Agile is taking over the world, it is a topic on the list of 90% of modern managers. Everyone wants to have a team with autonomy, proactive, dynamic and versatile. Having an agile company is one of those trends, which according to Mackinsey and Delloite everyone wants but only 10% consider to have gotten there, cases of failure surround even large corporations, as it was with Wallmart until 2016. So what should an organization do to be able to meet the transition?
If we are looking for the answer maybe the lion of ING is the example to mirror us, being one of the oldest private banks in history (its foundation dates back to 1743), has recently undergone a transformation that restructured its foundations, changing its entire form of operation, led in early 2015 by Peter Jacobs, CIO of ING, who basically lists four pillars that in his opinion made the difference (you can read the interview here):
Methodology - The agile way of working: according to Peter the way people sit next to each other, the transparency of the process, the focus on testing the solutions and the concern in delivering value to customers is the first pillar of the transformation.
Governance - The right organizational structure: it is important to have the rules of the game clear, and to stop having different departments, committees, managers, and directors, otherwise silos will continue to exist. In other words, it is important to keep in mind the rules of this new formation, and how the new horizontal structure works.
SIGP - The approach to devops and continuous delivery: when performing the agile transformation it is necessary to have an Integrated Project Management System, focused on the operation and storage of project information, and that translates the philosophy adopted by the organization.
Training - The new people model: there is no point in taking the next step if the people who embark on this journey are not sufficiently prepared.
Finally we have the project management office - PMO, (this was not mentioned by Peter), which is based on these four pillars, and is like a stakeholder that ensures the balance and quality of the foundation of these concepts. It also ensures that the teams address the organization's objectives in their deliverables.
The project management office is nothing more than a guide, responsible for ensuring the deployment of the organization's objectives, because when we talk about agile teams, we are talking about crew members with full autonomy to handle the boat and deal with the challenges, so it is necessary, first of all, to have a clear way of navigation, to have well-defined roles, a prepared boat, a well-trained team, and of course: a map with the objective of that trip.
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