Category: Thought Leadership

The Board Questions Every CEO Should Be Able to Answer About AI

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By: Laks Srinivasan

AI has moved to the top of the board agenda.

Boards are now regularly requesting detailed AI strategy updates. Risk committees are probing AI-related governance frameworks. Audit committees are questioning AI investment returns and operational controls. Directors bring AI insights from other boards and portfolio companies, creating sophisticated expectations for strategic depth.

The questions have evolved from “What’s our AI strategy?” to “How do we measure sustainable competitive advantage from our AI investments?” Most companies find themselves navigating these complex governance discussions while working to develop the strategic frameworks that match board expectations.

In this blog, you’ll learn the specific questions that separate AI-fluent CEOs from those operating on awareness alone, why prepared talking points fail with sophisticated boards, and how to build the strategic understanding that transforms uncertainty into confidence.

The Strategic Challenge

What makes this particularly challenging is that the questions aren’t technical. They’re strategic. And they require the kind of AI fluency that builds confidence in high-stakes discussions rather than reliance on consultant-prepared talking points or deflection to technical teams.

The question every CEO should ask: “Am I prepared to lead AI strategy, or am I hoping my technical team can cover for my knowledge gaps?”

The Questions That Expose AI Fluency Gaps

Based on our extensive leadership interviews and research, here are the board questions that consistently catch unprepared CEOs off guard:

1. “How does our AI strategy align with our core business model, and what specific competitive advantages are we building?”

Why This is Hard: This question requires understanding how AI creates sustainable differentiation, not just operational efficiency. It demands knowledge of which AI capabilities become commoditized quickly versus those that build lasting advantage.

What Fluent CEOs Know: They can articulate specific AI applications that leverage their company’s unique data, processes, or market position. They understand the difference between AI tools anyone can buy and AI capabilities that create competitive moats.

2. “What are our key AI-related risks, and how are we managing them systematically?”

Why This is Hard: Beyond obvious concerns about data privacy and bias, this question requires understanding regulatory compliance, operational risks, strategic risks of falling behind, and the risks of poor AI investments. CEOs need to understand AI’s dangers and limitations without needing to know how AI works technically.

What Fluent CEOs Know: They can discuss AI risk across multiple dimensions: technical risks, reputational risks, regulatory risks, and competitive risks. They understand how AI decisions today create or mitigate risks five years from now. Most importantly, they grasp the strategic implications of AI limitations and failure modes without requiring technical implementation knowledge.

3. “How do we measure ROI on AI investments, and what metrics indicate we’re succeeding versus just spending money?”

Why This is Hard: Traditional ROI frameworks often don’t capture AI’s value creation patterns. AI investments may reduce costs, increase revenue, enable new business models, or create strategic options that are hard to quantify.

What Fluent CEOs Know: They use frameworks that evaluate opportunities through both analytical rigor and business impact potential. They understand the difference between AI investments that pay off quickly, those that build long-term capabilities, and have returns certified by the CFO validation

Most importantly, they can articulate how AI insights translate into strategic actions that drive measurable results.

They accomplish this through an “Outcome First, AI Next” approach that starts with business objectives rather than AI capabilities.

Traditional approaches start with AI capabilities and look for applications. The “Outcome First, AI Next” framework inverts this: start with desired business outcomes, then work backward to identify the AI capabilities needed.

Most organizations excel at generating impressive AI insights but fail to design the decision-making processes that create business value, leaving millions in AI investment without strategic returns.

4. “How confident are you that our current AI initiatives will scale effectively, and what would cause you to change course?”

Why This is Hard: This question probes understanding of AI implementation challenges, organizational readiness, and strategic flexibility. It requires honest assessment of current capabilities versus future needs.

What Fluent CEOs Know: They understand the organizational requirements for scaling AI beyond pilot projects, including talent development, change management, mental model shifts, and cultural transformation. They can articulate clear success criteria and decision points for AI investments. They recognize when organizations are stuck generating insights without driving business impact, and know how to bridge that gap systematically.

5. “What would happen to our competitive position if our primary competitors achieved AI maturity first?”

Why This is Hard: This scenario planning question requires deep understanding of how AI could disrupt the industry, change customer expectations, or create new competitive dynamics.

What Fluent CEOs Know: They’ve thought through competitive scenarios systematically. They understand their industry’s AI transformation timeline and their company’s position within that evolution.

Quick self-assessment: Which of these 5 board questions would challenge you most in your next board meeting? Rate your current confidence level (1-10) for each question above.

The CEO Time Challenge

CEOs face unprecedented near-term pressures with quarterly earnings, operational crises, and strategic decisions demanding immediate attention. With 60-hour weeks already stretched thin, how can leaders find time to develop AI fluency while managing these competing priorities?

This time constraint leads many CEOs to rely on shortcuts: consultant-prepared responses, technical briefings from their teams, or hoping their CTO can handle board questions. While understandable, this approach creates several risks:

Surface-Level Knowledge Gaps: When board discussions dive deeper than prepared talking points, the knowledge gaps become apparent. Sophisticated directors can distinguish between genuine strategic insight and memorized responses.

Context Blind Spots: AI strategy doesn’t exist in isolation. Board conversations weave together AI implications with talent strategy, risk management, capital allocation, and competitive positioning. Without foundational understanding, CEOs struggle to make these strategic connections in real-time.

Confidence Under Pressure: When facing unexpected questions or challenging scenarios, leaders without real fluency become visibly uncomfortable. This uncertainty undermines board confidence in leadership capability.

The Strategic Risk: In today’s competitive landscape, AI illiteracy at the CEO level creates vulnerability. Boards increasingly expect leaders who can think strategically about AI implications, not just delegate to technical teams.

Before reading further, consider this: Given your current time constraints and pressures, what’s the most efficient path to develop the AI fluency needed for confident board leadership?

The Business Case for CEO AI Fluency

The difference between AI awareness and AI fluency becomes clear when examining leaders who have successfully transformed their organizations. Consider Bill Niles, CEO of Brinks Home Security, who exemplifies how strategic AI fluency creates measurable competitive advantage.

Niles isn’t a tech guru (he’s a lawyer by training), yet he has led one of the most successful AI transformations in the home security industry. When he took over as CEO, Brinks faced 18% customer attrition and struggled with operational inefficiencies. Today, they’ve reduced churn to 10.4% and improved margins from 48% to 60% on $500 million in revenue.

