You have a high-level picture of how your scaled agile transformation could unfold.
You decided which narrative you’ll use to frame the transition. And identified which areas of the organization you’ll engage first.
Now what?
Revisiting our journey toward agile at scale (find more about step 1 and step 2 here), we’re at the third step: Do the work- Educate, execute, and adapt. It’s time to take action to start putting elements in place. Our goal is to establish a rough draft of new organizational habits that we can refine over time.
If you adopt a specific framework for scaling agile (like SAFe, Disciplined Agile, or LeSS), practitioners of that framework will have their own recommendations of what to do when, along with more specific milestones and tips.
But in general, companies go through steps like these to kick-off their journey and start translating the high-level plan into new daily habits:
- Motivate: Get people excited about the change and clear about the reasoning for it. We talked about some ways to pitch the change toward scaled agile in a previous post. You could share your pitch during formal presentations or one-on-one conversations.
- Educate: Clarify what you’re working toward so everyone has a similar mental model. Spending time here can help you identify any misunderstandings early. And avoid major communication issues and frustration down the line.
- Design: Work out the details of what scaled agile will look like in your own organization. Who will be in each role. When your releases and sprints will be. The types of meetings you’ll hold and who will need to be involved. What tools you’ll be using and any deliverables that will be expected. What’s standardized and where individuals and groups will have the freedom to make their own decisions.
- Prepare: Create backlogs for the first or next release so you have an idea of what you’ll be working on.
- Launch: Plan, build, test, demo internally, and share the results with the rest of the world.
- Measure: Track progress along the way.
- Celebrate: Take time to savor victories and bond as a team.
- Improve: Look for opportunities to do better in the next iteration as you work your way to agile at scale.
A process-based journey
How this plays out is similar but slightly different for each scaling narrative. For example, a transformation with a process-based narrative tends to unfold like this:
A process-based narrative focuses primarily on the change in how the organization operates internally. Therefore the major focus of the initial conversations and activities will be about the process you’ll follow, and the transformation effort will include fewer conversations about what you’ll be delivering.
The steps to follow include:
- Motivate with the value of switching to the new process. You might craft different pitches depending on the role and interests of the people involved.
- Educate people on the new process. This tends to include training sessions, books, or lunch and learns. You might reference your company’s context in the examples but that depends on the trainer’s style.
- Design scaled agile processes, checkpoints, roles, timing, tools, etc. Decide who will be in which role, how long your sprints will be, when you’ll release, which tools you’ll be using and how, etc.
- Prepare backlogs for the next release. Scaled agile leaders using a process narrative typically stay hands off and let Product Owners and teams define and prioritize their backlog.
- Launch the agile processes. Hold meetings, plan the sprints, complete the work, share progress, and reflect on how the iteration went. Conversations during this phase tend to be focused on delivery and process improvement.
- Measure process activities primarily. For example, if you’re executing ceremonies, hitting milestones, burn rate, quality metrics, and so on.
- Celebrate hitting process milestones like demos and releases. Order food or throw a big party to bond and celebrate.
- Improve what you’re delivering within the agile framework. After continuously improving the process, some organizations then reflect on if they’re making fast enough progress toward their strategic goals. Then they shift focus to looking at what they are putting in the backlog and ways to improve.
A mission-based journey
In contrast, a mission-based narrative leads to a slightly different set of conversations throughout the journey, although the steps are similar:
A mission narrative focuses on the end goals of the customer or business and uses internal process changes as needed to support the mission. Therefore the conversations and activities at each step will be focused on the specific mission the company is trying to achieve, with references to new processes.
The steps to follow include:
- Motivate with the final objective, reasoning, context, and constraints.
- Educate everyone on the problem context, plus a variety of techniques for creating value. This could include agile but also other methods for identifying and solving problems like design thinking and systems engineering.
- Design the integration points between teams throughout the life cycle. Consider how each meeting, activity, or tool helps to serve the mission.
- Prepare backlogs for the next release. In this case, scaled agile leaders would guide teams toward assembling backlogs that address the objective.
- Launch the agile processes. Hold meetings, plan the sprints, complete the work, share progress, and reflect on how the iteration went. Conversations during this phase tend to be focused on delivery and product improvement.
- Measure progress toward achieving the objective. However, you might also track agile activities for leading indicators. For example, if your goal was to improve customer satisfaction, you could track how many demos you’re holding with customers to gather feedback before changes go live.
- Celebrate hitting mission milestones along the way to your final objective.
- Improve by looking at how further process changes could support the mission. For example, you might test out process changes to help reach your goal faster, achieve a higher quality outcome, or create a better experience for the people involved.
If you’re going through a transition to scaled agile, which path are you on? Which step on that path? (Motivate, Educate, Design, Prepare, Launch, Measure, Celebrate, or Improve?) Which step do you want to focus on over the next few weeks?
Looking for more support and guidance? Recharted Territory has a track record of helping companies develop their own scaled agile practices with either narrative, even if they’ve tried in the past and ran into obstacles. Check out our services and book a complimentary session to discuss your situation.