Agile Transformation, Support Services, and Capability Uplift: Here I Report on a Unified Roadmap to Business Agility

The re-structuring of people and processes can transform company performance and energize the workplace, but often change leaders need to act quickly to maintain organizational momentum. When asked to join a company-wide effort to convert operational support to a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) model, I recognized this directive as an opportunity to redefine our service delivery objectives for Information Technology. My goal was to transform Support Services teams into direct, proactive contributors to business agility. 

Project plans for the SRE-Managed Services transformation were given a standardized template, with 8-12 weeks reserved for each application portfolio. I took ownership of the responsibility/opportunity for on-boarding teams of freshly-assembled developers – aligned to specific enterprise assets within a portfolio grouping. 

Each completed action plan comprised five essential Project Management milestones:

• designed the training curricula
• enlisted the seasoned staff to share subject matter expertise
• orchestrated shadowing sessions
• closely supervised the cut-overs as the new teams were granted operational autonomy 
• provided on-going governance

The final governance element proved critically important. Successful team transformations culminated with tracking of proficiency metrics, conducting achievement ceremonies, and validating team-readiness to assume fully independent operational responsibility. With the eager participation of numerous highly-skilled professionals, I shaped a forward-looking strategy that delivered beyond a successful 1:1 transition.

Business stakeholders had set expectations for the Support Services teams to achieve competency and then maintain that steady-state. But successful team-building experiences invariably prove that any group of committed collaborators can achieve much more than a static level of performance. Therefore, I set a more ambitious goal to encourage growth that surpassed steady-state. I defined a new expectation for Capability Uplift – continually extending team bandwidth and scope-of-responsibility to cover freshly-recognized service needs. 

The teams themselves and the lines-of-business responded enthusiastically to this challenge as manual work was automated, code was optimized, and proficiency was raised. Support Services teams now delivered more than “keeping the lights on.” These teams were also working to acquire technology tasks from the Sales Performance teams, liberating business-side analysts to concentrate on their revenue-generating strategies.

My own proximity to the progress of these teams caused me to appreciate all they could accomplish. I made several key decisions, more heavily based on judgment rather than metrics. I envisioned converting Support Services into the standard-setter for highly collaborative Agile methods, exceeding the reactive modes of working to simply close tickets. Agile is an iterative, collaborative approach to project management that helps Information Technology teams deliver products and services in defined, impactful increments. 

Four options existed for refining our operational units and taking SRE-Managed Services to the next level: 

1.    extending Agile transformation to the Support organization, 

2.    following a DevOps strategy to assign defect-correction and implementation support to the Development organization, 

3.    adopting error budgets as the linchpin of our Site Reliability Engineering patterns, and

4.    limiting further change to simple bumps in capacity for reactive, ticket-driven work efforts.

Circumstances within this enterprise IT organization strongly favored the first alternative. I was confident that “extending Agile transformation to the Support organization” would lead the way for multiple strategic objectives including DevOps and standardized tooling. I also viewed Agile methodology as both a natural extension and potent enabler of Capability Uplift for Support Services.  

The decision-making process required stepping through four criteria. 

1.    evaluating the current industry conventions for Agile and SRE

2.    reviewing outcomes from similar company initiatives

3.    taking the pulse of the teams

4.    consulting with in-house influencers to collect feedback. 

When making-the-case for Agile transformation – bringing together the arguments and options for stakeholders to consider – the feedback can be surprisingly positive. This ambitious re-structuring of people and processes began simply, with a redefining of service delivery objectives to encompass:

1.    resolving incidents,

2.    responding to unplanned line-of-business priorities, and

3.    making corrective-preventive-adaptive improvements. 

The judgment that Support Services could embrace Agile was quickly validated in practice. The transformation project started with 6 operational teams comprising 39 developers but steadily grew to span the +350-member Operations organization. The new, dynamic operating model placed each team-member at the forefront of highly-valued organizational change. A strong synergy and pride-of-work developed as Agile operational teams aligned with Agile development counterparts.  

Following the transition, the change and new culture were cemented using Agile coaching for each team.  Removing obstacles, upholding quality, and advocating for the teams were my most impactful contributions. Other touch-points were also essential for predictable, integrated outcomes:

• careful refinements for grooming backlogs,
• tracking stories across customized value streams,
• escalating critical incidents,
• enforcing Done-ness criteria, and
• improving velocity. 

The clearest affirmation of re-org roadmap emerged when the Agile cumulative flow needed adjustment to fix problems. The PopHealth PopStars were under intense pressure to swiftly deliver interface enhancements. Unexpectedly, programming errors started to multiply and our testing teams appropriately raised the alarm. The business stakeholders were immediately informed about the problem and the need to modify team workflow for the PopStars. Here is my specific action plan for eliminating errors and restoring reputation: 

1.    reduce work-in-progress limits in order to re-calibrate for quality,

2.    keep the team atmosphere positive and constructive,

3.    make it a team effort to fix any one person’s mistake,

4.    add a second set of eyes by partnering while programming,

5.    insist on thorough unit testing,

6.    require coders to guide testers in designing gap-free test plans, and

7.    enlist geo-distributed team-members to perform proactive application health-checks prior to the daytime business hours. 

Relying on the tuning power of Agile, the PopStars healed themselves within 4 weeks, driving an aberrant 20% error rate to less than 2%. The team also experienced Capability Uplift because their new steady-state delivered higher output and better quality to business stakeholders.

The final outcome: Incorporating Agile methodologies into Support Services delivery provided measurable business benefits. Since Agile transformation, team productivity is consistent and predictable, Development and Support responsibilities are harmonized into a unified DevOps framework, frequency of human error is dramatically reduced, and service delivery is finely tuned to business requirements. This strategic program to accelerate transformational change resulted in successes that can’t be reverted. Increasing collaboration using Agile methods transforms an IT support organization into a direct, proactive contributor to business agility.

Postscript: My compliments go out to all our teams! It was my distinct pleasure to accompany these outstanding technology professionals on their journey to becoming a Center of Excellence within our organization!