Agile Transformation Basics
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I want to share the translation of a brief, but quite sensible cheat sheet on Agile-transformation.
Original article here .
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To achieve success in today's market situation, companies must quickly supply customers with a quality product increment (product increment - “tangible result of a single sprint” (for example, a new product function, application prototype, etc.) - te-st.ru/2017 / 07/04/12-terms-of-scrum ).
It is equally important to be flexible and be able to respond to the feedback received from customers. This means a transition to a flexible strategy from the now prevailing traditional approach to organizing, managing and financing work.
For small companies, Agile-transformation is not likely to cause difficulties, since the implementation of this strategy can be accomplished simply by gathering everyone in one room and agreeing among themselves.
However, in large organizations with a complex structure and heavy "heredity" in the form of an outdated technological architecture, the transformation must be carefully planned and organized to ensure that the efforts and investments invested in the process of change will create value for the business and will really lead to that the company will become flexible and adaptable to change.
Agile transformation is the work of reorganizing a company, as a result of which it can work on the principles of Agile.
What is this article about:
By and large, Agile Transformation is the story of how to create teams, build backlogs, and regularly supply increments of tested and workable software. On the scale of a larger organization, this includes creating a network of loosely coupled teams, coordinating dependencies, working with negative consequences, quickly launching a product to the market, and measuring the bandwidth of teams, not their performance.
The meaning of Agile-transformation is precisely in the elimination of obstacles that hinder the implementation of all these actions.
The starting point of an agile transformation is understanding where your company is at the moment and where you need to go. To answer this question, you need to deal with two concepts.
First, you should consider the value setting of your company in the context of planning. What is more valuable to you - predictability of supply or the ability to adapt to change? For most companies, both are valuable, and this leads to negative consequences.
The more you set up a system for predictability, the harder it is to change it. Conversely, the more you add adaptability to a system, the less predictable it is.
The second thing that should be seriously considered is the value of your product for the client in terms of planning. Do you try to understand what your client needs (we call it an open ecosystem — the emergent ecosystem), or are you only focused on fulfilling its obligations (we call it a closed ecosystem — convergent ecosystem)?
We built a 2x2 matrix, four sectors of which will help you understand where your company is today and decide which way you need to go in order to get the business benefits you are targeting.
The path to an adaptively open company often goes through the sector of predictability and closure (convergence), then through the adaptively closed sector (convergence-adaptability) and only then reaches the adaptively open part of the matrix (adaptability - emergence).
The whole process is built around the formation of teams, defining a management model based on the principles of Agile, and also choosing and accepting as a starting point those metrics that
important to the company — they will be used to measure and track improvements.
Your agile transformation strategy will ultimately depend on your company's value system and your customers' value system.
The most important thing is to understand how to plan correctly so that the transformation ensures regular incremental deliveries of business value. The goal is to change the way work is done. Perhaps you are already moving from the big bang practice — rare and major releases — to regular and small shipments. Transformation management should be done in the same way.
Although the agile transformation of one company is not similar to others, usually all companies go through the following stages:
Step 1. Form a team of leaders
Agile transformation will require changes in all elements of the business, and therefore management support will be needed. Make sure that the top managers are with you at the same time and are aware of what is going to happen.
Step 2. Define the end state vision.
Of course, we need an understanding of where we are going before we start moving. However, being pragmatists, we understand that the plan will undergo changes, because it includes working hypotheses about the structure, management and metrics that we will constantly refine during the transformation. There are well-known team building practices in large companies and coordinating these teams to ensure their performance.
Step 3. Draw a transformation roadmap
From which team, resource or group to start the transformation? Which unit will continue this process? And who will support him then? We need to tell the company what we are going to do, how long it will take, and what we expect to receive in return for the investment. We call the groups that are undergoing transformation, expeditions, and the intermediate results they achieve are base camps (basecamps).
Step 4. Make a flexible plan for 90 days
A team of transformation leaders meets for planning, evaluating success, adjusting the plan if necessary. The main goal of the team is to have a flexible 90-day plan and a rather non-standard idea of ​​what will happen. A 90-day plan is similar to flexible release planning or PI planning . The plan will list all the processes in the company that will be affected by the transformation over the next 90 days.
Step 5. Conduct an intermediate check of results every 30 days.
Like the cyclical nature of the sprint, you need to periodically assess the progress of the transformation, conduct retrospectives and adjust the process.
Step 6. Adapt and learn
Reconsider the vision of the end state based on how your understanding of success in the Agile transformation process has evolved.
Step 7. Link your actions with the results.
The main reason you started the transformation process is to achieve better business results. We begin to justify the investment, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments, demonstrating results and changing strategies depending on what we have learned. Taking into account the fact that you will not know in advance all your actions in the course of transformation, your goal is to correctly build a sequence of results to be achieved, as well as to make sure that the actions you perform correspond to the results in the business you want to achieve.
