Ultimately, the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool your organization chooses or the way that it is configured—no matter how great—is not going to transform your organization. However, your organization’s tooling strategy (or lack thereof) can make the Transformation far more difficult than necessary. Your ALM tool should work to enable the system to which your organization is transforming.

Here are some common things that we see that indicate an organization does not have a clear tooling strategy that enables the Transformation:

1) There is a mismatch between your organization’s work processes and the ALM workflows.

Changing the configuration of your ALM tool (without changing anything else) will not change the way that your teams and portfolios flow work. It will likely just make it more challenging for everyone involved. When we begin working with an organization, we work to intentionally configure the ALM tool to match the new system that the organization is Transforming to, including ensuring that the workflows in the tool match the way work should flow in the new system. When teams try to use an ALM tool that doesn’t actually match the way that they should be working, they will often get confused, frustrated, or spend a lot of time finding different workarounds.

2) Focusing on built-in metrics reports the tool offers rather than having a clear metrics strategy.

When it comes to capturing metrics from our ALM tool, you need to start with a strong understanding of what metrics you need to collect rather than what metrics are easy to collect. While using default or built-in reports isn’t inherently bad, often we see this when organizations don’t have a clear Metrics strategy. You want to make sure you’re starting by defining which metrics you need to collect based on your specific goals, and then figure out how to get those metrics from the ALM tool—even if it requires manipulation of the data in another tool like Excel or a BI tool. Metrics should be used to drive action or make decisions. A built-in report is unlikely to capture all the exact metrics that your teams and organization needs to make decisions.

3) Representation of the hierarchy of work is unclear within the ALM tool.

What we’ve often seen with clients we worked with in the past is that, of the work that is inflight within the ALM tool, the structure is not represented transparently. With different terminology being used such as initiatives as epics, features as stories, tasks as stories, and so on, the need for a common language to be reflected within the tool becomes even more evident. Without a clear hierarchy in place, teams are often left to spend time translating between what is happening versus what is reflected in the tool. This is important because we need to visualize how work ties to strategy to ensure that teams are working on the most important things that bring value to the customer/business.

4) Tool usage is not consistent within teams.

Many of the popular ALM tools offered in the market right now generally provide flexibility to suit your organization’s needs, whether through governance or structure. Though this is regarded as a benefit, without a clear strategy in place, you can have pockets of different customization across the organization. Portfolio and Product teams should clearly understand how delivery teams are managing work in the tool so they have a clear view of the flow of value aggregated from multiple delivery teams. This means consistent usage of workflows and terminology so that teams can effectively collaborate.

5) Information about work in the system is disjointed across many tools.

Companies purchase SaaS tools to solve a particular problem for the business. However, using too many tools can be counterproductive for everyone. People should clearly understand where to go in an organization to get information about the work and the problems for context. Having too many tools in your ecosystem with similar capabilities results in loss of data fidelity and users constantly switching context. For example, risk tracking may be done in an Excel sheet, a SharePoint site or in an ALM tool. Rather than aggregating the information in one place for teams to clearly see, users only get part of the picture.

Building a More Effective Strategy

For tooling to be most effective, your ALM tooling strategy should minimize complexity and reflect reality as much as possible. Attributes of a good ALM tooling strategy include how your flow and delivery metrics will be captured, how organization-wide, portfolio-wide, and team specific working norms will be used within the tool.

If we want to connect our strategy to real outcomes, we have to first understand that strategy isn’t just about the aspirations we have as an organization. It’s about planning to reach our goals and deciding what to do with our limited capacity to achieve them.

But before we can determine what our goals are, we have to first identify what’s most valuable to the organization and prioritize the things that will release the most value into it. Determining value has to come first or we’ll be aiming at goals that don’t get us to where we need to be.

In this podcast, LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens joins Dave prior to discuss why we should be prioritizing value and the importance of value density.

This podcast is our third in a series of conversations focused on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Leveraging the work in Carol Dwek’s book, Mindset, Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior explore the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each episode of this series focuses on how our mindset impacts the way we perceive and respond to different types of stimulus/events.

