How did Amadeus build a LACE to support a global SAFe transformation for more than 18000 people?

1. How did Amadeus build a LACE
to support a global SAFe
transformation for more than
18,000 people?
20 au 22 septembre 2021
Sandra BELLONG – Head of Amadeus Lean-
Agile Center of Excellence
Olivier LAFONTAN - Coach Agile, SAFe, lean
startup at www.leanpizza.com

2. Remerciements sponsors
20 au 22 septembre 2021

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Amadeus: Enriching every step of the traveler’s journey
©
Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries
3
On-trip
Post-trip
Inspire Shop
Book
Pre-trip

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1M+
Our customers
©
Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries
airport
operators
ground
handlers
hotel
properties
travel agencies,
online travel agencies,
tour operators and
corporations
worldwide
mobility
providers
rail
operators
insurance
provider
groups
cruise
and
ferry
lines
airlines
4
90+ 65+ 20+ 25+
130+ 130+
470+

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Amadeus world presence

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Our SAFe journey
01
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©
Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries

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Creation of
Enterprise
Agility Program
Scaled Agile at Amadeus
SAFe officially
selected as target
model
2015 2017 2018 2020
2019 June 2021
35 Agile Release
Trains
+12 ARTs in 2020
despite COVID
First SAFe ARTs
launch
First scaled agile
initiatives
Creation of the LACE

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Why a LACE?
1. A need for rationalization
2. A need for joining expertise and forces to deploy SAFe
3. A need for flexibility
4. A need for aligning resources against global enterprise priorities

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The vision
Shape the future of Amadeus to make our employees and
customers thrive​ through the deployment of SAFe
and Lean-Agile mindset.​

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The set-up
Lean-Agile Center of Excellence
Airlines Hospitality Travel Distribution
People & Culture
Internal IT
Payment
Hub-and-Spoke model
Technical Capabilities

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Benefits of a central LACE organization
Preparation
4 months
 Ability to manage different SAFe implementations and transversal topics in parallel
 Global and aligned vision at company level
 Sharing knowledge and best practices
 Developing our internal SAFe expertise
 Enhancing globally the Amadeus culture
PI Planning
Sustain & Improve
6 months
Up to 8 Agile Release Trains + Lean Portfolio
Management implementations in parallel
Measurements and Lean Budgeting
Dashboards, KPIs, Surveys, Lean time reporting,…
Transversal topics – Business Agility Extensions
People & Culture, Communities &
Communications
Roles, Trainings, External and Internal comms, CoP,…
Agile and SAFe external services
Consulting, Training, Coaching, Agile HR,…

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Is a LACE enough to transform the full enterprise?

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Our Enterprise Agility SAFe Agile Release Train
6
dedicated teams to coach, assess
and raise Agile and SAFe maturity
3
dedicated transversal teams
SAFe deployment Transversal guidance
People & Culture,
Communities and
Communication
Measurements & Lean
Budgeting
Enterprise Portfolio
Management
©
Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries

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How do we prioritize?
Strategic Portfolio Review
Portfolio Sync
Every 3 months
Every 2 weeks
Lean Portfolio
Management
Synchronization
@Unit level

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AGILITY MATURITY: INCREASE OVERALL TEAM AND TRIBE/ART LEVEL MATURITY
35
Active ARTs
28
Agile Cartography
= previous figures
5
4,138
2203
SAFe eNPS
Predictability
Target 2021 = 38
Target 2021 = 3500
Enterprise Agility KPIs
End of June 2021
4380
2600
Total VOD headcount
SAFe headcount
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
2019-Q4 2020-Q1 2020-Q2 2020-Q3 2020-Q4 2021-Q1 2021-Q2

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CONFIDENTIAL & RESTRICTED
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
-
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
8,000
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
SAFe deployment on estimated addressable market
SAFe candidates Cumulative progress Nb of ARTs planned
Our Business Agility evolution
Full essential SAFe deployment by end 2023, considering a stable transformation rate
Assumptions:
• Volumes: 80% of the worldwide engineering community + Product management + Implementation teams, considering that
20% of those teams will not be moving to SAFe as not needed.
• Transformation rate: Data based on achievements and on forecast
35 Agile
Release Trains
+2600 people
in SAFe
June 2021
We are
here