What enabled this transformation wasn’t technical expertise, but what Niles calls being a “true believer” in AI’s strategic potential. His fluency allowed him to:

Make Strategic Connections: Niles connected AI capabilities to core business metrics that matter: customer retention, operational efficiency, and competitive positioning. He understood that reducing call center volume from 4 million to 1.2 million annually wasn’t just cost savings, but competitive advantage through superior customer experience.

Lead Through Uncertainty: Despite not being technical, Niles drove the organization through complex data consolidation, multiple reorganizations, and cultural change. His conviction came from understanding AI’s business implications, not its technical mechanics.

Create Organizational Alignment: Perhaps most importantly, Niles elevated AI strategy to board level and made it clear to direct reports that transformation wasn’t optional. He became what he calls the “chief evangelist,” creating company-wide belief in AI’s potential.

The results speak to strategic fluency’s power. Brinks didn’t just improve operations; they built sustainable competitive advantages that compound over time. Better customer retention means more resources for acquisition. Improved margins create pricing flexibility. Enhanced service capabilities enable market expansion.

This strategic capability extends beyond individual decisions to organizational confidence. When leadership understands AI’s strategic implications and can make informed decisions quickly, it accelerates adoption and improves execution quality throughout the organization. Teams see direction, not uncertainty.

The question for every CEO: Are you prepared to be the chief evangelist for your organization’s AI transformation, or will you delegate this strategic imperative to others?

From Board Confidence to Organizational Results

Your leadership team’s AI fluency creates strategic decision-making capability—but without the right systems, those insights never scale. The missing dimension is building the organizational infrastructure that turns informed leadership into coordinated execution.

AI-Native organizations embed AI into their DNA—navigating exponential change, continuous disruption, generative creativity, and emergent behaviors with clarity and confidence.

Our latest white paper, Becoming AI-Native: A Practical Guide to Thriving on the EDGE, reveals the seven interconnected success factors that transform organizational systems. This research complements your fluency development with the enterprise framework that connects individual capability to measurable business outcomes.

Download Becoming AI-Native to discover the complete transformation framework.

Schedule a strategic conversation to explore how your team can evolve from AI-fluent to fully AI-Native—and start building the systems that make AI success repeatable.

References

McKinsey & Company. (2023). Four essential questions for boards to ask about generative AI. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/four-essential-questions-for-boards-to-ask-about-generative-ai

About the Author:

Laks Srinivasan Headshot

Laks Srinivasan is a seasoned AI strategist and transformation leader at Scaled Agile, Inc., where he helps enterprises turn artificial intelligence from promise into performance. With more than 15 years of executive experience, Laks has guided global organizations through complex AI transformations, bridging the gap between strategy, technology, and measurable business outcomes.

As the Founder and CEO of the Return on AI Institute (ROAI), now part of Scaled Agile, he helped pioneer proven frameworks for AI operating models, value realization, and leadership fluency. His work continues to focus on demystifying AI for executives and equipping organizations with the knowledge and systems to apply AI responsibly and effectively.

AI Fluency vs. AI Awareness: What Leaders Must Know

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By: Laks Srinivasan

AI Awareness Isn’t Enough for Strategic Success

The Chief Data Analytics Officer of a large multinational company reached out to me with a challenge that’s becoming increasingly common. 

“We do AI,” he explained, “but AI is in pockets. It’s an activity we do, it’s not coherent, it’s not coordinated.”

His leadership team was aware of AI developments. They read industry reports, attended conferences, and could discuss machine learning in board meetings. But when it came to making strategic decisions about AI investments and scaling, they lacked conviction.

This leader had discovered the difference between AI awareness and AI fluency. This gap is quietly limiting competitive advantage across industries while early adopters gain strategic positioning.

Having guided 1000+ leaders through AI fluency development across small enterprises to Fortune 100 companies and multiple industries, we’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. 

Board directors, C-suite executives, and senior leadership teams all struggle with the same fundamental challenge: translating AI awareness into strategic decision-making capability.

Why AI Awareness Isn’t Enough for Strategic Success

Recent research reveals a significant opportunity gap in enterprise AI adoption:

  • 42% of companies abandon the majority of their AI initiatives, up from 17% the previous year (S&P Global, 2025)
  • 70-85% of GenAI deployments fail to meet ROI expectations (NTT DATA, 2024)
  • 80% of organizations see no tangible EBIT impact from GenAI investments (McKinsey, 2024)

Yet only 4% of 1,000+ executives qualify as AI/analytics leaders (Kearney, 2024), while most believe they understand AI well enough to guide strategic decisions.

The Strategic Distinction

AI Awareness means understanding that AI exists and recognizing that it’s creating significant business value for companies, but without knowing what AI actually is or how it generates that value. 

AI Fluency means understanding foundational AI concepts and having the capability to make confident, strategic decisions about AI implementation, governance, and scaling. This includes knowing what AI actually is and how it creates sustainable business value for your specific organization. AI fluency, when put into practice, builds the intuition and conviction leaders need to assess AI opportunities and risks with the same confidence they demonstrate in their core business domains.

“The definition of adoption is getting people to work in a different way… why aren’t more specialists talking about this obvious missing link?” — NTT DATA Research, 2024

Most organizations focus on technology implementation without building the organizational fluency needed for sustainable AI advantage.

The High Cost of AI Fluency Gaps

Organizations with leadership fluency gaps face three critical disadvantages that compound over time:

1. Competitive Disadvantage: While competitors with AI-fluent leadership teams achieve productivity gains, organizations stuck in pilot purgatory fall further behind. The fluency gap becomes a permanent competitive moat—favoring those who developed it first.

2. Financial Waste: 46% of AI proofs-of-concept get discontinued due to poor strategic decisions (S&P Global, 2025). Without fluency to evaluate which projects create real business value, organizations fund technology potential instead of business outcomes, burning millions on initiatives that never scale.

4. Talent Acquisition Challenges: Top AI talent gravitates toward organizations where leadership understands their work and can make informed decisions about AI investments. Companies with fluency gaps struggle to attract and retain the best AI professionals, further widening the competitive gap.

These disadvantages persist because traditional approaches to AI education fundamentally misunderstand what leaders need to succeed.

