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Roadmap to Lean Agile



1. Power up your agile skills

Growing the Agile mindset better positions you for whatever changes will come. Foundational Agile knowledge is critical before moving to Lean Agile.


· Review the Agile Basics and embrace the Agile Principles!

· Is your team already doing Agile? Then close your gaps. Retrospect and continuously improve.

· Move away from Project mindset and beyond waterfall type tendencies.



2. Embrace a Lean Mindset

Add Lean skills to your agile toolbox to level up your skills and deliver more than before.


· Lean means removing unnecessary overhead/waste - look to eliminate unnecessary processes, roadblocks, and even roles

· Less focus on defining everything up front, and eliminate 'baseline' sign off before delivery teams get involved and get coding

· Getting into a rhythm: Once the teams are stable and working on a persistent cadence, the planning of features and the roadmap gets easier

· Eliminate waste by not having to stop and start for every new project; In Lean Agile, ongoing work is prioritized and continuously planned into upcoming PIs


3. Engage your client

Success is based on engagement from all impacted areas, which will always include the Client, Development and Finance. It could also branch into Labs and other organizations.


· The Client must be fully engaged as the Product Owner. Leadership from both Business and Delivery must agree that this is important. This is a Business and Delivery partnership requiring engagement from all impacted areas including Finance, Labs or any other group that will enable the success and delivery of business value.

· Do not insert an artificial interface like a "Project Owner Delegate." The team must be willing to communicate transparently on a daily basis.

· The client team needs to build their Agile skills as well

· The power of the backlog (building features, user stories)

· Minimum Viable Products delivered on shorter time scale

· Move away from Project mindset and hand offs - Product Owner is part of the team!


Align to Capacity Based Funding

· Lean Agile is similar to SAFe® in that it requires Capacity Funding. Capacity Funding splits the overall funding for a long-term effort into Program Increments (PIs) which is a repeatable cadence of iterations. This allows for team(s) to work in a consistent schedule. This will build stability and predictability within the team allowing them to become more efficient, and the business can build their roadmap based off the velocity of the team(s).

· Team(s) not committed to the program that are needed to deliver the overall solution would be considered a supplier.

· If you would like to explore aligning your work into a Lean Agile Program, work with your Portfolio Manager and Client to build the support needed to pivot to Lean Agile.


Deliver Consistently

· Lean Agile moves away from the Project mindset of fixed scope and schedule

· Business and Delivery will focus on right work at the right time

· Business and Delivery agree on consistent recurring Program Increment (PI) Schedule. (ideally 10-12 weeks)

· PIs are similar to Iterations in that once the schedule starts, it should not stop

· They should not be changed to align project schedules

· They should not be changed to align to release/deployment schedules

· They should not be changed to compensate for holidays/vacations

· Teams need to conduct their Agile Ceremonies to foster continuous improvement

· Agile teams should not waterfall their iterations!


Roles & Responsibilities

· Teams should be created around delivering a full solution (cross functional spanning applications) versus having silo-ed application-based teams. Teams should be consistent, stable, and predictable while being aligned to the Capacity Based Funded PIs.

· Making sure right people in the right spots

· Focus on Critical Skill Sets and not just title or previous role

· A person’s critical skills may not be needed on a team, but a person’s skill may be needed within Shared Services or the System Team

· If a role is not specifically called out, it does not mean the job has gone away, but it may need to evolve

· Lean Agile delivery team roles are closer to Scrum Roles, but the principles are closer to SAFe Principles

· The client team supports the development of the Program and refine the Features to be delivered within a PI with the System Architect guiding the architecture

· Check with your leadership to create a plan for alignment around value


Joint Planning

· Before every Program Increment (PI), the business and delivery teams come together to plan the upcoming PI

· Depending on the size of your program this may be a one- or two-day event

· Business presents the prioritized Features they have refined

· Teams will break out to review and size the starter user stories with the Product Owner and create additional stories as needed

· Teams will tentatively plan the stories into the Iterations for the upcoming PI

· Teams will communicate dependencies with another teams & adjust story schedule as necessary

· Everyone will come back together, and the teams will review their plans

· Issues will be identified and worked by the leadership team and architects to determine what adjustments might be necessary

· At the end of the event everyone participates in a confidence vote; If there is low confidence, it is addressed to see what might need to change if necessary

· Be sure to include time to retrospect how your Joint Planning and your previous Program Increment went


So, you're Agile (or waterfall), how do you start moving toward Lean Agile?

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