Much of the discussion about collaborative methodologies like Lean, Agile and Design Build has, in the past been about creating continuous flow of value, team dynamics, technical practices and even the project management techniques required to get effective and acceptable products delivered and/or deployed. What teams in all environments quickly find out, however, is they are dependent on other organizational dynamics outside their purview, like securing customer involvement, issue escalation, resource allocation, even facility management becomes important.
Much of the discussion about collaborative methodologies like Lean, Agile and Design Build has, in the past been about creating continuous flow of value, team dynamics, technical practices and even the project management techniques required to get effective and acceptable products delivered and/or deployed. What teams in all environments quickly find out, however, is they are dependent on other organizational dynamics outside their purview, like securing customer involvement, issue escalation, resource allocation, even facility management becomes important. In addition, they find out that these methodologies will also require significant change in almost every organizational process.
And when these issues arise, unless they are in a small enough company where there is a relationship to the owner/founder/CEO, teams will need leadership support to assure the best cross-functional collaboration possible. In order to assure this alignment is developed and the proposed change is fully inculcated within all groups, two types of leaders are needed: an Executive Sponsor and an Executive Champion. The example they set in establishing business priorities, creating essential channels of communication, and finding new and better ways to bring out the best in people will be critical.
The first type of leader needed in this process is an Executive Sponsor: someone with the vision, resources and the stamina needed to “stay-the-course” while others get used to the uncertainty and chaos of changing familiar processes. This person’s strength of character and personal resolve are necessary to assure everyone else feels safe to discover what works and what doesn’t, and is held accountable to share the results across the organization (not just in their own functional area). Their main role is to assure an appropriate financial return is recognized and that the firm’s business objectives are met more expeditiously.
The second type of leader acts like a “Champion” or “chief-of-staff” over the change process. This person champions the cause when others are ready to throw in the towel and assures the major organizational issues are resolved and/or brings in the Executive Sponsor as necessary. While these two roles (i.e., the Executive Sponsor and Champion) can be one in the same person, the risk of failure goes up if the organization is dependent upon one individual to serve both roles and that person leaves for any reason, whether by promotion, retirement, severance, etc.
One of the keys to creating a reasonable organizational transformation is to establish an executive level “Enablement Team” (ET). The ET should include representatives of each major executive branch affecting the outcome of the change being considered, e.g., Finance, Operations, Marketing, IT, etc. The Champion should be the ET’s leader and their work should be focused on the issues that arise during the process of implementing a new change or methodological protocol. The Executive Sponsor should expect the ET to apply rapid issue resolutions, product demonstrations, retrospectives, daily stand ups, customer involvement, etc. as he or she does from their Lean/Agile teams. There is no magic pill: being faster, better and cheaper requires collaborative work even at the organization’s leadership/executive levels.
Specifically, the ET should be designed with the following in mind:
PURPOSE
The purpose of an Enablement Team (ET) is to assure the organization defines and enacts their own set of values and principles, applies a set of organizationally appropriate practices, and does so through a reasonable transformation process.
LEADERSHIP
The ET must be lead by an Executive Sponsor with the resolve and the resources to see the change process through; and an executive Champion with sufficient organizational influence to keep people’s attention and inspire them when the “going gets tough.” The risk of the implementation process failing, goes down significantly when this leadership role is shared among multiple top level executives.
TEAM MEMBERS
The ET should be made up of people who are well situated in the firm and have sufficient positional power to get things done and make changes as necessary. Most ET’s comprise representatives from the customer/end-user community, the technology community and those interested in the firm’s financial success. In addition, you will probably want to include someone from Human Resources, Operations, Sales and potentially someone from Audit and Security.
