[en] agile transformation - how to deconstruct your organization step by step

ENTERPRISE AGILE TRANSFORMATION

How to deconstruct your organization

step by step

Xavier Albaladejo

Emerging

Markets

EMEA-LATAM

V1.2

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Speaker Bio & Company Information

Xavier Albaladejo is specialised in organisational

transformation based on Agile-Lean principles.

His work as Agile Expert in AXA Emerging Markets EMEA-

LATAM (Europe, Middle East, Africa & Latin America Region)

consists on the introduction of Agile as part of the Digital

transformation of countries in this region, with the aim of

increasing their speed and flexibility in order to better adapt

to their customers’ needs.

Xavier Albaladejo coordinates the Master on Agile Methods in

the University of La Salle, he is Certified Scrum Practitioner

(Scrum Alliance), Certified LeSS Practitioner, founder of

proyectosagiles.org and Agile Barcelona. He has also been

president of Agile Spain.

Emerging

Markets

EMEA-LATAM

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AGILE @ AXA

Increase business “agility”:

“Reduce Time To Market

and increase flexibility

to quickly adapt to customer needs”

This is NOT the

“problem” we’ll

try to solve

today

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AGILE @ AXA EMEA-LATAM – DIVERSITY OF CONTEXTS

Very diverse environment:

sizes, organizations, cultures,

products, competitors, process

maturity, knowledge on Agile….

Typical situations of big

organizations: gap from product

inception to its development and

to its operation: different

departments, partial

responsibilities, particular

priorities, processes that take too

long, …

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HOW TO HELP TO AGILISE SO DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS?

How to guide these countries in

order to increase their business

agility (how to reduce their Time

To Market and win flexibility to

quickly adapt to their business

needs?

? How?

Agile?

Agile?

How?

Agile?

Where are we

going to

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THE NEED OF A TARGET OPERATIVE MODEL

How to guide these countries in

order to increase their business

agility (how to reduce their Time

To Market and win flexibility to

quickly adapt to their business

needs?

1. Target Model (Vision)

2. Transformation Roadmap

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PRINCIPLES

Big = Fast and flexible?

SMALL autonomous teams

Building block

CUSTOMER CENTRIC, shared goal.

All needed skills, including innovation.

Direct face-to-face communication, teamwork.

Co

rpo

rate

is

su

es

S

olu

tio

ns

Enterprise silos

Selling Claims IT

Own priorities

Partial responsibilities

High effort in inter- coordination

Team work?

No customer centric !!

Example:

By design:

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1. Target model

- Customer centric

- Organizational agility

2. Transformation roadmap

transformación - Guidelines to solve problems

- Collaborative & adaptive

Product Management: innovative, fast & flexible.

Organization: de-scaled, simple, integrated, based on

small autonomous teams in order to be fast.

Culture: collaboration, test & learn, knowledge sharing,

transparency, empowerment, motivation.

NO prescriptive. It’s not a recipe. It’s not a plan.

“Possible” solutions to problems and steps.

Starting point for conversations with Agile

Champions and [external] coaches in each country.

50% of activities are unknown, they will appear

along the path (they are context dependant).

Adjustable and re-prioritisable considering each

country needs and realities, by their own

transformation team.

To be grown through workshops in a regular way

(Strategic reviews + PBL Refinements).

ADJUSTABLE AGILE TRANSFORMACIÓN ROADMAP

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TRANSFORMATION AXIS AS LEVERS

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MATURITY LEVELS – 1 TO 3: INTEGRATED VALUE CHAIN Agile-Lean Product Portfolio

Management (MVP / small chunks,

limited to capacity & WIP reduction)

Feature teams (all tiers)

Organizational impediments service

Systems thinking Lean Startup

Continuous Delivery – DevOps -

Cloud

Test & learn mindset

Small autonomous teams, dedicated

& stable (Scrum, Kanban, XP)

Biz value KPIs

Teamwork principles

Integrated end-to-end

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MATURITY LEVELS – 1 TO 3: INTEGRATED VALUE CHAIN Agile-Lean Product Portfolio

Management (MVP / small chunks,

limited to capacity & WIP reduction)

Feature teams (all tiers)

Organizational impediments service

Systems thinking

Level 2 is produces the first key

impact in organizational agility

(enablement of Business Value):

Focus on selected critical

projects (faster delivery of

them).

