Agile Transformation at Boss Info (Part 3)

Conversion from a classic to an agile organizational structure (Part 3)

Status of Agile Transformation: Review of employee event and insight into ICT

At the employee event on August 25 in Egerkingen, Switzerland, ICT presented the current status of Agile Transformation to the “bosses”. The key points are explained in this blog post in the form of a follow-up to this talk.

Keynote speech by Peter Zurkirchen

At the employee information event, Peter Zurkirchen from KingpAct also gave an exciting keynote speech on the issue of agility. As an external consultant, he assists Boss Info with this issue and has already trained the members of the Executive Board this year. He showed the conference participants where an agile mindset and agile working methods can make everyday work easier. He also pointed out that you simply can’t know everything. So the goal of being agile in particular opens up the path to agility – for the company as a whole and for each individual employee. The guest speech was a productive way to finish the day for everyone.

Achievements to date in ICT

Agile Transformation is based on CAS transfer work, on bossinfo.ch AG’s own concepts and – within the framework of the actual project organization – on a proof of concept. The process can be divided into three main phases:

• Leadership, Projects, Sales (from mid-March)
• All ICT value streams, use of daily stand-ups and Scrum of Scrums (from May)
• Continuation of the transformation, fine-tuning of the project planning meetings, evaluation and replacement of the previous tool (from July)

Where does ICT stand?

Product increment and sprint planning were practiced and constantly improved in a mixture of theoretical framework and pragmatic form (adapted to the world of Boss Info). The daily stand-ups have also established themselves as fixed points in everyday work and colleagues’ way of thinking. Overall, each scrum team sends a delegate to the Scrum of Scrums, which is hosted and led by the Chief Scrum Master.

Positive and still in need of improvement – as expected

Cooperation within the teams, i.e. the openness to the agile approach, has exceeded the expectations of the project team. This fact speaks for the open-mindedness of the «bosses» on the one hand, while at the same time this preliminary finding shows that agile thinking and acting corresponds to a real need, the zeitgeist. The current findings on the «meeting landscape» are also moving in the same positive direction. The key to success lies in agility, especially in minimizing the number of meetings and shortening the duration of these consultations.

It is just as clear that not everything is running perfectly yet: Processes and (internal ICT) organization must be mapped even more precisely and practiced even more consistently. The planning tool currently being evaluated will be another important step forward; however, the principle of «logic before technology» applies here! That means it’s not the tool that dictates the processes – the reality of ICT must be reflected in the tool itself. The emphasis is currently on planning optimization and a corresponding database, because you can only practice agility comprehensibly and successfully if you make plans on a stable foundation.

Brief conclusion

Not everything has been implemented yet, and not all the wheels in the agile gearbox are turning perfectly yet. Nevertheless, much has been achieved since the start of the year. The Agile Transformation ICT is beginning to bear fruit, and all in all it’s on track.