DURATION
Recognize that most organizational change efforts require approximately 18 months or longer to assure the new values, principles and practices become common place. The first six months will be the most chaotic and potentially the least productive as everyone gets a handle on what is expected and all of the issues that need to be resolved. The second six months will be substantially more productive as more teams come on line and get use to the more facilitative and collaborative environment. And the third six month period will be all about consolidating the lessons learned into a new system of doing business within the firm. Be aware that if any major perturbation occurs within this 18 month period (like a strong sponsor or champion being replaced with very little notice) the firm may easily revert to its previous operating approach.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Generally, an “Enablement Team” will need to manage all of the major issues related to transforming the organization including but not limited to the following list of expectations:
- Define the roles and responsibilities
Depending on the type of methodology you choose, there may be very specific roles like Team Leader, Product Owner, Project Manager, Technical Lead, etc. that need to also be redefined for collaborative, versus authoritarian positions within your organization’s HR system. - Establish appropriate coordination and communication protocols between business units
Define how your firm will coordinate the interests of your Customer/Product, Technology, and Management communities. For example, most firms will have several business or functional units interested in the functional outcomes of a single project. So, you’ll want to define a process to assure those stakeholders’ voice is understood and transferred appropriately and timely. The ET will also need to assure this level of coordination occurs within specific Department (e.g., within IT coordination needs to be high between the architects, developers, DBA’s, B.A., testers and technical writers). - Negotiate appropriate delivery dates
The ET must act as mediator/negotiator between executive expectations for delivery dates and the ability of the production team to meet those expectations. Everyone in the early months of an agile implementation will be trying new things to increase their productive velocity, so the ET’s role is to make sure the development team doesn’t over commit their abilities and the executive level doesn’t create unrealistic expectations. - Reduce organizational insanity with fewer, well-defined projects/initiatives
Focusing on more than one project at a time increases the risk that each of those projects will be delayed and/or fail. So, the role of the ET is to reduce that insanity by focusing everyone’s attention on the projects with the most important technical and business value and assuring teams stay intact as much as possible. - Make sure there is a clear definition for decision-making (empowerment)
Bill Gore, the founder of Gore and Associates, creator of Goretex believed in allowing his teams authority to make decisions as long as the boundaries for those decisions were set in advance. And to make that point he used a metaphor of a boat sitting in the water, where if the crew for some reason needed to drill a hole in the side they were completely within their power to drill that hole anywhere above the waterline. However, if the hole needed to be drilled below the waterline then they needed to escalate that decision appropriately. The challenge for the ET is to assure the “waterline” is defined in advance and as clearly as possible. - Issues related to integration points
Some organizations need to coordinate how they will integrate completed functionality between multiple projects and/or between software and product development initiatives. The good news is that if managers will sit down in advance and discuss their plans they can generally find easier ways to adapt their development cycles using Agile and Lean practices to prioritize, develop and deliver specific functionality than they might with more traditional waterfall techniques. The ET needs to assure this type of pre-planning occurs and that it is updated iteratively throughout the process. - Assess and resolve Technical Debt (this is very important; see discussion above)
The main job of the ET is to make the business case to reduce the organization’s technical debt (highly integrated and archaic software, hardware and operational processes) and establish appropriate development and testing protocols to assure the debt is minimized over time. - Issues related to Release Planning
The ET needs to assure all the non-development tasks like sufficient documentation, training, and end-user communications are transformed into iterative cycles and included in the development team’s planning processes. For example, technical writers who are documenting an application for future training classes can develop those materials iteratively so that their writing follows the process of development. - Create a reasonable prioritization process
Many leaders want to know how they are going to get their pet projects interjected into the development que even after they have experienced great success by focusing on the highest business and technical value first. The role of the ET is to establish a clear prioritization process and assure appropriate governance to assure those priorities are aligned, from corporate strategy/vision through to individual tasks, and that everyone, including those at the top follow those priorities. - Coordinate Sales’ commitments with Development capacity
I’m never surprised to learn that the Sales Department has oversold the IT Department’s ability to deliver even in the most productive agile environments. Really good sales people will sell what the customer wants and look for solutions to fit the sale later. The key, and the role of the ET, is to establish a good communication pathway between the Sales and IT departments so that neither surprise the other, unnecessarily. - Make your meetings purposeful and productive
The ET should support the following be posted on every conference/meeting room door: “if this meeting has no stated purpose, please return to something that does.” Likewise, the ET should monitor meeting feedback from participants describing what worked well and what could be improved and consider providing some form of facilitation training to those who lead meetings to meet those expectations. - Develop a rapid issue resolution process
Since some of the issues that emerge can not be resolved by the team and if that’s the case are probably also acting as roadblocks to the team’s success, the ET needs to provide a rapid process for issue escalation and resolution. Generally, I suggest a small group of executives be on call at all times to meet within 24 hours of an issue being elevated, but that would mean the team has exhausted all other possible solution sources. - Other topics as they emerge
This is a catch-all subject to assure the ET is always looking for issues that are getting in the way of a great lean/agile experience, e.g., how to resolve fixed contracts with vendors or suppliers and coordinating with offshore resources.
