creating the agile organization -...
TRANSCRIPT
White Paper
Creating the Agile organization
2
White Paper
Agile, a concept borrowed from software development, is now helping organizations in nearly every industry become highly innovative. Agile approaches can transform processes and management approaches — even how people do their work.
Agile organizations are defined by their ability to recognize patterns of changing information and trends, and then respond to those changes quickly and effectively through quick, iterative testing; incremental development; and experimentation. They also ensure that their staff has the new skills and tools needed to thrive in this era of digital transformation. This paper describes how organizations can become more Agile through culture, business processes, training, customer-centricity and the free flow of information.
Digital transformation: The changing workplace
Digital transformation requires more than new technology. It also demands organizational change, creating a culture and mindset of experimentation and collaboration. An Agile organization must transform its processes, management approaches and even how people do their work.
Agile is a concept borrowed from software development, and it’s now being applied to business management. An Agile organization is characterized by its ability to recognize patterns of changing information and trends, then respond to those changes quickly and effectively. An Agile organization also ensures that its people have the new skills needed to thrive in this era of digital transformation.
Agile is also a new way of working. Today’s organizations are increasingly data driven, running on algorithms of cognitive human resources (HR) systems, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and more. They also have fewer full-time employees, thanks to the growing “Uberization” of the workforce, but have more connections with clients, suppliers, partners and members of complex, ever-evolving ecosystems. In this way, Agile organizations form extended, virtual workforces, making collaboration increasingly important; team productivity outpaces the sum of the parts (Figure 1).
Table of contents
Digital transformation: The changing workplace 2
Applied agility 4
Agile challenges 5
One size doesn't fit all 6
Becoming Agile 7
Start by experimenting 8
DXC: Your Agile ecosystem partner 9
3
White Paper
Agile organizations also shed their old, hierarchical approaches to staffing and management, replacing them with adaptable, self-organizing, self-managing teams. These teams are tightly knit, composed of members with different skills, and based on trust, continual feedback and empowerment. Their top priority: transforming business goals into concrete products and services.
Information is at the heart of every Agile organization. When new information is delivered, an Agile organization can rapidly adapt, changing both processes and supporting technologies. That’s vital in today’s “outside-in” environment, where many of the best new ideas come from beyond an organization’s boundaries. That makes the ability to tap into and experiment with innovative ideas, technologies and practices — no matter where they come from — part of a new platform business model, one which others use and consume while the organization learns about their behaviors and needs.
Agile organizations are enabled and powered by modern information and operational technologies. For this reason, chief information officers (CIOs) and their teams must shed their historically passive roles as business-technology enablers and instead adopt new roles as proactive business partners in building capacity through digital solutions. IT must also provide new platforms for the business. Such platforms can rapidly change, optimize and commoditize — all while delivering world-class security, privacy and regulatory compliance. It’s already beginning to happen. Fully 70 percent of CIOs recently surveyed by IDC FutureScape expect their IT organizations to embrace Agile practices by 2019.1
Figure 1. The workplace is changing — as are the relationships among business, technology and people.
MobilityOne of the main changes brought by technology is the ability to work from anywhere using smart-phones, tablets, laptops, etc.
BusinessThe pace of business is changing and so is technology. New ways of working are emerging in the workplace.
Social networksWith social media and collaborative intranets, people have changed in both their private and professional lives — especially the way they connect to each other.
CloudStorage and access to information are made easy. We can evolve in a secured business environment with administrative or collaborative applications.
Workforce evolutionThe millennials are entering the workplace. They want to find some aspects of their personal life at work.
Mobility
Social Networks
Workforce Evolution
Cloud
Business
1 IDC FutureScape: Worldwide CIO Agenda 2017 Predictions, DOC #US41845916, Nov. 2, 2016
4
White Paper
Applied agility
The Agile approach can be applied to managing nearly any enterprise in any industry. Similarly, many organizations have adopted related frameworks, including Lean (for eliminating waste) and Six Sigma (for improving processes).
In today’s digitally transformed world, every organization can benefit from adopting Agile approaches. In part, that’s because Agility supports the discipline of adaptive execution, one of six things digital leaders must do well to create a thriving 21st century organization. Adaptive execution, as defined by the Leading Edge Forum (LEF), the commercial think tank of DXC Technology, means being able to respond quickly to threats and exploit new opportunities (Figure 2).
