A presentation given at Agile Saturday XV conference, Tallinn, Estonia While Agile methodologies have proven successful in product development, conventional departmental organization structures may pose challenges to scaling agility and achieving the desired efficiency at the organizational level. Schneider Electric Fire & Security undertook a two-year experiment, inspired by Holacracy, to scale agility across the entire organization. The presentation explores the team-based organizational structure that emerged around the existing value streams, creating end to end transparency and organizational autonomy. You will hear why the case organization wanted to go beyond development agility, and what eventually led to the chosen Holacracy inspired model. You will be introduced to the early victories en route, the organization’s current state and how to leverage dynamic governance for systematic improvement.

1. From Agile Product Development
to Organizational Agility
with Holacracy
Timo Punkka, Schneider Electric

2. Case organization
“Organization may comprise of marketing, product management, development, operations and support
for a single product or a certain business unit.
What is important is their ability to support complete, end-to-end business value chains.”
(Arell,Coldewey and Hesselberg, 2012)
60
180 000

3. First Agile
Development team
2008 2010
2009 2013
2014
2015
2012
2011
Agile Hardware
Development
ISO9001 for Agile
product
development
Whole Product
Development using
Agile Development
methods
Synchronized
releases across the
company
First Nordic-Baltic
Release Planning -
event
Scaled Agile
Framework
First Innovation Days
–event
Lean Startup -
method
Whole product
development using
Agile Development
methods
Brief history with Agile development

4. Managing
Director
Export
Sales
Product
Management,
Quality and
Technical Support
Supply
Chain
Product
Development
Self-Organizing Agile Teams
Leadership
3P
Portfolio/Roadmap
Moving forward: Cross-functional work groups

5. Surfacing Symptoms
Looking for solutions
Misconceptions
No clear authority
Lack of big picture understanding
Confusing meetings

6. Team-Based Organization (TBO)

7. Organization Team Role
Name:
Social Media
Purpose:
We are attractive and innovative at social media
with our offer.
Domains:
Company social media accounts
Accountabilities:
Producing material like messages and updates.
Publishing and updating.
Fractals in Team-Based Organization

8. Need Value
Operational value stream
Development value stream
Defining an organization using value streams
Organization

9. Need Value
Organization
Team
Team
Team
Team Team
Team
Team
Defining an organization using value streams

10. Current governance
(8.3.2019)
2,5 Years
14 Circles/ Teams
132 Roles

11. All teams visible to everyone

12. Project – Outcome oriented Tensions – Always a bit better
Next-actions towards
the outcome
Outcome to be fullfilled (=Project)
A possible state
Current observed
reality
= ”A Tension”
Projects and/or
Next-Actions
”A feeling of a gap between what is and what could be”Phrased in past tense; ”Pricing information updated.”
Two primary duties of a role assignee

13. Check-In Round
Checklists and Metrics
Project Updates
Agenda Building
Processing tensions
Closing Round
Check-In Round
Administrative Concerns
Agenda Building
Process Agenda
Closing Round
Doing
Work
Tactical
Meeting
Governance
Meeting
Sensing
Tensions
Focused meetings around purpose

14. Four weeks in a life of a team
Tactical
Meeting
Governance
Meeting
Issue Specific
Meeting
(as needed)
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

15. Key Findings
Local new benefits:
Clarity
Meeting Effectiveness
Old logics:
Hidden accountabilities
Corporate logics:
Plan-driven
Power hierarchy
Observed challenges:
Dynamic governance
Distributed authority
Large initiatives
Reporting conflicts
enforce presence
Responding
enforces old habits
Slows down the new model

16. Agile Product
Development
New
Team
One Team First
(Close proximity to Agile teams)
Technical
Support
Product
Management
Development
Cross-Functional
Meeting practices
Clear authority (role definitions)
Outcome oriented work management
Transparency to work-in-progress
Continuous improvement
How to experiment – ”start with one” -approach

17. reinventingorganizationswiki.com
www.holacracy.org
sociocracy30.org