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Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries
LARGE SAFe TRANSFORMATIONS :
A COACH’S VIEW

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Coaching in this setup
Some basic
info about me
Some basic
info about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
•I started with Agile in 2002, and I have been coaching
since 2004.
•I coached at Amadeus for 1 year (July 2020 – June
2021)
•I helped support multiple ARTs and coached
stakeholders on their LPM (Lean Portfolio
Management) journey
•Sponsors are available
•Priorities are very clear
•Business engagement is a given
•Stable teams during transformation PI execution
•Transformation roadmap marks expectations for
everyone
•Escalation, although rare, is swiftly resolved
•I felt part of a team and larger group from the start
(there was always someone ready to help and answer
questions)
•I only had a subset of Amadeus to focus on to be able
to coach
•I had visibility on all the other transformation
initiatives at the end of every transformation sprint
•Altogether, this allowed me to get “stuck in” easily
and rapidly
•25 dedicated coaches : most of them are permanent
staff
•Coaches work within one of the 3 teams supporting
dedicated Business Units and business objectives
•Once assigned to a team, coaches participate to
quarterly PI Planning events where Business Units and
Business Domains’ coaching priorities are tackled.
These priorities are discussed and agreed during
specific and dedicated Agile transformation Strategic
Portfolio Reviews.

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CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic
info about me
Some basic
info about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition

20. 20
CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic info
about me
Some basic info
about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition
In large SAFe implementations, investments
are substantial.
They requires that we all understand how we
will measure that we are bringing value to
the organization.
Measuring Value is hard! Having the right
KPIs in large transformations is always a
challenge.
There might be global ones, but we also
need to look for local ways to measure value.

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CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic info
about me
Some basic info
about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition
Reaching speed and trust between the
coaching team and stakeholders of a
transition can be tricky.
Providing actual delegation from the LACE
management to coaches is a fantastic way to
see progress on these fronts on
transformations.
Although not easy to achieve on large setup
such as Amadeus, SAFe provided the
necessary upfront discussions and setup to
ensure a consistent and adequate level of
delegation to coaching teams (this can take
some getting used to by the stakeholders
who usually like to talk to “management”
whenever decisions and priority calls need to
be made).

22. 22
CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic info
about me
Some basic info
about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition
Induction is always a challenge!
Good and easy to browse documentations is
always great if you have a lot of external
coaches joining your team.
A buddy system is also a great way to
introduce new coaches into a company.

23. 23
CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic info
about me
Some basic info
about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition
Spending effort solving the same problems,
or thinking about the same thing, again and
again is time consuming and generates
frustration and misunderstanding.
In large setups (multiple ARTs to be launched
over multiple quarters/years) some form of
systematic process, organization,
infrastructure and tooling will provide
stability.
As an example, there can be cognitive
overload from new ARTs stakeholders from
very mundane decisions such as “where do
we store / document and how do we
organize our Themes / Epics / Features /
Stories / Tasks as well as PI Objectives,
Risks?”.

24. 24
CONFIDENTIAL
DOCUMENT
Coaching in this setup
Some basic info
about me
Some basic info
about
Amadeus
What it means
for coaches
What it meant
for me
Some
challenges and
tips for large
transformation
programmes
Empower coaches in front of
high level stakeholders
And remember…
Industrialise where and when
needed
Think about new joiners
Define / Agree what value is
expected from your transition
SAFe is not a silver bullet, it is not a magic
solution to all problems.
SAFe is merely a great revealer of what
needs attention and could be improved.

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Amadeus
IT
Group
and
its
affiliates
and
subsidiaries
THANK YOU !!

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Teams identification
PI Planning Event
Boards
26
Our main tools
Metrics
Implementation workshops
Internal tool: Virtual Organization Directory

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