This episode is focused on effort and the differences between how a fixed mindset and a growth mindset perceive the value we receive from applying ourselves at work. Do we see the effort spent as a waste of time, or a step towards achieving some level of mastery that can be a reward all by itself?

Other Episodes in our Growth Mindset Series

• Episode 1: Embracing Challenges
• Episode 2 : Obstacles

Links

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – by Carol Dweck https://amzn.to/3yYpyn3
• Fixed vs Growth Mindset graphic referenced in the interview (created by Nigel Holmes) https://bit.ly/3vWO1Hh

Contacting Mary

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-kaufmann/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-kaufmann-305b844/
• Email: Mary.Kaufmann@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Working with the Product folks at LeadingAgile is different than a lot of other Product Management gigs. In this interview, LeadingAgile’s Andrew Young joins Dave to talk about what it’s like working with the product group at LeadingAgile, why we focus so heavily on the product side of things, the difference between working “in” product and working “on” product, and why he’s made the choice to work at LeadingAgile.

Contacting Andrew Young

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-young/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/exclamation101
• Email: andrew.young@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Ford currently has over 200K employees, spread out across 90 plants and facilities worldwide. So, getting everyone to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace and Transform themselves into a product-driven organization is no easy task.

So how did the U.S’s second-largest automaker with 200K+ employees Transform into a product-driven organization?

Check out this video where Ford Motor Company Transformation leader, Amy Palazzolo, shares highlights of the Ford journey using Agile to evolve and focus on services, experiences, and technology to build a better world where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams.

2020 was a year of tremendous change around everything in our lives. It seems that nothing is the same as it was before. The way we shop, order food, and even see our loved ones has shifted permanently.

One of the most dramatic shifts in our society happened in the world of business, more specifically within HR divisions. The status quo around professional America has shifted, and a new way of working has taken over. Gone are the days of an hour commute both ways to get to the office and a 40-hour work week.

Perhaps the most prominent shift in the people business over the past year has been the transition from mandatory time in office to being able to work from home flexibly. America’s companies no longer have the leverage to make their employees work in an office space.

The shift to at-home work has proven to be just as effective as in-office work, if not more effective. Distractions are limited, and workers are spending more time at their computers at home. The movement also contributes to the company’s bottom line due to fewer resources being spent on office supplies, office rent, expensed lunches, etc. Companies that seamlessly transitioned to a virtual workforce have greatly benefitted.

Emerging Workforce Needs & Goals

Over the past year, our workforce has had time to be more introspective regarding their career aspirations vs. where they are currently at. Short-term aspirations such as working in a new and high-tech office building have been eliminated, and workers are focusing on more tangible goals such as certifications or better pay and benefits.

If the workers’ needs and goals are not fully aligned with the employers, then that employee has full liberty to switch jobs that better meet their demands. If companies do not change their priorities to match the mass of their employees, then they will succumb to the great resignation.

Applying Agile Principles

How do we apply Agile principles to the HR division to stay top of mind for employees and recruits? An agile organization can primarily change rapidly to stay in front of the curve, but change can be detrimental if you do not survey and act upon your workforce needs.

An Agile HR division will focus on feedback from their employees and frequently survey for changes in needs. An agile HR division will create environments where employees can learn and develop professionally, aside from completing tasks with no larger objective.

An Agile organization will make its mission statement or end goal very clear and demonstrate to all employees how they are individually adding to the success of that goal. The same goals of Agile Transformation are applied to HR divisions with great success.

