104. Thoughts from 2nd "DACH" Scaling Agile Meetup

During the 1st successful SAFe DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) Meetup back in Q1 2022, passionate SAFe SPCs (what are SPCs, check link here) from Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Post, Microfocus, RV, Allianz, Bosch, SBB, Enbw, TUI, Kegonschweiz, Continental, Migros have joint decided to come together regularly to exchange experiences and insights to help large organization achieving true business agility, In this unique cross industry format, SPCs (SAFe Program Consultant) have some common questions:

How to develop strategy of transformation?

Why does it matter to shift from project to product?

How to accelerate knowledge sharing across organization?

What about career development between line and agile setup??

Thanks to the excellent host SiemensHealthineers, the 2nd?Meetup of German speaking regions (DACH) was held successfully on 22nd June at Erlangen. the hypotheis was confirmed that regardless which industry, the challenge of scaling agile is very (if not exactly) the same, just as Dr. Deming said in the past.

This is a summary.

To seek solutions for future, find answers in the past to get the bigger picture ("Taylor Tub")

Stefan Hampel, agile consultant and coach from Kegon Schweiz have explained the concept how Taylor's management theory has evolved, and why 'SAFe is not the goal, rather an "incremental framework for transformation' in highly competitive and global market at high saturation state, to help organization stay competititive"

The Taylor Tub describes a principle that innovation was driven by narrow local markets. The opening and globalization of the markets resulted in wide markets that required efficiency and a focus on costs (blue part) When the markets were saturated, companies were again under high pressure to innovate (red part), as the world is moving to a network economy from Taylorism.

How does SAFe fit into all of this? Stefan has pointed out, that in large organizations, culture follows structure, aka "Larman’s laws of organizational behavior", that organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo middle- and first-level manager and “specialist” positions & power structures, with SAFe, it is a starting point to trigger the transformation in order to create the "red competence", such as innovation through radical transparency and alignment, changing the structure, so that culture shift towards an environment for psychological safety, to unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers. Organizations need clarity of strategy and alignment among functions on priorities.

Shift from "Career Ladder/Path" to "diversified Career Landscape", as SPCs, sharpen the saw to lead change

One of the common criticism as well as misunderstanding about SAFe, is the so-called "hierarchy", such as between product manager & product owner, or scrum master & release train engineer. Actually, in none of SAFe documents it has indicated as such, because Agile roles are much more fluent, decoupled from seniority or line management hierarchical level, rather organize around value, and those roles in SAFe are design elements, to reduce cognitive load of individuals and improve efficiency of communication and collaboration. In the latest scrum guide 2020 update, scrum master is not limited to a role anymore, but a function that teams need to have, so that everyone can be responsible to remove impediments.

Deutsche Telekom has systematically built up internal training and development capability of employees over the last years, covering 100+ Agile Release Trains with more than 20 portfolios, using SAFe as foundation as well as advanced courses to further develop talents covering all type of personas from leaders to developers.

Robert Neuhauser, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Siemens Talent and Leadership, has delivered an impressive Keynote on "Deconstruct Agile", unpredictability, new technologies, new scientific insights and a new generation of thinkers are transforming the way we lead. ?The digital transformation goes hand in hand with a people transformation. To unlock the full potential of new digitalized workflows, companies also need to embrace culture and mindset change.?

He has pointed out one big challenge in transformation are us: experts who need to develop skills and ability to help leaders to translate, develop proactive listening, to build bridges and become systemically voice. He encourages HR to create career development not as linear progression to climb up the stairs, but rather develop career landscape to create more opportunity for people to grow, decouple the compensation between grading and contribution to the organization, in other words, creating incentives to reward teams and individuals who create real impact for the organization.

Shift Product to Project is the trend, SAFe has crossed the chasm and is on its way to become global standard to scale agile

From travel agencies to telecommunication, from banks to insurance, from manufacturing to governments, SAFe has accelerate its popularity through relentless improvements on itself by learning from its customers and users, over 70% of Fortune 100 companies are using SAFe as their operating system for development value stream on large and complex software, some have expanded it to HR, business operations and marketing, over 20.000 companies across all industries and government are using SAFe, according to 15th State of Agile report.

However in the meetup we all acknowledge the fact that following the book blindly will not lead to success, it must be tailored to the context of organization. One challenge is how to shift from project to product. Why is it so hard to "let it go"? Here're common factors: 3 years planning, budgeting, regulatory requirements, organization ability etc.

There're organizations who don't only have line, agile but on top a program structure, this triangle organization structure makes the deliver often challenging. The group has discussed multiple possibilities and how to use lean portfolio management to drive a true product organization.

"Organize and reorganize around value", especially organize around "development value stream" is key to ensure Agile release trains are focusing on improving product rather than fixed scope with fixed budget, fixed deadlines. Siemens Building Product (SI BP) has shown an impressive transformation since 2011 and how they use SAFe to extend Agility End-to-End for the entire business.

Organisations that invest in communities of practice can get a greater return on investment than those that only invest in individuals because the groups will contribute to members' professional development

Communities of practice regularly bring together people who share areas of interest or concerns. They are loose structures that support their members and the organisation's development of those areas. They often form around a specific job role but can also centre on a specific area of interest. To boost the value of collaboration, create a safe environment in which people are free to ask questions and try out new ideas. It helps to validate ideas and accelerates learning.

SPC/RTEs are a very unique group of community, due to the in-depth insights how organization is managed, recognized as professional or master level certification according to State of Agile Coach Report 2022.

Thanks to the great host of Siemens Healthineers and Deutsche Telekom, the one day event was highly productive, we started with a fishbowl on focused discussion, mixed with keynote, lightning talk, open space and Q&A.

To summarize, attending the meetup was a highly productive, creative and engaging experience.

Define adaptive transformational strategy, empowering knowledge workers with targeted training and enablement, adapt proven practices on the market, they can all contribute to unleash full potential of the organization to achieve business agility.

Appendix:

In early part of 20th century, Frederick Winslow Taylor published his masterpiece of “The Principles of Scientific Management” He argued that flaws in a given work process could be scientifically solved through improved management methods and that the best way to increase labor productivity was to optimize the manner in which the work was done. Those ideas have significantly impacted the management theory, how we are trained in MBA or business school about management:

a.?Select methods based on science, not “rule of thumb.”?Rather than allowing each individual worker the freedom to use their own “rule of thumb” method to complete a task, you should instead use the scientific method to determine the “one best way” to do the job.?(in agile not only one best way)

b.?Assign workers jobs based on their aptitudes. Instead of randomly assigning workers to any open job, assess which ones are most capable of each specific job and train them to work at peak efficiency.?(T-Shape model talents beyond specific job)

c. Monitor worker performance. Assess your workers’ efficiency and provide additional instruction when necessary to guarantee they are working productively.?(assess the team performance over individual)

d. Properly divide the workload between managers and workers. Managers should plan and train, while workers should implement what they’ve been trained to do. (managers are key of executing implementation)