Studies ubiquitously show that Leadership and Culture are among the top factors for a successful Lean Agile transformation. What specific actions should leaders take to structure Lean Agile transformations? How does leader style enable cultural change? This session provides 1) a practical set of actions to start or improve your transformation and 2) a specific list of behaviors to do and NOT to do in setting the right culture as a leader.

1. Lean Agile Leadership Workshop

2. Agenda
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• Defining the Lean-Agile Leadership problem
• Leading Change: A level deeper!
• Cultivating a Leadership Culture
• Developing your Lean-Agile leadership style

3. What SAFe tells us
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4. Leadership Defined
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lead·er·ship
ˈlēdərˌSHip/
noun
noun: leadership
the action of leading a group of people or an organization.
"different styles of leadership”
synonyms: guidance, direction, control, management, superintendence, supervision; More
• the state or position of being a leader.
"the leadership of the party”
synonyms: directorship, governorship, governance, administration, captaincy, control,
ascendancy, supremacy, rule, command, power, dominion, influence, “the leadership of the
Coalition”
• the leaders of an organization, country, etc.
plural noun: leaderships
"a change of leadership had become desirable"

5. Exercise: Define Leadership
Have you known a great leader?
Find a partner and create your
definition of “Leadership”
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Discuss: 5 minutes Share: 5 minutes

6. Leading Change
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A “SAFe” level deeper on Kotter

7. What to do
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1. Start with Kotter’s Leading Change
2. ID the right launch opportunity
3. Cast the right characters
4. Enable people to lead within their context

8. #1. Establish a sense of urgency
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1. Transformation
1. Compelling business reason
2. Executive-driven
2. Adoption – we can/need to improve

9. #2. Create a powerful guiding coalition
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o Participants
• Key leaders in organization who will champion the agile adoption
• Representatives from multiple aspects of the business (cross functional)
• Sufficient influence in the organization to drive change – authority to change the system
• Passion for Lean Agile and desire to drive change
• Skillset: may vary but well organized, good soft skills, good knowledge of their domain
• Ideally dedicated but part-time is feasible if consistent
o Responsibilities
• Own and act on Transformation Backlog
• Vision and context for change
• Stimulate conversation in organization
• Allocate capacity/engage people
• Set & communicate goals
• Engage broad audience
• Address people issues and impediments

10. #2. Create a powerful guiding coalition
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1. Types of guiding coalitions
1. Centralized: Executive committee performs function or leads from the front with
an empowered execution group
2. Decentralized: Groups/business units figure out their own path
3. Combo: Centrally managed/funded best practices enablement group with
internal “customers”

11. #3. Develop the Vision and Strategy
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1. Scenario 1: Business Vision is the Change Vision
2. Scenario 2: Change Vision describing Lean-Agile contributions to the Business Vision
• Leader/Sponsor can organize a set of working sessions to develop the vision.
• Visioning is an art, not a science!
• Needs to be aspirational but provide enough direction to be tangible
• Link to people’s sense of purpose!

12. #3. Develop the Vision and Strategy
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1. What specific results are we achieving
and how are they
defined/communicated?
1. OKR – Objectives and Key
Results
2. Management By Objectives
2. Put a system in place to evaluate and
pivot
1. SAFe cadence (I&A!) or other
such review structure for the
guiding coalition
Objectives and Key Results Example
Objective Improve the efficiency of the Biz
value stream (concept to cash) by 25%
(yearly)
Key Results
• Decrease wait time between ‘approving’
and ‘starting’ work from 120 days to less
than 30 days
• Decrease wait time between
dev/component test and UAT from 75
days to 30 days
• Maintain or improve current defect
density profile on a project by project
basis

13. #4. Communicate the Vision (and Strategy)
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1. Leverage existing change infrastructure/process etc (ADKAR, customized)
2. Establish communication plans and communicate 100x more than you think you need
to
Group Communications Frequency
Agile Lead Workshops,
Newsletters,
Planning Sessions,
As scheduled
Monthly
As scheduled
CIO Common cadence
events
Quarterly as
scheduled
Functional Leads Team Events 2-Weeks as sched.
Business Execs Common cadence
events
Quarterly as
scheduled
Contract
Stakeholders
Contract Demos
Cadence Events
Monthly
As scheduled

14. #5. Empower employees for broad-based action
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From a delivery/product perspective:
1. Value Stream map to establish value-based delivery structures
2. Set up cross-functional teams
3. Employ the SAFe Lean-Agile work management system
4. ‘Feed the system’ with Improvement items (i.e., set aside specific capacity for
change!)
From a guiding coalition perspective:
1. Use SAFe to roll-out SAFe (or other cadence-based pivot system)

15. #6. Generate short term wins
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• Pick the “right” train to launch
• Evaluate based on Leader support, Compelling opportunity,
Collaborating teams, Clear product/solution
• Launch and win!
• Organize your set of “customers” into a Roadmap for launches

16. #7. Consolidate gains and produce more wins
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1. Agile Guiding Coalition captures measures against OKR/achieving Vision
2. Publish per communication/change management system (use PO/PM or Lean
Portfolio Management Stakeholder exercise)
3. Inspect and Adapt the Vision/OKR/goals
4. Take advantage of Lean Agile Events to communicate

17. #8. Anchor New Approaches in Culture
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• SAFe roles and delivery structure provide the baseline system
• Figure out creative ways to reinforce changes in activity
• Badging system to reinforce the correct actions
• Don’t throw people off their path!
• How does HR/Career Path get modified to support here?
• Launch Communities of Practice

