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Executing Strategy as a Competitive Advantage:
Beam Team Case Study
Using Lean and Agile to Lead
An Organizational Transformation
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Aligning Technology with the Business ModelThe Next Revolution in Productivity
Dennis StevensEnterprise Agile Coach
Portfolio, Program, ProjectPMI: OPM3
Scaling Agile DevelopmentRethinking the Agile Enterprise
Cost Cutting and Innovationre-th!nk
Contributed / Featured
web: http://www.synaptus.comblog: http://www.dennisstevens.comtwitter: @dennisstevensemail: [email protected]
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Organizational Transformation
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” – Charles Darwin
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Organizational Transformation
• Why is organizational transformation difficult?
• Differentiate between all the “improvement” requirements to move the company towards it’s strategy?
• How do I solve problems in complex situations?
• How do I keep everyone focused on making progress?
• Case Study – The Beam Team
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Different Perspectives – Competing Concerns
The Blind Men and The Elephant
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Long Obscure Roadmaps
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Unsuitable Problem Solving Approach
What are the business rules?
What is needed to achieve our
business goals?
Whose job will this be?
What is the right process?
Where should we put the servers?
How will we validate
everything?
What do the customers and
end-users want?
How will we account for
this?
How does this interact with the
other parts of the system?
Technology
ProcessPeople Customers
Business
Conversation
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Lack of focus
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Case Study: Situation
– $100 million retail service provider
– The economy and regulatory changes has drastically reduced core business
– They have just acquired a company of equivalent size
– The entire business focus was in an area that is not traditionally profitable – and the business processes and technology were not optimized to perform resets
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Initial Findings: Organization
• Owners: Entrepreneurs – Six Brothers
• Management: Tactically Focused – Rose through the ranks
• Back office: Hardworking and committed
Overall: Not a demonstrated history of getting ideas from concept to implementation
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Initial Findings: Technology
• 40% of technology developed over four years had not been deployed in the business
• Swivel Chair Integration
• Little useful management information
• Turmoil in technology organization
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Approach
Two prong approach
• Get development under control
• Identify and deploy a focused set of changes in the business
• Deliver results really fast so company survives
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Approach: Get Technology Under Control
• Established Kanban board for development - visualized their process
and all the existing work
• Established three classes of service based on source of funding
• Explicitly limited WIP
• Major bottleneck was in customer acceptance
Next Analysis Development Acceptance “Done-Done”
NPD
EnhanceCore System
Enhancex of 40
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Refactoring the Development Board
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Approach: Business
• Differentiate between all the “improvement” requirements to move the company towards it’s strategy
• We needed to create alignment and focus in a time of rapid shift, turmoil, and duress
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Approach: Business
• Analyze business model to identify capabilities
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Approach: Business
• Facilitated Strategy Articulation – based on Strategic Goals, COGS model and SWOT
analysisMEET THE CHALLENGE
Scale & Manage Labor
Improve & Stablize KeyProcesses
Align Incentives
Capture & Utilize
Valuable Information
Focusing Objectives
GrowthStrategic
Relationship Profitability Market ShareEmployee
Engagement
Standard Operating Objectives
Thematic Goal
PrepareTeam Leads for Success
Strengths WeaknessesA lot of talented people Organizational StructureReally know the retail industry/Experienced Field Team Scalable workforce to match demandExecution culture (get it done) Lack of actionable performance metricsAbility to Collect Field Data COGS is highCustomer Reporting HR - Labor onboarding isn't scalableHome Depot RelationshipAdaptability / Entreprenureal Spirit
Opportunities SO Strategies WO StrategiesExpand market share through acquisition Improve First Time Quality Strategic HR Initiatives.
Additional offeringsRecognize & Reward Field Performance Metrics (Vishal/Rick)
Address Organizational Structure
New customersPortfolio Evaluation Process Shared Labor Strategy. Improve logistics &
planning.Performance Metrics & Reports
Expand market share through organic growth Project Support & Reporting TeamMarket will recover and new construction will start again Capital Project TeamThreats ST Strategies WT StrategiesSingle main source of revenue ID & Promote what differentiates us Recruit Field TalentLow margins are being squeezed Understand competitive pricing and offerings Strategic Labor PartnersCompetition taking pods/marketshareHome Depot has taken work internal
The BeamTeam Strategy DevelopmentTOWS Matrix
Internal Factors (IFAS)
ExternalFactors
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Approach: Business
High Value
Medium Value
Low Value
Low Performing
Medium Performing
High Performing
High Risk
Moderate Risk
Low Risk
KEY
Verb Noun(Action – Entity)
Assess the Capabilities Value (border) 1. How strongly does this affect
focusing objectives?2. How strongly does this affect
standard operating objectives?3. Is this value-added? Supporting?
