Continuous Improvement should be a major focus on change initiatives like an Agile Transformation. At the enterprise level, it is important to understand what changes can be implemented at the Program Portfolio, and Team levels of an organization.

Each group should seek to continuously improve the processes, procedures, practices, technology, and other aspects of their delivery. These continuous improvement strategies should be simple, clear, and focused so the teams, programs, and the enterprise have visibility into the progress being made against these targets. The information should flow easily up the value chain, and be transparent to the stakeholders tracking these target state initiatives.

An important element of the enterprise supporting continuous improvement across the enterprise is to utilize an “Agile Center of Excellence (Agile CoE)”. This allows for representation from the program Portfolio / Teams to come together and share best practices and technology advancements. The Agile CoE can establish “Communities of Practice” at the Team level for Servant Leaders, Backlog Owners, DevOps, Testing, and other groups with similar functions to come together and share their experiences, advancements, ideas, impediments, and provide a mechanism for knowledge sharing and alignment.

When implemented and supported by leadership properly, this can advance knowledge sharing across the enterprise in a very advanced way. For example, an integrated Agile CoE Wiki Page will specifically allow the group to create a Knowledge Bases with process, artifact, roles and responsibilities, and other importance reference material that can be utilized by all programs throughout the enterprise.

It is also very important for each level of the enterprise to have a mechanism for elevating improvements or impediments that are outside of their control. For example, if a Program Portfolio is sharing resources across teams, and the teams are not meeting their Release / Iteration Goals because of it, there should be a communication strategy and operation cadence for Risk / Issue / Impediment escalation in a timely manner. This allows the Leaders of an organization to be informed very quickly if their team’s continuous improvement strategies are being impeded by organization structures or dependencies across teams. This frequent review and elevation of risks / issues allows the enterprise to continuously improve through quick analysis, elevation, decision making, and implementation of changes or mitigation strategies. The Agile CoE can be a great way to collect, distribute, analyze, and implement mitigation strategies across the enterprise.

In general, an Agile CoE should follow these guidelines:

  • Establish thought leadership as a way to increase the organization's maturity level and thus its ability to adopt Agile.
  • Maximize an Agile transformation at a strategic enterprise, program, and project level.
  • Define and craft an Agile processes and best practices charter that can be shared and scaled throughout the enterprise.
  • Identify, Share, and Capture techniques.
  • Support teams and organizing communities of practice.
  • Build a knowledge base of Agile practices, and support the team by answering any queries while working in an Agile ecosystem.
  • Provide business solutions to pre-sales, clients, and delivery teams.
  • Standardize tools and templates across the enterprise and tailor them according to need.
  • Achieve operational excellence, enhance business values and business process improvement, and augment develop/deploy methods that comply with industry best practices.
  • Keep up with the latest technologies and innovation.
  • Coach and train engineers and managers on Agile values, principles, methods, and practices.
  • Assess the Agile implementation of different projects, identifying any gaps or improvement areas. Put in place output measures that track results delivered.
  • Formalize the team, integrate it with strategic planning, and expand it across the organization. Continue to improve, adapt, and advance capabilities.
  • Build competent, collaborative teams.
  • Employ a leadership collaboration style.
  • Encourage teams to commit, act, be open, and to have the courage to follow rules.
  • Be open, transparent, and available so that people can reach out to have their their queries solved or get clarification and support in implementing Agile.