Where to start with an agile transformation at scale?

Recently I have been moderating several Workshops, during the break, following question was asked:

Q: "agile is so popular, where and how to start with an agile transformation at scale? Do I start with a framework like scrum? Do I use daily standup? What about DevOps? Shall we get a scrum master certification?"

I answered with the following:

A: "it depends where you are, what is the business problem that you would like to solve and what are competences and skills that you are passionate to develop? Any agile initiative must contribute to business outcome, for customers, organizations and employees. A daily might help, depending on context, there're 200+ agile practices, one solution that works for one doesn't guarantee that it works for other, focus on what move the needle"

Later I used a Smily to explain that normally there're 4 problem space in an agile transformation, you can call it 4 stages, depending on maturity, move from left to right.

Stage 1: low transparency (crawl)

Characteristic:

a. not knowing what is going on

b. no data to backup decision

c. tyranny of urgent wins with ad-hoc firefighting

d. low trust among stakeholders

e. high retention

f. risk advert - not willing to take risk, afraid of making mistakes

At this stage, regardless how agile is promoted, people will not have true buy-in until they can see agile improves business outcome

Focus area:

a. visualize work through value stream

b. formulate and stabilize backlog process

b. understand and map stakeholders

c. make data visible to track

d. build guardrails around key processes

Most importantly, organize around value to create meaningful and productive collaboration across function, this is not always a given

Stage 2: continuous predictability (walk)

Characteristic:

a. stable comparison between committed vs. delivered objectives (NOT story points) at least 3 PIs

b. use data to facilitate decision making

c. stability improves through built-in quality (e.g. code guideline, definition of done, proper acceptance criteria)

Focus area:

a. ensure and improve data quality

b. visualize capacity allocation across business features, technical enablement, maintenance and bug-fixes

c. improve time-to-market based on improved predictability

d. reduce build-integrate-test loop with test cases that can be automatized

e. improve collaboration and informed decision making based on data and conversations

Stage 3: Establish and accelerate DevOps (run)

Characteristic:

a. deployment frequency increases

b. working solution (software) every 2 weeks

c. clear segregation of duty with end-to-end Audit trail with built-in compliance and built-in security

d. test automation coverage increases up to 50 - 70%

Focus area:

a. establish end to end tool chain from build to run, incl. bug fixing

b. DevOps practices, e.g. dark release, canary release, blue green deployment

c. expand and democratize knowledge, align change management process with automated continuous integration and continuous delivery

Stage 4: Loosely Coupled (fly)

Characteristic:

a. two pizza teams that can own, build, integrate, test and run the solution

b. low predictability due to high degree of autonomy

c. low transaction cost that encourages risk taking behavior

Focus area:

a. connecting DevOps tool stack

b. design thinking and Lean Start-ups processes and tools

c. real time data for real time decision making

Two eyes?

What about the eyes on the smily face?

1. the first represent empirical data, not seeing what we want to see, rather measure what really matters empirically
2. the second, represent adopting complex system: the solution as well as the delivery itself, need to be improved simultaneously considering there're so many moving parts, people, technology, organization, strategy etc.

Both work together, implemented through change management, in order to formulate decisive actions quickly to maximize business outcomes with stakeholders with proper communication plan.

To summarize,

depending on the different stages, teams or teams of agile teams need to take appropriate measures, in order to deliver the biggest impact possible while not losing focus, and grasp opportunities.

Does it mean we can't do 4 stages at the same time? Well, can a person run marathon after he/she starts to walk? Fix the basics always pays off, in this process the frameworks can help to orchestrate the evolution of organizational capabilities and competences, while keeping business outcome and customer centricity at heart.