Rimagin Information
Enterprise Transformation
Fundamentals of an enterprise transformation
What is an Enterprise Transformation?
In an enterprise transformation, an organization has made the choice to adopt adaptive and flexible methods (often aligned with the use of new technologies) across the entire organization. This requires a change in culture, structure and processes to embed new principles and practice and if successful will change the DNA of the organization.
There are four core abilities an organization must develop to transform to become truly adaptive. Each requires organizational and structural change, change to processes, responsibilities and the development of new skills and behaviors.
Although the path to a full transformation may be long, if done properly from the start, even the first steps will bring tangible benefits.
How does it differ from "just using agile methods" in the organization?
Using agile methods in individual teams or projects can have many benefits. Teams using agile methods have learned that in a complex environment, trying to define everything in advance (as is done in classical project management) is by definition impossible and they instead add measurement, learning and change into their processes so that they build iteratively and incrementally using customer and development feedback ultimately reaching their goal earlier.
For an enterprise transformation, the entire organization becomes flexible and adaptive. Organizational structures become fluid to respond more quickly to market and technologocial changes, responsibilities are spread throughout the organization, the leadership role changes dramatically, collaborating cross-functional teams coalesce around value-creation, in value streams which are optimized to provide more value to the customer earlier. While some principles apply to both agile teams and enterprise agile transformations, it is ultimately an entirely different challenge.
Is an Enterprise Transformation right for my organization?
Ultimately, if you see your bottom line being challenged, you know that you need to change something but what?
Becoming more adaptive gives you a better ability to manage uncertainty, it builds learning and responsivenes into organizational processes. If you just need to do the same thing faster, you don't need flexibility and it may even be counterproductive .
Commonly, some parts of an organization may need to become more adaptive, but not all. Some key questions to answer in the orientation phase of a transformation is why do we need to become more flexible, where do we need adaptability and how much do we need?
What is the difference between a transformation and a reorganization?
A reorganization typically changes the responsibilities and communication structures in an organization but the underlying behaviours and culture remain unchanged. It is - as the name suggests - an organizational challenge.-
An agile transformation is a sociotechnical challenge - it inolves behaviours, beliefs, written and unwritten organizational guiidelines and values. It is complex in nature - involving uncertainty and requires time to be effective. It cannot be inflicted on but adopted by an organization. Targeted interventions move an organization towards its transformation goal until flexibilitiy and learning behaviours enter the DNA of the enterprise.
How can frameworks like SAFe help my transformation?
Frameworks like SAFe. Scrum@Scale (S@S) or LESS can provide valueable assistance in organizaing and structuring agile practices. They provide mechanisms for enabling a number of agile teams to collaborate.
While providing some guidlines on organizing in an agile way, they do not do address the sociotechnical challenge of transforming a non-agile organization and they provide little assistance in how to set up sustainably adaptive organizations (ones that have the ability to constantly adapt to new situations and challenges).
Currently, there is very little literature on this aspect (something that we have begun to address), meaning that organizations are left to themselves to try to run their transformation, or assume (taking a SAFe example) that if they train enough SPCs that they can successfully transform.
What can I expect from a successful transformation?
In a complex environment, a successful transformation will bring you closer to your customer, building their feedback into the product development; you will have a built-in ability to adapt to changing market conditions.
Teams will have more autonomy which increases engagement and ensures faster decision making which then leads to a faster time to market.
Transparency and psychological safety will ensure that decisions are made quickly and mistakes will be identified and rectified early. Quality will improve, products will be better, more valueable to customers and safer to use.
Senior leaders will have less operative responsibility and will focus on strategy and culture.
What charcterizes a good enterprise tarnsofrmation start?
An enterprise transformation is a complex task meaning that there is no recipe for guaranteed success. However some patterns can be valuable to keep in mind - particularly when starting out. Here are just a few:
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Think big, start small: You won't kow the asnwers at the start, accept that the journey will not be straight and build learning into the transformation process. Start with a pilot designed to test hypotheses - not designed to prove validity.
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Use experienced coaches: Find people experienced in enterprise agile tramsformation and use them!
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Ask the big questions: Understand the why and what questions listed above (see our transformation orientation workshop)
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Understand feasibility: Evaluate the organization’s current state and readiness to change!
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Create the vision: Develop and Communicate the vision for the future organization and invite discussion!
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Lead by example: Understand that Leading in a scaled agile environment is a completely new leadership challenge and prepare yourself accordingly
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Learn and scale: Build learning into the organization and its processes. Establish mechanisms for ongoing evaluation and refinement not only of developed products but of the agile practice!
How Rimagin can help kick-start your transformation journey
Rimagin has defined four learning paths - one for each of the key abilities an organization must develop to become truly adaptive. Each path comprises a number of trainings and workshop to give you the skills to be able to move your organization towards a higher level of adaptability and resilience. Almot all trainings and workshop are designed to provide immediate tangible benefits making them individually attractive as well as helping your overall trannsformation. Each path can be taken individually to give you the skills to achieve greater adaptability or flexibility in a part of or all of your organization. In combination, their effects are multiplicative.
Additionally, we provide a set of "integral skills" trainings which give you knowledge and skills which can be applied in any of the learning paths. For organizations starting out on their transformation, this is the place to start.
We also provide a free-of-charge inital consultation to map out possible learning paths to kick-start your transformation. Please contact us for more information.