Embracing Change: Value Stream Identification and Agile Release Trains in a Challenging Economy

# Embracing Change: Value Stream Identification and Agile Release Trains in a Challenging Economy

In July 2024, our leadership team witnessed the remarkable benefits of launching Agile Release Trains (ARTs). However, as we navigate tough economic challenges, we recognize that fully dedicated teams, traditional vendor contracts, and outdated technology stacks can hinder our agile journey. Our recent ART launch revealed that many team members were shared across projects, which added complexity to our agile construct.

Despite these challenges, we made significant strides by focusing on several key areas:

1. Clear Prioritization: We established clear priorities for new epics and features, ensuring that our teams focused on what matters most.

2. Team Collaboration: Our emphasis on continuous exploration and development fostered collaboration across teams, enhancing our agility.

3. Role Reflection and Improvement: We actively reflected on traditional roles such as PM, BA, and SME, continuously seeking opportunities to improve roles and responsibilities.

4. Hyper Transparency: We created a culture of hyper transparency, showcasing work, team member availability, and systemic impediments in real-time.

5. Agile-Centric Contracts: Collaborating with our vendor management office, we worked towards more agile-centric vendor contracts, paving the way for better partnerships.

6. ALM Tool Implementation: We constructed the ALM tool Octane to support SAFe's future state, enabling us to measure flow at the task, user story, feature, and epic levels.

7. Traceability: Our focus on traceability allowed us to connect features, user stories, tasks, and test cases, both manual and automated.

8. Execution and Planning Visibility: We prioritized real-time visibility into execution and planning, enhancing our decision-making capabilities.

9. Continuous Improvement: Through regular inspections and adaptations of our Agile Way of Working (WOW), we ensured that our processes remained effective.

10. Agile Bootcamps: We launched Agile-related bootcamps, attracting over 1,200 participants eager to learn and embrace agile practices.

These initiatives have not only fostered small wins but also attracted new teams to our agile approach.

### Reflections on Our Journey

1. Leadership Coaching: Our leadership team requires coaching that speaks their language and resonates with their goals.

2. Empathy: Treating leaders like customers and understanding how to leverage frameworks to help them achieve their objectives is crucial.

3. People-Centric Transformation: Transformation is about people. Listening to their concerns and co-creating roadmaps has been our guiding principle.

4. HR Involvement: Engaging HR is critical to support our agile transformation efforts.

5. Celebrating Small Wins: Focusing on and celebrating small victories fosters enthusiasm and momentum.

6. Data-Driven Decisions: Collecting data to support decision-making is essential in our agile journey.

7. Revisiting Value Stream Identification and ARTs: In the new year, we plan to revisit Value Stream Identification and ARTs with an emphasis on team topologies.

One of our biggest wins has been transforming "poachers to rangers," as we shifted skeptics of agile into staunch supporters, showcasing the real value of our transformation efforts.

With robust support from leadership, a clear vision, and a dedicated team of coaches, scrum masters, product owners, and architects, we eagerly anticipate scaling our transformation in 2025.

Join us on this journey towards a more agile, resilient future!

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