SAFe LACE Alert
In my last post, I shared some ideas around the value of a Community of Practice and how to re-energize it if it’s lost a bit of momentum. Please read that one if you haven’t before reading on here.
Now I want to contrast things a bit between CoP’s and CoE’s. Specifically of the LACE kind…
Contrasting between a CoP and a Center of Excellence?
There’s another notion you’ll often hear when discussing this area. It’s a Center of Excellence or CoE. My bias is going to shine through a bit here, but please bear with me.
A CoE is a more formal, top-down mechanism whose primary goal is the consistency of practice. That is, it’s focused on regulation and governance. Often metrics and agile performance metrics are tied to it as well. A good example of this idea is the Scaled Agile Framework’s – Lean-Agile Center of Excellence or LACE[1]. And you can also see the idea often marketed or aligned with the Agile PMO or PMI’s Disciplined Agile[2].
I’ve already alluded to the two problems I have with generic CoE’s. First is the prescriptive top-down nature—where the organization tries to mandate practices. I think that’s a non-starter in agile contexts and particularly not aligned with the agile mindset. So, implementing a CoE can actually do harm to your culture you’re trying to instill or support.
The second is that it disengages from the people doing the work. Which are the very people who are part of the “community” you’re trying to create. Typically, the teams and individuals only engage with the CoE because they’re told to. Not because they’re inspired to or are invited to participate.
In my opinion, you don’t create an agile culture by top-down mandate. It’s just doesn’t work. Instead, the organic nature of building a community of practitioners aligns so much better with our agile mindsets.
And the third challenge with creating a balanced and effective CoE relates to the agile maturity of the leadership team. If they’ve not evolved to an agile mindset, across leadership, then the CoE often becomes a mechanism for reinforcing controls and measurement.
All of these lead to problems if your goal is to truly develop and mature as an agile organization. So, approach LACE and all Centers of Excellence with caution and care.
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.
[1] https://www.scaledagileframework.com/lace/
[2] https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/people/centers-of-excellence