18. Thank you, Mr. Kott-aire!
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….but what do I do in my role?

19. Where do we need leadership?
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• Management = Leadership (right?!)
CIO
VP Ops
Ops Manager
VP Delivery
Program
Manager
VP Shared
Services
Release
Management
Assistant
Funded project
to “get Agile”–
awaiting results
Told to “Go
Agile”
Entrenched in the
old ways
Managing Agile
Project
Only gal actually
delivering Agile
Just waiting for
retirement
Actually trying to
help
Optimize CIO
Schedule + owns
meeting rooms

20. Lean-Agile Leaders are everywhere!
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Culture
Executives
• Sponsorship ($)
• Vision/Results
• Manage the system
• Establishing the value
stream
Large Sol./Program
• Roadmap
• “Bridge” to strategy
• Mid-term work view
• Integrating value
Team 1…X
• Coaching/mentoring
• Delivering value
• Understand larger value
stream/context
• Exposing waste

21. What to look for in people opting in to Agile roles
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• Highly adept at establishing trust
• Developers of people
• Highly collaborative
• Excellent communicators
• Courageous
• Growth mindset – “lifelong learners”
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/lean-agile-leaders

22. Leadership Culture
What should your
leadership culture be?
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23. What type of corporate culture do we have and want?
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24. Where would you place your corp. culture? Where do you want it?
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Consensual
Hierarchical
Top-Down
Egalitarian
HBR, Erin Meyer

25. What level of trust exists between people in the organization?
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High TrustLow Trust
Between Teams and Team Members?
High TrustLow Trust
Between those performing work and those asking for work to be done?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

26. Exercise: Behavioral
Inventory
What are the standard behaviors
within the organization?
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Discuss: 5 minutes Share: 5 minutes

27. Developing Your Style
What to do!
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28. Exercise: Leadership Style
What characteristics do great leaders
need in your organization? Do you as
a leader exhibit these?
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Discuss: 5 minutes Share: 5 minutes

29. Credits
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30. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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First and Foremost!
You need to understand who people are!
Aspirations
Cherished beliefs
Love
Value
Humor
Talents
Shy ßà Intense
Taste in food
Music
Clothes
Communication style

31. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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How do you create an environment
where people feel comfortable
expressing themselves?
Intentionally break out of your traditional
corporate (norm-governed) role to
show/model acceptable expression

32. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Social Opening: Create the opportunity
for people to seize that moment and
build on it
Allow an environment where people are
free to cultivate, express, explore, and
appreciate individuality…in productive,
ethical ways

33. A quote about ethics….something to ponder
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“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the
person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as
an end.”
— Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Do we as individuals violate this from time to time?
Are there practices anchored within our corporate culture that violate this?

34. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Do we need to change our behaviors to
exhibit new principles?
…in small ways…
1. Talk with someone you normally
wouldn’t
2. Cook a special meal and share
3. Help out a stranger
4. Send a gift
5. Spend a day learning something new
from someone
…in big ways…
1. “Pick one thing” leadership
challenge
2. Clear everyone’s meeting calendar
for 1 day out of the week
3. Give teams 1 day per quarter to do
whatever they would like to demo
4. Allow people to pick their own teams

35. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Be Awesome
Create opportunity
Inspire people
Opt-in to others efforts:
• In & excited
• Go along

36. Important things to stop
What NOT to do!
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37. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Don’t block others opportunity for
expression/contribution
Opt-out of participation
Be fake
Opt-in and resist
Don’t be a jerk
Steal the thunder
Self-promote
Brag
Cheapskate
Preference Dictator
No effort
Stick in the mud
Credit: Riggle…On Being Awesome

38. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Stop
Viewing behavior as ‘good’ or ‘bad’
Talking too much
Responding to people lobbing criticism
Criticizing ideas you don’t like
Winning too much (over-competitive)
Adding too much value
Passing judgment
Making destructive comments
Starting with ‘no’ ‘but’ or ‘however’
Telling people how smart you are
Speaking while angry
Negativity
Withholding information
Failing to give credit
Credit: Goldsmith…what got you here…

39. Developing your Lean-Agile style
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Stop
Making excuses
Clinging to the past
Playing favorites
Refusing to express regret
Not listening
Failing to express gratitude
Punishing the messenger
Passing the buck
Excessive need to be “me”
Credit: Goldsmith…what got you here…

40. Exercise: Bad Leader Role Play
1. Form teams
2. Select 1 team representative
3. Representative retrieves cards
4. Discuss the topic assigned (3 minutes)
5. Team member exhibits behavior
6. Volunteer guesses behavior
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5 minutes

41. Thank you for your time - Time is the most valuable thing we can spend!

42. Exercise: Leadership Culture
What can you do in your organization
to cultivate a leadership culture?
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Discuss: 5 minutes Share: 5 minutes

43. Awesome Culture
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Launch “Project Awesome” in your organization as a creative community-building effort.
Sample:
• People contribute something inspiring idea connected to the culture of the company.
(Ex., improved work environment, related to corp./project mission/vision or perhaps
corp. sponsored charity)
• People/team vote on what they would like to see most.
• Company ante’s up some pool of funds, crowd-sources funding or provides other
resources to get that something done.
Desired Result: Spark an instant of joy and delight that inspires long term hope for a more
awesome future.