Agile Greece Summit 2017 - Lean Business Agility

Dr. Klaus Leopold
web: www.LEANability.com
mail: klaus.leopold@LEANability.com 
twitter: @klausleopold
Lean Business Agility
Agile Greece Summit, 22 September 2017, Athens, GR

www.LEANability.com@klausleopold
INITIAL SITUATION
•company wants to improve time to market
-react to changes in the market immediately
-be able to seize opportunities that arise
-receive faster customer feedback
•solution: GO AGILE!
-agile transition with ~600 people involved

OVERVIEW OF THE AGILE TRANSITION
• all development teams have to be cross functional
• teams have to be organized by product
• teams can choose their favorite agile method
•minimum requirements for agile teams
-visualization of work (board)
-daily stand-up meetings
-retrospectives
AWESOME!!

HOW WAS THE TRANSITION DONE?
•all 600 employees received basic training in AGILE
•reorganization was carried out (x-functional product teams)
•agile transformation was completed team by team
-Scrum Master training
-Product Owner training
-Kanban system design workshops
•initial phase: supported by 16 external coaches
-training and facilitation
•11 internal Agile coaches were established

FIRST RESULTS AFTER ~8 MONTH
—-> most of them are following the rules
—> teams are working with boards
—> teams are doing stand-ups and retrospectives

@klausleopold www.LEANability.com
velocity,storypoints
0
8
16
24
32
40
sprint
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
committed delivered
leadtime
0
5
10
15
20
25
item
0 10 20 30 40 50
days
0
125
250
375
500
0 20 40 60 80
initiatives
we don’t see the expected improvements :-(
what’s the
problem??

NEXT DONEDEVELOPBACKLOG
a typical (simplified) team board
EXTERNAL
WAITING

NEXT DONEDEVELOPBACKLOGteam 1
team 2
EXTERNAL
WAITING
EXTERNAL
WAITING

team dependency graph
why are there still so many dependencies?
—> multiple teams work on one product
—> products are not completely independent
—> we are talking about 600 people

team 1
team 2
team 3
team 4
customer wish: write a love letter

customer wish: write a love letter

The performance of a system is not
the sum of its parts.
It’S the product of its interactions.
— Russell Ackoff

Agility of an organization is not
having many agile teams.
Organizational agility is about having
agile interactions between teams.

no management of
interactions between teams

another typical team board
EXTERNAL
WAITING

WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
that wasn’t modeled on the team board
EXTERNAL
WAITING

WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
WAITING 4
ACCEPTANCE
EXTERNAL
WAITING

WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
WAITING 4
ACCEPTANCE
WAITING 4
RELEASE
quarterlymonthly
EXTERNAL
WAITING

NEXT DONDEVELOP
WAITING
BACKLOG
WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
WAITING 4
ACCEPTANCE
WAITING 4
RELEASEANALYZE
DEVELOPMENTPRODUCT
BACKLOG
WAITING

NEXTBACKLOGANALYZE
DEVELOPMENTPRODUCT
BACKLOG
WAITING
DETAIL
CONCEPT
ROUGH
CONCEPT
WAITING 4
APPROVAL
WAITING 4
STEERING 
COMMITTEE
WAITINGWAITING
IDEA
TRIAGE
POOL OF
NEW IDEAS

WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
WAITING 4
ACCEPTANCE
WAITING 4
RELEASEANALYZE
DEVELOPMENTPRODUCT
BACKLOG
DETAIL
CONCEPT
ROUGH
CONCEPT
WAITING 4
APPROVAL
WAITING 4
STEERING 
COMMITTEE
WAITING
IDEA
TRIAGE
POOL OF
NEW IDEAS
WAITING WAITING WAITING
we are so fucking AGILE, yay!!
monthly
quarterly twice a year quarterlymonthly
maybe not the best end-to-end performance?!

WAITING 4
INTEGRATION
WAITING 4
ACCEPTANCE
WAITING 4
RELEASEANALYZE
DEVELOPMENTPRODUCT
BACKLOG
DETAIL
CONCEPT
ROUGH
CONCEPT
WAITING 4
APPROVAL
WAITING 4
STEERING 
COMMITTEE
WAITING
IDEA
TRIAGE
POOL OF
NEW IDEAS
WAITING WAITING WAITING
maybe this is Agile software development
but this has NOTHING to do with
business agility!!
don’t expect ANY organizational
improvement in a context like this!!
we are so fucking AGILE, yay!!

no end-2-end management of
the value creation chain

NEXT REALIZEBACKLOG
EXTERNAL WAITING
and another typical team board
REVIEW DONE
(2) (8) (4)
Work In Progress limits - AWESOME!!

Work In Progress limits are AWESOME!!
- reduce delivery risk
- increase predictability
- increase system stability
- …
- reduce switching overhead
- reduce cycle time & time to market
- reduce cost of delay

- reduce delivery risk
- increase predictability
- increase system stability
- …
- reduce switching overhead
- reduce cycle time & time to market
- reduce cost of delay
Work In Progress limits are AWESOME!!
You need to limit
work items where
you want to achieve
the benefits!
fine print:

epic
story task
strategic initiative
don’t be surprised when you
don’t see any improvement
in TTM if you don’t limit
TTM elements
tasks were being
limited on the board
sometimes stories
were limited

no agile strategic
portfolio management

no management of
no agile strategic
3 identified main problems

we built product boards to
manage intra-product
dependencies

product 1
do not optimize organizational structures (=teams)!
optimize value delivery (=products)!
product 2
product 3

NEXT WORK TEAM CWORK TEAM ABACKLOG
EXTERNAL WAITING
WORK TEAM B
DONE
teamAteamBteamC
an exemplary product board
teams organized their work together
in front of product boards
some teams even stopped
using their team boards

product standup
agile interactions
product retrospectives
product replenishment

product 1 product 2
product 3
we established operative portfolio
management to manage inter-
product dependencies
only inter-product
dependencies remain
how to manage
inter-product dependencies?

