From Busyness to Impact: How can your team make the shift?

From Busyness to Impact: How can your team make the shift?

by | India Client experiences

A SaaS company specializing in managing digital presence for enterprises in hospitality and automotive sectors faced a productivity paradox. Its five product teams were busy working on backlogs meticulously managed by product managers, but their efforts often fell short of delivering meaningful outcomes.

Product managers focused on keeping teams occupied, ensuring full backlogs, and tracking utilization metrics for each iteration. Teams, in turn, avoided saying “no” to work—even low-value tasks—because their reports needed to reflect constant busyness. Systemic issues and internal inefficiencies were left unresolved, as product managers did not prioritize them. The business struggled with poor adoption of capabilities, yet no one owned the problem, further deepening the divide between effort and impact.

As coaches, we worked closely with the leadership team to identify the root causes. We helped them see that the focus on activity and utilization metrics hindered the company’s ability to deliver real value. Together, we advocated for a shift toward an outcome-oriented approach.

Leadership responded by redefining success metrics for product managers, prioritizing the adoption of capabilities over keeping teams busy. Teams were empowered to evaluate their work critically, decline tasks with unclear or low value, and take ownership of long-overdue internal improvements. With a culture of safety and trust established, teams tackled inefficiencies that had previously been ignored.

The results were transformative. A shift in mindset—from valuing busyness to focusing on meaningful outcomes—sparked a chain reaction. Teams eliminated at least 10% of wasteful work each iteration, reclaimed capacity for valuable initiatives, and improved their agility. Product managers engaged more thoughtfully with their teams, leading to smoother releases and better alignment with business priorities. Most importantly, the renewed focus on outcomes drove measurable improvements in the adoption of capabilities, enhancing customer satisfaction and business success.

#ShapingTheFutureOfWork #DrivingBusinessResults #HumanCentric

To learn more about how we help organisations become self-managed, resilient and thus future-ready, click here.

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Self-Managed Agile Teams

Self-Managed Agile Teams

by | India Client experiences

Our client, a boutique software consulting firm of 150 members, engaged us to scale their business sensibly and coach on organizational and engineering Agile Practices. As part of the #transformation, managers and teams were actively being coached on self-organizing practices and driving greater team alignment, ownership and participation. One of their efforts was to establish a remote-first work-from-home (#WFH) policy. The leadership had concerns about misuse, decreased availability and responsiveness to clients etc. and they initially considered having management and HR define a policy.

We, #SemcoStyle consultants instead, advocated for collective decision-making, drawing from practices like #BringTheClientIn, #InternalCommittees, #StepBackManagement, #SharedDecisionMaking etc. We facilitated the formation of a voluntary committee comprising 20% of the workforce, tasked with crafting WFH guidelines. The committee identified all stakeholders, including not just service providers but even family members! They mapped out the potential impacts of WFH on each and prioritized these impacts and brainstormed solutions, converting them into guidelines prefaced with “WE.”

The level of engagement and maturity displayed by employees pleasantly surprised leaders. The rollout proceeded smoothly, with employees understanding the rationale behind the guidelines and their role in upholding them. Participating volunteers were able to answer questions that came and not get “escalated to management”. Everyone understood WHY the guidelines were needed and the employees’ role in protecting it.
Over three months, reviews indicated no adverse business effects. Teams autonomously managed and adapted the guidelines to their specific contexts, demonstrating self-governance capabilities.

The transparent and inclusive process bolstered trust within the organization. Ultimately, employees collaboratively crafted a policy that could be self-governed and self-managed, departing from traditional HR and management-driven approaches.

#ShapingTheFutureOfWork #DrivingBusinessResults #HumanCentric

To learn more about how we help organisations become self-managed, resilient and thus future-ready, click here.

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Agile – Finally!!

Agile – Finally!!

by | India Client experiences

Our client, a software-led multi-modal digital presence company, that had embraced Agile a few years ago, faced significant challenges within their organization, including missed delivery timelines, a lack of product innovation, and stressed leadership.

As we observed how work flowed in the organization, we soon realized that a lot of the problems that manifested were from a lack of role clarity in the product management and engineering leadership teams. The lack of clarity led to confusion and shrinking space for people to perform their roles and to take accountability for outcomes – e.g. Product managers got into the weeds of delivery dates and planning and engineering leads and managers were reacting and getting into day-day inward-looking tasks that teams were fully capable of doing if only there was focus.

As part of our #ACE (Agile Culture for Enterprises) offering, we facilitated a series of collaborative workshops with all leaders in the organization. These sessions focused on exploring their roles within the context of their value streams. By encouraging open dialogue and sharing of information, we aimed to bring clarity to their accountabilities and reduce duplication of efforts.

