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 ChangePondering Options Including Agile, Design Thinking, ... |
Characteristics & ChallengesLong 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 HelpsAssessment 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 1Advising/Coaching for leadership and sponsored explorers |
SourceCell Help Level 2Level 1 plus: Assessment, Objective clarification with metrics. A way forward. Leadership training & alignment. Help identify pilot projects, people, teams, & structure. |
SourceCell Help Level 3Level 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 LevelPilot Project. Some Leadership Involvement. |
Characteristics & ChallengesMix 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 HelpsA 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 1Training at team level. Coaching on all levels. Nurturing positivity. Creativity. Guarding against misunderstandings of Agile and backsliding. |
SourceCell Help Level 2Level 1 plus: On-going assessment. Coach EAT. Portfolio planning. Milestone planning. Scaling & descaling coaching/consulting. |
SourceCell Help Level 3Level 2 plus: High-performance team coaching. Agile engineering practices training & coaching. |
Expand Agile/Scrum to a Full ProductMore Leadership Involvement |
Characteristics & ChallengesGood 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 HelpsProgress 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 1Coaching all levels. Coaching impediment ID & removal. Alignment. Advanced Training. |
SourceCell Help Level 2Level 1 plus: Technical training & coaching. Tools choice |
SourceCell Help Level 3Level 2 plus: High-performance team coaching. |
Expand Agile/Scrum to Run a Whole Business UnitAll Departments |
Characteristics & ChallengesFaster 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 HelpsEnd-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 1Coaching all levels, coaching impediment removal and alignment. Advanced Training, ... |
SourceCell Help Level 2Level 1 plus: Training & coaching in automation, scaling/descaling, Design Thinking, Lean Startup. ... |
SourceCell Help Level 3Level 2 plus: DevOps. Culture care. Co-create organizational design. ... |
Accelerate and Become World-Class Innovators |
Characteristics & ChallengesFast 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 HelpsCustomer discovery. Experimentation. Continuous deployment. Autonomous/innovation time. Culture care. ... |
SourceCell Help Level 1Coaching all levels. Coaching impediment removal. Alignment. Advanced Training. ... |
SourceCell Help Level 2Level 1 plus: Deep training & coaching in Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Agile engineering practices, experimentation culture, systems thinking, ... |
SourceCell Help Level 3Level 2 plus: Culture care. ... |