NEXT ANALYZEBACKLOG DONE
PRODUCT1PRODUCT2PRODUCT3
DEVELOP UA SHIP
improvements
* common view on all products
* dependencies between
products are handled as
INTERNAL dependencies
* external dependencies are
only OUTSIDE of product
development
* WIP limits on epics
EXTERNAL WAITING
(2) (3)
(1) (2)
(2) (2) (3)
(3)
(4)
we established operative
portfolio management to manage
inter-product dependencies

portfolio standup
agile interactions
portfolio retrospectives

NEXT ANALYZEBACKLOG DONE
DEVELOP UA SHIP
* common view on company
priorities
* comprehensive product
backlog and comprehensive
NEXT column
EXTERNAL WAITING
(2) (3)
(1) (2)
(2) (2) (3)
(3)
(4)
what I would still like to see

no agile strategic
no management of
we built product boards to manage
intra-product dependencies
we established operative portfolio managementto manage inter-product dependencies

DEV NEXT ANALYZEBACKLOG DONE
DEVELOP UA SHIP
WAITING 4
APPROVAL
ROUGH
CONCEPT
we scaled the operative product
portfolio to the upstream
we simplified the upstream

DEVELOPBACKLOG DONEVALIDATE SHIPINITIATIVE1INITIATIVE2INITIATIVE3
why would you invest
money in paper when
you can get value?!?!
DEFINE
EXPERIMENT
* focus on initiatives
* no concepts - instant start
of experiments
* immediate evaluation of
experiments
what I would still love to see

no agile strategic
no management of
we established operative portfolio managementto manage inter-product dependencies
we scaled the operative
product portfolio to the
upstream
we simplified
the upstream

INITIATIVESINVESTMENTSCHANGES
topics realize
0% 99%
concept
evaluate ideas validate next steps
0% 99%
realize
realize
0% 99%
learnconsolidateexperiments of visions and ideas
long term mid term short term
we established strategic portfolio management

we established operative portfolio managementto manage inter product dependencies
we scaled the operative
product portfolio to the
upstream
we simplified
the upstream
we established strategic
no management and
limitation of
strategic initiatives
no management of

business agility is
no team sport!
it’s corporate
sport!!

Level 1: operational
…
develop review DONEanalyze
team 1
team 2
Develop Review DONEAnalyze
team N
FLIGHT LEVELS

Level 2: end-2-end coordination
…
team 1
team 2
team N
FLIGHT LEVELS
deliver DONErealizeconcept

flow 1
flow 2
flow N
…
team 1
team 2
team N
FLIGHT LEVELS

flow 1
flow 2
flow N
…
team 1
team 2
team N
FLIGHT LEVELS
consolidate realize learnexperiment
Level 3: strategic portfolio

consolidate realize learnexperiment
develop review DONEanalyze develop review DONEanalyze Develop Review DONEAnalyze
flow 1
flow 2
flow N
Level 3: strategic portfolio
…
team 1 team 2 team N
organization 1
FLIGHT LEVELS
DELIVER
COORDINATE
consolidate realize learnexperiment PRIORITIZE
organization N
…

—> train the entire organization in agile methods
how would I start?
—> start on the team level and sub-optimize
—> keep the number of initiatives/projects in your organization high
—> follow your favorite agile method(s). case studies showed that it worked
approach #1
for consulting companies…
- that want to maximize income
- that don’t care about results
* that’s a SAFe way to burn loads of money and have little result *

in the beginning you only need one agile team:
how would I start?
—> start with strategic portfolio management
—> limit work in the entire organization
—> align all work to the strategy
approach #2
for economically minded companies
- that don’t want to waste money
- that want to achieve business agility
! kill (agile) methods and
frameworks !
TOP MANAGEMENT
—> understand your system and work your
way down the Flight Levels to teams

in the beginning you only need one agile team:
how would I start?
—> start with strategic portfolio management
—> limit work in the entire organization
—> align all work to the strategy
approach #2
for economically minded companies
- that don’t want to waste money
- that want to achieve business agility
! kill (agile) methods and
frameworks !
TOP MANAGEMENT
—> understand your system and work your
way down the Flight Levels to teams
be the best at
getting better

LEANability GmbH | Rögergasse 36/16 | A-1090 Wien
o f f i c e @ L E A N a b i l i t y. c o m | + 4 3 6 7 6 3 3 0 4 8 0 3
www.LEANability.com | facebook.LEANability.com
www.bit.ly/kcl-wiley
EXTRA: E-Book inside
klaus LEOPOLD
KANBAN
VOM TEAMFOKUS
ZUR WERTSCHÖPFUNG
in der Praxis
www.bit.ly/kanbaninit-v2
www.kanbaninderpraxis.com www.practicalkanban.com
http://bit.ly/leanbusinessagility

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