CoP and the LACE

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CoP and the LACE

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

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Community of PRACTICE

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Community of PRACTICE

Dare I say it, it’s a—Community of…

PRACTICE!

I was in our Moose Herd the other day, yes, you’ve herd me say that more than a few times in blogs ;-)

And we were talking about Communities of Practice (CoP’s) as a phenomenal way to “raise the bar” in agile organizational contexts.

Everyone was aware of the practice and had participated in them. But there was a general feeling that most organizations don’t have a good recipe for a great CoP. So, we started brainstorming some of the tactics or patterns for a Good-to-Great Community of Practice. Here are some of the ideas we explored—

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What If…

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What If…

We always talk a good game about the concept of Servant Leadership in agile contexts. But I have a hypothetical thought experiment for you. What if…

  • There was a relatively small or mature start-up company;

  • Where the founders were developers or individual contributors;

  • They hired a leadership team to “run” the company, but maintained primary ownership;

  • The founders are still actively on the board and guiding overall strategy;

  • But they simply enjoyed the product innovation and creation process associated with being a team member.

Now, as time goes on, these folks simply blend into the woodwork of the “teams”.

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There is no testing in agile…only Discovery

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There is no testing in agile…only Discovery

Photo from - https://lisacrispin.com/2020/11/01/shifting-left-right-in-our-continuous-world/

  • There are no testers or developers;

  • There are no testing tasks or development tasks;

  • There is no verification or validation;

  • There is no test automation;

  • There are no silo-based or functional behaviors;

  • There are no shift-lefts or shift-rights or shift up/down for that matter.

Or there SHOULD be none of this!

There are only…

Explorers – who are responsible for exploring and delivering the needs of their customers

And they practice the art of Discovery in finding those needs.

And finally, they deliver on those needs. Sometimes making mistakes, but more often, delighting their customers.

Exploration is a team sport and everyone is an explorer in one fashion or another.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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Lost Art of Asking for Help

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Lost Art of Asking for Help

I’ve been involved in agile for ~20 years and I’ve noticed a consistent anti-pattern that never seems to change.

People wait too long to ask for help!

I’ve noticed it in my coaching. By the time I usually get called into a situation where an organization is attempting to implement agile is, dare I say it, things are off the rails. Sure, a part of me thinks that’s a good or normal thing. But that’s the revenue generation part of me.

The principled agile coach part of me always wishes that they had reached out earlier. That it would have saved so much aggravation and frustration, wasted time & effort, and ultimately cost.

But it’s not just as a coach. It also applies to my leadership experience too.

If a project was off-track or a commitment would be missed, I usually found out at the last minute. Far later than when I could have actually helped or done something. I always work hard as a leader to create safety for bad news, to be approachable, and to be grateful for it. Very hard. But it still shocked me how often folks wait too long to share something with me. I often wonder, what did I have to do to create the culture where sharing challenges was rewarded, was the norm, and not feared?

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Leadership Impact

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Leadership Impact

There’s a leadership anti-pattern that’s been around for a long, long time. I noticed it in the 1980s, and I’m sure it preceded that decade by quite a few more decades. If not being a permanent dysfunctional trap in perpetuity for all leaders.

I’ll call it meeting-itis.

The primary symptom is leaders who measure the quality of their day by—

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Taking the Coaching High Road

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Taking the Coaching High Road

I shared a post a while ago focused on coaching alignment between coaches and not making assumptions that we’re aligned. It was a personal story where I assumed something when I should have checked in and aligned with my partner coach.

A friend and colleague of mine, Richard Khor made a nice comment to the post on LinkedIn that inspired this post/reaction. Here’s his comment…

Awesome post. Another assumption that is often missed is the direction or experiments that were done before. In other words, coming behind another coach and making the bad assumptions that what was there before was wrong.

And this resonated with me for a while. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve often been critical of what I’ve found going into a new coaching context. I don’t personalize it and start blaming my predecessor coaches, either internal or external, but I do point out what I perceive as mistakes.

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Lean Agile Intelligence + SPO 3’rd edition - Product Ownership assessment

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Lean Agile Intelligence + SPO 3’rd edition - Product Ownership assessment

I wrote the first edition of my Scrum Product Ownership book in 2009. Looking back, twelve years seems like an eternity in the agile universe. Perhaps it is. Since then, I’ve published two more editions, with the last hitting the streets in 2019. At this point, I don’t envision there being a 4th edition, but you never know.

Around 2012, I developed a Product Ownership maturity and assessment tool to accompany the book’s themes and ideas. It was a simple spreadsheet with ~20 areas of consideration for individual product owners or agile product organizations.

I was always somewhat disappointed with the ease of use and approachability of the assessment tool, but I really never had the time to change the delivery format. Nonetheless, there were quite a few people who were actively using it and gaining value from the insights.

But enough background…

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The TRUTH Gap

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The TRUTH Gap

We were discussing the notion of having hard, dare I say it, crucial conversations the other day in our Moose Herd session. Conversations that are challenging. Conversations where you speak truth to power. Conversations that are risky and require courage and fortitude.

One of the things I brought up was the notion of preparing for one of these. And the idea of establishing your 100% truth prior to the meeting. Sitting down, putting everything aside, and establishing what would be the 100% discussion if you were talking to your best friend, close confidant, or trusted advisor? Without any filtering, obfuscation, or any risk of ramifications.

What would that conversation look like? That then becomes the baseline for your conversation. The preferred target if you will.

Now perhaps, you can’t have that level of clarity and honesty. So, start walking back from that baseline.

Establishing what you are comfortable saying. Considering things like—

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Agile One-on-Ones

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Agile One-on-Ones

For years I’ve been asking and coaching Scrum Masters to partner with the managers/leaders of their team members. To sit down with them periodically, weekly perhaps, and over coffee, to discuss their teams. For example—

  • Sharing stories of success for their reports

  • Sharing the challenges (delivery, mindset, performance, etc.)

  • Sharing the team’s vision, goals, impediments, etc.

  • Discussing alignment with organizational goals

  • Asking for help or looking for guidance

All with an eye towards giving each manager a window into the dynamics of the team and how their direct reports are “doing”.

But this isn’t a performance report or a status report. It’s a partnership, as the manager and Scrum Master are in a unique collaborative relationship to build the overall maturity and performance of the overall team AND each individual.

And the discussions should be focused on continuous improvement and actions the manager can take to coach each individual. Which is, in fact, their job.

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