Example Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge: I was working as the project lead for a client engagement. It was an ongoing engagement and  all task and activities were performed in scaled agile framework. All task was performed from client  location with 7 teams and each team size of approx. 7-8 consultants. The challenge was to introduce 2-3  new teams to take care of the additional requirements, but it was not possible to ramp up locally due to  non-availability of skills. In past the client tried to perform working of a new team from distributed  location but failed since the landscape was heavily customized with less documentation available.

Selection: I had been through the session of design thinking and wanted to apply the tool set of learning  launch to test some of the idea and assumption to validate this new way of working.

Application: For the first learning launch, I focused on the selection of the team members knowledge of  the client technical landscape and their ability to work in agile framework. These tested my assumption  that people and process were main cause for this challenge. We took 2 interviews of each team member  and also involved client representative in the selection process. After they were selected, we ensured  that each of them went thru SAFe for teams training for 2 days and fooled by a certification. I then  created a document with the list of all team members for the first distributed scrum team.

For the second learning launch, I focused on the transition approach and the structure of these new  teams. These tested our assumption of transition duration and how these teams should be embedded  to the current organization. We did couple of workshops with key stakeholders from the engagement  and from the client organization to determine the transition approach including cost and schedule  within next 2 weeks. We then documented this transition approach so that it can be explained to all  other teams.

Insights and Approach: By the application of these learning launch tool, I was able to list down my key  assumption and with the early prototype, I could verify these assumptions. With the launch for the first  team, the actual results proved that the assumption were true. This helped all of us to visualize the  different assumption and short list the key ones and get it validated with the induction of first teams.

After the first 2 learning launch to pilot the first team induction, we were able to quickly roll this out to  other 2 teams as well who were successfully able to work with distributed agile framework in the  existing organization.

