Tailored Agile Yields Fast Results for ISPG

Today’s work landscape is more nuanced and dynamic than ever. With large volumes of deliverables, tight deadlines, and ever-changing priorities–navigating this landscape can be challenging for even the most proficient teams. Here’s the story of how ISPG embraced a tailored Agile approach to create a fundamental culture change in six months. 

Symptoms - Challenge

What is the scope of work? What is the number one priority? How do we proactively communicate through challenges and celebrate wins within teams? These questions can be difficult to answer without a practical and personalized plan.

When George Hoffmann, Deputy CIO, Deputy Director Office of Information Technology for CMS, joined the Information Security and Privacy Group (ISPG) as acting Chief Information Security Officer, he quickly learned that the organization was rich in talent but needed a better framework to view and manage their workload.

“There were a lot of difficulties with prioritization,” Hoffmann explained. “Everything was number one. It seemed there was difficulty understanding when something was going to start and when it was going to end. None of this was for lack of effort or desire or interest, but I could see teams were not using the right tools to have visibility to all of the work.” 

Hoffmann, with 20 years of experience as a technology executive, was confident that an Agile approach could be applied to elevate ISPG to new heights, making work more visible and easier to manage for everyone in the organization.

An Agile coach was brought in to immediately transition ISPG to an Agile way of working. However, frustrations from both teams and leadership quickly bubbled to the surface. 

“Agile was seen as a ‘thing’ that we had to apply to our work,” IT Specialist (Security) Leslie Nettles, observed. “Those that were trying to coach us at the time were trying to get our work to fit into what they saw as the right way to apply Agile and not make it workable or usable for the team. We began to see Agile as this extra step we had to take just to prove we were ‘using’ Agile.”

Teams were being forced into utilizing Agile tools and methods that did not help them. This actually made work more arduous. Communication breakdowns developed between teams and leadership. There were limited channels for teams to share their needs with leadership.

In addition, when Hoffmann requested updates on the Agile transformation, he was met with positive feedback only. This caused him to question the true effectiveness of the transformation. If everything was going so well, why couldn’t these positive results be seen in improved outcomes? Something was… off.

In reality, the transformation was failing. This initial Agile journey resulted in little progress and took a significant toll on ISPG team members. Many not only questioned the effectiveness of Agile, but wrote off the methodology altogether.

“There is a certain cycle that’s natural for any team to get work done,” IT Specialist (Security) Don Bartley explained. “We learned that we were not deploying Agile in a way that enhanced our products, we were actually crippling ourselves in many cases.” 

With unhappy teams, communication issues, and workflows clogging up, it was clear the organization needed a fundamental change. A principle-based Agile approach that didn’t account for team dynamics wasn’t going to help. If Agile was to succeed at ISPG, a new coach with a new approach was needed.

Diagnosis - Solution

A new Agile coach with a distinct and fresh outlook was brought in. After this, positive change began to bloom quickly.

All teams do not work the same, and their approaches to their work are not the same. Understanding this fact is what drove the success of the second Agile transformation. Agile should not be imposed on a team. It needs to be integrated in a way that works for them.

However, the second Agile transformation was not uncomplicated. Many ISPG employees had completely given up on Agile as they knew it, and much of leadership was wary about attempting another large-scale transformation. Digging all these individuals out of the anti-Agile mentality and getting buy-in for a new Agile transformation appeared to be a daunting task. 

The success of this rapid Agile transformation depended on two things: leadership support and team buy-in. Without the full support of leadership and hyper-focus on the needs of teams, this Agile transformation would have been unsuccessful. 

Leadership had great confidence that this Agile transformation would work because they had great confidence in their teams. Leadership believed that teams knew best how to do their work; they just needed the right tools and methods to get it done. 

Teams were coached individually and quickly discovered what Agile tools and methods worked for them. People were not artificially forced into applying specific textbook practices. They adopted only the Agile methods that worked and added value for them. 

For example, one team expressed that they dreaded having daily stand up meetings. The new coach simply eliminated them and the team was shocked. This move reinforced the bedrock mindset of this new approach - Agile must work for a team, a team must not work for Agile.

Teams and leadership rapidly saw positive results from this Agile transformation.

Everyone was invited to be a part of the transformation and teams were empowered to make positive changes for themselves.

“The way we were applying Agile concepts to our work allowed us to revisit and restructure the initial cycle that we had developed long ago,” Bartley said. “This brought a lot to the surface. We discovered that we were already working in an Agile fashion. We just didn’t know it.”

The transformation happened very quickly, according to Hoffmann. Suddenly, teams were no longer simply carrying out the orders they were given. Instead they were taking the intent of those orders and determining the best ways to get them done.

 “That was the coolest moment for me,” Hoffmann explained. “I saw people getting the benefit of having control of the work they were doing.” 

Treatment - Results

After tailored Agile mentoring and coaching, a number of significant results were realized:

• 30 teams across five divisions in two months adopted Agile approaches for their work.
• 20% to 85% increase in work visibility within three months.
• Fundamental behavioral culture change (less work in progress, fewer unnecessary interim work products, shorter feedback loops) in six months.

After this Agile transformation, teams were empowered to truly own their work and a powerful fact was realized: the people doing the work know best how to do it, which is a classic Lean-Agile principle.

Teams have to own the process, they have to like it and get value from it. If Agile doesn’t work for the people doing the work, it will never be sustainable.