Why Traditional AI Learning Programs Fail Leadership Teams

The AI fluency gap persists because existing solutions address the wrong problem:

Academic Programs Focus on Techniques, Not Decisions
Programs teach supervised learning, neural networks, and algorithmic concepts. However, CEOs don’t need to understand gradient descent; they need confidence to evaluate which AI vendor claims are realistic.

Individual Learning vs. Team Capability
Most executive education targets individuals. But as one of our clients explained: “There are two guys who know AI well, others don’t. The common denominator is that most don’t know, so it gets stuck in pockets.” Team fluency is only as strong as the weakest member.

Case Studies Don’t Build Decision-Making Confidence
Consulting approaches rely on learning by analogy; teaching through project examples from other companies alone doesn’t work. But just because an AI strategy worked at one company doesn’t mean it will work for a competitor, even in the same industry. This approach doesn’t prepare leaders to evaluate what will actually work in their specific organizational context.

How Scaled Agile Builds AI Fluency: Beyond Traditional Executive Education

Most AI programs focus on tools and terminology. Scaled Agile focuses on transformation—the mindset, fluency, and leadership behaviors that define AI-Native organizations.

Through Scaled Agile’s AI-Native Training, we help leaders and teams move beyond using AI tools to developing the fluency to think, lead, and operate differently because AI exists. Each course builds on the last, creating an apprenticeship-style learning path that develops both confidence and capability over time.

Participants progress from foundational understanding to applied mastery, learning how to evaluate AI opportunities, redesign workflows for leverage (not just speed), and guide responsible adoption across the enterprise. Every experience translates complex AI concepts into actionable frameworks that leaders can apply immediately to drive measurable results.

Scaled Agile’s AI-Native Training isn’t just education. It’s an ongoing apprenticeship in how to lead, decide, and compete in an AI-augmented world.

From AI Fluency to AI-Native: Turn Insight into Systemic Advantage

Fluent leaders make better AI decisions. AI-Native organizations turn those decisions into enterprise results.

The next step in your transformation is understanding the EDGE forces—Exponential, Disruptive, Generative, and Emergent—that reshape how organizations must think, work, and scale in the age of AI.

Our latest white paper, Becoming AI-Native: A Practical Guide to Thriving on the EDGE, reveals how leading enterprises embed AI into their operating systems through seven interconnected success factors. This research complements your fluency development with the organizational design that turns capability into coordinated execution and measurable competitive advantage.

Download the white paper to see how AI-Native systems transform fluent leaders into organizations that learn, adapt, and outperform.

Schedule a strategic conversation to explore how your team can evolve from AI-fluent to fully AI-Native—and start building the systems that make AI success repeatable.

About the Author:

Laks Srinivasan Headshot

Laks Srinivasan is a seasoned AI strategist and transformation leader at Scaled Agile, Inc., where he helps enterprises turn artificial intelligence from promise into performance. With more than 15 years of executive experience, Laks has guided global organizations through complex AI transformations, bridging the gap between strategy, technology, and measurable business outcomes.

As the Founder and CEO of the Return on AI Institute (ROAI), now part of Scaled Agile, he helped pioneer proven frameworks for AI operating models, value realization, and leadership fluency. His work continues to focus on demystifying AI for executives and equipping organizations with the knowledge and systems to apply AI responsibly and effectively.

Designing AI Fluency for Different Organizational Roles

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By: Laks Srinivasan

Why do 42% of companies abandon their AI initiatives while only 4% develop AI-capable leadership? The answer isn’t technical complexity or insufficient investment. It’s that organizations design AI training as if strategic decision-makers and daily AI users need identical knowledge and skills.

This fundamental mismatch plays out across industries because organizations treat AI fluency as a one-size-fits-all requirement. The reality? Each organizational level has fundamentally different responsibilities with AI, and generic training programs fail because they ignore these distinct roles.

Aligning AI Learning Programs with Role-Specific Requirements

The Return on AI Institute’s research across 45+ leadership interviews reveals that successful AI transformation requires each leadership level to master distinct responsibilities. When organizations understand this framework, they achieve significantly higher pilot-to-production success rates compared to the industry average.

The challenge lies in current approaches that treat board members, executive teams, and functional leaders as if they need identical AI knowledge. They don’t. Each level has specific responsibilities that require tailored fluency development:

  • Board & CEO responsibility: Deciding AI ambition and asking the right questions to assess opportunities and risks 
  • Executive Leadership Team responsibility: Setting AI strategy and allocating capital and resources
  • Business/Functional Leaders responsibility: Owning outcomes from AI initiatives
  • All Employees responsibility: Working effectively with AI tools while maintaining human judgment and value creation

Generic AI training fails because it doesn’t address these distinct role requirements. When a pharmaceutical company’s Chief Data Officer told us, “We do AI, but AI is in pockets, it’s activity we do, it’s not coherent, it’s not coordinated,” the root cause wasn’t technical complexity. It was leadership fluency gaps preventing each level from performing their AI responsibilities effectively.

Board and CEO: Strategic Oversight Without Technical Overwhelm

Board members and CEOs must set organizational AI ambition and provide strategic oversight. However, many lack the fluency to fulfill these critical responsibilities effectively.

The core challenge: they struggle to distinguish between AI hype and genuine business opportunity. This leads to approving AI investments without clear success metrics, setting unrealistic expectations about AI capabilities, and providing vague strategic direction that confuses rather than guides implementation teams.

What this level actually needs: The ability to define realistic AI ambition aligned with business strategy, ask the right questions to evaluate AI proposals, understand AI’s fundamental capabilities and limitations, and establish governance frameworks that ensure AI investments deliver measurable business outcomes.

They don’t need technical training on algorithms. They need strategic fluency that enables confident decision-making about AI direction, investment, and risk management.

Executive Leadership Teams: Strategy Translation and Resource Allocation Mastery

Executive leadership teams face different challenges that prevent AI scaling. They often set unrealistic goals and commitments for AI initiatives while failing to prioritize AI projects with appropriate resources. This level gets caught between board expectations and operational realities.

What this level actually needs to know: How to translate AI vision into executable strategy, allocate capital and resources effectively across competing priorities, create realistic timelines and success metrics, and coordinate cross-functional AI initiatives.

