Case Studies » Global Technology Leader

Agile assessment of mindset and maturity levels

Many opportunities revealed to enhance the Agile adoptions and decision making

Services

Diverse coworkers discussing Agile assessment on laptop screen

Engagement at-a-glance

To drive transparency, decision-making, team empowerment, and focus on predictable outcomes across one of its most high-profile engineering divisions, our client—an industry leader in the software, hardware, and consumer electronics arena—turned to the Enterprise Agility experts at Celerity to conduct an Agile assessment of their business.

Celerity's proprietary AgileNow^TM engagement model embraces being Agile. Being Agile provides the maximum value possible within the organization.

Results of the engagement include:

A current-state Agile assessment and maturity level regarding the division's Agile knowledge and practices—and recommendations on how to yield benefits

An enhanced path forward for gaining operational efficiency, including putting the customer at the center of their work

A detailed roadmap providing a visual guide for applying an Agile mindset to the group's everyday operations, complete with objectives and benchmarks for gauging success in the first 180 days

The challenge

One of our client's engineering divisions was at a turning point. After doubling in size in just five years—both in terms of product portfolio and headcount—the teams were challenged by constantly shifting decisions and priorities, a significant number of dependencies, and a lack of transparency across the portfolio that impedes them from developing and building products that delight their customers. Additionally, there were varying levels of understanding and maturity around Agile practices across the hundreds of members in the division.

Celerity's mission

Pave the way for the client's teams to cultivate a division-wide culture of business agility. One that will drive additional capacity and productivity, unlock new efficiencies that allow them to scale operations, and firmly place the customer at the center of their work, day in and day out.

Celerity's three-tiered approach

Celerity's team quickly got to work conducting an extensive qualitative and quantitative assessment to identify opportunities for strengthening the client's business agility across transformational focus areas including:

organizational alignment

Understanding that leadership is essential in establishing a vision for Agility, leading the organization through change, and aligning the organization to deliver value, we identify the impediments to alignment and decision-making.

Through the Agile assessment, we also answer the questions: what systems need to be in place to provide immediate value? What are the strategic outcomes the team wants to get from Agile? How should the team be structured, and what roles and responsibilities need to be in place to promote collaboration and ensure every member is empowered to do their best work?

teams delivering value

Ultimately, value is delivered by teams, so we focus on how teams are organized and equipped to deliver value for the organization, incorporating Agile practices and mindsets. Emphasis is placed on how the teams approach their work—from writing user stories and defining acceptance criteria to reprioritizing their product roadmap—from their customers' perspective.

To connect back to our organizational alignment, we also answer the question: what systems need to be in place to provide immediate value?

Technology enablement

Adopt technical tools and processes that minimize handoffs and maximize efficiency. Employ continuous delivery and testing capabilities. Leverage architectures that create high performance and allow for scalability.

Through the Agile assessment, we identify: What tools does the team have in place, and how are they configured? What level of automation is at play in their daily operations? Is their current toolkit helping them—or hindering them?

The solution

With answers to these questions from the Agile assessment in hand, we developed and delivered a robust set of recommendations to leadership, including:

Restructuring the intake process and portfolio organization allowing for greater prioritization and agility to the division, including coaching and training
Developing an Agile Center of Excellence to foster and champion Agile enablement across the division
Strengthening the Agile knowledge base of individual contributors—and, in turn, the team—by certifying key Agile roles like scrum masters and project managers through Celerity

Additionally, we delivered a current state assessment of where the client was in terms of organizational agility, complete with benchmarks for gauging iterative success and future productivity. We created a detailed 180-day roadmap for cultivating an Agile mindset across the team—from blueprints for prioritizing future work to easily digestible mini-lessons on how to apply Agile practices to day-to-day operations in an iterative, responsive, and customer-centric way.

The outcome

With Celerity's strategic recommendations and roadmaps in hand from the Agile assessment, our client has a clear path forward for driving business agility across this engineering division. Our AgileNow^TM approach immediately increased visibility into the division's product roadmap, uncovered operational efficiencies that reduce the pain of dependencies and collaboration on a large team, and provided a top-down, bottom-up approach to achieving organizational alignment—and greater customer satisfaction—by always focusing on the needs of their customers.

Future phases of this engagement will review how these roadmaps have been put into action, and we anticipate the division will accelerate velocity and deliver greater value by embracing the Agile mindset and transforming them into unconscious competencies through daily practice. Celerity always acknowledges that Agile is a mindset and a movement. Getting many people to work together effectively is unique for every organization. It is a journey that requires regular inspection and adaptation to meet your intended outcomes and objectives.

Get in touch

In today's world of relentless change and disruption, you don't need to go it alone. Ready to see how Celerity can help you deliver better customer experiences and create a problem-solving culture that turns change into opportunity? Reach out to us today.