We are doing Agile. Why are we not accelerating outcomes?
Many organisations are well on their way to embedding Enterprise Agility. They have been structured into value aligned Portfolios. Their squads are embracing SCRUM practices. BUT they are not seeing progress towards accelerating outcomes.
WHY IS THIS?
Simply, Organisations are complex. Whilst it is relatively easy to achieve localised agility, teams are part of a broader eco-system that needs to hum in unison to ship value.
Sounds complex right? But it doesn’t need to be.
We hear a lot about Continuous Delivery. BUT WHAT IS CONTINUOUS DELIVERY?
Many organisations are still focused on delivering Initiatives or Projects. Continuous Delivery is about delivering the next valuable Feature. A Feature sits below an Initiative and not all Features identified as part of an Initiative are valuable.
Here is an example of a value-aligned Feature - ‘As a customer, I want to be able to return my goods through self-service checkout so that I can accelerate my return experience’.
So it makes sense then that the INPUTS TO QUARTERLY PLANNING should be the next set of priority Features across the organisation. With teams responsible for their delivery in attendance.
This is where I see organisations struggle.
Some do not do Quarterly Planning making it difficult to not only collaboratively plan but to manage work in progress.
Teams are not equipped to functionally decompose an Idea / Theme into a set of Features.
There is no trade-off discussion between value and technical complexity to agree on a feasible Minimal Viable Product.
Often workflow tools do not reflect the importance of Features. It may be missed entirely from the Hierarchy.
There is no agreed prioritisation framework.
They don’t know how to identify the teams required to be in attendance.
Teams are still largely operating as islands or grappling with how to get into each other’s backlogs. They have misaligned priorities, limited strategic direction and there is too much work to do and a lack of funds.
On the positive, the solution is not far away. We call this ‘Getting Quarterly Planning ready’. In our experience, this is often the missing link to getting the system to work together to accelerate value delivery.
Don’t get me wrong, as I said, organisations are complex and there may be other nuances and impedimets to explore.
But, get this right, and you are one step closer to Business Agility.
Contact us @ Hello@IDEAologyconsulting.com.au