When executive leadership teams master their AI responsibilities, they bridge the gap between board vision and operational execution. They become the strategic coordination layer that prevents AI initiatives from remaining isolated experiments.

Business/Functional Leaders: Implementation Intuition and Outcome Ownership

Business and functional leaders face the most complex AI fluency requirements because they own the actual outcomes from AI initiatives. Their challenges center on difficulty establishing key capabilities and inability to diagnose problems and execute effective actions when AI implementations don’t perform as expected.

What this level actually needs to know: How to establish AI capabilities within their functions, diagnose AI adoption issues, optimize human-AI collaboration, measure AI impact on business outcomes, and scale successful pilots across their operations.

This level requires what we call “implementation intuition” – the practical judgment to know when AI is working effectively, when it needs adjustment, and how to integrate it into existing business processes successfully.

Business leaders need enough AI understanding to be intelligent consumers of AI capabilities, effective managers of AI-human collaboration, and confident owners of AI-driven business outcomes.

All Employees: Thriving in AI-Enhanced Work Environments

While leadership levels require strategic and implementation fluency, every employee faces the reality of working alongside AI systems. The challenge isn’t technical complexity, but rather developing the practical skills needed to collaborate effectively with AI tools while maintaining human judgment and value creation.

The most common employee challenges center on uncertainty about when to trust AI outputs, how to effectively prompt and interact with AI systems, and understanding their evolving role in an AI-enhanced workplace. Many employees either over-rely on AI without applying critical thinking or under-utilize AI capabilities due to fear or misunderstanding.

What this level actually needs to know: How to effectively prompt and interact with AI systems, when to trust AI recommendations versus applying human judgment, how to maintain quality and accuracy in AI-assisted work, and understanding their unique human value in an AI-enhanced environment.

This level requires what we call “collaboration fluency” – the ability to work productively with AI tools while recognizing the boundaries of AI capabilities and maintaining essential human oversight, creativity, and critical thinking.

Employees need enough AI understanding to be effective collaborators with AI systems, intelligent consumers of AI-generated content, and confident contributors of uniquely human value in an increasingly AI-integrated workplace.

From Board to Operations to Frontline: Creating AI Alignment

AI transformation fails when any level cannot perform their specific AI responsibilities effectively. Board uncertainty creates resource constraints. Executive coordination gaps prevent scaling. Functional implementation struggles destroy ROI. Employee resistance or misuse undermines adoption at every level.

Successful organizations recognize that AI fluency must cascade through all four levels, with each level achieving competency in their distinct responsibilities. As one pharmaceutical executive noted, AI transformation is “a team sport” requiring coordinated capability across the entire organization.

The integration challenge explains why organizations with strong technical AI capabilities still struggle with transformation. Technical excellence without fluency at all organizational levels creates what we call the AI chasm, where the majority of AI investments fail to translate insights into business decisions.

Organizations that achieve superior pilot-to-production success rates understand this integration requirement. They develop AI fluency systematically across all organizational levels, ensuring each level can perform their specific AI responsibilities while coordinating effectively with other levels.

Designing AI Education from Responsibilities Up, Not Technology Down

Most organizations approach AI education backwards. They start with technology features rather than role-specific responsibilities. They use generic curricula rather than level-appropriate requirements. They focus on individual learning rather than organizational coordination.

Effective AI fluency development begins with understanding what each organizational level actually needs to accomplish with AI. Board members need strategic oversight capability. Executive teams need decision-making confidence and resource allocation wisdom. Functional leaders need implementation intuition and outcome ownership skills. Employees need collaboration fluency and human-AI partnership capabilities.

The question for your organization isn’t whether people need AI fluency. Research shows that AI fluency and intuition serve as key levers for realizing value from AI and managing enterprise AI risks. The question is whether your current approach addresses the distinct responsibilities at each organizational level.

Start by assessing your organization’s current fluency gaps using the responsibility framework. Can your board ask the right questions about AI opportunities and risks? Can your executive team set realistic AI strategy and allocate resources effectively? Can your functional leaders own AI initiative outcomes confidently? Can your employees work effectively with AI tools while maintaining critical thinking and human judgment?

Organizations that answer these questions honestly and address gaps systematically position themselves for sustainable AI competitive advantage. Those that continue treating AI fluency as a generic requirement will join the 42% who abandon their AI initiatives when leadership gaps prevent transformation success.

Scaling Beyond Fluency: Building AI-Native Capability Through Training

Role-based fluency closes knowledge gaps, but it doesn’t close coordination gaps. Even when individuals across the organization understand AI’s value, transformation stalls without shared language, context, and systems that enable it to scale.

AI-Native Training by Scaled Agile, Inc. equips leaders and teams to bridge that gap. Each course builds on the last, creating an apprenticeship-style learning path that develops confidence, coordination, and capability across every level of the enterprise. Executives learn to align strategy and governance. Functional leaders learn to translate vision into execution. Teams learn to integrate AI responsibly into daily work.

These programs turn role-specific learning into enterprise results—transforming AI-literate individuals into aligned, AI-driven organizations ready to scale with confidence.

Explore AI-Native Training to discover how Scaled Agile helps leaders and teams strengthen fluency, accelerate transformation, and build the systems that turn potential into performance.

Schedule a conversation with our AI-Native team to discuss which training path is right for your organization and how to begin building coordinated AI capability across every level of leadership

About the Author:

Laks Srinivasan Headshot

Laks Srinivasan is a seasoned AI strategist and transformation leader at Scaled Agile, Inc., where he helps enterprises turn artificial intelligence from promise into performance. With more than 15 years of executive experience, Laks has guided global organizations through complex AI transformations, bridging the gap between strategy, technology, and measurable business outcomes.

As the Founder and CEO of the Return on AI Institute (ROAI), now part of Scaled Agile, he helped pioneer proven frameworks for AI operating models, value realization, and leadership fluency. His work continues to focus on demystifying AI for executives and equipping organizations with the knowledge and systems to apply AI responsibly and effectively.

The Sound of Silence: When a Lack of Customer Feedback Derails Your Strategy

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Editor’s Note: You’re facing unprecedented business challenges. You need more than theories—you need a blueprint. Welcome to a Leader’s Blueprint, your weekly guide to proven strategies that get results. 

Sound Familiar?