Agile principles translated into an HR division may look something like this:

• Properly Groomed Backlog
  • Constant feedback from Employees, focus on high priorities
  • Surveys keep backlog up to date
• Teams organized around value
  • Mission statement of HR division keeps employees focused on big picture
  • Everyone knows the overarching goal they are working towards
• Product released in increments with less issues
  • Through feedback you can implement small changes to make employees lives better
  • Attrition is lowered
• Working tested product
  • These are your successful and happy employees
  • Retention and high productivity are your ideal end states

No one expected the world to change as drastically as it did over the past year, especially regarding our working lives. Employers no longer need to have offices, and there has been a considerable shift of power to the employees. HR Divisions that exemplify agility have continued to succeed throughout this shift in society by surveying their employees and acting on feedback, creating a mission statement and promoting individual development. Through these practices you can keep your employees happy and stave off the attrition that so many companies are experiencing.

In this week’s SoundNotes podcast, Dave is joined by Vic Bonacci, CST who recently joined the LeadingAgile team. As Certified Scrum Trainers, both Dave and Vic bring their numerous years of experience and unique perspectives to the table to chat candidly about the issues and challenges surrounding being a more advanced Scrum Master, and how to continue learning and growing in the role.

Contacting Vic Bonacci

If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/
• Email: Victor.Bonacci@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to Dave.

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to Dave.

If we want different business results—and we want them to last—we have to approach change differently.

Staying in alignment with our constantly changing customers and markets isn’t a one and done move—its a process of constant adaptation.

There are three factors to center this new way of thinking around:

• Aligning our markets and customers to our systems, teams and capabilities.

• Accelerating the impact of our change and producing results faster.

• Adapting constantly to align and accelerate so we can prove the results of the alignment.

We must align our markets and customers to our systems, teams, and capabilities. But markets and customers are always going to change. Thus, our capabilities will also always need to adapt and change.

This leaves us constantly out of alignment.

So the work to tackle this constant misalignment is continuous adaptation, now and into the future.

Being strategic isn’t only about the aspirations we have—it’s about planning to reach our goals and deciding what to do with our limited capacity to achieve those aspirations. But to do this, we have to first identify what’s valuable to the organization and prioritize the things that will release the most value into it.

LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens joins Dave prior this week to discuss why we should be prioritizing value and the importance of value density.

Contacting Dennis Stevens

• Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens
• Email: dennis@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

It’s great to start at the team level during a Transformation, but we can’t expect team level change to seamlessly change the entire business at every level—because the business itself is not designed to support Agility in the first place.

We’ve got to make changes that can start to remodel this underlying ecosystem so that it becomes one that’s also able to support what the teams are doing and fully align the organization to its customers and markets.

Without this alignment, we may have Agile teams but we’ll struggle to ever become Agile as an organization.

Read more about what it takes to make Agile work across the organization at scale:

How To Make Agile Work at Scale

Check out the Transformation White Paper:

LeadingAgile.com/whitepaper

An Agile Transformation Consultant who wants to lead a successful Transformation is going to need more than a deep understanding of Agile. Simply knowing the methodologies and teaching them to other people is insufficient.

In a recent blog post, we discussed the various types of Agile Transformation Coaches needed to run a sustainable Transformation. In that post, we discussed the different roles and responsibilities your coaches should have, and we asserted that it takes more than just a couple Agile Transformation Consultants teaching people Scrum to affect change. Rather, it takes a team of consultants performing their duties at multiple levels of the organization.

In this post, we’ll look at the attributes this team of people should possess and how these attributes tend to manifest for Agile Transformation Consultants based on their level of professional maturity.

Agile Transformation Consultant: Team Attributes

We’ve spent the last several years investing time and effort into uncovering the attributes listed below. Over time, and through much trial and error, we were able to learn a ton about what it takes for consultants to successfully lead a Transformation effort, remain happy, continue to grow, and thrive no matter their role.

So, without further ado, here are the attributes of a successful team of Agile Transformation Consultants.

Skills

The most obvious of the attributes, having the right skills to do the job is paramount. The skills we’re talking about here are the ones that can be identified, enumerated, and tested, and interviewed for.

Anyone who is performing the role of Agile Transformation Consultant must also be steeped in Agile literature and well-versed in all the methodologies so that they not only understand the topic but so that they can also teach it to others.