Step 8. Link transformation results to business goals.
You need to track improvements to the system to tangible benefits to the business, as well as regularly demonstrate to management a positive dynamic of the main business metrics. The main goal is to visualize a clear and obvious link between the money invested and the measurable results achieved.
Step 9. Manage communications
Regular and transparent communication about the successes and difficulties that transformation leaders face will create a positive atmosphere and give you energy. Such meetings are often held in the format of a general meeting, a round table with management and other types of information meetings.
Step 10. Ensure the safety of all participants in the process.
Tell all the participants in the transformation what benefits they will get from it and what place they will occupy in the new structure of the company. Ensure transparency, accountability and measurable progress for everyone.
For a successful transformation of a large and complex company, an Agile transformation roadmap is absolutely necessary. The “somehow-understand-on-the-go” approach will simply not work here. In our experience, successful transformations follow the following roadmap:
At the initial stage, you need to look at your company as a whole and define the business goals of the transformation. The end state vision will define a team building scenario, a sequence of actions, determine a management model, and create metrics and strategic tools for determining baseline performance and measuring improvements.
As a result, the company will prepare the first expedition and launch a pilot project that will help determine the base camps needed to implement the changes.
This phase includes the formation, preparation and training of teams - effectively advancing expeditions, which are constantly progressing, moving from one base camp to another. As teams mature, the final state is reached, basic metrics are collected, improvements are regularly measured, and information about them is publicly distributed.
At this stage, the structure, management and metrics will begin to consolidate into a single whole, and an internal set of best practices will begin to form in the company. During this period and as the transformation process progresses, centralized documentation of these practices will become invaluable to your company. You will need to create educational and informational materials, “cheat sheets” on the transformation process. It will also be useful to develop methods and strategies for adapting coaches within the company, regularly conducting organizational certification and working with negative consequences.
Author: Tim Zack, a born IT specialist, has been solving marketing problems for more than 10 years with the help of technology. Tim's competencies encompass strategic planning, UX, analytics, marketing automation, content marketing, and search marketing. One of its advantages is experience in various industries.
I want to share the translation of a brief, but quite sensible cheat sheet on Agile-transformation.
Original article here .
')
To achieve success in today's market situation, companies must quickly supply customers with a quality product increment (product increment - “tangible result of a single sprint” (for example, a new product function, application prototype, etc.) - te-st.ru/2017 / 07/04/12-terms-of-scrum ).
It is equally important to be flexible and be able to respond to the feedback received from customers. This means a transition to a flexible strategy from the now prevailing traditional approach to organizing, managing and financing work.
For small companies, Agile-transformation is not likely to cause difficulties, since the implementation of this strategy can be accomplished simply by gathering everyone in one room and agreeing among themselves.
However, in large organizations with a complex structure and heavy "heredity" in the form of an outdated technological architecture, the transformation must be carefully planned and organized to ensure that the efforts and investments invested in the process of change will create value for the business and will really lead to that the company will become flexible and adaptable to change.
Agile transformation is the work of reorganizing a company, as a result of which it can work on the principles of Agile.
What is this article about:
- What is the meaning of agile transformation?
- Transformation strategy
- 10 Steps to Successful Agile Transformation
- Agile Transformation Roadmap
What is the meaning of agile transformation?
By and large, Agile Transformation is the story of how to create teams, build backlogs, and regularly supply increments of tested and workable software. On the scale of a larger organization, this includes creating a network of loosely coupled teams, coordinating dependencies, working with negative consequences, quickly launching a product to the market, and measuring the bandwidth of teams, not their performance.
The meaning of Agile-transformation is precisely in the elimination of obstacles that hinder the implementation of all these actions.
Transformation strategy
The starting point of an agile transformation is understanding where your company is at the moment and where you need to go. To answer this question, you need to deal with two concepts.
First, you should consider the value setting of your company in the context of planning. What is more valuable to you - predictability of supply or the ability to adapt to change? For most companies, both are valuable, and this leads to negative consequences.
The more you set up a system for predictability, the harder it is to change it. Conversely, the more you add adaptability to a system, the less predictable it is.
The second thing that should be seriously considered is the value of your product for the client in terms of planning. Do you try to understand what your client needs (we call it an open ecosystem — the emergent ecosystem), or are you only focused on fulfilling its obligations (we call it a closed ecosystem — convergent ecosystem)?
Our coordinate system
We built a 2x2 matrix, four sectors of which will help you understand where your company is today and decide which way you need to go in order to get the business benefits you are targeting.
The path to an adaptively open company often goes through the sector of predictability and closure (convergence), then through the adaptively closed sector (convergence-adaptability) and only then reaches the adaptively open part of the matrix (adaptability - emergence).