You’ve just launched. The team invested months of effort, the budget was approved, and the strategic decks were flawless. But now, instead of the sound of soaring adoption and positive buzz, you’re met with… silence. Engagement metrics are flat, the innovative features you debated for weeks are being ignored, and the market seems completely indifferent. You’re left wondering, “Did we just spend a year building something nobody wants?”

If this scenario feels familiar, you’re not alone. This is the painful result of a disconnect—a gap between your organization and the customers you exist to serve.

The Hidden Cost of Guessing

Operating without a direct line to your customer isn’t just inefficient; it’s a significant business risk. The costs ripple across the entire organization:

  • Wasted Capital: Every dollar spent on unwanted features is a dollar not spent on true innovation.
  • Demoralized Teams: Nothing crushes motivation faster than pouring your energy into work that fails to make an impact.
  • Lost Market Share: While you’re guessing, you can be sure your competitors are listening, adapting, and winning over your customers.

From Silence to Insight: A Glimpse of the Solution

Turning this around requires more than an annual survey. It requires building a systematic listening engine. In SAFe®, we call this the Harnessing Customer Feedback competency.

This isn’t just about collecting data; it’s about creating a holistic view of your customer’s reality. It means blending quantitative data (like usage metrics and satisfaction scores) with powerful qualitative insights. One of the most effective methods is Gemba, which involves going to the customer’s environment to observe them using your product. By seeing their struggles and successes firsthand, you replace assumptions with undeniable facts.

Your First Step

You don’t need a new tool or a big budget to start. Here is one simple action you can take this week:

Empower your team or a team you lead to dedicate an hour this week to observe a real customer using your product. This isn’t a demo or a sales call, but a quiet observation to uncover genuine insights. Afterward, share with each other the single most surprising discovery they made.

Unlock Your Full Potential

That single observation is just the beginning. To truly thrive and lead, a systematic approach is not merely essential for survival—it’s the catalyst for unprecedented growth. The Harnessing Customer Feedback competency provides a complete blueprint for designing robust feedback loops, extracting profound insights from data, and transforming customer understanding into winning product decisions that redefine your market.

Stop building in the dark.

Embrace the full power of the SAFe Framework, with the competencies and guidance that will empower you to become truly customer-centric and unlock your organization’s full potential. Get complete access by purchasing your
SAFe Insider membership today.

Get Started >

Upcoming Blogs in this Series

  • Measuring Product Performance
  • Creating Responsive Roadmaps
  • Accelerating Product Flow


1 Deloitte Digital – https://www.deloittedigital.com/mt/en/insights/perspective/Personalising-The-Customer-Experience.html

Advanced Certification Paths: Continuous Learning for Career Success

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I joined Scaled Agile, Inc. two years ago as their first-ever Chief Customer Learning Officer. As CCLO, I have the privilege to lead the design and development of our learning solutions, including our courseware and certifications. With decades of experience and a passion for modern learning, my journey has been about understanding how people learn and grow in their careers, and how they develop the skills and competencies to thrive in their roles. I see firsthand how the learning landscape is evolving, and I’m committed to creating innovative solutions that empower Agile professionals to continuously learn, adapt, and succeed in their organizations. 

Evolution of Learning in the Agile Landscape

Over time, the way we engage with learning has shifted dramatically. The rapid expansion of remote work and digital transformation has created an opportunity to rethink how we deliver training. Instead of intensive, back-to-back full-day classes, we’ve moved toward more interactive and modular experiences. This includes our SAFe Micro-credentials, where professionals not only learn about Lean-Agile competencies but also apply them in real-world contexts, enabling them to truly master these skills.

From the outset, Scaled Agile has been dedicated to training change leaders and providing them with the necessary tools to drive Agile transformations. This remains a foundational part of our mission, and we continue to equip professionals with the skills and insights they need to lead effectively. Today, we are expanding that focus by providing more opportunities for Agile professionals to deepen their knowledge and expertise throughout their careers, allowing them to not only develop personally but also drive tangible business outcomes within their organizations.

Expanding Our Focus on Continuous Learning

One of the most common questions we hear from our learners is: “What’s next?” How does someone transition from understanding their role to thriving in it? In response, we are expanding our focus to emphasize continuous learning and development. This approach is designed to help Agile professionals build the mastery necessary to excel in their roles, while also contributing significantly to their organizations by driving better outcomes and fostering an environment of innovation and efficiency.

Continuous learning offers numerous benefits. It bridges skills gaps, enhances capabilities, and ensures that Agile practices are not only adopted but sustained within organizations. Change management is more than just implementing a transformation—it’s about maintaining and nurturing that change over time. By investing in ongoing learning, organizations create a culture where individuals and teams feel empowered to make informed decisions, solve complex problems, and adapt to evolving challenges.

Continuous learning is a catalyst for building an Agile culture and mindset. It helps teams achieve a “flow of work,” meaning they can complete tasks more efficiently, reduce bottlenecks, and deliver value more effectively. This flow creates a dynamic environment where innovation thrives, and work progresses with fewer interruptions, enabling professionals to meet goals and deliver high-quality results.

Introducing Advanced Certification Paths

After interviewing hundreds of Agile professionals and gathering insights from our extensive network of experts, we’ve designed the Advanced Certification Paths. These paths are tailored to develop role proficiency and ensure Agile professionals have the tools to succeed on the job. Each path combines live training and e-learning, delivered in flexible formats that suit different learning preferences. It culminates in a Learning Lab, a cohort-based experience where learners apply their knowledge in real-world case studies, receive coaching, and learn from their peers.

Completing an Advanced Certification Path means more than earning an Advanced Role Certification—it provides access to a broader Community of Practice, where professionals with shared experiences can learn from one another.

Advanced Role badge

Advance Scrum Master certification badge

These paths help professionals deepen their expertise and can act as a bridge between existing SAFe® certifications. For example, the Advanced Scrum Master Certification Path can be a natural next step for a certified SAFe® Scrum Master or even a standalone option for experienced Scrum Masters. It’s also a valuable stepping stone toward more advanced certifications, such as the Release Train Engineer role. When you look at all the courses we offer, they collectively form a comprehensive career track, guiding Agile professionals throughout their journey.