Experience

Second to skills, an Agile Transformation Consultant must possess the experience it takes to be successful. You might assume that experience would be an easy thing to measure, but in the world of Transformation, that would be a poor assumption.

Just because someone has experience installing Agile or leading change, doesn’t always mean they can do it anywhere. The dynamics of your organization are almost certainly different than other organizations, so what someone has done before may not work at the new enterprise.

We’ve found that the most successful Agile Transformation Consultants have a background in which they’ve solved a plethora of different problems and have learned how to overcome a wide variety of potential impediments.

Culture

Whoever is on the Transformation team will need to work well within the organization and be able to adapt their consulting style to the unique environment of the company they’re helping.

That said, regardless of the culture, there are certain traits that every Agile Transformation Consultant should exemplify no matter the culture. Honesty and transparency are crucial. Remaining honest and transparent enables you to convey the truth in a way people can receive it. Doing this builds trust. And trust is the currency of change.

Your Transformation team needs to be on message, collaborative, thoughtful, have a strong point of view, and remain adaptable.

Community

Ideally, your Transformation team members are active in their community: speaking at conferences, sharing what they know through blogs and podcasts, and are continuously learning.

Beliefs

Agile Transformation Consultants tend to fall into one of four camps when it comes to what they believe about leading change.

Some believe that change begins at the team level and grows within the organization. And some believe that change begins at the organizational level but that it’s still crowdsourced, and people-driven.

Most believe that focusing on installing team-level practices and take a small-scale delivery focus approach to leading change. Others believe that it’s a systemic issue and want to attack the root of the problem by taking a Chief Architect type approach to solving the problem and leading others forward.

What people believe about change is important. Each team of Agile Transformation Consultants needs a Transformation Hypothesis, and the belief system of your team needs to reflect and support that hypothesis.

Behavior

Understanding how people will behave when they’re in the middle of a Transformation change initiative is also crucial to the long-term success of a Transformation team. There are some very knowledgeable people who will tend to go and hide when their ideas are challenged. Often, these are the same people who get their feelings hurt and will take a long time to reengage. Not ideal for the team or for the client.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are full of energy but turn into bullies when trying to get others to do new things and adopt new ideas. We haven’t seen one instance where a client has responded positively to bully tactics.

So, we need to avoid these types of behaviors and to do this we use a behavior analysis tool called PeopleDNA. But there are other options out there, too. By using this type of behavior analysis, we have a ton of data on what contributes to long-term success. More on this later in the post…

Intellectual Intelligence

LeadingAgile uses IQ as an indicator of a Transformation team member’s ability to dynamically build new solutions, based upon the synthesis of experience and their library of knowledge.

We find that people with lower IQ profiles will tend to be anchored on one way that they know and will be hesitant to change when presented with new information. Higher IQ profiles are often more open to change and can process new information in real-time to solve problems.

Emotional Intelligence

In a nutshell, emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to read what another person is thinking, feeling, and experiencing. It’s an ability to see the world from another person’s emotional point of view.

Change is scary, and people going through change are often afraid. Sometimes having the right answer isn’t enough. It’s communicating that answer in a way that creates safety, builds trust, and demonstrates empathy. Getting people to do new things and behave in new ways is seldom a purely intellectual exercise.

Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition is the ability to see the order in chaos. It’s the ability to recognize what’s truly important and move forward, possibly despite conflicting information—or barriers—that appear to be in your way. It’s being able to see the Mona Lisa on a blank canvas. It’s the ability to see Venus in a block of marble. It’s the ability to see the pirate ship in the Stereogram. Being able to see what is possible and lead others toward that vision is key for senior team members.

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is the ability to see the whole and to envision how making changes to one part of the system creates ripples through the rest of the system. The design of large-scale organizations is a systems problem. Orchestrating large-scale organizational change is a systems problem as well.

Building a Team with the Right Skill Set Mix

In this section, we’ll talk about the skill set mix required at each level of the organization and take a deeper look into some of the behaviors that the people at each level should display, how they can develop them, and/or apply them in their daily roles.