Flexibility to context/market

changes.

Reduces “wishful thinking”.

Fosters collaboration.

Can you

start

HERE ?

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Are you ready for the final

acceleration?

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MATURITY LEVELS – 4: KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND ALIGNMENT

Communities of Practice (specialty strategy, cross-

learning, standardization and

innovation re-use)

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MATURITY LEVELS – 4: ORGANISATIONAL IMPROVEMENT

Improvement

Champion

(E2E view)

Organizational

impediments service (started in level 2)

Very short, clear priorities &

focus, no inventory waste Toyota Kata

Scrum Masters, Agile

Coaches, Management

Based on teams needs (Gemba)

Back to CoPs and teams backlogs

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MATURITY LEVELS – 4: ORGANISATIONAL SCAFFOLDING !!

Communities of Practice (specialty

strategy, cross-learning,

standardization and innovation re-

use)

Organizational impediments

service (started in level 2)

End-to-End organization KPIs

Competence development &

Teams empowerment

In a natural

way, the team

identifies the

transversal

impact of

Business

initiatives

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MATURITY LEVELS – 5: VALUE CENTRES

Customer centric micro-enterprises

(own responsibility with all end-to-

end business skills integrated)

Strategic objectives by Value Center,

own budget

Strong alignment through values

(hiring & firing) and common purpose

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TARGET ORGANISATIONAL MODEL : CUSTOMER CENTRICITY

Autonomy (and innovation) on

customer segment decisions

(why, what, how, budget,

organization).

Ownership and empowerment.

Supporting

ecosystem

Central services:

Business agnostic

Small, fast & efficient

(otherwise, value centers

can take their functions) Teams are the basic organizational building block

This organizational model

supports any company size:

a big organization is a

fractal of smaller ones

so it’s easy to scale if new

business needs appear

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How to

do it

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CHANGE: DELIBERATED AND ORGANIC DE-CONSTRUCTION

1 Need of business agility

3 Ready, right moment, key

Agile roles in place

2 Right people = open minded /

People ask for Agile (organic)

Deep & narrow (iterative deconstruction and

maturity increase by area)

Broad

sales

motion

will FAIL

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= impact in Management

CHANGE: IMPACT IN BUSINESS AND CULTURE BY MATURITY LEVEL

Systems thinking (capacity based, WIP reduction)

& new organizational structure

Competence Management &

Teams empowerment

Strong alignment through values

(hiring & firing)

Test & learn mindset

(avoiding fear of failure)

Teamwork principles, breaking silos (Biz vs IT)

Joint Visual Management

New structure & roles

Right people

High sponsorship

1. Ration out”

cultural change

in order not to

die by overdose

2. Transform area

by area (deep &

narrow test &

learn)

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CONCLUSIONS

The essential goal is to get satisfied

customers. Instead of coordinate

specialities and departments, it is better

to integrate the full value chain by

customer segment.

If organisations get slower and more

politized as much as their increase their

size, then it’s better to have small self-

contained teams which are

empowered to take decisions (the

organizational building block).

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LAST RECOMMENDATIONS

“Organic” adoption – The organization should decide on agilization actions by

taking into account which is the most important aspect to improve at any

moment.

Toyota Kata

“Test & learn” – As the environment usually is complex, first test things in

small contexts and learn before disseminating across the organization.

Models and principles where to dig deeply :

LESS (Large Scale Scrum) & Spotify

Organize for Complexity - Betacodex

Cynefin framework

Rápido

Kaikaku +

Kaizen.

Sólo 1 manera

de trabajar.

Necesita mucho

coaching

Favor what implies direct interaction between people who do the “real” work,

in the trences.

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LAST RECOMMENDATIONS

Product /

service X

Strategic

initiative A

Strategic

initiative B

DELIBERATED deconstruction

You can move from level 1 to 5 very quickly if you segregate Value Centers:

internal spin-offs!!

Xavier Albaladejo

Agile transformation expert

• Blog: www.proyectosagiles.org

• Twitter: @xavi_albaladejo

Emerging

Markets

EMEA-LATAM