The first post in 2020 is again a post about an agile framework. The forest is still growing and this will not be the last one. The next one is already under review too.
FLEX, Flow for Enterprise Transformation, developed by Al Shalloway, is designed to be used as a guide for organizations to achieve business agility. It is a platform which lays out the steps required for improving the way a company adds value to its customers, both external and internal. It can be used with Other agile frameworks like SAFe, Nexus, LeSS, Disciplined et cetera. FLEX is designed to work at the organization level, regardless of the size of the organization involved or if only part of the organization is involved. It is designed around flow-thinking, Lean-thinking, the theory of constraints, and organizational development integrated with how people learn and change habits.
FLEX incorporates four shifts in thinking. These are systems-thinking, shifting from frameworks to the work itself, focusing on flow, and attending to organizational development with Lean.
FLEX contains the following components: objectives, practices, agreements and principles, transformation philosophy and natural laws. People make agreements that are organized around working together, not merely follow an approach. The following basis agreements are translated into guardrails (a guardrail includes a variety of questions to check if you are keeping the agreement): drive from business value, collaborate across boundaries, make all work visible, increase predictability, keep WIP within capacity and improve continuously.
There are 4 new roles required when going to scale: business architect, application development manager, technology delivery manager (TDM), and value stream network architect.
As a starting point the following five-step approach to a roadmap can be used:
- See where you are
- Understand the challenges you are having
- Lear a few key principles and practices that will help you overcome these challenges
- Define to begin using FLEX’s starting template and tailoring it for your organization
- Begin and continuously improve
For more information visit: portal.netobjectives.com/pages/flex/
In September 2019 PMI acquired FLEX from Net Objectives. Will PMI create a new agile framework incorporating FLEX, Disciplined Agile and Brightline Transformation Compass? If so, it will generate some open space in my agile forest with the risk that new agile frameworks originate.
Due to the fact that they positioned FLEX as a guide to achieve business agility and to be used together with other frameworks I position FLEX in the culture-targeted box in my Bird’s eye view on the agile forest.
For the complete Bird’s eye view on the agile forest article see: Portman, H. (2019). A bird’s eye view on the agile forest; PM World Journal, Vol. VIII, Issue X, November.
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