Junior Team Members

These people are more likely to perform the role of an analyst or an Agile practiced coaching role. In all cases, you want to optimize for IQ and EQ. You’ll want to find people who score as high as possible in these two categories. These two areas are hard to develop and will take time, so you want someone with high marks off the bat.

The desired behaviors qualities are high energy, goal-oriented, outcome-focused, thick skin, and resilience. We’ve found that these behaviors and qualities make for the best change agents. They should also have high respect for authority, pay attention to detail, and have strong follow-through.

Your junior team members will need to maintain a strong point of view while remaining open, flexible, and coachable. They’ll need mentorship, the opportunity to try out new skills on a regular basis, and time to engage with the community.

As they improve, you should see an increase in the areas of pattern recognition and systems thinking.

Senior Team Members

Senior team members are more likely to take on more advanced, strategic roles. Roles such as Expedition Lead, Program Coach, or Technical Coach.

The behaviors and need for high marks in IQ and EQ don’t shift much from junior to senior team members. Instead, the areas of emphasis are different. It’s less important that senior team members respect authority, pay attention to detail, and have a strong tendency to follow through. The reason they don’t need to is that they’re often operating on a more thematic level.

What these people do need is an expert-level understanding of Agile and Agile methodologies. And they need to be able to apply these ideas in situationally specific ways, tailoring them to the needs of their organization. They must be knowledgeable at all levels of scale and know-how to build and design systems.

Executive Team Members

These team members will play the highest-level roles and have the most influence in the overall Transformation strategy. They often fill the role of Transformation Lead, or maybe they’re sponsoring an executive or an Account Lead.

These people need to be held to the highest standard when it comes to IQ and EQ. They’ll have to play a broad leadership role, solve problems, build consensus, and navigate the political dynamics of the organization.

The behavior profile at this level shifts even further away from the behaviors that help junior team members succeed. Instead, executive-level team members need to have the capability to influence and must possess high resilience. Balancing the needs of the Transformation and the organization is an art, therefore, these people’s behavior must be incredibly aware, nuanced, and applied in a way that will achieve the desired business outcomes the organization wants to achieve.

What’s critical is that each executive-level Agile Transformation Consultant understands organizational dynamics, politics, change patterns, change management, pattern recognition, and systems thinking and awareness. After all, these are the people that will be creating the space necessary for the Transformation to occur. 

Wrapping Up

As an industry, we need to stop simply inserting a few coaches into an organization and expecting change to happen. Change is more than just an implementation of Agile methodology. It requires executive buy-in. It requires demonstrable progress. It requires refactoring old technology. And, of course, it requires teaching people a new way to work.

But all that requires work to be done inside, outside, and around the IT department. And you’re going to need a team similar to the one we’ve described above to get it done.

Data science is fundamental to success—and leveraging it effectively with data analytics is imperative to being competitive in the market.

As we covered in the first conversation in this series with Adam and Dan, the way your organization uses data is important. If you aren’t actively managing, governing and operationalizing your data, you will inevitably fall behind.

So we know how important data is. We know we need to use it, and we know how important it is that we use it the right way. With this in mind, how do we take the next steps as we stand up your advanced analytics capabilities without overloading the analytics team and ensuring we’re getting the right data we can use to learn the right things, solve problems better, and get ahead?

Are the challenges we face with our data analytics process really just problems with our backlogs? And if so, where do we go from there?

LeadingAgile’s Adam Jennison and Dan Smith have collectively spent decades in product management roles in multiple organizations for data-driven products. In this conversation, they address the answers these questions and more.

Reach out with any questions about the discussion or to connect on the topic.

Contacting Dan Smith

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dan-smith
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-smith-557a8759/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GOdansmith
• Email: dan.smith@leadingagile.com

Contacting Adam Jennison:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/adam-jennison
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-jennison
• Email: adam.jennison@Leadingagile.com

Encapsulated Agile teams are a fundamental need if we want to be Agile. But there’s more we need to be thinking about.

