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1. Agile Transformation
- Gnanasambandham Anbazhagan

2. Agile Readiness Assessment (ARA)
Readiness Assessment is to measure the Current State of the Project teams. An honest assessment of the agile maturity of the organization is the key
for success. These findings gives input for planning mitigation strategies for the areas lagging.
The assessment will explore the following areas of organizational readiness:
Organizational Culture and Flexibility
Current State and Experience
Environment (Infrastructure)
Technology & Tools
Process and Governance
Business Strategy

3. Agile Transformational Strategy
Agile Transformation at all layers from Senior executive level to the bottom Layer. Top down approach brings more visibility to process across organization.
Leadership
• Analyze the current state (AS IS situation) of Client and vendor organizations
• Agile consulting at Portfolio Level with Senior Executives. Engage key stakeholders at Client and vendor organizations
• Identify mission’s objectives and set outcome measures.
Enterprise
• Agile Mindset & Cultural Change (Being Agile)
• Bringing Agile Governance and required Structural Changes
• Customer Satisfaction and Competitive in the business.
Product
Strategy
• Vision, Business Goals of the customers
• Streamline process to derive Quarterly and Yearly Product Roadmap
• Innovation, Market strategy, PI Planning, Value Stream, and Budgeting
Delivery
• Understand team's technical environment, way of working, commitments, challenges, practices
• Perform initial maturity assessment, identify knowledge gaps and conduct focused training
• Recommendations towards improving collaboration, team restructuring, implementation of engineering tools, devops tools
Execution
• Lean Thinking, Kaizen – On continuous Improvement
• Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban, Xtreme Programming(XP)
• Self Organized, Tools , Collaborations

4. Roadmap (Initial Phase)
Oct
• Assessing Current State at all Levels of organization
• Define Roadmap
• Come up with Plan for Agile Transformation at all client
and Vendor Organizations involved at all Levels
• Identity Framework and Teams for coaching
• Top down and Bottom up Approach for Agile
Transformation
• Top Down: Agile Training for Senior Stakeholders &
Leaders
• Bottom up: Agile Training for Agile Teams on Agile
mind set, Culture, XP and DEVOPS best practices
• Setting KPI/OKR based on vision of Customer Goals
Nov
• Roadmap to incremental Agile adoption
• Conducting Agile Trainings, Coaching and Mentoring
• Conducting Interviews, analyse current process and
documentation
• Standardizing Agile ALM tools
• Measure KPIs
• Pilot new reporting
Dec
• Facilitate continuous improvements
• Process Optimization
• Tooling improvements on Agile and DEVOPS

5. 1 to 3 Months
Target 10%
“Shu” stage
Consider Agile Readiness
assessment as input
Choose few pilot projects or a
program
Kick Off project with Product
Discovery, Value Stream, MVP and
Story mapping
Conduct Agile, Scrum, Kanban, XP
training with Clean code, TDD, etc..,
Start with simple process (Scrum
ceremonies) in place.
Give Required trainings, coaching and
mentoring
3 to 6 months
Target 70%
“Shu to Ha” stage
Start with org wide Agile trainings.
Expand the agile implementation to
multiple programs
Make sure all Lean, Kanban, Scrum
Practices, followed religiously. Have
DOR and DOD in place.
Start following XP best practices,
Clean code, Code refactoring.
Setup Software quality standards and
project governance
Track Sprint metrices and do regular
Agile assessment
6 to 9 months
Target 90%
Moved to “Ri” stage
Kaizen – Continuously Measure and
Improve
Conduct PI planning in SAFe, regular
Agile assessment and frequently
monitor the progress of teams
Make sure the team follows
the defined process, scrum
ceremonies and meet DOR, DOD
Following XP, DEVOPS (CI, CD),
DEVSECOPS best practices in place
and measuring to improve
Enforce automated unit testing, and
system testing
9 to 12 months
Target 100%
Sustaining “Ri” stage
Kaizen – Assess with rigorous Agile
Assessment criteria. Take necessary
steps to improve and sustain in
highest maturity level, “Ri” stage.
Experienced team follows agile
contracts, governance as defined and
make them as habit
Team expertise in practicing
advanced XP best practices
like TDD, ATDD, BDD
Following DEVOPS and effective best
practices for Faster “Time to Market”
and sustaining in this stage
Roadmap (Long Term)
“Maturity is not when we start Speaking Big things, It when we start understanding Small things”.