Deploying practices around concepts such as #SharedDecisionMaking, #BreakingDownSilos, #ChoosingWhatToControl, #PeopleCanFixItThemselves and defining #ClearRolesAndResponsibilities, we emphasized the importance of transparency and collaboration across functional boundaries. Through exercises like collaboratively defining expectations in a social contract, we fostered open communication and increased trust among team members.

Over the following months, we supported leaders in adapting to their newly clarified roles. Initially challenging, this transition ultimately led to significant time savings. Leaders found themselves freed from day-to-day tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-order initiatives.

The teams now enjoyed more space for participation and owning up to their outcomes – as opposed to obsessing over daily tasks with no understanding of outcomes. Senior leadership was able to see the benefits of team leaders asking more questions and learning about the business that helped communicate the purpose of work – and not just the scope of work. All these resulted in significant improvements in the predictability and velocity of the Agile teams.

Importantly, the success of this transformation was not merely temporary. By establishing clear roles and fostering a culture of empowerment, the organization was able to maintain its newfound effectiveness and purpose-driven approach.

#ShapingTheFutureOfWork #DrivingBusinessResults #HumanCentric

To learn more about how we help organisations become self-managed, resilient and thus future-ready, click here.

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Grow Roots To Strengthen AGILE

Grow Roots To Strengthen AGILE

by | AGILE, India Blog

Agile Coaches are key transformation agents when organizations look to pivot from traditional ways of working to Agile methods. Such transformations are sponsored by organizations for various reasons — competitive pressure, low employee engagement, as part of digital transformation and in many cases just for its coolness factor. Whatever the reasons, business and organizational leaders bring in Agile Coaches to own the transformation journey.

Agile Coaches are generally configured as senior management or leadership positions due to the influence they need to exert in the change journey. Trained and certified in various Agile frameworks like Scrum, SAFe, LeSS, Kanban etc. Agile Coaches bring their own blend of training, mentoring and coaching and apply them to unique situations every team and organizations presents in the transformation journey.

Oftentimes however, Agile Coaches in all good intentions and in alignment with their charter, use the language of their own Agile Frameworks to teams and leaders who do not understand them well enough. E.g. a coach who is an expert in Scrum will train, mentor and coach teams and managers in Scrum rituals, help pivot project managers and team leads into Scrum Master roles and inject Agile backlog and collaboration tools into the organization’s fabric.

“If we truly want to be Agile, we are going to have to adopt the language of our customers. To that end, we must choose words and concepts that they are comfortable with—not force them to learn a new, arbitrary, and unhelpful vocabulary.”

Daniel Vacanti in Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability

In ideal conditions, Agile Coaches will succeed in bringing about change both in letter and spirit. In most scenarios however, Coaches hit upon mental blocks and resistance from the very leaders who sponsor these change initiatives. This comes from two broad areas:

 

  1. Leaders grow up through the ranks with traditional management styles and expect all Agile transformation change to be restricted in the “lower layers” of the organization while still retaining the comfort of their own Command and Control mindset. It is only fair to expect this because the organizational structure, power structures and the domain of influence is founded in hierarchy — with no models to challenge and educate.
  2. Organization leaders typically see Agile as a “software thing”. When organizations take up transformation, they would limit the influence to remain within the software development community. Such a constraint limits the impact of Agility and bring sub-optimal outcomes. Agile Coaches find it hard to challenge the fallacy — and Agile frameworks provide no vocabulary to do the same.

“A Scrum Master who takes teams beyond getting agile practices up and running into their deliberate and joyful pursuit of high performance is an agile coach.”

Lyssa Adkins in Coaching Agile Teams

Under such conditions, using the language of Agile frameworks is NOT sufficient to break through such resistance. Agile coaches need a new vocabulary and framework that encapsulates Agile to communicate what it needs to build self managed organizations and self-organised teams – the essence of Agile. Something more broad in scope is needed.

Such broad frameworks by necessity have to talk about transformation, but in generic terms (not limited by software) and the role of business leadership in the transformation. Assessment tools, process flows/practices and governance rituals that such frameworks emphasise must also talk in terms that transcend the boundaries of software and technology.

The Semco Style framework is one such framework that practicing Agile Coaches can find very handy to break out of the shackles that they may find themselves in. The broadening of their horizons with insights from the Semco Style framework will help them learn how to challenge leadership mindsets in people who may be above their pay grade or are the same people who are their sponsors. The framework equips Coaches with assessment tools that expose the dysfunctions in organizations brought out of traditional mindsets. These findings will help navigate the resistance from senior/exec leadership.

