Enterprise Agility电子书

Enterprise Agility

Why subscribe?

PacktPub.com

Forewords

Endorsements

Contributors

About the author

About the reviewer

Packt is searching for authors like you

Preface

The challenge of fast-paced change

Agility is a necessity

Goal of the book

Value and limitations of the book

Intended audience

What this book covers

Part 1 – The need for enterprise agility

Part 2 – The foundations of enterprise agility

Part 3 – The components of enterprise agility

Part 4 – The blind spots

Part 5 – The journey for enhancing agility

Learning outcomes

The final word

Conventions used

Get in touch

Reviews

Part I. The need for enterprise agility

Chapter 1. Fast-Paced Change – Threat or Opportunity?

The significance of the fourth industrial revolution

The impact of fast-paced change

Disruptive innovations

Breakdown of traditional entry barriers

Intersection of domains

No place to hide

Demanding customers

Demanding employees

Plentiful and cheap information

What has worked in the past is unlikely to work now

Change as an opportunity

Summary

References

Chapter 2. From Agile to Agility

The values and principles of Agile

The Agile Manifesto

Agile is a resounding success in IT

Agile has also made a difference to the business world

Issues with Agile adoption and scaling

Focus on "doing" Agile

Adoption without addressing systemic issues

Adoption for wrong/unclear reasons

The "Cookie cutter" approach

Early visibility of issues seen as a problem with Agile

Leaders feeling threatened

Wrong expectations

Underestimating the extent and impact of change

The need for enhancing agility

Adopting Agile is not enough

Enhancing agility is not the same as Agile transformation

Capabilities underlying agility

Responsiveness

Versatility

Flexibility

Resilience

Innovativeness

Adaptability

Properties of agility

Characteristics of enterprises with high agility

Optimal agility

Summary

References

Part II. The foundations of enterprise agility

Chapter 3. The Enterprise as a Living System

The mechanistic approach that is outdated for enterprise modeling

Taylor's scientific management theory – the roots of mechanistic modeling

Managers should "think" and workers should "do"

Efficiency is the most important outcome to aim for

Processes and methods should drive ways of working

Need to reinfuse "life" into enterprises

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) – a proven model of high agility

What are CAS?

Characteristics of a CAS

Continuous evolution

Autonomous and self-organizing agents

Agents' interactions influence system behavior

Agents' behavior is driven by purpose

Loosely-coupled agents

Variety is a source of strength

Emergent behavior

The nonlinear relationship between cause and effect

Patterns of behavior

Reasons for high agility in a CAS

Implications for enterprises

Enhanced agility

Responsive structure

Build social density

Amplify success stories

Encourage healthy friction

Link purpose to work

Balance proximity and modularity

Cultivate diversity

Build on emergence

Shorter feedback loops

Experiment with lever points

Balance order and chaos

Selective destruction

Simple rules

Safe to fail experiments

Prioritize effectiveness over efficiency

Monitor and leverage patterns

Summary

References

Chapter 4. Mindset and Culture

Significance

What is mindset?

What is culture?

The culture and mindset ecosystem

Changing mindset and culture

Values aligned to agility

Internal-oriented values

External-oriented values

Behaviors aligned to agility

Treat failure as a learning opportunity

Focus on continuous improvement

Value team spirit over individual heroics

Willingness to share knowledge

Diversity of thought valued

Practice "brutal" transparency

Effective feedback

Recognize the last responsible moment

Driven by value

Enabling behavior changes

Align the metrics

Levelling environment

Leadership involvement

Identify what needs to change about the current mindset and culture

Link a behavior change to business outcomes

Call out gaps between expected and actual behaviors

Have clarity and consensus around trade-offs

Deal with individual negative behaviors on a case-to-case basis

Look out for broader anti-patterns

Go beyond logic

Aligning the workplace to an agility-enabling culture

Summary

References

Chapter 5. Leadership

Significance

Dimensions of leadership

Personal traits

Willingness to expand mental models

Self-awareness

Creativity

Emotional intelligence

Courage

A passion for learning

Awareness of cognitive biases

Confirmation bias

Bandwagon effect bias

"Guru" bias

Projection bias

Stability bias

Resilience

Responsiveness

Behavioral capabilities

Tolerance toward failure

Connection with peers

Comfort with "VUCA"

Ability to guide and facilitate teams

Ability to leverage risk

Connection through engagement

Ability to apply systems thinking

Being technology aware

Following servant leadership

Balancing the paradoxes

Encouraging inclusivity and diversity

"Humble inquiry"

Summary

References

Part III. The components of enterprise agility

Chapter 6. Organization Structure

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

A "tall" hierarchy

Organizing primarily for efficiency

Devaluing knowledge workers

Centralization of core capabilities

Leadership-level silos

Enablers for enhancing agility

Organize teams around business outcomes

Self-organizing teams

Coaching

Empowered to make decisions

Team chemistry

Access to needed resources

Stable teams

Flat(ter) structure

Repurpose the "frozen middle layer"

Enable learning through communities

Delink employee growth from structure

Adhocracy as a decision-making model

Supportive tooling

Flexible, adaptable, and lean structure

Summary

References

Chapter 7. Process

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Broken processes

Processes not being aligned with the company's purpose/outcomes

Processes not being fit for purpose

Rigid processes

Striving for 100% utilization

Estimation and capacity planning done by "outsiders"

