Pivoting an Agile Transformation – A Telco’s Journey

Pivoting an Agile Transformation: Insights from a Large Telco’s Journey with Okaloa Flowlab
Two years into the initiative, this European telecom company’s agile transformation encountered a dip; a common occurrence in such large-scale change. Agile was not always living up to its promise, agile practices were often badly understood, improperly imposed, or the right practices were applied in the wrong context. Governance structures and tools clashed with agile and vice versa. Not deterred by these obstacles, the company decided to use this as an opportunity to take it to the next level. To quote Marcus Aurelius: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Okaloa’s Team Flow simulation was introduced, engaging over 800 employees in understanding the basics of flow, bringing a fresh perspective on how to organise work. Despite the mobilizing effect of the simulation, it became evident that participants struggled to apply their newly gained knowledge in their own complex environment. In collaboration with the telco, Okaloa co-created a comprehensive learning journey focussed on tackling the concrete obstacles and challenges that everybody experienced. Real-life obstacles were used to point participants in the right direction, not by offering point solutions but by holding conflicting ideas in constructive tension and teaching the principles that allow practices to be adapted to the relevant context. By integrating the best lean, agile and management techniques from the last 40 years in a coherent network of practices, the path is being cleared to advance the transformation to the next stage.
Join us for an insightful meetup where we share the strategic approach, the lessons learned, and learn how to pivot a struggling transformation. Patrick Steyaert of Okaloa and two representatives of the telco will present the case and answer your questions. This session is ideal for professionals seeking to give new momentum to their agile transformation. They will understand how to effectively overcome common pitfalls in agile adoption and drive meaningful, sustainable change within their organizations. It is targeted at transformation leaders, program managers, scrum masters, agile coaches and practitioners at all levels in the organization.

Bio:
Patrick Steyaert
Patrick’s journey with Agile dates back to the late 90s when he spearheaded the software development of a startup implementing XP practices within a Scrum and Adaptive Project Management framework. Renowned within the Kanban community, Patrick’s expertise extends to upstream, customer, and discovery Kanban. He was honoured with the 2015 Brickell Key award for his outstanding contributions to the Kanban community. In 2012, Patrick, along with his partner, founded Okaloa. Since its inception, both Patrick and Arlette have delved deep into the realm of learning, driven by their passion for aiding individuals, teams, and organizations in adopting innovative work methodologies. This passion culminated in the creation of Okaloa Flowlab, a constraint-led learning platform to teach how to combine flow, collaboration, and learning perspectives to achieve business agility.