Outside-in approach toassets and capabilities
Inspiring digitalidentity and strategy
Proactive, haptic sensing
360° digitally optimized product and service portfolio
Adaptive execution
Value-centric leadershipin an uncertain world
CustomerCitizen
Source: Leading Edge Forum, “Winning in the 21st Century: A User’s Guide”
Adaptive execution also requires new capabilities and processes, greater transparency, a culture of collaboration and learning, fluid structures, and what LEF calls “digital governance.” Basically, the organization’s culture needs to be changed from hierarchical and controlling to flat and collaborative.
Agile approaches to business management can help organizations increase their flexibility, responsiveness and ability to respond with speed and innovation to a wide range of marketplace changes (Figure 3).
Figure 2. Adaptive execution: An essential skill for the 21st century organization. "Digital" alone is not enough.
5
White Paper
The business benefits of adopting Agile practices are available even to organizations with deep legacies and long-established practices. For example, a major global bank recently announced a corporate-wide restructuring using Agile approaches, aimed at making the bank more flexible and able to respond to new, technology-based competitors. As part of the restructuring, the bank plans to create 18 groups, known internally as “tribes,” made up of 150 teams, or “squads,” each with 10 or fewer people. The bank also intends to slash bureaucratic layers and create multidisciplinary teams.
Agile challenges
If applying an Agile approach to the wider business is so powerful, why aren’t more organizations doing it? Mainly because applying Agile isn’t simple. Neither are the challenges.
The fear of losing control, typically on the part of business managers, is perhaps one of the biggest overarching challenges a new Agile effort can face. One persistent myth of Agile is that it leads to a fragile business. To appreciate how false this is, consider music-streaming service Spotify. Launched in 2008 as a “born Agile” company, Spotify today has more than 140 million monthly active users worldwide. Still, dispelling the “Agile is fragile” myth may require mental “guardrails.” These can be as simple as thinking big, but starting small. Placing key trusted leaders to lead Agile implementations can help, too, but just as important are the communication and collaboration pathways.
Indeed, leadership can be a tricky aspect of the Agile approach. That’s because Agile is both top-down and bottom-up. On the one hand, strong leadership is needed, as is sponsorship from top executives. On the other hand, ideas must be able to bubble up from front-line workers. Typically, this requires a change in the leadership mindset, as the traditional command-and-control approach will no longer yield the best results or fit the needs of the business. Perceived risks and rewards need to be managed differently, too. Agile approaches allow organizations to both better manage risk and magnify the potential rewards. This makes new projects more attractive to employees — but only if managed adeptly.
Even the wrong mindsets can create serious barriers. One of them, confirmation bias, can have managers searching out information that supports their preconceptions, desires and beliefs — or ignoring or discrediting information that contradicts those same beliefs. Mental inertia is another mindset barrier. It’s characterized by stubborn opposition to any form of change, motion or exertion. “But we’ve always done it this way” is a common example. So is this: “We tried that before, and it didn’t work.”
Figure 3. Agile benefits in a changing marketplace
Marketplace changes
• New threats from competitors
• New expectations and behaviors from customers
• New opportunities in adjacent markets
Agile business benefits
• Shorter product development cycles: days/weeks instead of months/years
• Innovative, cost-effective and flexible business models: consumption-based, leveraging platforms
• Enhanced productivity and efficiency
6
White Paper
One size doesn’t fit all
Organizational fitness — or the lack thereof — is another major challenge facing many Agile implementations. The key is knowing what needs to be flexible, and what does not. An adaptive organization need not be 100 percent flexible everywhere. Some departments and functions are of necessity more Agile than others. For example, financial reporting, focused on known and effective processes, may not need to be as Agile. By contrast, a business unit may be more interested in getting new innovative ideas into "minimum viable products" and getting them to market quickly. In this way, the group can learn what its customers need (and don’t need) and then quickly adapt and respond. Alternatively, initiatives can be slowed during the handoffs between Agile and non-Agile teams; in these cases, organizations will need to determine whether they have the right processes in place.
Some processes benefit more from Agile than others, too. For example, commodity processes typically benefit from being standardized, and adding flexibility will only make them more complicated. Instead, it’s the differentiated or just novel or less mature processes that benefit the most from added flexibility, making them good candidates for Agile delivery. Therefore, organizations need to understand which processes will likely benefit from Agile and which will not. Value-chain mapping can be an effective tool here, helping organizations decide where various approaches — including Agile, Lean and outsourcing — may be most effective (Figure 4).
Source: Leading Edge Forum
Figure 4. Which framework?
