scaledagileframework

Top-down vs Buttom-up

Either way takes time. But at different times

As agile ways of work have made their way into many types of organisations, methods of implementing agile have been tested. There is no right way. There is always pros and cons and what to choose depends mostly on the culture of your organisation, the leadership style, the culture and many other factors.

Both approaches can work overall, both top-down and bottom-up agile transformations have equal chances of success as a starting point. The key is learning and adjusting to find the right balance that is appropriate to your organisation.

Two ways, or a hybrid?

Top Down

Risky business?

The top-down agile transformation tend to be planned for the entire organization at once. Such transformations take much longer to prepare  and to create traction. One year at a minimum would probably be required, often more.

During that period, a comprehensive org redesign is planned and performed. Then the organisation is prepared for the implementation of an Agile Operating Model – what ever the basis is (SAFE, DAD, Scrum of Scrums).

One major benefit of using this approach is, that it naturally requires top management to communication the “why” and the vision of such a transformation. And organisations tend to listen to and follow leaders. There are other cons to this approach, however there are risks as well. One of the major risks are, that if not orchestrated carefully you might “forget” to ask those who are closest to the work to be involved as influential stakeholders, making the adoption less likely to succeed. 

The three major pros 

  1. Creates more momentum as the wholeorganisation is involved in a big-bang style event, and if executed the right way delivers enterprise-wide results. 
  2. Less uncertainty about when and how the change will be implemented 

  3. Adequate funding for training, coaching is agreed upfront

And the equally major Cons 

  1. Longer preparation require adequate resourcing and a disciplined approach to be successful
  2. Could be led by those who are not closest to the work and therefore might not know the best route forward for transformation
  3. “Command and control” which is counterproductive to the nature of agile transformation could be an outcome

The buttom up

Single teams, units or projects can start the journey and become the example of success for the rest of the organisation to follow. When individual teams are empowered to make decisions based on experience and current data, there is a
high probability they are the right decisions.

Organisations that use this approach often state that this constant improvement approach allows them to decrease the risk of the transformation, however, at the expense of duration of the entire journey for the organisation – and with the risk of different teams using different cadence, agile model and culture, which makes it more difficult to align later.  

The three major pros 

  1. Those who are closest to the work have deciding influence
  2. Adoption is generally more likely to remain due to personal ownership
  3. Transformation is faster – at least at the team level
  4. Most effective for smaller organisations

And the eqally major cons

  1. Those who are closest to the work have deciding influence
  2. Adoption is generally more likely to remain due to personal ownership
  3. Transformation is faster – at least at the team level
  4. Most effective for smaller organisations

Want to know more about which approach to use?

Contact us here
scrum at scale

Agile Levers

Time to transform is now ?

We are bombarded with sentences about how important, relevant and urgent it is, that we change our behavior; how we run our organizations, how fast we need to deliver and how adaptive we should be. We truly need to change the “How We Change” in organizations.

Transformation projects are long term events that implement valuable, strategically important features for and with your organization. And as we do that, the way we work, innovate, create value and operate change as well. Strategies are great and visions important. But without the ability to execute and continuously rethink and change you will loose out.

Scaling Agile from IT to your entire organization

The greatest challenge lies not in the new practices put in place, but in the interface and coherence between these practices and the existing organizational processes.  With the goal to address the scalability challenge, a number of frameworks has emerged that claim to offer the much needed guidance for scaling Lean-Agile to the large-scale development efforts, where there are several development teams with digital architects, business analysts, and developers working in multi-year projects or programs. 

A quick guide on "how to"

How can you apply agile methods in business, and not only when implementing new IT? What are the success factors in agile business transformation projects and which mistakes should you avoid? 

Some creating the great master plan, some make progress using your own projects or initiatives to implement agile – but scale fast and monitor progress! We can show you how it is easily done.

Cultural changes requires focused attention, and embracing Agile and Lean methodologies requires a significant mindset shift. It goes in business projects as well as IT, and running projects on agile principles is the easiest way to introduce agile. Using metrics, automation and stronger executive agile leadership is mandatory and we know how to make that change in both small and large organisations (i.e. TeamHealth Radar).

Small, self-directed teams are central in agile projects and the “way of working”. The effect of team-work quality on team performance, learning and work satisfaction should be monitored and steadily improved.  The objective is to optimize and balance team-work-quality and velocity. This can be achieved by designing working space and leverage learning from direct experience with the help of our frameworks.

Your organization need to change. But where to start? You cannot do everything at the same time. How do you know which initiatives are the most important to start with? We create transformation maps that  communicate the vision and breakdown into Epics and Features that can be used as guidance for your organization. We provide sawy Lean Business Case templates that fit into your transformation map.  And we always focus on data-driven decision making, and guide you on how to keep that focus crisp and relevant.

It may sound daunting, but the thing is  – it is mostly liberating, exiting and utterly rewarding. Both on business but also on a personal level. Start the journey on focusing on five areas: Personal, principles, process, practice and pace. The first is the most important. You need to be or know a transformation leader within your organization, who will go all the way in leading the journey. Then the principles, or some might name it vision and purpose of what you want to strive for. We guide you through the process of that and of process, practice and pace too. 

Most are probably already in our organization, and just need the framework and some coaching to make transformation into agility happen. Sometimes different competencies are also needed and discussions about how, where and how often to meet in teams and across teams rises to the surface. Maybe you need agile coaches, scrum masters or interim product owners? Let’s discuss how you create the right set-up in your organisation.

Workspace surroundings are critical for realizing the lean-agile potential. Projects are often linked to a very specific type of office work, especially those managed by means of Agile methods. Special features of Agile Project Management, especially with respect to communication and information exchange forms, frequency and actors may make Agile Project Management office arrangements a task you need to take seriously. 

Presentation of information destined for the entire team or teams is important. While e.g. Confluence or any other shared service based solution is fine, the actual visualization on boards motivates discussions and helps clarify impediments in an informal manner. This feature can successfully be implemented by providing additional whiteboards for each team – and across teams. Each team can use two whiteboards and a large conference card, directly attached to the walls. One of the tables is used as the Sprint Backlog/Kanban Board. The second board can be used for the communication of additional information, the necessary design work and work planning – and of course during Retrospectives.

The criticality of individual and team well-being in lean-agile delivery models underpin the need for hygiene values e.g. image, culture, adaptability, health and safety, innovation and creativity, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. 

You most certainly will be looking for identifying the most important interventions, measuring tools and KPIs. Remember less is more.