Review Empowered Agile Transformation – Beyond the Framework

Alexandra Stokes reveals in her book Empowered Agile Transformation – Beyond the Framework, how large and small organizations have achieved a successful transformation without large consultancies or heavy agile frameworks. What steps do you have to take to start with and achieve a successful transformation.

There is no ‘one way’ to transform an organization. It is a journey, a means of continuous improvement or mindset change.

An Agile mindset is far more valuable than a purchased framework. With Agile ways of working, it is far more powerful to focus on the mindset and principles we can all agree to than to look for inspiration in premade trademarked frameworks.

After the goal of your transformation is clear (e.g., reduce delay, reduce dependencies, start work sooner, reduce the impact of risk, make work visible) you can start with the creation of awareness for change:

• Taking Mohammed to the mountain “Genchi genbutsu”
• Start a pilot what it is to work as an agile team
• Tackle the big problem – using design thinking
• Get execs to talk, and come along to the talk
• Never waste a conversaion
• The gift of agility
• Write down the whole end to end process model
• Tackle agile funding – when it’s time.

Gathering like-minded advocates can be one of the most powerful and enjoyable patterns to apply in boosting your transformation success. Some other best practices are:

• Voluntary agile work groups
• Forming a prioritized backlog of topics
• Regular get-together on a cadence
• Low-friction
• Study expeditions
• An active sharing channel
• Inclusive groups
• External guest presenters
• Do food (brown bag sessions or pizza/drinks afterwards)
• Do not constrain, keep meetings open and self-organizing

Next co-design with your change agents a way of transforming. Sensemaking helps to understand how people are currently working, whether they get blocked, and where value is dormant, waiting for other people to release it. Where do you need to look next in your organization to progress your transformation. Prioritize, limit WIP to focus, experiment and measure if you moving towards your goals.

Part of your transformation could be, and often is, a restructure. When an organization is not structured with a focus on value creation, but built around functional reporting lines, these functional silos work against each other to optimize themselves, rather than the overall company mission. These existing structures needs to be broken down and that hurts. Departments and Job titles will disappear, tribes, squads and new role types emerge. You have to be structured to match the way value flows (value streams). The bureaucratic hierarchy must be replaced by coordination and control at the team level. The new structure must be organized for autonomy, connection between squads with ‘glue’. The tribes should be ‘long running teams’ and the squads must be kept small. Alignment between tribes is based on mission not hierarchy.

Once you have identified value streams and co-designed an organization structure you desire, with missions clear and readiness of the teams assessed you can commence launching mission aligned teams (start with the squads, then to move onto the value aligned tribes working to achieve missions).

Conclusion. This book helps you to understand why you need and what it means to transform your organization. It gives many, many case studies from companies that have used the principles inside this book as well as lots of techniques to use. It shows the steps to take to make your transformation work. You can find over 100 of the most commonly asked questions and objections corporate leaders have when trying to transform and answers, summarized in agile clinics. it’s definitely a book I can recommend.

To order the book Empowered Agile Transformation: managementboek, Amazon