The trouble is that we can have teams doing Scrum but still not really creating any value. So what we really need is teams that are oriented toward value—teams that are aligned with our customers and markets.

It’s about focusing on maximizing how our people are oriented toward value and can also produce it. Then we have teams that can propel us toward the outcomes we want rather than becoming a dependency that blocks us from our goals.

LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Derek Stanley joins Dave Prior to discuss GQM (Goal Question Metrics). During the interview Derek and Dave explore what GQM is by talking through real-world examples that showcase why people use them, and how they can provide clarity on performance towards desired business outcomes.

Whether you are focused on the team level, the program level, or the organization as a whole; GQM can help you clarify what you are trying to achieve, the questions that need to be answered to know if you’ve achieved it, and what metrics allow you to measure your success.

Contacting Derek Stanley

If you’d like to contact Luther you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-stanley/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekstanley1/
• Email: Derek.stanley@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to Dave.

Agile isn’t ever really about Agile. It’s about creating the business outcomes we want.

There are six key drivers for Agility that we most commonly see, which include:

• Predictability: One of the most common goals we see organizations have for Transformation is actually predictability.

• Quality: It’s common for quality to suffer when organizations scale and change.

• Cost Savings: Agile won’t save costs if we’re too buried in work to achieve any cost savings.

• Early ROI: Most organizations have long delivery cycles that prevent enough feedback to get to market sooner.

• Product Fit: Delivering on time only matters if you’re making a product your customers need and want.

• Innovation: As companies grow, sometimes they can lose the ability to innovate.

In this video, we uncover how Agile can enable us to overcome challenges we’re facing in these areas and connect them to the better business outcomes we’re aiming for.

Agile Transformation is a journey. And it starts exactly where the organization realistically is and works forward from that point. There are some thinking tools we can use to help us create some structure around the process of change to get us from where we are to where we want to be.

To start, we will need a way to orient the organization toward our goals and understand why we’re making the decisions we’re making and what drives those decisions—what we call our Compass. Once we understand the constraints that are driving our decisions, we can work toward our goals with more flexibility.

When we’ve used the Compass to get oriented, and are ready to set out on our journey, we’ll need to ensure we have a way to measure progress as we go. So we’ll break down our journey into increments so we can claim intermediate victories as we go along. We call these Basecamps.

We get to each Basecamp with the teams we’ve formed that we know have all we need to get us where we need to go on each leg of the journey.

Expeditions moving through Basecamps are the primary unit of progress of an Agile Transformation.

To learn more about the LeadingAgile approach to Transformation, go to: https://go.leadingagile.com/4un

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CTO, Matt Van Vleet and Principal Engineer, Daryl Kulak join Dave to talk about how LeadingAgile’s Studios takes on the technical work of Agile Transformation. One of the challenges many organizations face when trying to adopt Agile is how to address technical debt they must overcome in order to be able to create an environment that can support an Agile way of working.

Studios was created to serve as an accelerator that can provide both technical coaching and the development support your developers need to get up and running faster. During the interview, Matt and Daryl talk with Dave about the challenges inherent in organizational change and why so many transformations hinge on not simply providing the technical coaching to make sure your teams understand a better way of working. When the coaching is done, if you put them right back in the same old system that demands they work in the same old way, that new approach they just learned isn’t going to stick.

Studios can help with that.

Links from the Podcast

• For more on LeadingAgile Studios
  An Introduction to Studios: https://www.leadingagile.com/2021/02/an-introduction-to-studios/
• The Journey to Enterprise Agility: Systems Thinking and Organizational Legacy  by Daryl Kulak and Hong Li https://amzn.to/3po4PGS

Contacting Daryl Kulak

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/daryl-kulak/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylkulak/
• Email: daryl.kulak@leadingagile.com

Contacting Matt Van Vleet

If you’d like to contact Matt, you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/matt-van-vleet/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-van-vleet-8788342
• Email: matt.vanvleet@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
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• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this video, we’re going to define the Agile Pillars and take a quick look at the Scrum Pillars, too. But then, we’re going to talk about the three things that are even more fundamental to the success of your Agile Transformation—teams, backlogs, and working tested product. Because in the absence of those three things, nothing in Agile works.

