Agile Events based Agile Transformations

"The World has to be changed by us.. We shouldn't be waiting for somebody to tell when to start the transformation, we should all set a date and time and start the transformation.."

 Agile Transformations are beneficial but really difficult and hard for Organizations that are working with sequential processes. Usually the Employees working in different departments or teams, are not well connected by communication & collaboration platform. 

At the same time, because of the existing day-to-day challenges, the focus on Agile Values, Principles & Practices - related -  Education, Training and implementation becomes (increasingly) very difficult to realize the actual benefits that the Agile Practices can provide (thinking that, agile is only a mindset approach we can address later), so emphasis of Agile mindset is going to be a target instead of goal/journey.

Beyond the Agile Transformation step, i.e., implementation of  Agile Practices, Launching the Continuous Learning, Delivery & Improvement mindset within Organization is next level of the challenge. So in this article, will try to highlight a multi-step process of achieving the transformation through a catalyst approach and simple transformation initiatives that can provide focus and also motivate everyone by ownership.

This approach takes Enterprise / Organization Transformation backlog as the basic concept and provide the Transparency, Inspect & Adapt.

Background or Thought process Origination 

This idea is not new, and came from the like-minded and important people meeting together on the same Goal - best examples of how Agile Manifesto created, Lean Thinking, Agile conferences & meetups happen, Scaled Agile Frameworks are built .

• Agile Conferences
• Meetups
• Open Space meetings
• Team meetings / casual discussions (using Dunbar's number)

The approach is also known as Complete Agile Transformation, because involving all the Business Line/Unit employees like a conference and talk about the goals of the Transformation.

Also, Please note that this transformation only addresses the basic need of starting from Teams adopting Agile practices to Enterprise level Agile practices for better communication, collaboration and agility. So at the Enterprise scale, entire business unit people, will work together - the number of participants are limited by Dunbar's number. This is not a replacement for any Enterprise / Scaling Agile practices  & Frameworks - which are more applicable once the transformation goals are complete.

Aim:

The aim of the transformation steps are, to help the Organization / Organization-units to start from current state to the state where they can adapt the Scaled Agile Frameworks (that is already available) or customizing them to their context.

The basic steps are.. 

1. Create an Enterprise Transformation Backlog
2. Setup the Planning, Decision making processes
3. Create an Enterprise Kanban System to track the stages of the Transformation
4. Launch the Agile Events / Conferences / Education - Training, Workshops based on the stages.
(All Teams in the Unit/this-organization work together on the Transformation goals)
5. Do the assessment, review, retrospectives with the help of the Enterprise level coaches/Facilitators.

(Original image that was posted on 07/21/2016)

CAT 1.0 / New Image on 07/22/2016

Some Tips on this successful execution

1. Involving External (experienced) speakers and facilitators from different companies or individuals can help to get a good progress on Transformation goals. for example: Especially - Training, Education on Agile mindset & technical areas like craftsmanship, DevOps, Continuous Delivery. E.g., External Consultants, Motivational speech and actual Agile/Scrum, Lean/Kanban, SAFe or other Scaled Agile Practices related Training, can help to understand the need for Frameworks and their correct understanding.

2. Transformation Backlog items are intentionally kept light-weight (to provide small important wins) to complete in cadence based approach like Monthly or Quarterly will help to focus on the progress, as well as to change the mindset slowly, from planned to more ownership & self-organized based transformation.

Reasons for Suggesting an Organization wide Agile Event for Transformation is..

1. Agile Events provide great knowledge sharing and ability to guide us on the problems, which are already solved in general context, so that we could apply certain important improvements immediately.

2. But, not everyone in the Organizations has a chance to go to the conferences, instead, if we bring the great events to the Organization and provide the context of Transformation in smaller increments, we could plan to have a common goal with shared understanding.

The success depends on the planning with smaller increments, everyone's participation, transformation goals are defined by pre & post assessment of the events and implementation - cadence (monthly, quarterly demonstrations) and synchronization with common and different tracks (like technical, business, support etc.,) - of the transformation goals.

will add more thoughts to this approach.

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Thank You.