Looking to the Future

Our vision for continuous learning and development extends beyond our current offerings. We aim to provide diverse learning opportunities, catering to different preferences, challenges, and contexts. We plan to introduce core curricula along with electives, allowing learners to specialize in areas that matter most to them. Additionally, we believe that maintaining an active certification should emphasize ongoing learning and development. This is why we’re exploring Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to help professionals stay current and relevant in their roles.

I’m incredibly excited about this next phase for Scaled Agile, where modular, hyper-relevant learning content becomes the norm. Our goal is clear: to empower Agile professionals to achieve certifications and drive real value for their organizations while advancing their own careers.

12 Tips for Implementing Lean Portfolio Management in Large Portfolios

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In 2021, Gartner shared a report on three steps for implementing Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) using SAFe®. Paired with SAFe community stories, it’s helped organizations feel confident beginning their LPM journeys. 

Today, some of the largest organizations in the world have implemented strong LPM practices, roles, and outcomes. 

I’m sharing some of the learnings from my journey inside one of these vast organizations. I’ve also included great insights from the LPM community at large. 

These learnings are organized into 12 brief tips you can use in your own LPM implementation. 

If you’re interested in learning more about one of these tips, take a minute to fill out the survey at the end of this post. It will inform my next blog in this series, where I’ll explore one of these 12 tips further.

12 Tips for Implementing Lean Portfolio Management in Large Portfolios

Tip #1 – Align with Executive Leadership on the Reason for Change

When implementing Lean Portfolio Management at a large organization, you’re often updating the effectiveness of hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars of decision-making. You’re also affecting tens of thousands of people within the organization. 

Change at this span requires top-level alignment and scripting. 

Take the time to align with existing executive strategy leaders, c-suite, and senior financial leadership in articulating the existing Portfolios. This practice will lead to long-term success. 

Begin with the end in mind by determining the strategy and outcomes. This will ensure alignment with executive leadership on both these fronts. It will also make the implementation of my next tip easier.

Tip #2 – Gain an Understanding of the Organization’s Strategy

Once you understand the strategy, you can help innovative portfolios emerge. 

Alongside senior leaders, consider key questions. Base these answers on known strategic shifts and market research:

  • What new portfolios will we need to create in the upcoming two years? 
  • What results would we like to be touting in future shareholder calls? 
  • How do our current solutions create a blended end-user experience?
  • What pairings could we make across solutions to improve outcomes if we connected their work more?

Tip #3 – Discover and Map the Current Fiscal Decision Cycle of the Business

Your organization has a way to identify and earmark funds for a cycle. Many organizations have a 12-or-18-month fiscal process. They’re often aligned to the calendar year. 

Identify what critical decisions happen when in your organization’s current schedule. Then determine the action each decision initiates. Use the same skills you would use to map a value stream to map your fiscal process. 

For example, in many organizations, before using LPM, they identify the amount of capital to be allocated. This leads to allocating this large amount to each business portfolio to then be further broken into projects.

Tip #4 – Identify When You Can Responsibly Enable the Most Significant Change

Understanding the current state of your organization’s decision-making process is important. It presents the best time of year to make large changes. 

Here’s an example. 

Your company determines enterprise-level capital and operational expenditure goals for the upcoming year in June. If you change this for a single portfolio in January, it will get little traction. You’ve chosen the wrong time of year to make a critical change.

It’s best to give enterprise strategists a heads-up when introducing a new way of using strategic lean business cases. 

Having a conversation with your strategists a couple of months ahead of crafting the strategy for the next cycle will give them enough time to plan the new lean business cases, which will be funded as MVPs. 

This is an opportune time to introduce your new ideas. They’re more likely to have a lasting impact because it gives the organization enough time to prepare for the new process.

Tip #5 – Create the Current State Portfolio Canvas, Then Use It to Learn

If a change agent decides to place an existing set of ARTs into a Lean-Agile portfolio without taking into consideration the current state, this will lead to lots of re-work. It will also lack long-term effectiveness. 

Working with others is critical when articulating and mapping the current solution landscape. 

Completing the portfolio canvas as a Lean Portfolio Management team ensures all team members’ perspectives are considered. This makes for a more accurate vision of the current portfolio state.  

Use the canvas to visualize which bundles of ARTs and value streams will best accomplish your enterprise goals.

Tip #6 – Launch One Portfolio at a Time, Giving Each Due Attention

Trying to adapt every portfolio to LPM at once is unlikely and unwieldy at this scale. As is the case when launching ARTs, it’s important to give each SAFe portfolio due attention. 

Use the Adopt LPM practice guides for each new portfolio. Ensure each portfolio completes every step from the practice guides. Apply the same rigor and love to each portfolio.

Additionally, the LPM implementations for each portfolio should remain in concert with one another. Remaining aligned with Enterprise Portfolio Management will prepare you for the next tip.

Tip #7 – Maintain the Larger Connected Systems of the Organization as You Launch New Portfolios

When implementing Lean Portfolio Management in large organizations, there will be periods of flux. Sometimes, some areas of the business will be using LPM practices while others aren’t. Therefore, it’s important to apply systems thinking so you don’t lose focus on how decisions affect other areas of the organization.

For example, let’s say a retail portfolio begins implementing digital coupons with LPM faster than a digital consumer portfolio still using a yearly or multi-year set of practices. In this situation, the end consumer will feel a brand disconnect that could harm the business. 

Understand the status of all portfolios in the lifecycle of maturity and implementation. Architecting the change of the connected portfolios is vital to achieving business agility.

Tip #8 – Gain Competence in the Business You Are Part Of

Lean and Agile understanding is a beginning, not an end. A transformation leader helping shift portfolios towards LPM should understand the organization’s context. 

Consider a transformational leader who pushes LPM practices without understanding the regulations which surround the business. Is it ok to prioritize all epics across the board similarly? 

In your company, do you have funds that must be spent on certain types of solutions and outcomes? Non-profits, for example, may have earmarked funds towards specific solutions that, if unmet, could mean losing their non-profit status. 

True innovation lies in these context-based understandings.

Tip #9 – Ensure Outcomes of the Portfolio Events Are Clear and Agreed upon before Closing an Event

Be clear and consistent when sharing outcomes and resultant actions with the value streams in the portfolio. Ensure the members of the value streams—teams, ARTs, leaders, and associated people managers—know when and where to expect the communication. 

