Agile Transformation Journey....

1. IS YOUR ORGANIZATION ON A JOURNEY TO
AGILE ADOPTION (SCRUM)
OR
AGILE TRANSFORMATION??

2. AGILE TRANSFORMATION
Technology
Product
Owner
Business
Business,
Product Owner/Business
Analyst
&
Technology
all need to be on the
Same Axis
for Agile Transformation to
happen..

3. BENEFITS OF AGILE
• Major
• Focus on Maximizing Value.
• Improved Quality
• Opportunity to do a Correction mid-way.
• Improved Stake-Holder Satisfaction.
• Improved Time to Market.
• Better Alignment of Business and IT.
• Minor
• Empowered Teams.
• Highly Engaged Product Owner.
• Reduced Risks

4. THE BIG QUESTION…
AGILE ADOPTION OR AGILE TRANSFORMATION
• What are we looking at? Agile Adoption or Agile Transformation !!!!
• Agile Adoption is about practices, tools and ceremonies.
• Agile Transformation is about changing the Culture, reflected by change in
Organization Structures, Change in behaviour.
• A very simple example would be:
Agile Adoption Agile Transformation
1. Daily Stand-up.
2. Stories
3. Story Grooming
4. Sprint Retrospective
1. Flatter Structures
2. DevOps Mentality.
3. CI/CD.
4. Next steps from Sprint Retrospective Actioned
upon….

5. FIRST STEPS TO AGILE TRANSFORMATION
• At the Organization Level.. Answer the Following Question.
• What’s the need for Agile Transformation?
• You and the Organization can answer this question best, rather than any consultants.
Every Organization should think that their need to ‘Agile Transformation’ is different than
other organizations and work out an answer out for this question.
• Spend reasonable amount of time on answering this question… This could be answered
in some workshops. The participants to the Workshops should include Business Leaders,
Technology Leaders and Business Analyst Leaders.
Agile Transformation starts with Organizations answering this question
Appropriately,
Accurately and
Honestly !!!!

6. THE BEGINNING
• Communicate
• Derive a Vision for Agile Transformation.
• Communicate it Loud and Clear to the
Team…
• DO NOT Make it Mandatory for everybody
to adopt to Agile… The teams should feel a
“DESIRE” to adopt Agile, rather than
PRESSURED to adopt Agile.
Aim for
AGILE TRANSFORMATION,
Start with
AGILE ADOPTION !!!
The Foundation to
“Self Managed Teams”
cannot be set by forcing
“AGILE”
down their throat…

7. TEAM AND TRAINING
• Identify or Hire some “Agile Coaches”…………..
• Identify “Agile Champions”….
• Identify “Fire Starters”….. In each Business Area/Business Unit….
• Organize “Agile Trainings”, and make it voluntary for people to
enrol for the training…

8. AT THE BUSINESS-UNIT LEVEL
• At the BU Level..
• Organize a Workshop to do a need-analysis for Agile Transformation….. Participants should include the
Technology Team Leader, Product Organization (Product Owner/Business Analyst) and the Business Unit
Representatives…
• Answer the Following Questions.
• What do we need to change in our current ways of working?
• What’s going well and what needs to change…
• If you could change any process, what would you change….
• Finally, what’s the need for an Agile Transformation???
DO NOT embark upon Agile Transformation, if the answer to the question is any of the following:
1. We need to do Agile Transformation, since the whole organization is doing so.
2. We need to do Agile Transformation, since the Senior Management wants us to do so.
3. We need to do Agile Transformation, as it is the Next In-Thing….
Gain Commitment for everybody, Team, Team Leaders, Product Owners, Stake Holders for an Agile Transformation…
Burn All Bridges.. Once a Commitment to Agile Transformation is made, there should be no looking back.. If the team encounters a
problem, they should take help from the Coach and get it resolved……

9. AGILE TRANSFORMATION: ACTION TIME
• Salient Feature of the Workshop:
• Roles would start getting defined at the Workshop.
• Some Natural Leaders would emerge out of the Workshop.
• Along with the Business Stake Holder
• Some Key Members should take an accountability.
Did the Team
assign a Business
Value to the
various items in
the Backlog???
Start with
“Agile Adoption”..
“Agile Transformation”
will follow
• The team should implement the first lessons on Agile Right
Away….
• Do the Backlog on what needs to be done to transform
the organization.
• Do a High Level Prioritization as a part of the workshop.
• Assign a coach to the Team undertaking the
journey…. As much as possible, the coach should be
co-seated with the Team and be ready to resolve any
queries/questions that the Team has “As soon as
possible”.
Agree upon Agile
Goals with the
Team…

10. While you
“Celebrate Success”,
remember
Do Not Forget to
“Celebrate Failure”, as
well.
AGILE TRANSFORMATION: CHECK-POINTS
• Review the Progress….
• Next Steps from Sprint Retrospective.. Normally, the First Sprint
Retrospective will throw out the Biggest Challenges that the Team is Facing,
as everybody is over-enthusiast and honest in the First Retrospective.
• Review the time it has taken for the next steps to be closed…
• Feedback from Scum Master, Team Members, Product Owner and the Stake
Holders. Round up the feedback with the Agile Coach
• These feedbacks should be collected individually and not as a Group..
• Focus on Feedback should be ways of working, rather than on the results….
• Feedback should be focussed more on Process and should not touch upon
people…
IF
there is resistance to change,
HAVE FACT BASED DISCUSSIONS…
ELSE
Review the Team’s Agile Goals with the Team.

11. AGILE TRANSFORMATION: THE JOURNEY
CONTINUES
• Relook at the Structures and Role of Individuals in the Organization…
• Continuous Integration  Continuous Delivery  Continuous Deployment
• DevOps : Culture and Structures.
• Changes
Project Manager, a Controller  “Enabler of Self Organizing Teams”.
Hierarchical Structures Flatter Structures.
Deliver to Plan  Deliver Value
Requirement Stability  Changes in Requirements is not a cause of worry…
Command and Control  Adult Conversations.

12. AGILE TRANSFORMATION
……The Journey Continues