7
White Paper
Becoming Agile
Organizations that overcome the challenges of Agile and then succeed tend to display several common characteristics.
Culture is one of them. This includes the use of collaborative teams, empowering tools, openness to learning and a strong focus on customer needs. Trusted, collaborative teams are a core component of the Agile approach, enabling organizations to leverage culture to strengthen resolve, plus adapt to disruptions and new opportunities. Teams often involve new ways of organizing both workers and the work itself, including fancifully named “tribes,” “chapters,” “guilds” and the like.
To support this team approach, organizations can use metrics that encourage collaboration. For example, job-performance reviews can be adjusted to account not only for the employee’s personal achievements, but also their degree of collaboration with others. Here, an organization’s HR department can be a key partner, helping to create new performance measurements, new skill sets, even new duties and job titles such as “scrum master.” Empowering tools can help, too, enabling geographically dispersed team members to conduct real-time conversations, share graphics and more.
Changing processes can be powerful, too. For example, most mortgage applications screen for the “edge cases” with the highest risk. As a result, all applicants are required to endure a long, drawn-out process. But what if, instead, the process looked first for those with the lowest risk? Those applicants could be greenlighted quickly and spared the long, drawn-out application process.
A culture of learning is another key component. This involves not only a greater openness to new ideas, but also a willingness to tolerate failure, so long as it is followed up with learning and new responses. This marks a dramatic departure from traditional management approaches, which typically disdain failure, thus discouraging experimentation. By contrast, Agile projects are characterized by a great deal of small-scale, low-risk experimentation, often involving multiple approaches to innovation. Honesty is a related attribute, as is accountability. Both relate to the Agile approach’s assumption that failures will happen and are okay. What’s not okay is hiding failures, failing to take responsibility for them as a team, or refusing to learn what could be done better in the future.
Training, of course, remains important. Agile approaches require employees to gain new skills, such as design thinking. What’s new is Agile’s emphasis on not just formal classroom training, but also learning by doing, as well as learning via peer coaching and “learning to learn” approaches.
Customer-centricity is another attribute of the Agile organization. This means being able to focus on changing customer demands, requests, needs and feedback. All of these may result in the need to either modify or adapt older products, services and processes — or create new ones from scratch. Done right, all this will result in improved customer appeal, satisfaction and retention.
Agile projects are characterized by a great deal of small-scale, low-risk experimentation, often involving multiple approaches to innovation.
8
White Paper
Free-flowing information is an essential component of any Agile organization. Results, measures and trends, whether positive or not, need to be recorded, shared, learned from and acted upon. The ultimate goal is supporting fast decisions at the point of the problem. This may require tearing down old information silos and then building new communications networks, establishing new practices and mindsets, and more. Organizations also need “product-organized” digital platforms in which IT systems clearly support business products.
Start by experimenting
As with everything Agile, it’s best to start by experimenting. Enable and empower a small group of people to operate a suitably complex program of work in an Agile way. (Agile works best as complexity and ambiguity rise.) Provide some training and basic tooling. Set a high-level requirement for them to deliver on, but allow them to construct the solution using an Agile framework. And then share the successes and failures across the organization, compounding learnings through greater collaboration and reinforcing experimentation. Build more successes around what works.
Typically, an end result comes at the end of a fixed time period. But with Agile, a product team lays out a set of “sprints” — short efforts from 2 to 4 weeks that result in the delivery of a product or feature increment. These sprints should provide what’s known in Agile circles as a “minimum viable product” (MVP), a version of the product that allows the team to collect validated learning about customers with little effort. Then, as time passes, new versions can be released and tested as the complex work moves forward.
Once you have created one or more self-organizing, self-managing Agile teams, do some experimentation of your own:
• Make a change request in the middle of the project, then see how the team adapts to it. The request should end up in the backlog, replacing a similar priority requirement in the backlog to accommodate change; otherwise, a formal change request is needed.
• Gauge your emotions and feelings to determine your preferences. Do you like getting involved with the early stages, watching a product develop with your direct feedback? Or do you prefer giving instructions once, then waiting for the results?
• Ask team members whether they sense a greater level of team control. Were they able to focus on delivery? Did they possess a clear understanding of the task at hand, while getting feedback during the process?
These experiments should build confidence in leadership and employees. They can also help you look at other programs, determine which parts of the business would align well with Agile and start your transformation.
