Agility is a state of mind defined by values, guided by principles and manifested in a variety of practices. You have to "Be" Agile before you can "Do Agility"!
In the digital and Industry 4.0 era, it's essential for any organization wishing to respond quickly to changing market conditions, to be able to deliver value frequently and continuously by adopting a different mindset from somewhat more traditional management methods.
A "Lean-Agile" state of mind is a combination of "Lean" and "Agile". Lean Thinking "a management philosophy that emerged in Japan in the automotive industry (Toyota Production System or JIT) after the Second World War, and the " agile values and principles "These were introduced in the early 2000s at a meeting of software development luminaries [today, the word "software" can be replaced by "product" or "solution"].
Designing products is complicated. Our ways of working (aka " Ways Of Working ") must address the "how to" approach: business requirements, management, architecture, design, programming, governance, testing, and a myriad of other elements related to product [or solution] development.
From a "Traditional & Fixed" to a "Modern & Lean-Agile" way of thinking
Discover 7 fundamental factors that will optimize your organization's performance to make it more competitive and successful in the digital and Industry 4.0 era.
1. Customer-Centric" approach
A customer-centric approach is one that focuses on the needs of end-users [or consumers]. It involves looking at their perspective in order to design the right solution to meet their needs (vague, relatively undefined) and/or requirements (more formalized, specification-characteristics).
With a customer-centric approach, sustained and frequent collaboration with customers is a must. You [agile teams] will need to communicate and involve your customers (or their "business" representative, the " Product Owner ") at every stage of product [or solution] development.
Customers know best what they want. Combined with rapid feedback between your customers and your agile teams, you'll avoid creating products that don't meet their needs (the wrong solution delivered), achieve higher levels of satisfaction and mitigate the risk of waste.
2. Organization around value
Being organized around value to design innovative products means being organized around products and services - their value streams. Agile (cross-functional) teams need to be organized around the organization's value streams, rather than [or combined with] the traditional hierarchical structure of organizations - the operational model (functional silos), which often corresponds to the organization's communication model.
" The solution is not to trash what we know and start over but instead to reintroduce a second system - one which would be familiar to most successful entrepreneurs. You need a dual operating system. "
- John P. Kotter, XLR8
Other interesting resources:
Lean thinking, Design thinking
Disciplined Agile® Principle: Organize Around Products/Services
3. Eliminate waste
The Lean philosophy is based, among other things, on eliminating waste, i.e. any activity that consumes resources but adds no value for the customer.
Lean's 7 types of waste ("Muda") :
- Inventory (WIP - Ex. work in progress partially completed not Done ", " task switching ").
- Deadlines (" Wait time ").
- Defects (e.g. anomalies, lack of information).
- Travel (e.g. communications, too many " handoffs ").
- Overproduction (e.g. " gold platen "(e.g. unwanted features, overly detailed documentation).
- Overtreatment ( Overprocessing ", approvals, " gating process" inefficient and/or non-value-added meetings).
- Transport (information flow).
In software development, waste can occur at several levels, for example:
- Ignore the customer's [end-user's] perspective and/or don't understand what they want, and create the wrong solution...!
- Non-integrated quality built in "addressed only at the end.
- Non-integrated safety built in "addressed only at the end.
- Lack of information [knowledge].
- Defining a complete solution up-front ".
4. Optimize throughput
" Optimizing the flow Lean" is a Lean concept that can also be applied to product [and software] development. The aim is to implement actions that will accelerate value creation.
- Take team capacity into account.
- Limit work in progress (WIP) - number of tasks in progress, minimizing the risk of waste (inventory & deadlines).
- Use a pull system.
- Identify and manage bottlenecks.
- Producing small batches at a steady pace means greater control over the whole "system".
- Producing in small batches enables feedback to be received more quickly, minimizing the risk of waste.
- Measure what counts. As an organization (e.g. lead time costs), at value chain level (e.g. WSJF), sometimes at team level (e.g. earned value).
In software, DevOps is a set of technical practices (automation, monitoring) unifying software development and operations (infrastructure) throughout the solution creation process (development to deployment). DevOps practices enable rapid and frequent deployment.
5. Empowering teams and individuals
Empowering [cross-functional] teams and individuals is a key element of the Lean Agile mindset, and it starts with trust, respect, openness, courage, transparency, focus, commitment, cooperation and collaboration.
In order for teams to become semi-autonomous, self-organized and self-disciplined, they must have the skills required to get the job done, and the tools and resources to do the job.
This means they have a certain freedom to make decisions without having to wait for approval from a higher hierarchical authority. It also means that teams can use their best judgment when deciding how best to achieve their objectives in the light of changing circumstances (a process known as "emergent strategy"). To achieve this level of collaboration and execution, however, takes a certain level of maturity and experience.
From professional agility coaching will enable you to set up a healthy environment to make your teams agile, autonomous, self-organized and self-disciplined.
From professional agility coaching will facilitate fruitful collaboration and healthy conflict resolution within and between agile teams.
From professional agility coaching will encourage the team to adopt its own " Ways of Working "This is why it's so important to be able to adapt them to any given context.
6. Adopt a culture of continuous improvement
" Inspect and adapt, improve, repeat the cycle. ", l'continuous improvement is a shared responsibility.
Whether in the daily grind of our personal or professional lives, there's always room for improvement.
For an organization to remain competitive, it must continually improve. This doesn't necessarily mean reinventing the wheel, but setting aside [investing] time to inject small changes into everyday life (Ex. Kaizen, 5S). These small accumulated daily gains will pay off over time by limiting the compound interest of a debt.
In the wake of change, and in the absence of improvement, existing processes fall into disrepair, giving way to chaos and compounding debt that grows and grows over time.
To improve productivity, its " customer lead time "Toyota Motors makes millions of improvements every year, using their employees' ideas and supported by the company's culture and leadership. Imagine the positive impact on their supply chain, their products and services, the ROI obtained...!
In 2011, Amazon carried out approximately 7,000 deployments per day, in 2015: approximately 130,000 deployments per day, in 2023?
These gains would not have been possible without a culture of continuous improvement.
7. Adopt a culture of learning and experimentation
Whether in high-performance manufacturing operations or in software development value chains, culture and Leadership require and actively promote learning and guided experimentation.
The aim is to create a culture of high trust, reinforcing the fact that we are continually learning from our successes and failures. Learning takes place through guided experimentation (calculated risks).
This principle enables innovative ways of doing, creating and sharing knowledge at individual, team and organizational levels. Leaders and coaches elevate the value of learning and the discipline of problem-solving (kata coaching).
In conclusion
Like manufacturing operations, the Lean Agile mindset is a great way to approach product [or software] development. To implement this change, approach it as a marathon, not a sprint. Start small with a pilot.
To increase your chances of success and avoid the pitfalls or " anti-patterns "If you have any questions about this change of mindset, take a look at my article " SUCCESSFUL AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS: 5 KEY ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER ".
There's a lot involved in terms of leadership, coaching and support. However, if you have the right mindset and know what you're getting into by adopting the Lean Agile mindset, it can be an effective strategy for making your organization more competitive and successful in the digital age!
Éric Auger
is a professional IT consultant specializing in Lean-Agile management. His qualifications include Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Kanban Management Professional, Project Management Professional, SAFe Agilist and Professional Agile Coach. He is a change agent.
It helps teams and organizations that really want to compete and thrive in the digital age - organizations that are open to change and ready to adapt to respond quickly to market changes and emerging opportunities.
