Empowered Agile Transformation – Beyond the Framework, by Alexandra Stokes, 2023
What a great book! Alexandra Stokes has written the book many of us Agilists wanted to write. Her approach to Agile transformation is logical, empathetic, goal-oriented, and dare I say it “frameless”. She includes over 30 personal stories of her Agile transformation successes and failures.
One theme that really resonated with me was to avoid relying on framework installation for your Agile transformation. Instead, use a more empathetic approach targeting the needs. Another impressive theme is called “sensemaking” – empathetic insights into how people are currently working, delays, and improvement opportunities.
Transformation Steps
If you are looking for a step-by-step guided approach for frameless Agile transformations, you may have to dig a bit as the wealth of information is spread throughout the entire book and not organized as neatly as you might expect. That said, late in the book the author does show a diagram of transformation themes. I will summarize it here, taking some liberties with verbiage and summarization:
- Transformation Vision
- Observe, collect current baseline data
- Build a change agents coalition
- Activate squads (Agile teams)
- Design the new system of work
- Activate tribes (team of teams)
- Coach and support
- Iterate while measuring progress towards the Transformation Vision
I found this very much aligned with the Simple Scaling approach championed by myself and others.
Great Quotes
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book (emphasis mine), including some that may be considered controversial.
On Agile Transformation:
“To survive, companies must achieve continuous adaptation, train it as a muscle, adopt it as a habit, and practice it as a discipline.”
“It is critical that Transformation leaders make it clear that everyone in the system will need to change behaviors or leave for Transformation to occur.”
“Ultimately, we want Transformation work to pay for itself, either increased revenue and profit via delivery of value, or reduced operational waste, reducing costs.”
On “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries: “Ries’ book was an inspiration to Agilists worldwide, who realized we had become efficient at building the wrong thing.”
“The truth is like a lion, you do not have to defend it, set it free, it will defend itself. Agile is like the truth, anyone who has had the pleasure of working this way does not return to the old way.”
On Leadership:
“Execs are perpetually in meetings, … Though it appears they are too busy to learn, decision-making has superseded investment in their own learning. We must make space for them to learn.”
“It seems no one in big corporations has the gumption to admit that business cases are largely fabricated, and therefore the Emperor continues to prance around in his new clothes.”
On traditional project management:
“Program and project managers engage in ‘busy work’ and communications to justify their role, rather than focus on value.”
“The longer you keep traditional project and program managers around, the more their old behaviors and ways of working will be pushed onto their Agile squads, likely hindering their performance.”
“A centralized PMO is not conducive to the Agile concept of small, self-organizing, autonomous teams.”
“The manager must understand that the best way of working is co-designed with the workers.”
“If the vendor refuses to change, that is perhaps an indication that they are not the best partner for your business.”
On the use of large consultancies:
“One of the problems of using a large, consultancy led or trademarked framework to install Agile is that both are a predefined model with no allowance for what makes you uniquely you or what is the identity of your organization.”
“Externalizing your Transformation to a consulting group is abdicating responsibility. Outsiders cannot change an organization. It will not sustain when the consultants leave.”
On the use of scaling frameworks:
“Any large, trademarked framework, or industrial strength consultancy led approach is the antithesisof the Agile manifesto, the 12 principles and 4 values.”
“The very implementation of the framework is anti-Agile.”
“Large Scaling Frameworks are generally unpopular in the community of Agile practitioners as they are marketed towards management, the same people who lack literacy in these ways of working. Often the result of such a framework is that good workers leave, and those who stay are beholden to it.”
“Organizations that are lured into this can be seen conducting elaborate rituals that lack substance, often rigid and dogmatic on how to go about doing a certain task for which there is no such thing as the one right way, and we observe them missing the point and missing the value.”
“Big bang (framework) is not the only way. A more organic empowered approach produces better change ‘stickability’.”
“Frameworks, by their nature, cannot diversify to fit any situation or context.”
“Framework salespeople are incentivized to implement overly prescriptive heavy frameworks, because their focus is on making money.”
“Did we bring the framework because we shied away from the hard problems? Did we believe in individuals and interactions OVER processes and tools? Or did we in fact just implement a big process tool?”
On dependencies: “Agile scaling frameworks tend to ‘manage’ this situation with increasing levels of large group ceremonies and dependency resolution meetings; however, they never truly give autonomy to the teams to manage their own work.”
On SAFe’s PI Planning event: “I remain unconvinced about the value of these events, it’s a lot to ask a team to plan out 6 iterations (12 weeks) in advance with any degree of confidence. … If you add up the cost of a tribe spending two days planning it can be upwards of $250K in attendance costs alone. Wouldn’t we want to get a lot of return on value for that investment?”
“Certification promotes a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and, by itself, certification is of no real value to teams or organizations.”
“… I had to conclude that SAFe was a giant compromise, a Framework Trojan horse to allow you to have Agile teams, but not to enable radical reform of how you generate value.”
On Agile mindset:
“It can help you interpret frameworks, take what you need, and discard the rest.”
“Mindsets will always beat frameworks when solving problems with Agile ways of working.”
“An Agile mindset is far more valuable than a purchased framework.”
Which of these quotes resonates with you and why?
Wrap
Don’t hire a large consultancy to execute your Agile transformation. You will spend millions of $$$ for questionable value associated with their checkbox-type approach. Don’t neglect the hard work of transforming by installing a framework. Frameworks by their very nature will solve problems you don’t even have (that’s called waste!).
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