6. Phase III – Maturing
Practices internalized, habitual
and performing well
Phase IV – Continuous
Improvement
Team self-managing (sustained) &
org operating consistently
Phase II – Practicing
Practices integrated within teams.
Not yet habitual & consistent
Phased Roadmap - Agile Transformation Plan
Governance
Ongoing
improvements &
Communication
Process
Enterprise agile
roadmap planning
Continuous
delivery sustained
People
People
Teams culture and
maturity maintained.
Program/ Org level
coaching
established
Tools
Tools efficient &
sustaining
team’s delivery
Phase I – Initiating
Practices introduced to
teams; Pilots started
 Establish governance
with executive
sponsorship teams and
Vendor management
 Define transformation
plan & phases
 Do Assessment and
identify process
 Identify Tools and define
initial Agile metrics
 Rollout Pilot projects
 Define Agile roles & RACI
 Train Pilot teams
 Conduct Agile trainings,
mentoring and coaching at
all levels
 Define initial Agile
toolset
 Identify goals
 Define Metrics and Agile transition
plan
 Build & run communications
strategy
 Document & publish Agile
processes guidelines
 Establish scrum backlog
management processes
 Increase product deployment
frequency
 Provide certification training for Key
Roles (Pos,, Dev Leads)
 Identify/coach feature teams for
phase 2 programs/applications
 Form communities of practice
for Agile roles
 Implement strategy to enable
internal coaches
 Establish Agile tool; Analyze gaps
& plan to evolve IT toolset
 Evolve Test Environments for
Agile delivery
 Phase 2 retrospective &
Create Phase 3 Agile
transition plan
 Update goals to proficient
threshold
 Update communications
strategy
 Integrate agile portfolio
mgmt. with Business
 Achieve Continuous
Delivery where possible
 Refine Metrics, & SDLC
processes
 Standardize distributed
team models
 Complete transition of
coaching from executives to
development teams
 Conduct cultural
assessment & targeted
training on gaps
 Implement Agile toolset
evolution

7. Process Tailoring for Teams (Sample Case Study)
Scrumban Process
▪ Kanban best suitable for support
projects to handle tickets
▪ Scrum is best suitable for
development projects.
▪ Projects Involving development and
maintenance can get the support of
Kanban and Scrum Process
▪ Recommended to have mix of both
Scrum and Kanban to handle
development maintenance called
Scrumban
1
Support team A- Java,
REST API, Angular
2
Support team B- SAP
Apps, ABAP, SAP
HANA, LCI
3
Support team C - SAP
Apps, ABAP, SAP
HANA, LCI
Kanban Metrics: Cycle time, Lead
time, Throughput.
Scrum Metrics: Sprint Burn down,
Velocity, Committee d vs
Delivered, Scope change,
cumulative charts, Defects, code
coverage, static code analysis
▪ Traditional Mindset and Culture
▪ Dysfunctional teams
▪ Teams working in Silos
Challenges & Solutions Metrics
Process
Teams
4
Support team D-
Linux, Cloud DevOps,
Azure/ AWS Cloud
maintenance,
Bamboo
5
Development team
E- Java, REST API,
Angular
6
Testing team F-
Manual Application
testing, Automation
tools and
Performance Testing
▪ Scrum Process: Best suitable for
development. Team can handle in
fixed time(Time Boxing), Fixed Scope
and Fixed resource
▪ Scrum and Kanban Process:
Dedicated team’s members for each
team helps to be cross functional
supports for Scrum and Kanban and
Scrumban teams for testing
Challenges
▪ Traditional Mindset
▪ Dysfunctional teams
▪ Teams working in Silos
▪ Cross Vendor relationship and
dependency
▪ Dependencies outside organization
Solution
▪ Need to Promote self organized
teams and more Collaboration
across vendor and client’s teams
▪ Traditional Mindset
▪ Dysfunctional teams
▪ Teams working in Silos
▪ Cross Vendor relationship
Scrum Metrics: Sprint Burn down,
Velocity, Committed vs Delivered,
Scope change, Defects
Scrum and Kanban :Escaped
Defects and Defect density. Test
effectiveness, test status and test
resources