Enablers for enhancing agility

Optimize for outcomes

Valuable inputs

"Pull-based" flow

Make it visual

Seize opportunities to automate

Use of enabling tools

Build quality in

Enable teamwork and shared ownership

Determine capacity based on throughput

Summary

References

Chapter 8. People

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Mechanistic view of people

Lack of trust

Blaming people

Feeling of "being used"

Lack of appreciation

The "that's not my job" attitude

The "yes boss" mindset

Competition among individuals

Differential treatment for contractual employees

"Forcing" people to become managers

Enablers to agility

Psychological safety

Competency-driven people development

Intrinsic motivation

Autonomy

Mastery

Purpose

Engagement

Ability to have fun at work

Hiring for diversity

Holistic and frequent feedback on performance

Learning culture

Summary

References

Chapter 9. Technology

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Treating the technology department as a cost center

The "stepchild" treatment of the technology function

Obsolete legacy systems

Silos within the technology function

Lack of engineering practices

The bimodal approach

COTS products for core capabilities

Infrastructure vulnerability

Enablers to agility

Business-technology alignment and collaboration

Shared measures of success

Business appreciating the nature of technology work

Visibility and transparency

Direct exposure to customers

Understand that change has a cost

Speak in a common language

Make the business self-reliant

Agile and DevOps

Culture of technology artisanship

Portfolio management

Evolutionary architecture

Build core capabilities internally

T-shaped skills

Platforms

Summary

References

Chapter 10. Governance

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Optimization of silos

Relying on misleading and non-actionable metrics

Watermelon metrics

Vanity metrics

Lagging indicators

Metrics that drive wrong behaviors

Sunk cost fallacy

Speed at the cost of quality

Annual budgeting

Governing for compliance and documentation

Projects/initiatives delinked from strategy

"Frozen middle"

Enablers to agility

Value-driven prioritization

Continuous validation of value

Incremental funding

Balancing of leading and lagging indicators

Attend showcases/demos

End-to-end link between purpose and initiatives

Summary

References

Chapter 11. Customer

Significance

Inhibitors to the effectiveness of agility

Exploitation mindset

Taking customers for granted

Focusing only on linear customer journeys

Make assumptions about customer needs and preferences

Ignoring end users

Enablers to the effectiveness of agility

The "customer-first" culture

Aim for customer delight

Understand what value means to the customer

Summary

References

Part IV. The blind spots

Chapter 12. Distributed Teams

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Cultural differences

Time zone differences

Language differences

Lack of the "big picture" view

Misunderstanding of requirements

Trust deficit

Lack of visibility

Low morale

Lack of collective ownership

Risk of unpleasant surprises when "everything comes together"

Enablers for enhancing agility

People

Proxy product owner/business representative

Cross-pollination

Cultural sensitivity

Feedback culture

Leverage effective communicators

Process

Inception/project kick-off workshop

Joint stand-ups

Joint retrospectives

Maximize overlapping hours

Periodic "work in process" showcases/demo

Tools and infrastructure

Electronic work pipeline

Electronic build radiator

Communication and collaboration tools

Coding standards

Source control system

Network connectivity

Structure

Cross-functional teams

Conway's law

Perception of power

Summary

References

Chapter 13. Technology Partners

Significance

Inhibitors to agility

Resistance and concerns in adopting Agile ways of working

Transactional relationship

Frozen contracts

Enablers for enhancing agility

Ways of working

True spirit of partnership

Outcome-focused partnership

Agile contracts

Success story

Agile awareness and training

Coaching

Stakeholder map and communication plan

Social contract

Alignment on estimation framework and standards

Alignment on the definition of "ready" and "done"

Ensure infrastructure and security alignment upfront

Risk and issues – identification and management

Governance mechanism for handling escalations

Lead partner

Heads up on changes in capacity

Primarily focus on outcomes, not on practices

Phased introduction of advanced Agile practices

Learning through pairing

Maintain clarity on priorities

Continuous eye on quality

Monitor time in wait states post-handoffs closely

Knowledge transfer

Behaviors

Respect their pride

Empathy

Pick your battles

Summary

References

Part V. The journey to enhancing agility

Chapter 14. Framework for Action

Leadership alignment on the need for change

Redefine/validate the purpose of the enterprise

Define the capabilities underlying agility

Translate intent into action

Assess the current state

Envision the future

Plan the change

Execute the plan

Don't copy frameworks blindly

Balance evolution and execution

Regression in periods of crisis

Keep teams stable

Leverage ways of working using propagation techniques

Agility as a journey and not a destination

Summary

References

Chapter 15. Facilitating Change

Significance

Learnings

People do not resist change

Things will get worse before they get better

Continuous adaptation should be the norm

Employee engagement is a prerequisite for extrinsic enablers to have impact

Need to slow down to go faster

Watch out for change fatigue

Don't "steamroll" the "laggards"

Don't "shoot the enablers"

Sense of purpose over sense of urgency

Clarity on "what's in it for me?"

Primary focus on outcomes over means

Small gestures of appreciation can have disproportionate positive impact

Upgrade skills

Respect the hard constraints

Don't manage change, facilitate it

Summary

References

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Lean Product Management

Understanding Software

Leave a review – let other readers know what you think

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W