban framework of portfolio/program management. Scrum manages product and service teams, and forms the base. Portfolio teams use Kanban to manage program teams, which use Kanban to mange the product and service teams.
Metrics & tools / Value and ROI
Product and Service teams measure backlog size, velocity, burndown, escaped defects, commit % ratio, acceptance % ratio and scope change.
Program teams measure cycle time, features blocked, and rework/defects.
Portfolio teams measure cycle time, time/cost/scope/value, and ROI/Capitalization
What do you think?
What does your transformation roadmap look like? What would you like to start implementing?
See also:
Agile Transformation… (1/4) – Theory of Transformation
Agile Transformation… (2/4) – Ways to drive the Transformation
Agile Transformation… (3/4) – The fundamentals of Agile Transformation
References:
Cottemeyer, Mike, 29 October 2014, Why Agile is Failing in Large Enterprises & What You Can Do About It, Tampa Bay Agile Meetup presentation, hosted by Valpak Manufacturing Center, St. Petersburg, FL.
SAFe, 2014, Scaled Agile Framework, a scaled agile model based on self-organizing teams producing potentially shippable increments.
About Dan & Agile and Beyond:
Dan Feldman is the creator and host of the Agile and Beyond podcast. With Agile practitioners, design thinkers, team builders, organization designers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries, he explores the future of work, education, and society. With the digital age demanding greater collaboration, enhanced creativity, and heightened agility, he examines avant-garde, responsive, collaborative team and organization designs as well as the shifts in our individual and collective perception of experience and purpose. Tune in!
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