The whole process is built around the formation of teams, defining a management model based on the principles of Agile, and also choosing and accepting as a starting point those metrics that
important to the company — they will be used to measure and track improvements.
Your agile transformation strategy will ultimately depend on your company's value system and your customers' value system.
10 Steps to Agile Transformation
The most important thing is to understand how to plan correctly so that the transformation ensures regular incremental deliveries of business value. The goal is to change the way work is done. Perhaps you are already moving from the big bang practice — rare and major releases — to regular and small shipments. Transformation management should be done in the same way.
Although the agile transformation of one company is not similar to others, usually all companies go through the following stages:
Step 1. Form a team of leaders
Agile transformation will require changes in all elements of the business, and therefore management support will be needed. Make sure that the top managers are with you at the same time and are aware of what is going to happen.
Step 2. Define the end state vision.
Of course, we need an understanding of where we are going before we start moving. However, being pragmatists, we understand that the plan will undergo changes, because it includes working hypotheses about the structure, management and metrics that we will constantly refine during the transformation. There are well-known team building practices in large companies and coordinating these teams to ensure their performance.
Step 3. Draw a transformation roadmap
From which team, resource or group to start the transformation? Which unit will continue this process? And who will support him then? We need to tell the company what we are going to do, how long it will take, and what we expect to receive in return for the investment. We call the groups that are undergoing transformation, expeditions, and the intermediate results they achieve are base camps (basecamps).
Step 4. Make a flexible plan for 90 days
A team of transformation leaders meets for planning, evaluating success, adjusting the plan if necessary. The main goal of the team is to have a flexible 90-day plan and a rather non-standard idea of ​​what will happen. A 90-day plan is similar to flexible release planning or PI planning . The plan will list all the processes in the company that will be affected by the transformation over the next 90 days.
Step 5. Conduct an intermediate check of results every 30 days.
Like the cyclical nature of the sprint, you need to periodically assess the progress of the transformation, conduct retrospectives and adjust the process.
Step 6. Adapt and learn
Reconsider the vision of the end state based on how your understanding of success in the Agile transformation process has evolved.
Step 7. Link your actions with the results.
The main reason you started the transformation process is to achieve better business results. We begin to justify the investment, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments, demonstrating results and changing strategies depending on what we have learned. Taking into account the fact that you will not know in advance all your actions in the course of transformation, your goal is to correctly build a sequence of results to be achieved, as well as to make sure that the actions you perform correspond to the results in the business you want to achieve.
Step 8. Link transformation results to business goals.
You need to track improvements to the system to tangible benefits to the business, as well as regularly demonstrate to management a positive dynamic of the main business metrics. The main goal is to visualize a clear and obvious link between the money invested and the measurable results achieved.
Step 9. Manage communications
Regular and transparent communication about the successes and difficulties that transformation leaders face will create a positive atmosphere and give you energy. Such meetings are often held in the format of a general meeting, a round table with management and other types of information meetings.
Step 10. Ensure the safety of all participants in the process.
Tell all the participants in the transformation what benefits they will get from it and what place they will occupy in the new structure of the company. Ensure transparency, accountability and measurable progress for everyone.
Agile Transformation Roadmap
For a successful transformation of a large and complex company, an Agile transformation roadmap is absolutely necessary. The “somehow-understand-on-the-go” approach will simply not work here. In our experience, successful transformations follow the following roadmap:
Where to start: form a vision of the final state
At the initial stage, you need to look at your company as a whole and define the business goals of the transformation. The end state vision will define a team building scenario, a sequence of actions, determine a management model, and create metrics and strategic tools for determining baseline performance and measuring improvements.
As a result, the company will prepare the first expedition and launch a pilot project that will help determine the base camps needed to implement the changes.
Transformation begins: pilot project and launch
This phase includes the formation, preparation and training of teams - effectively advancing expeditions, which are constantly progressing, moving from one base camp to another. As teams mature, the final state is reached, basic metrics are collected, improvements are regularly measured, and information about them is publicly distributed.
Maintain Continuity of Change
At this stage, the structure, management and metrics will begin to consolidate into a single whole, and an internal set of best practices will begin to form in the company. During this period and as the transformation process progresses, centralized documentation of these practices will become invaluable to your company. You will need to create educational and informational materials, “cheat sheets” on the transformation process. It will also be useful to develop methods and strategies for adapting coaches within the company, regularly conducting organizational certification and working with negative consequences.
Author: Tim Zack, a born IT specialist, has been solving marketing problems for more than 10 years with the help of technology. Tim's competencies encompass strategic planning, UX, analytics, marketing automation, content marketing, and search marketing. One of its advantages is experience in various industries.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/452358/
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