Results, measures and trends, whether positive or not, need to be recorded, shared, learned from and acted upon. The ultimate goal is supporting fast decisions at the point of the problem.
9
White Paper
DXC: Your Agile ecosystem partner
Don’t be afraid to seek help. Organizations wishing to incorporate Agile approaches in the business will need to take several positive steps. DXC offers a wide range of consulting, transformation and talent services to help you do just that.
Digital Transformation Services
Every organization begins its Agile journey from its own unique starting point. That’s why DXC offers different services, allowing your organization to start by working on its digital workforce, workplace or workspace. Our Digital Workplace Consulting Services will help you create a comprehensive business-change strategy; create a transformed business and IT operating model; and use workplace analytics to deliver transformational benefits and improve staff productivity. Start with our experienced advisors to define a digital workplace strategy; articulate your strategy for mobility; and create a business case and roadmap.
DXC Consulting services can help you create an Agile culture of resilience, adaptability and self-managing teams. We can help you with everything from organizational change management, communications, benefits management, mobility, and change leadership. You’ll gain a new way of working, one that’s iterative, incremental, nonlinear, collaborative and fast. DXC can also show you how to apply cutting-edge concepts from the worlds of neuroscience, decision-making science and organizational development.
Open Space Agility
DXC has been trained and authorized to use Open Space Agility, which is a repeatable technique for rapid and lasting Agile adoption. In essence, Open Space Agility provides business leaders a template for implementing Agile approaches.
Training
DXC has created an internal training curriculum for Agile, and we can do the same for your organization. Topics can include a wide range of Agile approaches and methodologies, including Scrum framework for hyperproductive teams, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), large-scale Scrum framework (LeSS), Kanban, DevOps and project management combining Waterfall and Agile approaches through an Agile Project Management Office.
DXC Dynamic Talent Cloud
The Agile workforce is dynamic, innovative, self-managing — and open to new ideas and approaches from outside the organization. That’s why DXC has created an “innovation platform” for engaging dynamic talent from around the world. The Dynamic Talent Cloud creates an ecosystem for ideas and solutions, giving enterprises a new way to solve their most pressing business issues, improve productivity, and boost the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations.
White Paper
Learn more at www.dxc.technology
About DXC Technology
DXC Technology (DXC: NYSE) is the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services company, helping clients harness the power of innovation to thrive on change. Created by the merger of CSC and the Enterprise Services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, DXC Technology serves nearly 6,000 private and public sector clients across 70 countries. The company’s technology independence, global talent and extensive partner network combine to deliver powerful next-generation IT services and solutions. DXC Technology is recognized among the best corporate citizens globally. For more information, visit www.dxc.technology.
© 2017 DXC Technology Company. All rights reserved. MD_6983a-18. December 2017www.dxc.technology
About the authors
Chris Rogers works in the Global Architecture team at DXC Technology. He focuses on digital transformation capabilities for business solutions that help clients address the real problems of digitization in a rapidly changing business ecosystem. Chris works across the entire delivery life cycle, driving improved agility in specific areas of criticality such as systems architecture, solution assurance, transformation
efficiency, delivery automation, Lean Six Sigma optimization and discipline in systems engineering. [email protected]
Iain Kirkwood is managing partner in DXC Consulting and global offering leader for Digital Workplace Consulting. Prior to this, he was the UKI/MEMA (Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa) leader for Business Consulting in the Enterprise Services division of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Iain brings over 20 years of experience in organizational change consulting, gained from DXC, CGI and PricewaterhouseCoopers, focusing
on driving the importance of the people and organizational aspects of business transformation. [email protected]
Glen Robinson is an emerging technology advisor for DXC Technology’s Leading Edge Forum. Glen’s research focuses on leading-edge enterprise technology solutions that will power the 21st century business. Glen is co-author of the research report, The Renaissance of the IT Organization and focuses on “the Matrix,” the advanced sensing, deciding, all-seeing global force that will be a significant threat to
some but spell opportunity for those who learn to understand and harness it. [email protected]
Sarunas Dargelis is an Agile evangelist, lead trainer and coach working as a project and program manager at DXC Technology delivering complex IT projects, programs and transformations. He runs the Agile Delivery Team and the AgileDXC Arms Community of Practice, combining Waterfall and Agile worlds. Sarunas provides Agile coaching and mentoring services worldwide, with expertise in Scrum, Kanban, Lean delivery and
scaling. He is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). He is also certified in PMP, ITIL, MSP, SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) and LeSS. [email protected]