Communicate outcomes of the portfolio events widely. The various events intend to create alignment for the members of lean portfolio leadership, the associated value stream members, and other enterprise portfolios. This enables flow across the entire organization.

Tip #10 – Embrace Impediments as Opportunities to Learn and Change with Others

Portfolio-level change agents, Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) leaders, and Value Management Office (VMO) members will encounter multiple transformation impediments. 

These impediments range from: 

  • Personalities vehemently against changing the status quo
  • Leaders who add ad-hoc work to the system without aligning with the company’s goals
  • Systems that aren’t yet built to handle the new way of working gracefully
  • And more 

Pair outside of your normal list of co-workers. Pairing with your detractors (like those mentioned in the bulleted list above) will help you grow. It will also make the difference between ‘transforming’ LPM and ‘doing’ LPM. Courageously be ready to state that a better answer can be built together.  

In my own journey, portfolio leaders I partnered with who were at first my biggest detractors to change often became not only my biggest change champions but have continued to reach out for help and advice after moving on to new organizations.

Tip #11 – Be Patient with Yourself and Others

Implementing Lean Portfolio Management is more complex than taking a class and launching LPM effectively in the next few weeks, especially when multiple portfolios exist in the organization. 

Transitioning the way millions, sometimes billions of dollars, are utilized is a responsibility to take very seriously and with appropriate patience. 

One way to do this is by adjusting how you set your goals. 

For example, you may be tempted to set a goal like ‘I will have LPM launched in 1 year.’ This is large, overwhelming, and potentially unrealistic. When you can’t achieve it, you’ll feel frustrated. 

Instead, focus on a goal that is more specific and focused on a smaller, more realistic step. 

One way to adjust the above example is ‘I will partner with finance and enterprise teams to align on the current financial tracking and agree on an improved future state with a prioritized backlog to get there within 6 months.’ 

This method does three things for you. It gives you a smaller time frame to work with and specific steps to help you on your way to the overall goal of launching LPM. It also helps you have patience for yourself. Finally, it grounds you in the original why for the change when things get chaotic.

Strong LPM Goal examples (same as the ones from the text)

Tip #12 – Be an Active Part of the LPM Community

We all learn from each other, so share what tips you discover! SAFe Studio has an LPM forum dedicated to sharing community insights. 

I found my LPM community by attending webinars, conferences, and meetups. I then reached out and connected to those who either inspired me or were asking for help.

I’m so excited to hear about your experiences, and others are too!

Want More LPM?

Hopefully, one or more of these tips provoked a new idea for your LPM implementation. 

If you’re interested in learning more about these tips, take a minute to fill out this survey. It will help us determine which tip to explore further in a future blog post. Cast your vote to ensure we pick the one you want to learn more about.     

In addition to these tips, here are some resources for getting started and the most out of your LPM implementation. 

Log into SAFe Studio to access our LPM resources GET LPM TOOLS

About Rebecca Davis

Rebecca Davis is a Scaled Agile Framework team member within Scaled Agile, Inc.

Rebecca Davis is a Scaled Agile Framework team member within Scaled Agile, Inc., a SAFe Fellow, SPCT, and a Principal Consultant. She has led multiple transformations as a LACE Director, RTE, Portfolio Manager, and Coach. Rebecca has experience helping organizations create joy in the workplace by connecting employees to each other and user outcomes.

Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn.

Three Key Components of Healthy Agile Transformations

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Blog banner: Ensure your transformation lives a long life

Improving your health is important so you can live a longer life. The same goes for your Agile transformation.

Certain habits improve your transformation’s health. Like eating healthy and working out do for our bodies.

I’ve seen these habits improve and sustain Agile transformations in many organizations:

  • Change leaders pave the way
  • Strategy connects directly to the work
  • People strategies activate engagement

Each of these habits signals your organization embraces real change. And embracing change is the foundation of a sustainable Agile transformation.

Restating the three bullet points

Change Leaders Pave the Way

Leadership is the most important part of a healthy Agile transformation. I’d go as far as saying leaders can make or break transformation efforts.

So leadership teams must lead the change for it to stick. They do this by leading by example at all levels of the organization (from the portfolio to Agile teams).

Change leaders also follow SAFe® Lean-Agile Principles and Core Values when making decisions.

Principles and values guide decisions

Leaders should embrace and demonstrate the principles and values in their leadership roles. And consult them when making a change to one of their transformation strategies.

Easterseals demonstrates one way to apply this thinking in this customer story. The company applied SAFe starting with Lean-Agile leadership. They placed change leaders in key roles. And then added the principles and structures to guide their decisions.

Some organizations disregard the principles and values to tailor SAFe. They make this modification to fit SAFe into their culture. But this creates an anti-pattern.

These modifications may include:

  • Changing the names of the roles identified in the Framework
  • Picking and choosing which ceremonies to hold
  • Training leaders on SAFe without proper leadership coaching and guidance

SAFe is not a prescriptive framework. Yet it’s important to maintain its foundational principles and values. This ensures a healthy Agile transformation.

Read more about how to apply the SAFe Core Values in a work setting here.

Operational excellence objectives facilitate improvements

Change leaders extend their reach through Lean-Agile Communities of Excellence (LACE). LACEs should share transformation learnings across portfolios. This aligns each portfolio to Lean-Agile practices and leadership. It also helps to create a Continuous Learning Culture.

Transformation leaders in the LACE should also spearhead improvement initiatives within the organization. Also, they should focus on cross-training initiatives. This solves bottlenecks and other flow issues.

Leadership sponsorship extends beyond sustaining to accelerating change

In a healthy Agile transformation, leadership doesn’t stop at sponsoring the change. They go as far as participating in and accelerating the change.

When this does not happen, the following pattern can occur.

A Fortune 100 large enterprise pivoted from Waterfall to Agile. (Notice Lean was not even part of the conversation).

Leadership did not choose the method for this transformation. Instead, they pushed this decision to the leaders in each business unit.

You can only imagine what happened. Some business leaders chose SAFe. Others tried a hybrid approach and pulled practices from several Agile frameworks. Others decided to ‘baby step’ it and start with small teams. None of the teams in this ‘small team’ example took into account all the dependencies on the other teams.

Six months in, one leader asked: “Where can I get a holistic view of our product delivery and how we are tracking against all our initiatives?”

With so many frameworks and practices in play, there was no easy way to answer this.

Other impacts?

