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Scaling w/ Agility

Are You Struggling to Scale Your Organization ? Need agility but dubious of process BS/dogma? I share reflective, pragmatic, principled takes on how to approach scaling your organization leveraging the essence (rather than theater) of product operating models, agile practices and frameworks, and business operating systems such as EOS and OKRs.

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šŸ’”āš™ļøšŸ“ˆ What Do Trusted Peer Groups Have to Do with Scaling Agility? (Podcast)

Leading an agility journey can often feel lonely. These days, especially, thereā€™s plenty of complexity, and rapid changeā€”what weā€™ve come to know as VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) or even the newer BANI framework (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible). Building and growing a consulting/advisory business in the agility/product/scaling field also provides plenty of VUCA and BANI. Peer groups, like Masterminds or the Forums used in the Entrepreneur Org (EO) / Young...

I often discuss developing your company/operating model using product techniques. Today's post is a collaboration with my fantastic wife, Vered, where she outlines a somewhat concrete playbook for doing just thatā€”developing your product playbook like it was a productā€”collaboratively, iteratively, focusing on outcomes, steering with evidence. It's the essence of Product Operations. Enjoy! This article is inspired by recent conversations I had with Product Leaders about product operating...

Over the years, I have worked with many tech startups. Reader Heidi asked an interesting question as a follow-up to yesterday's email about Product-Led Growth, Product-led Org, and Product Operating Models: "Can a Product-Led Org have a Project Operating Model?" First of all - I'll admit that I ran my product delivery organization using a Project operating model in a Product-led Org, 20 years ago. So it is factually possible (but not necessarily recommended...) Over the years, I have worked...

I see some practitioners and leaders using these terms interchangeably. I thought Iā€™d take the time to clarify the overlaps and differences, first of all for myself. Product-Led Organizationā€”As opposed to Sales/Engineering/Marketing/Professional Services-led organizations, a Product-Led organization is structured to deliver value through the product. These organizations often have product-oriented leaders at the helm. Some examples ā€“ are Tesla, Spotify, and Atlassian. Product Operating Model...

ā€œCan we just start with day 2? (Fast forward the WHY/WHAT)ā€ If only I had a dollar for every time I heard this statement in an agile workshop (and was smart enough to invest in NVDA at the timeā€¦) Even before we became addicted to short-form content, we never had the patience for the history lesson that most of these agile workshops started with. Workshops morphed to spend more time on practices and less time on principles. A side effect of this widespread focus on the HOW is that more and...

I recently joined Adam Mattis on the ā€œBusiness Agility Nowā€ podcast for a conversation about scaling agile and product operating models. Itā€™s always a pleasure to chat with Adam about the realities of applying agility at scale and some of the trends Iā€™m seeing in the field. We covered various topics, drawing from our experiences helping organizations navigate the complexities of business agility in a variety of environments. Here are some of the key themes and topics we focused on: The...

A CEO asked me yesterday why I'm using the term Organizational Traction. I got the inspiration from Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Gino Wickman's book introducing EOS - here's my take on it from a while ago). Here's how I explained it in the conversation yesterday: Imagine you established a strategic vision. You know where you're going. But it seems like there's no progress towards this vision. It's like full gas in neutral. Trying to get a grip in the mud. Or losing grip in a tight...

Today's email is more about my business than about agility or product itself. Hang in there - there's a connection to product discovevry/validation as a bonus sidenote ... A follower reached out earlier today - "Yuval, Whenā€™s the next time youā€™re teaching a SAFe RTE class?" Hereā€™s the deal. I rarely schedule open enrollment training workshops anymore. Why? The market is crowded with more and more trainers. Thereā€™s less demand for certification classes compared to the past The whole dynamics...

Should you focus on mastering organizational traction or on establishing portfolio agility? Let me tell you a secret: In my experience, mastering organization traction involves realizing you have a portfolio of investments youā€™re managing. So actually the paths convergeā€¦ The difference is that mastering organizational traction extends beyond the IT/Product world. It intercepts business initiatives before becoming mandates for the technology organization. It also manages non-digital...

ā€œAgile is so great we need to use it for EVERYTHINGā€ ā€œAgile is so much overhead, we stopped using it for ANYTHINGā€ Are you also trying to navigate what to do with Agile? Whether itā€™s worth the overhead? After years of helping a diverse group of organizations figure out where and how to use agile methods, here's what I've learned... If you want the TL;DR version - Agile has the potential to shine when ā€¦. Thereā€™s enough risk and uncertainty to justify the overhead of frequent feedback loops....