Comments on: The Dead End of the Agile Transformation

By: Marcus Raitner

Marcus Raitner — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 14:06:09 +0000

In reply to John Heintz. Absolutely! I don't object to global standards. What I object to is the way such standards are imposed from top to bottom. This is best summarized by this quote:

Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date. Taiichi Ōno

By: John Heintz

John Heintz — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 13:24:18 +0000

Some shared and coordination standards do need to be globally set. Think “drive on the right side of the road” types of constraints. These however are very sticky and everyone will live with them a long time. Think the yards vs meters. Be sparing when creating a global standard and involve bottom up input and understanding when doing so.

By: Marcus Raitner

Marcus Raitner — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 09:38:05 +0000

In reply to Vijay. Maybe I wasn't precise enough. Not the models themselves are dead ends. In fact I consider them also as a good starting point (LeSS more than SAFe, but this is a different story). The point I tried to make was, that implementing those models as a given blueprint in a top-down fashion will not encourage self-organization in the sense of this quote:

Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves. Taiichi Ōno

By: Vijay

Vijay — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 20:57:37 +0000

I generally enjoy articles on Agile on this website, but I tend to disagree that using any blueprint or framework will lead to a dead end. At the very least it seems, a blue print or enterprise agile framework can be a starting point in Agile Transformation. How else will teams use/adherence to EA, solution architecture, security guidelines, regulatory compliance issues etc. A framework like SAFe or LaSS etc can also provide logistics of coordinating work between Agile teams.