Agile principles emphasize empowered, self-organizing teams but provide little guidance in how create alignment across multiple agile teams. In this presentation, Ilio Krumins-Beens shares experiences gained trying to improve strategic and operational alignment with more than 10 agile teams. Includes recommendations on running experiments with different ways of sharing teams’ roadmaps, identifying dependencies, risks, synergies and achieving operational alignment.
Originally presented in 4/29 Agile / Lean Practitioners Meetup (http://www.meetup.com/agile-lean-practitioners/) in NYC on 4/29.
2. 2 Question - Quick Poll
• How many agile or SW teams do you have in your
organization?
• What does “Alignment Across Teams” mean to you?
3. “The most empowering condition of all is when the entire
organization is aligned with its mission, and people’s passions and
purpose are in synch with each other.”
― Bill George* - Former CEO of Medtronic and co-author Authentic Leadership
* Medtronic’s market cap grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion during Bill George’s tenure.
4. Photographer: Alejandro Hernandez
There is no one-size fits all approach to improving
alignment across all organizations… but you can:
Understand your Context.
Run Experiments.
Analyze Result.
Tweak.
Repeat.
5. Improving Alignment Within an Organization
Depends on
• Company’s Culture
• Size of Organization
• Business Context
• Maturity / Number of Products
6. Our Experiments with Alignment
Given Our Specific Organizational and Cultural Context
7. A Bit About KTP
• Established in 1938
• Prepare students for more than 90 Standardized Tests
• 12 – 15 Agile teams support multiple lines of business
• Moved to Agile in August 2011
18. Looking Back
Worked Well
• Less Process through
Experimentations
• Eliminate / Reduce Formal
Approaches in favor of
informal communications
• 90% + Favorability
Improvement Opportunities
• Roadmaps got outdated
very quickly
• Identified but didn’t act on
potential synergies
• Meeting tried to serve too
many purposes
19. Emerging Pattern
Initiate support mechanism to solve
specific challenge
Experiment to make as lean as
possible
Informal communication dramatically
reduces need for support mechanism
34. “The best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by
setting the appropriate context, rather than by trying to
control their people.”
―Reed Hastings
Source: Netflix Culture Deck v. 2 slide 80, August 1, 2009
35. Adapted from Henrik Kniberg, Spotify – The Unproject culture May 21, 2013
AlignmentAutonomy
36. Adapted from Henrik Kniberg, Spotify – The Unproject culture May 21, 2013
AlignmentAutonomy