Controlling?Performance (fill)4. How is this capability performing
today?5. Would a small improvement here
improve BT bottom line performance?
6. Do we understand how to improve performance?
Risk (dot)7. How difficult is this capability to
scale (for CR1)?8. Is this constrained by Customer (HD)
policy?9. Is the process complex? Highly
dependent on other capabilities? Subject to compliance issues?
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Capability Value Performance Map
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Assess the model
Capability Map gave us clarity on what the business did.
Assessing the model determined what was most important to the business.
The business was aligned with the outcome because they developed it.
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Approach: Business
• Performed information flow analysis against current systems and processes
• Six systems and over a dozen spreadsheetsSwivel Chair Integration
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Approach
• From our assessments we knew precisely what capabilities we needed to change and what processes and technology were employed in each capability
• Our strategy was clear and there was a shared context within the business
• Have combined different perspectives and competing concerns
• Have a clear near term road-map
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Approach: Strategy to Execution
• Bring together the Business and Technology in A3 efforts focusing on the leverage point capabilities
• Facilitate discussion to align what we could rapidly deliver with needs of impacted management and performers• What is our target? What are the capability gaps relative to the
strategy?• What is the root cause? Five why’s – not granular 6 Sigma effort.• Evaluate Solutions• High Level Deliverables on the Implementation Plan• Assign Owners and Target Due Dates
• High level deliverables end up on the A3, with measurable outcomes, in the context of the strategy, and with the impacted capabilities clearly identified.
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An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
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An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
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An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
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An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
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Now the big challenge
• Execute the Strategy
– How can we get management to maintain focus?
– Technology is a small component of the solution - how can we rapidly get stable process changes in place across HR, the field, accounting, and operations?
– How can we get technology deployed so that the business realizes the value?
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Strategy Execution Kanban Board
Next Analyze Prepare Execute Measure
Expedite
AcceptanceCriteria
AcceptanceCriteria
AcceptanceCriteria
AcceptanceCriteria
Development is fed stories based on active tasks in the prepare column
Expand / collapse tasks from the plan in each column
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Strategy Execution Kanban
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Ceremonies
• Walk the board with management once a week.
• Blocked items are flagged with a red tab with a note of who needs to unblock it.
• Management follows up (some actually do) with their line managers from their A3s.
• There is a lot of focus on getting stories on the technology board through acceptance now.
• We have an expedite column on the management board. We limit crisis to one at a time. Board ensures current projects maintain (regain) focus.
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Results
• Achieved focus across the business
• Reduction in the crisis management tendency
• Technology deployed on time – continued to refine and deploy enhancements in flight
• Delivered the performance based incentive model
• Provide field management with real time status against their plan
• Trust has been established between us (effectively the technology group and PMO) and the business
• Strategy deployment model in place in the business
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Success Attributed To
• Visual control of the Kanban board– Focus– Momentum– Shared Alignment
• Visual nature of the strategy articulation– Decisions by developers and management are made in a shared
strategic context
• Collaborative nature of the capability map, A3, and the Kanban board– Shared understanding– Participative design– Accountability
• Rapid maturing of the organization regarding strategy execution
• Courage and commitment of the Beam Team leadership
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Time as a Strategic DifferentiatorThe new Bargain of Agility
Observe Orient Decide Act
Implicit guidance and control
Unfolding interaction with the environment
Feedback
FeedForwardObservations Feed
Forward DecisionAction(Test)
FeedForward
UnderstandCultureTraditionNew InformationPrevious ExperienceSynthesis
Unfolding circumstances
Outside information
Implicit guidance and control
The primary concept of the new Bargain of Agile is to expend the least resource possible to exploit the next most valuable opportunity.
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Questions
• Reach out to Dennis Stevens– http://www.synaptus.com– [email protected]– Twitter: dennisstevens– Blog: www.dennisstevens.com
• We offer– Strategic Project Execution– Value Stream Mapping for Knowledge Work– Agile Enterprise Transformation– Kanban / Agile Project Management– Strategic Backlog Management
• Affiliations– Associate in David J Anderson and Associates
• http://www.djandersonassociates.com/
– Pillar Technologies for Agile Software Development• http://www.pillartechnologies.com
Matt-5:13
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