How to establish a Lean Agile Center of Excellence in your organization, and lead your transformation initiative in an Agile way. Drinking our own champagne as change agents.

1. Lean Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)
Drinking our own Champagne
February 2017
Deema Dajani

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“It was like the tide came and washed all away.”
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The eco system
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Transform the eco system
to sustain the change.

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A shift Early agile pilots
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A shift And now…

8. Why does
it get harder?

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It depends on where they are
Innovators
Early
Adopters
Early
Majority
Late
Adopters
LaggardsTHE
CHASM

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Need a Lean agile transformation group
Enterprise
Business
Unit
Business
Unit
Business
Unit
Business
Unit
Shared
Service Unit
Corporate
Functions
Enterprise
LACE

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Why a Center of Excellence (CoE)?
Take enterprise from early adopters through late majority and sustain the change
"DiffusionOfInnovation". Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikipedia
Innovate Transformative Sustained
Practice

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Evolving beyond execution agility
• Business Agility:
• Agile becomes part of the organization’s DNA
• Better in sensing and responding to change
with great speed and transparency

13. [1] How agile is your
agile transformation
initiative?

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Rate your transformation effort
Not the teams you launch or coach
No Absolutely
20-25 Lean machine 15-19 On the right track, you can learn
a few things to evolve your approach
5-14 Time to drink your own Champagne
Team, dedicated? 1 2 3 4 5
Adaptive planning? 1 2 3 4 5
Principles of flow applied? 1 2 3 4 5
Feedback loops? 1 2 3 4 5
Systems thinking? 1 2 3 4 5

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The executive sees
• How much
• How long
• How will I know I’m making a
return on this investment
An investment

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It’s a change initiative
Source: John Kotter
Institutionalize the change
Consolidate and build on the gains
Create short-term wins
Empower people to act on the vision
Communicate the vision
Develop a clear shared vision
Create a guiding coalition
Establish a sense of urgency or sense of purpose

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Status quo bias
• Change is hard
• Change is disruptive
• Status quo bias interacts with
loss aversion, existence
bias and regret avoidance
An emotional bias that is a preference for the current state of affairs

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A compelling case for change
Nothing changes
if nothing changes

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A compelling case for change
• Step in the executive’s shoes
• Understand the organization’s context:
– Market positioning
– Competitive pressures
– Likelihood for disruption
– Regulatory challenges
• Make your case to the right person
Tips
Highlight the cost of not changing

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[2] What’s your
compelling case
for change?

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Is it at the right level?
• Not high enough?
• IT only?
• Business only?
• Project only?
Driven by the CEO, reporting to the Board of Directors?

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[3] How to position
your CoE at the right
level for influence?

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Form a guiding coalition

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[4] Who should be
on your guiding
coalition?

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[5] What does
any successful
initiative need?

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Back to basics
LACE
Vision
Team
Sponsorship
Roadmap

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Vision
Our agile CoE:
Is • Evolution of how we deliver business value
• Alignment across silos
• Creating an environment for evolution
Is not • A PMO
• A cost-cutting play
Customers • Xyz IT
• Xyz business
Value prop—why • Attract and retain talent
• Ability to sense and respond to change
Success measures • Adoption: Percentage of people
• Sustainability: Number of persistent program teams
• Scalability: Number of solutions for constrains
• Time to market: initiative/project cycle time
• Business value: TBD business value measure

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Change canvas

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Team
GUIDING COALITION
Product Owner
LACE
Epic Owners
Portfolio
Management
Scrum Master
Framework
Culture
Transform
Community
Core
Team
Agile Team

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[6] Your CoE
team construct?

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Roadmap
Screenshot from CA Agile Central

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Synchronize and adapt plans
* PI Planning – Program Increment Planning, reference from www.ScaledAgileFramework.com
Limit work in process (WiP)
Capacity based planning
Alignment
Adapt your plan
LACE
PI Planning Event
* PI Planning

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Cadence and decision making
Meeting Frequency Purpose Audience
Mid range planning
(* PI planning)
Quarterly Align on priorities,
Limit WiP
Everyone
Sponsorship Monthly Update sponsor on progress,
impediments, key decisions
CIO
LACE sync Daily Standup Core LACE team
* Epic LACE owners 1/week Scrum of Scrums Core LACE team
Epic LACE owners
Broadcast communications Quarterly Knowledge sharing, voluntary
forum for anyone interested
All unit
Staff updates -- Provide updates into various
ELT staff updates
Manager staff
* References from www.ScaledAgileFramework.com

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[7] What meeting
cadence should
you have?

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Measurement and baseline
* ART – Agile Release Train, reference from www.ScaledAgileFramework.com
Group Structure Launch State # People # Teams
xxxxxxx ART ## 5
xxxxxxxx ART part of VS xxxx ## 7
xxxxxxx ART part of VS xxxx ## 5
xxxxxxxxx Kanban ## 8
Dimension Measure Value Q4 2016
Adoption Percentage xyz people on Kanban/Lean/XP/Scrum/SAFe teams %
Sustainability Number of persistent teams ##
Scalability Number of roadmap solutions achieved ##
Time to market Project or initiative cycle time ##
Business value realized Net promoter score, business success measure ##

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[8] What does
success look like?

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Evolving the transformation
for large enterprises

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Scaling is a process
… …
Center of Excellence
Community of Practice
Agile Working Group
ENTERPRISE
Business Unit X Business Unit Y Business Unit Z
Delivery Group 1 Delivery Group 2 Delivery Group 3

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Scaling the transformation
for larger enterprises
Enterprise
LACE
Local
LACE
Local
LACE
Local
LACE
Local
LACE
Local
LACE
Local
LACE

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From this…
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…to a city that thrives no matter the tide.
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42. Principle Agile Consultant
Deema.dajani@ca.com
Deema Dajani
@ddajani

43. Thank You.