“Strategy agility isn't about waiting for a crisis. It's about building the muscle to stop, pivot, and adapt before disaster strikes.” - Mark Richards

This episode sees hosts Nikolaos Kaintantzis, Stephan Neck, Mark Richards, and Ali Hajou conclude their exploration of SAFe’s competency framework by focusing on Strategy Agility. It's packed with insightful discussions about market sensing, organizing around value, and the need for continuous adaptation in today’s dynamic business environment.

• The Importance of Market Sensing: Ali shares a compelling story about a small electronics team that identified a market opportunity for emergency power switches. Their close collaboration with customers allowed them to innovate and adapt their strategy quickly based on real-world feedback.
• Strategic Alignment Through Market Signals: Stephan emphasizes that successful strategy agility hinges on sensing the right signals from the market. He advocates for early engagement with teams that handle market research to make informed decisions and keep strategies grounded in actual data.
• Reorganizing Around Value: Niko and Mark dive into the complexities of organizing and reorganizing teams around value streams. Mark cautions against treating reorganization as a one-time event, explaining that successful organizations constantly refine their structures to align with evolving strategies. Niko highlights that this should be seen as an ongoing process, not a major disruptive event.
• Adapting Without a Crisis: Mark and Stephan discuss how organizations often react swiftly in times of crisis, such as during COVID-19, but struggle to maintain that level of focus in normal conditions. They explore how companies can proactively build systems that allow for agile strategic shifts without waiting for external crises to force their hand.
• Advice for Young SPCs: The panel agrees that new SPCs should avoid jumping straight into enterprise-level strategy agility. Instead, they recommend focusing on smaller, more localized changes, such as helping Agile Release Trains (ARTs) adopt market sensing and lean startup techniques before tackling broader organizational strategies.

“You will cross some silos, stretch some rules, but in the end, you work together, have joy, and achieve greatness.” - Nikolaos Kaintantzis

In this penultimate episode of the SPCs Unleashed Competency journey, hosts Mark Richards, Nikolaos (Niko) Kaintantzis, and Stephan Neck dive into the dimension of Lean Business Operations within the SAFe competency model. The trio explores the critical role of leveraging value stream thinking to enhance flow in business operations and product development, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship.

Mark starts the discussion by addressing the often-confused concepts of the Operational Value Stream (OVS) and the Development Value Stream (DVS). He shares his experiences with value stream mapping and the challenges of simplifying these concepts for organizations. Niko brings a unique perspective by likening lean operations to Greek dancing, where collaboration and unity lead to crossing silos and achieving greatness.

Stephan and Niko share their favorite techniques for effective value stream mapping, stressing the importance of involving the right people and focusing on a customer-centric approach. They highlight strategies for extending the flow of conversation beyond technology, including starting from the customer's perspective to identify triggers for change and mapping true value streams.

The conversation delves into the challenges of integrating business and technology perspectives, especially when organizations are accustomed to operating in silos. The hosts emphasize the necessity of a holistic view and mutual understanding to drive innovation and efficiency. They also offer practical advice for SPCs, such as getting help from peers, practicing new tools personally before applying them with clients and focusing on taking actionable steps to address bottlenecks.

The episode concludes with a spirited debate on the most relevant Measure and Grow metric. While opinions differ, the consensus highlights the importance of visualizing bottlenecks and promptly addressing them rather than just identifying issues.

References:

The Lean Machine - Dantar P. Oosterwal
Lean Product and Process Development - Allen C. Ward

“Without consistency and standards none of this works. With too much consistency nothing changes. You have to steer and constantly sense and course-correct.” - Mark Richards

Mark Richards and Niko Kaintantzis join Stephan Neck in this episode with Agile Portfolio Operations from Lean Portfolio Management.

We kick off by sharing our passions: Mark’s thoughts about finding the balance between consistency and standards so that it works, but not too much of it so that nothing changes; Niko’s emphasis on avoiding large solutions by mastering this dimension correctly.

In the first part, we reflect on how to ensure that decentralized ART execution is effectively coordinated across various teams and value streams to maintain alignment with the overall business objectives.
Mark elaborates on the minimum viable level of centralization and finding the value stream with the biggest contribution to an Epic so they can take ownership and lead an effective collaboration. Niko mentions “coordination” as an important element to avoid “false” large solutions, which needs facilitation by an RTE organizing a Pre-Plan meeting.

The second part sparked a discussion about emphasizing “Lean thinking principles” to foster operational excellence and innovation speed. Stephan initiated this part by stating that the speed of innovation is dependent on flow, which requires discipline for sustainable speed and space for innovation. Mark reminds us that "Without standards, there can be no kaizen"—portfolio members have to establish and agree on shared standards. Niko adds that testing business hypotheses with MVPs is crucial for innovation. Mark and Niko mention the human element - working with people and connecting people to find “pockets of excellence.”

The final part dealt with engaging and empowering the LPM function, VMO, LACE, and RTEs to actively support and enhance the value streams. The portfolio's power is to see patterns—it’s necessary to do the chores (in a disciplined way, involving senior management): get data flowing, and pre-work done by small groups of people enables informed insights and incisive actions.

The closing “just one sentence” highlights “When it comes to change, find the balance between sugar and sustainability”, “The portfolio deserves dedicated people” and “Excellence is a quality that people really appreciate because it is so hard to find”.