Is an Agile Transformation Coach any different than being an Agile Coach?

The answer is both yes and no.

When most people think about Agile Coaches, they tend to think about a person who comes in and assists the teams with things like:

• Learning Scrum, SAFe, LeSS
• Setting Up Team Spaces
• Storyboarding
• Sprint Planning
• Release Planning
• Backlog Creation & Refinement

If that’s your definition of an Agile Transformation Coach, you’d be right—but only partially. The fact is that Transformation requires more than Agile Coaches teaching people the ceremonies of Scrum or how to do SAFe and LeSS.

To achieve the outcomes necessary to run a structured and disciplined Agile Transformation, your company will need an array of people to take on various roles and responsibilities. This team of e Agile Transformation Coaches will consist of people focused on executive-level understanding and leadership, people that teach team-level technical practices, and everything in between.

In the rest of this post, we’ll explore the various Agile Transformation Coach roles that we deploy on our engagements. We’ll define their responsibilities and explore some of the traits that will make them successful, as well as the core competencies each should possess.

Agile Transformation Coach Leaders

This section will look at two roles at the very top of the Agile Coaching stack—the Transformation Lead (TL) and the Expedition Lead (EL). The TL and EL are the ones who typically work closely with executives and delivery leadership to create, execute, and drive the Transformation strategy within the organization.

Transformation Lead

The TL partners with and works alongside the C-Suite to create innovative and customized solutions to meet the business’ needs. This role is, in effect, a high-influence peer to the executives who act as a trusted advisor. As such, they have the ability to challenge their partners to produce clarity around the Transformation strategy.

Some of the responsibilities of the TL are to co-create the vision plan, craft an actionable roadmap to deliver the Transformation, and develop benefits cases and methods to show progress along the clients’ Transformation journey. Ultimately, the TL ensures that everyone is clear on the strategy and has what they need to execute at the highest level.

Desired Traits

The TL should be persuasive, politically aware, highly driven, and possess the gravitas to influence other executives. They’ll need a high EQ, strong communication skills, and an unflappable tolerance for stress and uncertainty. Lastly, the role of the TL demands that this person have a systematic view of organizations and strong problem-solving and solution design skills.

Core Competencies

• Executive-Level Experience
• Lean/Agile Leader
• Change Management

Expedition Lead

The EL works with Directors and Managers to ensure the Transformation strategy’s execution throughout the organization. The EL develops detailed outcome-based plans that deliver on the Transformation strategy and create clarity and alignment between the coaches and the delivery teams.

This role is responsible for making sure the rest of the Agile Transformation Coaches, and the teams, are adhering to the Transformation Plan and Strategy. As the one responsible for executing the Transformation Plan, the EL will collaborate with delivery leadership and the coaches to ensure that the organization is developing cohesive teams operating off a maintained 90-day backlog. This person is also responsible for establishing tooling and utilizing metrics to demonstrate progress and improve delivery performance.

Desired Traits

Like the TL, the EL will need to have a strong, influential leadership presence and be naturally charismatic and a people person. Strong team-building skills and a high EQ paired with the ability to adapt and maintain their integrity is a must.

Core Competencies

• Leadership Experience
• Lean/Agile Leadership Practitioner
• Strategic Planning

Other Agile Transformation Coaches

Program/Portfolio Coach

The Program/Portfolio Coach (PPC) is a critical component of large, scaled product teams. The PPC is a member of the portfolio or program team whose focus is on creating repeatable frameworks for selecting which customers to invest in and defining self-assessment mechanisms to improve their system analysis and strategic deployment.

The PPC is responsible for creating curriculum and tailoring methodologies to meet the client’s needs and help them understand how to connect strategy to execution through the decomposition of investments into products at the highest tier of their governance model.

