Agile is necessary by not sufficient for Agility
When teams start adopting Scrum, it’s easy to think that when they are proficient in Scrum, the work is done. However, that’s not nearly enough to help the organization achieve its goals. What are the outcomes that the team is aiming for? Are those outcomes part of the team’s Vision, and Mission?
Peter suggests that we should start our work by defining together with the team and stakeholders what success means. That becomes the first question to ask before we start our work with the team.
Bing bang approaches are sometimes necessary, but not sufficient for the momentum of change that is needed
Although Big Bang approaches to Agile transformation are fraught with problems, sometimes they might be the best place to start. Peter explains what are some of the obstacles that organizations face when going through an Agile transformation process, and how big bang changes can actually help them overcome those challenges.
However, that big bang, which may be needed to start the transformation, may not be sufficient for the transformation to succeed. We discuss why that is, and how to go about it, step by step.
In this segment, we refer to the Spotify Engineering Culture video published in 2014 by Henrik Kniberg.
The speed of transformation is limited by the speed of learning in the organization
The third key lesson that Peter shares is about learning as an organization, and as individuals. Peter shares some stories of his, and other organizations, and asks us to consider a few questions when going through an Agile transformation. What we can learn, and how fast we can learn is also limited by the examples that we look at. What organizations are you using to help model your own agile transformation?
Supporting an Agile transformation process, developing Agile Coaching capabilities
Agile coaching support for the teams, and the individuals in the organization becomes a critical capability, especially in larger organizations. Peter shares with us some of the patterns he’s experimented with, and what he learned about developing an in-house capability to support teams and individuals through Agile coaching.
We discuss how organizations might want to think about developing their capabilities, and skills in the Agile coaching space, as well as how to help individuals grow in their career and help their organizations after the Agile transformation is over.
In this segment, we refer to the book Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale by Humble et al.
About Peter Lam
Peter has helped some of Australia’s largest corporations and government departments realise benefits from adopting digital, agile & ‘new ways of working’ as an Enterprise Agile Coach, program manager and as a people leader / Head of Projects.
You can link with Peter Lam on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Lam on Twitter.