8. Actioning Transformational Strategy (AXT)
Agile Transformation
Strategy
Leadership
Organization
Structure
Product
Strategy
Team,
Technology
and
Practices
Transformation
Mastery
Training,
Mentoring,
Facilitating
Driving alignment Across Enterprise:
Vision creation and publishing to guide the Agile transformation. Getting
alignment and buy-in from executive leadership
Advance product management Competencies
such as product vision, roadmaps and portfolio
management
Change in Culture & Mindset
Embrace change in culture and mindset towards agile.
Embed capabilities to enables the enterprise to operate
business effectively.
Coaching across organization for Agile
adoption. Align the Programs, projects
towards to organization goal
Change Agent helps an organization transform
itself by focusing on organizational
effectiveness, development and continuous
improvement
Tools, Technology and Continuous Improvement
Adoption on Agile process like SAFe, Lean, Scrum,
Kanban, Scrumban, XP best practices and DEVOPS
Enterprise Level Agile Transformation requires a holistic approach.

9. Focus Areas/Outcome of Transformation
Agile Transformation targeted towards making North Star competitive advantage through below focus areas
Higher employee engagement
Quality of Deliverables Delight Customer
Customer Competitive Advantage
Key initiatives
Agile Transformation : Have a clear
Roadmap on short (Initial stage) and Long
Term
Tools and Process: Implement right Tools
and Process for best results
Culture & Change management: Implement
the Agile Culture, observe the required
change and implement
Continuous Improvement: Have regular
assessment, monitoring and implement the
improvement plans
▪ Innovative delivery models
▪ Automation helps to improve on quality
deliverable avoid manual errors upto 50%
▪ Avoid Rework and committed deliver
▪ Faster Time to Market
▪ Maintain harmony and make sure employee
satisfaction
▪ Creating a High-Performance Team “Ri”
Level
▪ Upskill and ready for challenge
▪ Maintain employee , Customer relationship
and better collaboration
▪ Right Strategy , Right tools and Process
returns higher margins
▪ Continuous monitoring and Improvement in
process, tools and people make customer to
lead the market
▪ Faster Time to Market
▪ Better Return on Investment (ROI)
▪ Delivery Partnership

10. Challenges in Agile Transformation
• Organizational current design and culture made it difficult to adopt and scale.
• Hard to break waterfall mindset at all layers across enterprise.
• Convincing Stakeholders and business executives to align to process , streamline value
Culture and Mindset
• Fear of Transparency and No clearly defined metrics to identify and
measure progress
• Alignment with other projects in portfolio and across enterprise while
implementing SAFe
• Concentrating on Communication requirements which are higher in agile processes and
needs lots of discipline
This a Radical change involves Confusion & pain is inevitable. This is a journey, not a one-off change
• Difficult to keep the interest of the Customers, and maintain team harmony throughout the project
• As resources working in projects goes out of project and engaging training new members
Agile Tools and Best
practices
Transparency
Scaling Issue
Communication
• Challenge in communication due to distributed team, cultural and language diversity
• To Measure and improve to higher maturity
• Intense involvement that characterizes agile methods
Stakeholder Requirements • Multiple stakeholders make requirements and change management complex
Motivation
Understanding the process
• Lightweight ceremony for lack of Ownership
• Essential documentation only for no documentation