The ICON Blog

The following is a 3-part series on supporting Scaled Agile Release Trains and Agile Teams in the new 100% remote environment we live in.

Introduction

Since 2007, I traveled weekly to my clients’ offices, where I trained, coached and supported teams using Agile, Lean and SAFe^®. I embraced the value of face-to-face communication, never supporting teams remotely for longer than a week or two. And then...COVID19!

COVID-19 has been an unwelcome catalyst into fully remote teams, but making optimal use of technology to keep in lockstep with business agility is a powerful illustration of the agile mindset. Recently, a large financial services client pivoted in one week to a fully virtual SAFe^® PI-Planning event with great success. ICON Coach Gillian Evans acted as Solution Train Engineer, and so we asked her some questions about what to consider in a virtual PI Planning.

OKR. OKR. OKR. If you’re like me, you’ve seen this acronym everywhere. OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are the latest craze in Enterprise and Strategy management. They sound simple and straightforward enough, but writing an effective OKR can be much more challenging than it seems.

The Agile Manifesto came about as a response to the software industry's need for disruption. Since its inception in 2001, it has helped in the production of higher quality software through more efficient workflow, which in turn has boosted customer satisfaction. The themes behind the Manifesto push for adaptability among organizations in a growingly complex and volatile climate. The four foundational values help not only in the delivery of functional and high-quality software, but also toward achieving an organization’s business goals.

We’ve heard the message of DevOps: Automate Everything.

Automate code testing. Automate workflows. Automate infrastructure. Create the no-touch deploy. Empower the application developer to deploy directly into production. Sounds simple enough, right?

As your organization begins its DevOps transformation, you may become preoccupied with automation, forgetting that there are other DevOps concepts to address in your environment. The Scaled Agile Framework® references CALMR (Culture, Automation, Lean Flow, Metrics, Risk & Recovery) to highlight the importance of more than automation in DevOps. In this article, we’ll address the other concepts to keep in mind while on the DevOps journey.

Every business is a software business.

While that statement may sound extreme, it emphasizes a current reality: digital disruption is changing the landscape of business. As Mik Kersten points out in his book Project to Product: “the tech giants that have mastered software at scale are expanding into traditional business…are mastering traditional businesses more quickly than the world’s established companies are mastering software delivery.”

As a coach who helps implement Agile and the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe), I’ve encountered many organizations where the product development teams (software and otherwise) are not immediately sold on Agile change. Agile tends to appeal more to the business side, less so to the ones doing the work. Why is this?

As a member of an Agile Team, have you ever had one of the following complaints about management?

• Their deadlines are too tight.
• Their expectations are unfair because they don’t follow Agile processes.
• They don’t take time to learn more about the work that’s being done.

It’s true, management can be a pain sometimes...so what have you done about it?

As the Lead Transformation Coach at Aegon Asset Management, Charlene Cuenca presented her story of how AAM began implementing SAFe Agile Architecture out of the gate, the challenges and pitfalls overcome along the way, and the resulting successful Global Architecture Team that exists today.

Your first Program Increment (PI) Planning event is on the calendar, and you feel ready to kick-off your first Agile Release Train. It’s time to align the teams on their work for the next three months. No pressure here—PI Planning is only the most pivotal, face-to-face event in the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe).