La alineación, radica en el proceso de vincular los objetivos estratégicos de la organización, con los objetivos de cada individuo en la organización. Se requiere un vínculo estrecho entre la planeación, la ejecución y su constante sincronización. Esta dimensión implica asegurar la alineación y vinculación de los objetivos estratégicos, tanto vertical como horizontalmente, impulsando el progreso y las acciones en todos los niveles organizacionales.

La alineación no se trata acerca de que números hay que lograr, es acerca de crear claridad de que montaña escalar.

La práctica de gestión ágil de producto representa una herramienta que puede mantener un ambiente alineado, desde la estrategia general de la empresa, pasando por su táctica y a su vez en este paso la creación de la visión de producto, de cada iniciativa estratégica, su marco de visión de producto extendido y el modelo de negocio pertinente, para probar las hipótesis principales de la iniciativa, para posteriormente desarrollar los mapas de ruta, mostrando las ventanas de oportunidad y así trabajar directamente, con los equipos para que ellos definan el como alineados a estos artefactos.

La gobernanza adecuada aún garantiza la alineación, pero se guía por la flexibilidad y el empoderamiento en lugar de una imposición rígida. ¿Los equipos entienden su propio “sentido de propósito”?, es una pregunta que es necesario realizarse.

Una práctica poderosa que se puede realizar en el ambiente de trabajado específicamente para un equipo o conjunto de equipos, es la realización de “talleres de visión de equipo”, que consisten en contrastar la visión de producto que el dueño del negocio está buscando con una iniciativa en particular, pensar en el propósito y significado, la visión de producto, así el dueño de producto discute estos elementos y el modelo de negocio con el equipo en cuestión, además de la definición de lo que significa valor para el negocio, posterior a esta exposición se realiza una estructura 1-2-4-todos, esta manera el equipo o los equipos, pueden co-crear la visión de equipo, el propósito y el significado necesarios para la construcción efectiva del producto, exponiendo las capacidades clave para ello, en este enfoque el equipo puede encontrar que existen ciertos recursos o capacidades/habilidades faltantes en el equipo, así como riesgos que son necesario atender para acelerar la construcción del mismo, el dueño de producto discute esos elementos y se compromete con el equipo, para considerarlos, ello aumenta el compromiso y empoderamiento del equipo, que a la larga lo lleva al aumento de la dueñez o propiedad del mismo, es una práctica contundente para alinear el esquema, ya que requiere un compromiso del más alto nivel, a través del compromiso establecido por el equipo y la facilitación del dueño de producto.

Los ejecutivos de alto nivel deben hacer de la estrategia su prioridad número uno, y pueden tirar de las palancas para impulsar un cambio transformacional. En niveles más profundos, tales palancas no están disponibles, así que lo recomendable es concentrarse en el sentido de propósito del equipo, lo que quieren lograr durante el próximo período y luego trabajar para vincular esto con los objetivos estratégicos, la práctica de la gestión de producto es muy efectiva en ello.

Una sugerencia es discutir en conjunto el sentido de propósito de la organización, tal como se resume en la misión, cómo se relaciona el equipo con otras partes de la organización, también el propio sentido de propósito del individuo: lo que quiere lograr a corto y mediano plazo y cuándo, por qué, y cómo.

Pensar en la cadencia de los ciclos de inspección y adaptación que permitan una toma de decisiones basada en datos y resultados, de lo que funciona y no, de tal forma que el equipo de trabajo de estrategia sesione constantemente para acelerar, los ciclos de evolución de la empresa en función de los disparadores del mercado en beneficio de los clientes.

La capacidad de respuesta, ser receptivo implica la adaptación y realineación continua con el ambiente cambiante.

La responsabilidad, requiere de dueñez (propiedad) del equipo, sincronizando el progreso del equipo, cualquier indicador, ya sea anticipatorio o rezagado, debería ir seguido de discusiones en tiempo real, junto con el refinamiento de los planes y acciones de los involucrados.

Miguel Ángel Martínez Hernández, 15 de marzo de 2021.

Referencias:

1. Ismail, I., Palao, F., y Michelle, L. (2019). Transformación Exponencial. México D.F.: Bubok Publishing SL.
2. Lyngso, S. (2014). Agile strategy management: Techniques for continuous alignment and improvement. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
3. Fernando, R. (2019). Agile strategy: How to create a strategy ready for anything. Harlow, England: Pearson.
4. Lambert, D. (2020). Practical Guide to Agile Strategy Execution: Design, Architect, Prioritize, and Deliver your Corporate Future Successfully. CA: Independently published.
5. Pichler, R (2016). Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age. Wendover, UK: Pichler Consulting.
6. Wiraeus, D., y Creelman, J. (2019). Agile strategy management in the digital age: How dynamic balanced scorecards transform decision making, speed and effectiveness. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
7. Porter, D. T., y Porter, M. E. (2015). Estrategia competitiva: Técnicas para el análisis de los sectores industriales y de la competencia. México D.F.: Grupo Editorial Patria.

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The internalization of the cultural and business transformation in a complete organization is a challenge especially when it is a large corporate with more than 100 years of existence, since, in a digital transformation strategy, it is necessary that we observe the advantages of its physical model and the opportunities of your digital model, the former will be intrinsic strengths that allow you to compete like no other, the latter will keep you at the forefront in this transformation.

It is very important that the organization or large corporate requires different versions of itself according to the turbulence of the environment that occurs, which, if it is a fact that organizations that are already working agile, have moved quickly in this curve recession accentuated by the pandemic, this has even allowed them to climb to higher levels, due to the advance of their digital transformation, like others that started, are obtaining a performance above the average and those that have not done agile and are tending to disappear, below average.

We believe that some agile initiatives should evolve deliberately, such as intra-startups when they are successful, make a vertical scaling, which allows them to compete directly with the market and generate a different version of the business that incubates them in such a way that the latter prepare their new version, satisfying the market with new products and / or services. Some companies in the market do it as an innovation strategy that requires real investment, to generate and serve new markets, thus generating an exponential business, which, although it will not be a unicorn, will perform above the market average in the that you are, which will lead you to be the leader of it.

An agile organization is conceived as one in which its strategies represent the ability to create value and respond to constant change, constantly planning and adapting its initial plans through timely and continuous learning, to focus on identifying what is meaningful, fundamental, thus satisfying customer needs as quickly as possible.

To create an agile organization from end to end, it will be necessary to take into account the size, the transformation process, the life span it has, the business domain. We achieve an agile business by executing agile with agile, thus our center is in the transformation of the transformation processes and value delivery, while at the same time we create a work system based on a way of thinking and doing different from the agile business.

Thus, the leader of the organization should assume an explicit role, not only as a strategist, but as a designer and administrator of the complex reality of the environment, allowing the creation of sustainable, self-organizing, learning, agile and exponential organizations.

Organizational redesign implies the internalization of new values ​​and of a unique new generation operating model prepared for turbulent environments, which crosses the entire organization, an operating model of an exponential and disruptive organization in the market.

Today we will move on to here, if you have any questions or comments about it, feel free to contact us directly and ask us.

That’s all for now, in the next capsule we will go to the fly over the six components of our Exponential Agility Framework.

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In our last capsule we have reviewed the second step of our path: “Creating and Launching Initiatives”.

Now, in this capsule, we will go to the third step of our path: the “Execution and Maturity”, of the teams and the environment. It integrates the next activities:

The first activity is the release planning

• Release plan, backlog, key assumptions and issues, delivery & opportunity frames are made here.
• Release planning is the starting way for a team to build a successful product: the focus is to learn fast, with a big vision and small steps.

The second activity is the “Product Review, Inspection and adaptation”, which is related with:

• The expectations management, inspect and adapt the process, to improve it, in order to impact the product that we are building.
• Remember that the Product that we are building is composed by several living hypothesis that we must fit, all the time with the client so that we need to realize it with the Business Owner som they know the product growth phase and the right expectative about it.

And the third is the “Team and product maturity”, which consist on:

• Team building, Team stabilization and Agile high performing team. From this moment on, one of the objectives to achieve, is the maturity of high-performance teams:
• They are highly motivated teams that create products with superior goals than those stablished, thus, we will have the standing up, stabilization and optimization of them, it is very important to have experienced agile coaches in these tasks so that they focus on team maturity acceleration.
• A priority is to create sustained peace of the team in a transparent environment.

Remember that some of the steps related to create high-performance teams, are the next ones (according to Tuckman, Dexter & Leoncini)

• Level 1: Guidance.
  • As a team we ask ourselves: Why I’m here?
• Level 2: Building trust
  • Where as a team we ask ourselves: Who are you?
• Level 3: Goal clarification.
  • We ask ourselves: What we are doing here?
• Level 4: Commitment.
  • As a team we question us about: How are we doing?
• Level 5: Implementation.
  • We ask ourselves as a team: Who does what, where and when?
• Level 6: High Performance.
  • As a team we define our: Own way of working.
• Level 7: Renovation.
  • The question is: Why continue?

Here is where specific frameworks by role can be very useful to close on an accelerated way the gap between the first step and the seventh step, Remember that we all time are in the forming state, we need to convey on that to the team so that they understand which as team changes in its composition those changes, guides us ever to reinforce newly these levels, remember that we will never be permanently on the 6th step, we are all the time at the 7th step and this process of team building is a nonlinear process, it can give us surprises.

That’s all for now, in the next capsule we will go to the fourth step of our path: Demand and Capability Management.

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In our last capsule we have reviewed an approach of the current state assessment and a prioritization of the initiatives.

Now, in this capsule, we will go to the next step of our path, and we will review the landscape of creating and launching initiatives.

In this step, we will focus on the next three things:

The first is to perform an inception workshop x initiative, to

1. Define and prioritize the product initial scope, to gain clarity about what you want to build and what the priorities are.

Some of the stuff that we go deep inside is the next:

 The second activity is the creation and launching of teams, which consist on,

• People, dedication and formal assignation inside de company.
• The team formation, staffing and roles assignment.

The third activity is teams training (We train on remote tools, Scrum, Kanban, XP, SAFE, Nexus, etc.) and we work on the role’s confirmation inside de company, to officially assign the people to the team.  Some of the activities are:

1. General training, cadence definition, roles and confirmation.
2. Training in the specific frameworks, regarded to roles, events, rules and artifacts.
3. Product Backlog Creation.
4. Definition of VALUE.
5. Definition of DOR and DONE.
6. User Story Life Cycle.

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In our last capsule we have flew over a Business Agility practical case.

Now, in this capsule, we will continue with this first step, and we will review an approach of the current state assessment and a prioritization of the initiatives.

The general assessment of the current state

Then we can set the current state of our business, in order to know if we are far to reach our objective, at this step we analyses the team, environment and organizational mindset in order to know the communication, the leadership styles, the structures, the process, the power centers so we can know the opportunity areas, the suggested actions, to improve our environment and the way of thinking and doing.

We systematize de results, in order to suggest actions, remember that an agile assessment is focused on improvements and the co-creation of actionable immediate decisions, not for living at the past and validate this with all the company to find who agrees, and who doesn’t.

After this current state assessment, we have a big picture o the organization which serve us to ubicate where the impact is, regarding with the initiatives that we are going to co-assess with the Business Owners and all stakeholders related.

The next activity is the Aassessment & Prioritization of initiatives:

Now we are going to help the business to define the initiatives impact regarding their type. It’s about savings, investments and profits, so, based on that, we will get a list of prioritized initiatives we set the minimum required things to create an agile team, we talk with the main stakeholders and possible team sponsors to make a deep awareness about the minimum required needs to make a successful agile team, so after this setting, we prepare an inception workshop by each initiative or possible teams with the people names regarded with the product/service.

That’s all for now, in the next capsule we will go to the second step reviewing creating and launching initiatives.

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In our last capsule we have check two themes, a Path and the first step of it, in order to build Business Agility, and a “Future State Model of Business Agility”.

Now, in this capsule, we will continue with the first component “Tactical and Strategic Alignment”, flying over an example of a retail company that builds Business Agility.

At this future state model, we have a retail company that has decide to build business agility.

It has three concentric circles; at the exterior circle, we find the team agility level and the client.

At this example we have three stream values; to create a product/service that cross all the organization:

One is focused on Kanban, to operate services at regional level.

The second at the center is a stream value dedicated to build and a launch a product at the market, we are using Scrum & XP practices at the team level to deliver it to the client.

The third service is an electronic service, we are developing an app for the medium business so they can buy directly their products at our market place, we are focused on delivering premium services, for this we are using a Kanban discovery approach, a Kanban delivery and a Scrum to build what does not exist.

Each service is in a pink circle where lives the product/service tactic, we have 3 that govern a delivery term.

Each tactic is aligned to its corresponding strategy. So, they are aligned to the agile product delivery level of the company.

All these strategies are connected to the agile discovery level and a general tactic level, where we find an integration approach guided by  programs and a portfolio level which is connected to the general strategy of the company, the vision or massive transformation purpose.

In order to make an agile alignment between vision, strategy, tactics, an a operational level, we are using agile product management to enable the agile business from the strategy to the operational level and vice versa.

Remember as we advance on building an agile business, we are building capabilities as culture, structure and government so we have to manage the demand and classify all of these guided by a LACE.

That’s all for now, in the next capsule we will continue at this first step reviewing an approach of the current state assessment and a prioritization of the initiatives.

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In our last capsule we have flown over the 5 domains to be transformed in order to have an Agile Business.

Now, in this capsule, we will walk through the objective of an agile transformation. To do this, we are going to build 3 definitions:

1. A business is a recursive relationship (metabolism is  a metaphor that can describe it):

• • Between a construct (concept), a network of people and the environment (market).
  • Where the network stretches around the concept to bring it to life and constantly redefine it based on the interchange of meanings, and also
  • Based on the changing needs of the environment (market).

2. Agile Transformation is focused on changing the way:

• • • What we think and we act in the company.
    • We take advantage of frameworks that made simple the complex reality, decomposing it in fundamental elements.
    • We use them as quality assurance systems in order to take care of the integrity related to:
      • how we think, how we talk, and how we do, so values, principles and practices help US to clarity the objective model that we want to adopt and serve as learning stages to reach habits that make possible results.

3. We make an agile transformation to create agile businesses.

For now, that’s all, in our next capsule we will reinforce some significative topics that we have exposed here.

Thank you very much.

Miguel Martínez, October 16th 2020. 

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