Category: Agile Transformation

Agile Change Management

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date March 29, 2021

The business world has arguably seen more disruption in the last nine months than in the last nine years, bringing new and urgent demand for change. Initiatives are being launched by the dozen, adoption can’t happen fast enough, and the stakes are higher than ever. In the midst of a Covid-induced recession, and with some industries on the brink of extinction, change isn’t about fine-tuning — it’s existential.

But traditional change management — often characterized by heavy process, lengthy timelines, and clunky rollouts — won’t cut it right now. As organizations fundamentally rethink their product and service portfolios, reinvent their supply chains, pursue large-scale organizational restructuring, determine on the fly how to operate in a virtual world and rebuild to correct systemic racism from the ground up, the type of change management required in this moment is quick, agile, and (in many cases) virtual.

Tags OCM, Organizational Change Management

Agile Transformation Change Management Organizational Improvement

Agile Transformation? Choose the Right People.

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date March 8, 2021

Agile methods can accelerate product development and process improvements. They can also help engage an organization’s most valuable employees, deepening their connections and experiences in ways that pay off for the company in the long run. But agile teams are not stand-alone entities; they’re embedded in broader collaborative networks. By taking that reality into account, leaders can design them so that they make the most of talent inside and outside teams, avoid overload and burnout, avert potential disruptions, and achieve their objectives better and faster.

Agile Transformation

Scaled Agile Framework 5.1

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date February 8, 2021

Scaled Agile has announced an update to its SAFe 5 methodology. The company says the evolving Scaled Agile Framework expands upon the advances in strategy, execution, technical and leadership competencies. The key components needed by any organization to deliver innovative business solutions faster than the competition.

According to Dean Leffingwell, SAI co-founder and chief methodologist, “The digital world is changing at an ever-increasing pace. Scaled Agile is committed to the evolution of the framework to help organizations achieve business agility.”

Relentless improvement is central to this mission. It helps us improve SAFe based on experiences from our customers and partners,” Leffingwell added.

Agile Transformation Collaboration Organizational Improvement

The Roles Every Team Needs to Be Effective

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date February 1, 2021

If your goal is to level up the performance of a senior leadership team. There are many models and frameworks available to assess team behavior and performance. Each of them has pros and cons in different situations.

One of my favorites comes from the psychologist David Kantor and is called the Four-Player Communication Model. It applies to any team solving problems and collaborating to reach common goals. Each role is fairly simple to understand, yet getting them working together on a team can be a balancing act.

Tags Teams

Agile Transformation Change Management

Agile at Scale

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date January 25, 2021

When implemented correctly, agile innovation teams almost always result in higher team productivity and morale, faster time to market, better quality, and lower risk than traditional approaches can achieve. What if a company were to launch dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of agile teams? Could whole segments of the business learn to operate in this manner?

Agile Transformation Project Management

Why Agile Goes Awry — and How to Fix It

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date January 4, 2021

Agile processes go awry because as companies strive for high performance, they either become too tactical (focusing too much on process and micromanagement) or too adaptive (avoiding long-term goals, timelines, or cross-functional collaboration). The key is balancing both tactical and adaptive performance. Whether you’re an engineer or product manager, here are a few changes to consider to find this balance.

Agile Transformation

How to Make Agile Work for the C-Suite

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date December 21, 2020

Many companies are attempting a radical — and often rapid — shift from hierarchical structures to more agile environments, in order to operate at the speed required by today’s competitive marketplace. Companies like ANZ, the Australian-based banking giant, have made explicit commitments to adopt agile principles, while others like Zappos, are on the bleeding edge of organizational transformation. Many stopping points exist along the continuum from hierarchy to holacracy. To successfully transform to a more agile enterprise, companies must make conscious choices about where and how to become agile. They have to decide where to adopt agile principles and mindsets, where to use agile problem-solving methodologies to dynamically address strategic and organizational challenges, and where to more formally deploy the full agile model, including self-managed teams.

Agile Transformation Change Management Innovation

Embracing Agile

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date December 14, 2020

Over the past 25 to 30 years, agile innovation methods have greatly increased success rates in software development, improved quality and speed to market, and boosted the motivation and productivity of IT teams. Now those methods are spreading across a broad range of industries and functions and even reaching into the C-suite. But many executives don’t understand how to promote and benefit from agile; often they manage in ways that run counter to its principles and practices, undermining the effectiveness of agile teams in their organizations.

From their work studying and advising companies that have successfully employed agile methods, the authors have discerned six crucial practices for capitalizing on agile’s potential: (1) Learn how agile really works; (2) understand when it is appropriate; (3) start small and let passionate evangelists spread the word; (4) allow teams that have mastered the process to customize their practices; (5) practice agile at the top; and (6) destroy corporate barriers to agile behaviors. They expand on each, providing executives with a practical guide for accelerating innovation and profitable growth.

Agile Transformation Change Management Process Improvement

Best Practices for Instant Messaging @ Work

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date November 16, 2020

The benefits of instant messaging tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom have become quickly obvious. There’s just one problem: We’re still figuring out how to properly, and professionally, communicate via IM. Organizations should begin to adopt best practices, such as carefully choosing which systems to use, ideally ones already favored by employees; setting ground rules around personal messages; respecting work-life balance by creating norms around appropriate response times; and encouraging face-to-face communication as well.

Agile Transformation Collaboration

How to Make Sure Agile Teams Can Work Together

Post author By Robert Crouch
Post date November 2, 2020

Increasing volatility, uncertainty, growing complexity, and ambiguous information (VUCA) has created a business environment in which agile collaboration is more critical than ever. Organizations need to be continually on the lookout for new market developments and competitive threats, identifying essential experts and nimbly forming and disbanding teams to help tackle those issues quickly. However, these cross-functional groups often bump up against misaligned incentives, hierarchical decision-making, and cultural rigidities, causing progress to stall or action to not be taken at all.