This role isn’t just teaching people new practices. Instead, the PPC is expected to influence and change the system around the people to enable the organization to create the optimal conditions that will maximize the business benefits of Agile Transformation.

Desired Traits

The PPC must often switch between micro and macro viewpoints of the organization’s development, so they must possess a skill set that is cross-functional across teams. This person must exude a strong leadership presence and have masterful communication and prioritization skills. Additionally, the PPC will need to adapt to quickly changing demands and focus on owning the Transformation outcomes.

Core Competencies

• Jobs to be Done
• Outcomes-Driven Innovation
• Lean Portfolio Management

Agile Process Coach

The Agile Process Coach educates the Expedition on Agile principles, providing them with tools and coaching for implementing the process in their own work. They conduct workshops and training sessions that teach Agile practices and ceremonies that lead toward the organization-wide adoption of Agile methodologies.

Additionally, this person will work with the EL and Analyst to ensure the delivery of the Expedition plan and assist the EL with team formation. The Agile Process Coach will also develop and maintain a detailed rolling coaching plan and coach teams on Agile processes and ceremonies while looking for opportunities to improve the process.

Desired Traits

The Agile Process Coach must be a skilled systems thinker who can operate autonomously and with integrity in high-stress environments. Strong leadership skills, self-confidence, a passion for continuous learning, empathy, and a high EQ are all requirements.

Core Competencies

• Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.
• Team Mentorship
• Metrics and Tooling

Technical Coach

The Technical Coach collaborates with the TL and EL to understand the Expedition Roadmap and the desired outcomes. This person is then responsible for developing coaching plans to get Expedition teams to their target outcomes while effectively detecting, communicating, and escalating impediments—both organizational and technological.

The technical coach mentors the Expedition teams on Agile approaches for flowing work, XP engineering practices like TDD, CI, and pairing, and DevOps. Additionally, the technical Coach will facilitate code reviews and provide a leadership perspective on design and code quality.

Desired Traits

The Technical Coach must be a seasoned software developer with a breadth of experience in multiple languages, software delivery disciplines, and full systems Agile coaching. This person must also possess a personal emphasis on the continued development of skills. Familiarity with leading both from a technical and interpersonal perspective is needed, along with a passion for strong, test-driven development coupled with a flexible and open view of new technical possibilities.

Core Competencies

• Senior-Level Software Architect
• Systems/DevOps
• Lean/Agile Practitioner

Bringing it All Together

So, back to the original question. Are Agile Transformation Coaches any different than Agile Coaches?

The reality is that these two terms are used synonymously. And, in fact, they are the same thing. But to truly understand the role and responsibilities of an Agile Transformation Coach, you must understand that to be effective. Your role is responsible for more than just teaching people methodology, more than just DevOps, and certainly more than just executive mandates.

If you have nothing but Agile Process coaches, your Transformation will fail.

If you have nothing but Technical Coaches, your Transformation will fail.

If all you have is a Transformation Lead or an Expedition Lead, your Transformation will fail.

Because Transformation should be transformative, and to be Transformed is to Transform the business from top to bottom, in all the ways that people do work.

To do this, you need a team of coaches with varied skillsets and domain expertise.

In this episode of SoundNotes Yusuf Hakim joins Dave to field questions submitted by an attendee of one of LeadingAgile’s Monthly CSM/CSPO Student Lean Coffee meetings, The questions center around issues that cropped up from a non-standard SAFe implementation, the issues that came about as a result fo that implementation, and the steps being taken to it address those issues and move towards an approach that is more focused on “just in time”.

During the interview, Yusuf and Dave explore the issues that were being experienced, indicators that they might not be SAFe issues, aspects of the organizational structure that were most likely contributing to the struggle, and steps the organization could take to resolve some of the pain they were experiencing.

Links

If you’d like to learn more about Scaled Agile Framework

• Scaled Agile Framework

Contacting Yusuf

If you’d like to reach out to Yusuf with follow up question

Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/yusuf-hakim/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yusuf-hakim/

Email: yusuf.hakim@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to Dave.