For Agility Press Update

Ever since small agile experiments had success, there has been a desire to scale these small successes across larger organizations and we have been searching for the scaling holy grail ever since, and fighting about which framework will deliver agility successfully. The reality is that none of the frameworks scale agile; instead, they have become secondary operating models that sit mostly outside the organization’s daily business operations.

A large organization has already scaled itself, as scaling business operations is required to continue functioning as a business. I believe most people in large organizations inherently understand that there are inefficiencies throughout every operating unit and an organization’s large operating model is the sum of every operating inefficiency and that for the most part we learn to live with it and in some cases thrive because of these issues.

When an organization wants to adopt agile via an Agile transformation, we are typically starting in the wrong place to effect any meaningful change in the organization’s day-to-day operating model. Instead, agile frameworks are either all or mostly involved in changing the way software is developed, which makes sense since that was what the Agile Manifesto focused on.

But what is implicit but not often acknowledged is that to successfully change how software is developed requires a change in almost every business operations function across the entire organization, and for the most part, frameworks are either silent on this type of change (Scrum) or assume changes in the operating model have been made to support the framework (SAFe) and though each framework can provide direction on where we need to go, we need to take another step in our agile journey and that is expressly providing guidance on what changes management and leadership need to make across their business operating model.

And to make these changes requires the following:

1. Teams need to have the ability to influence or make changes at their level.

2. Managers need to have the power to accept and then align team operating changes upward and across the organization.

3. Leadership must make a commitment to supporting what is happening at the team and middle management layers of the organization by making alignment an outcome, meaning the changes that are happening below need to be supported and not overruled by higher-level leaders.

We also need to stop thinking of transformations in a traditional project management mindset, where we kick off the transformation and in 18 -36 months the organization will be agile and we ‘close’ out the agile transformation project. Moving an organization towards an agile operational model is a seminal moment in an organization’s life as it requires the understanding that once started there is no going back, and that becoming more and more agile is directly related to how much change in business and operational processes you are willing to accept.

The Mission of Practical Management for Agility is to provide Leaders and Management the knowledge necessary to rethink how your part of the organization fits into a broader agile organization. Practical Management for Agility will focus on creating mastery certificates that are role-based, meaning your certification will be aligned to your experience and role within the organization, if you are the leader of Customer Service, then you would obtain a PMA for Customer Service focused certification.

Practical Management for Agility seeks to fill the void that the frameworks have mostly missed, providing a real-world role-based knowledge on how to view and then update the functional areas you lead or manage.

To learn more about PMA and how it can help your organization fill in the missing pieces of agility, contact me at michael@soundagile.com