Stages of Evolving Agility


The progression of stages below hint at common stages & challenges along a journey to Agility, and some common ways to help speed progress. Of course your organization's journey and stages to agility will be unique. It will depend on your industry, where you are now, objectives, culture, people, appetite for change, and more.

Fortunately, it's not critical to get it exactly right at first. The power of rapid-learning cycles in an iterative approach helps your organization will get better & better at recognizing issues & opportunities, and making rapid corrections & improvements. Your organization will continue to evolve. The goal is not to do Agile. The bigger goal is to keep improving your organizational agility and thrilling customers.

We've included some possible ways SourceCell can help your evolving Agility, at different levels of service. We would not presume to propose a canned plan for your unique situation. We will work with you in an iterative way, using Agile to get Agile.

Let's discuss situation, goals, objectives, challenges, time frame, and design a way forward. evolving@sourcecell.com 650-485-1203

Stage Characteristics & Challenges What Helps SourceCell Help Level 1 SourceCell Help Level 2 SourceCell Help Level 3

Exploring Change

Pondering Options Including Agile, Design Thinking, ...

Characteristics & Challenges

Long release cycles. Missed opportunities. Chaos. All priority one. Limited innovation. Turnover. Inflexible policies reduce agility. Assessing root issues. Way forward? Aligning. Conflicting policies & incentives, Hearts & minds? ...

What Helps

Assessment baseline. Clear objective(s) & clear metric(s) for business success vs activity. Formation of exec-action team for improvements and impediment removal. Way forward. Similar case studies. Rapid learning cycles. Experimenting.

SourceCell Help Level 1

Advising/Coaching for leadership and sponsored explorers

SourceCell Help Level 2

Level 1 plus: Assessment, Objective clarification with metrics. A way forward. Leadership training & alignment. Help identify pilot projects, people, teams, & structure.

SourceCell Help Level 3

Level 2 plus: Intro training & alignment at all levels needed in a product release cycle plus finance & HR. Internal & external recruiting. Org design, Culture design.

Try Agile/Scrum at Team Level

Pilot Project. Some Leadership Involvement.

Characteristics & Challenges

Mix of excitement & fear. Some early adopters. Frustration. Disagreement about what agile means. Lethargy. Apathy. Change fatigue. Mistrust. Turf. Misaligned. Too busy to change/improve. Fuzzy objectives. No clear baseline or key metric(s), aligning? Org constraints & impediments. Silos & dependencies. ...

What Helps

A way forward. Leadership involvement throughout. Leadership training & coaching. Formation of product prioritization team at exec level. Planning portfolio & milestones. Form Agile practices group. Great people. Shared learning. Building shared understanding & alignment. Patience. ...

SourceCell Help Level 1

Training at team level. Coaching on all levels. Nurturing positivity. Creativity. Guarding against misunderstandings of Agile and backsliding.

SourceCell Help Level 2

Level 1 plus: On-going assessment. Coach EAT. Portfolio planning. Milestone planning. Scaling & descaling coaching/consulting.

SourceCell Help Level 3

Level 2 plus: High-performance team coaching. Agile engineering practices training & coaching.

Expand Agile/Scrum to a Full Product

More Leadership Involvement

Characteristics & Challenges

Good progress in some teams. Want to get better. Difficulty interfacing w/ non-agile teams. Misunderstandings. Too busy to change/improve. Teams are doing 'Agile' but customer has not experienced improvement. Small change in metrics. Doubt re change. "Doing Scrum, but not..." Managing work vs leading & streamlining the organization. ...

What Helps

Progress towards objective(s) with metric(s). One product group hyper productive (4X) to show it's possible. Reminder of pre-Agile baseline. Leadership coaching. Leadership supporting/helping improvements. Product prioritization all levels. Support Agile practices group.

SourceCell Help Level 1

Coaching all levels. Coaching impediment ID & removal. Alignment. Advanced Training.

SourceCell Help Level 2

Level 1 plus: Technical training & coaching. Tools choice

SourceCell Help Level 3

Level 2 plus: High-performance team coaching.

Expand Agile/Scrum to Run a Whole Business Unit

All Departments

Characteristics & Challenges

Faster cycles. Fewer defects. Increased customer satisfaction. Increased transparency & trust. Collaborative discussions using data from experiments. Lack of test automation slows releases. Difficult inter-team coordination. Debates of "scaling" strategies. ...

What Helps

End-to-end visibility & management. Highly trusted and actionable metrics at multiple levels. Focus on moving the needle for end customer. Deeper impediment removal. Dependency mitigation. Test automation. Culture care, ...

SourceCell Help Level 1

Coaching all levels, coaching impediment removal and alignment. Advanced Training, ...

SourceCell Help Level 2

Level 1 plus: Training & coaching in automation, scaling/descaling, Design Thinking, Lean Startup. ...

SourceCell Help Level 3

Level 2 plus: DevOps. Culture care. Co-create organizational design. ...

Accelerate and Become World-Class Innovators

Characteristics & Challenges

Fast release cycles. Minimal defects. Pace with strong competitors or alternatives. Happier customers. Attracting better talent. Unknown competitors or alternatives. Drive to keep getting better. Resistance. Predictive vs empirical mindset. Culture challenges. ...

What Helps

Customer discovery. Experimentation. Continuous deployment. Autonomous/innovation time. Culture care. ...

SourceCell Help Level 1

Coaching all levels. Coaching impediment removal. Alignment. Advanced Training. ...

SourceCell Help Level 2

Level 1 plus: Deep training & coaching in Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Agile engineering practices, experimentation culture, systems thinking, ...

SourceCell Help Level 3

Level 2 plus: Culture care. ...


Let's discuss your situation, goals, objectives, time frame, and help you find a way forward.


For More Info:

evolving@sourcecell.com

650-485-1203