AGILE AUTHORITY BLOG
Book Review and Quotes: “Empowered Agile Transformation – Beyond the Framework”
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 [...]
Making the Case for Value Stream Identification
We’ve all been there before, right? On one hand, we live in a classic siloed organization that is slow to respond to the market. Cross-org dependencies are the norm. The flow of value to the customer is slow. Painfully slow. Value stream identification is non-existent. On the other hand, we understand the power of “alignment to value” and its potential impact on the flow of [...]
Rethinking Agile Transformations
Imagine. Let's start rethinking Agile transformations. What if Leaders would issue an “Agile statement of intent” instead of attempting another costly framework-driven transformation? How would our life at work be different? Can you imagine the agility innovation that this would spark? For example, what if a Leader made the following statement: “For our company to be successful, our teams really need to have a desire [...]
Fake Agile Release Trains (FARTs)
True story - I once did some consulting at a Fortune 50 company where the SAFe transformation success was measured by "number of ARTs launched". You can guess what happened... Fake Agile Release Trains (FARTs). Entire VP and Director organizations were now calling themselves an "Agile Release Train" and going through the motions of a cadenced PI Planning event. When I asked one of the [...]
SAFe vs. Simple Scaling
Leaders and Executives considering a “scaled Agile transformation” – you have a choice. You can fall in line with the masses and install a scaling framework such as SAFe. Alternatively, you can take a much more targeted approach, one that addresses your needs specifically, and that actually simplifies (de-scales) product development. SAFe vs. Simple Scaling. Let’s compare these two approaches in an attempt to outfit [...]
The Case for Installing SAFe As-Is (well, not really)
Here I make the case for installing SAFe as-is. Note: Be sure and read to the end! The Case for Installing SAFe As-Is Installing SAFe as-is is appropriate when you have all of these situations: We need to “scale Agile up” to levels higher than Team-level Each team needs consistency of using ScrumXP or Kanban XP practices are needed to improve the quality of the [...]
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