Moving the Lean-Agile Center of Excellence to a Product Mindset

Moving the Lean-Agile Center of Excellence to a Prouct Mindset

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Moving the Lean-Agile Center of Excellence to a Product Mindset
Senior Leaders and Agile Coaches that live in a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) often find themselves working in different areas and levels of the organization they serve and struggle to show their leadership the combined value they bring. Often, as critical transformational changes are being rolled out, Senior Leaders measure how many teams are transformed (outputs) versus agility maturity, transformation outcomes, leadership strength and employee engagement. When this happens, Agile Coaches find themselves spread too thin and are under constant pressure to deliver organizational and culture change quickly without a clear understanding how their efforts support the organization’s business strategy and stategic plan.

In reality, Agile Coaches in a LACE deliver value to internal customers in many different ways. The value could be a service (Coaching, Facilitating, Mentoring, Training) or a product (Agile Playbook, Release Train Toolkit, Agile Foundations Class & Workbook). The value Agile Coaches bring to an organization needs to be looked at as enablers to the overall business strategy and strategic plan. With that in mind, the LACE needs to be setup as a critical value stream that delivers culture enabling value to internal customers and stakeholders.

Co-Design the LACE’s Mission, Purpose and Operating Model
Just like any customer-facing portfolio, the LACE needs to pull together a cross-functional leadership team to define their mission, purpose and operating model. By having a clear mission, purpose and operating model, key stakeholders looking to engage with the LACE will have clarity of why the LACE exists and how to engage with the LACE.

Depending on the size of the organization a LACE can operate in one of the following ways:

Treat the each LACE as a Value Stream
By using a business agility model, such as AgilityHealth’s Business Agility Model, leaders and the LACE Transformation Team will align to a common language that they use to discuss the many transformation needs across the different parts of the organization as well as a way to measure outcomes. Each LACE within an organization may offer the same or different products and services depending on the complexity of the organization the LACE is transforming.

Co-Create, Experiment/Pilot and Scale
Human change happens incrementally and sticks when the people that are part of the transformation can co-create the transformation plan. By having the LACE understand the internal customers, the problems and challenges their internal customers face, and the products and services their internal customers value, the LACE can ensure that their work is focused and aligned with the business it serves. With an increased focus on incremental delivery of value by using co-creation, design thinking and value stream planning activities such as the PI Planning Workshop, leaders, agile coaches and the organizations they serve are clear on the LACE’s mission, have focus, and are setup for transformation execution success.

Never stop exploring this world called “Agile”!