The Semco Style framework also provides a roadmap that Agile Coaches can use to devise a path that is unique to the organizations’ state in adopting Agile mindsets, starting with senior leadership. It also prepares Coaches to recognise areas of resistance and build empathy on why they exist. Such awareness equips Agile Coaches with the patience and also the wisdom to navigate the choppy waters that will come in the form of leadership resistance.

In summary, using Agile tools to drive Agile transformations in organisations beyond the execution teams and software/technology is often limiting. Agile Coaches need frameworks that transcend these boundaries and equip them with knowledge, tools and practices that expand their areas of influence and drive true Business Agility — something that can bring growth to them and their organizations.

Agile Transformation, Organizational Culture and Climate (Part 2)

Agile Transformation, Organizational Culture and Climate (Part 2)

by | AGILE, India Blog

In the first part of this article, we defined what Agile transformation is and what Organizational Culture and Organizational Climate are in that context. We also saw how Agile Transformation is a 3-dimensional change that affects the Execution Culture across (X-Axis) and deep (Y-Axis) and also the Climate/Mood (Z-Axis) of your organization.

We elaborated how the leadership in ALL execution teams that partner in this transformation has the responsibility to carry themselves and their teams through this cultural shift. At the same time, its the HR leadership’s responsibility to sense the Organizational Climate as the cultural shift occurs and support the teams with appropriate interventions to maintain a healthy environment of learning and growth.

Having an appreciation of how Agile impacts people, their roles and their responsibilities is key to designing how Organizational Climate is assessed and how as an organization you respond to it. The remainder of this article focuses on how Agile Transformation impacts the focus areas of assessment and also the intervention areas from the assessment.

What to assess in Organizational Climate for Agile Transformation?

Typical assessments of Organizational Climate focus on how well people understand their roles, their growth trajectories, skill requirements, confidence in the leadership and the effectiveness of the feedback process that leads to professional growth. It would also look at feedback on compensation and benefits, rewards programs and other softer aspects like diversity, values and alignment.

It will now be evident, that with Agile transformation inverting the ownership model in your teams, the traditional notions of growth, skills requirements and definitions of leadership will change. Assessing the team’s confidence of the leadership has to shift from their ability to direct, to their ability to coach. This also needs to be paired with finding out if teams are sensing an increase in their ownership domain as well as their comfort with it. It will be important to understand how collaboration between people of different skill sets are affecting team morale and power distances. Quite paradoxically, if you sense your organization doing very well and comfort on all these change dimensions, you could well assume that Agile transformation is NOT going right; it could also be a indication of fear to communicate the reality in your organization — a fundamental flaw that will kill your Agile Transformation journey.

How to engage the organization with Organizational Assessment?

A redesigned Assessment framework that accommodates Agile mindsets will help the HR organization support the leadership to influence the Climate. The lazy approach to use the Climate assessment is to ask leadership to go easy on those areas that are causing discomfort to the teams even if they are “growing pains” of the journey. E.g. if the teams complain that managers are not engaged in the day to day tasks of the team and resent the “aloofness”, a direction to managers to revert to be more “engaged” will be the exact opposite of what should be done to drive Agility. Conversely, if managers are complaining that there is lack of clarity in their “vertical growth”, it may a good sign and call out the need to refine the roles and responsibilities of the management layer towards and incentivizing servant-leadership.

To re-iterate from the last article, the Climate is the effect and NOT the cause – so, it derives that each team now has to have its own understanding of the climate and work on what behavioural aspects to change. The teams themselves or the managers on their own may not be able to chart the next steps — Agile coaches must be engaged to help understand which pains are Agile friendly, and help the teams navigate them. Unfortunately, Agile Coaches are not considered part of the people leadership and kept away from understanding these aspects. HR leadership has the opportunity to influence this unfortunate status quo.

Another key aspect of the Organizational Climate is rewards and recognition. As organizations move to Agility, the move towards team goals, and collective ownership takes precedence over individual glory. Its important to appreciate this shift and use the Organizational Climate to gradually shift the organization to become more accommodating to losing “individual glory” and promoting “team success”.

In conclusion, the transformational journey to Self-Management using Agile as a framework is a long and arduous one. It requires enlightened leadership to guide the teams to the new Organizational Culture and partner with the HR organization that’s keeping a close watch on the Organizational Climate.

There are NO shortcuts, but with team work from ALL the leadership, the complexity can be handled step-by-step, iteration by iteration, quarter by quarter. Its a like grand orchestra and when there is alignment between the players and the conductor, you will hear the initial cacophony transform into a symphony that your organization will wonder how you ever lived without.