Business units often worked on initiatives with other business units. But they did not have a common cadence. Or alignment on dependencies or ceremonies. It became chaotic to figure out how to execute together to deliver on business requests.

If leadership selected one framework and language, that would have united the organization. And made the transformation smoother.

This example demonstrates why leadership needs to extend beyond sponsorship to participation. It ensures a transformation’s health and, thus, long-lived success.

Strategy Connects Directly to Daily work

Leadership is in place. Now what? Everyone in a healthy Agile transformation engages in their work. To improve employee engagement, show employees how their work makes a difference.

Make this connection through transparency about your strategies. Show how they align with your enterprise’s Vision and Mission.

How do you make this a healthy habit? By sharing updates during all hands or other standing company-wide meetings.

One way Scaled Agile, Inc. shows its employees how they’re impacting enterprise strategy is through color coding. We assign each strategic theme a specific color (on brand, of course). In System Demo, the agenda is color-coded by the corresponding strategic theme.

screenshot of recent system demo with color coding by strategic theme
Agenda from a recent system demo

This transparency is important, especially when the strategy must pivot. It’s important employees understand the following before any work stops or changes:

  • Learnings from the pivot
  • The reason for the pivot

Be thoughtful about how you communicate this information with your organization. This is work that many spend the majority, if not all, of their time on. It’s important to be sensitive to this.

Porsche shared an example of strategy transparency at the 2021 SAFe Summit. Their executive leadership committed to how they wanted to work. And which KPIs they would drive with their products. Leadership did this on stage in front of the entire digital division. This commitment launched the digital sector into its first ARTs and PI Planning.

This shared strategy gave employees a reason to stay engaged with their work. They knew they were working towards a common goal across the digital department.

Once employees understand company strategy, they can connect it to their daily work. This connection is important for improving engagement too. Engagement is the final piece of maintaining a healthy Agile transformation.

People Strategies Activate Engagement

One indicator of a transformation’s health is its most important asset: people. To keep your transformation healthy, you must keep your people happy. One way to do this is through actively engaging them in their roles.

Generate future-focused learning opportunities with paths for Agile roles

If employees see growth opportunities, they will likely remain at their current company.

See these recently updated articles for career development inspiration:

Each article includes role descriptions by category. These descriptions provide opportunities for growth in each of these Agile roles.

specific responsibilities for each Agile role

Organizations can create paths and learning opportunities based on these role-specific focus areas.

Refresh engagement strategies to align with the current workforce

When employees were asked, “What’s one thing that keeps you from being engaged?” they responded with the following reasons:

  • No autonomy
  • Lack of safe space
  • No clear career direction
  • Lack of vision and inspiration
  • Missing feedback

As mentioned in the previous section, engagement creates happier, more motivated employees. Happier and more motivated employees sustain a healthy Agile transformation.

If your engagement strategies need a refresh, try these suggestions:

  • Overhaul outdated engagement strategies
  • Align intent with your organization’s social purpose
  • Facilitate a relational and emotional connection with employees
  • Generate future-focused learning opportunities
  • Transform your ceremonies into learning socials
  • Connect individual contributions to the organizational vision
  • Minimize disruptions to allow for flow
  • Look for patterns of inattentional blindness
  • Meet people where they are
  • Co-create a path to re-engage

To learn more about people engagement strategies, watch my talk from the 2022 SAFe Summit. It’s on the SAFe Community Platform: In It to Win It! People Engagement Strategies to Propel your SAFe Transformation. (Tip: Command + F search the talk title or scroll to the Leading the Change section of the page.)

Connect people to the Vision, Mission, and each other

In a remote/hybrid post-COVID environment, it can feel like you’re working on an island. It’s hard to feel connected to the people you no longer share an office space with.

This connection is important for creating a healthy Agile transformation. Connect people to the following to remind them what they’re working for:

  • The organization’s Vision
  • The organization’s Mission
  • Each other

It gives them the drive to work through the uncomfortable parts of transforming.

Ways you can connect people in your organization:

  • Schedule volunteer opportunities for teams
  • Add standing mystery 1:1s to the company calendar
  • Share rotating appreciations for individual team
  • Highlight positive customer experiences, interactions, or success milestones
  • Champion learning networks

Conclusion

It takes work to maintain your health. Maintaining the health of your transformation is no different. Incorporate these three components into your Agile transformation. It will give you a strong foundation for sustainable change. And prolong your Agile transformation life.

Other resources to incorporate into your transformation routine. You can think of them like supplements if we’re sticking to the health metaphor:

About Audrey Boydston

Audrey Boydston is a senior consultant at Scaled Agile

Audrey Boydston is a senior consultant at Scaled Agile and an experienced SPCT, Lean-Agile coach, trainer, and facilitator. Her work focuses on continuous learning, building fundamentals, re-orienting around principles, and helping clients—from senior executives to developers—build networks and communities that support their transformations.

View all posts by Audrey Boydston

How Executives Make or Break Transformations – SAFe Agile Transformation

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transformation

noun

trans· for· ma· tion | \ ˌtran(t)s-fər-ˈmā-shən  , -fȯr- \

1: an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed

Though transformations are widespread, not all feel successful.

I am blessed to have been able to take part in many transformations.

And in the transformations I’ve been a part of, I’ve found similarities. This goes for Agile transformations, digital transformations, business transformations, and my own more personal transformations.

In this blog post, I’ll share executive behaviors that I’ve seen produce unhappy employees and decreased outcomes:

  • Lack of clarity and communication
  • No connection to middle management
  • Passivity

I will also share patterns that created positive outcomes for the employees and the end users:

  • Leading with heart
  • Leading with honesty
  • Leading with accountability
  • Leading by example

Executive leadership is not the only impact on success or failure. But I’ve seen and felt that strong agile executives enable transformations to be motivational and positive.

List - Three ways executives break transformations. 1 - Lack of clarity and communication. 2 - No connection to middle management. 3 - Passivity.

Three Ways Executives Break Transformations

Beginning a transformation and not following through can have immense ripple effects throughout an organization.

To begin a transformation, we must ask people to change. Change is something humans have a natural negative reaction to unless they feel safe.

Transformation failures start with this basic premise: we must feel safe to change. Executives who don’t enable safety at scale are not enabling a transformation. 

Lack of clarity and communication

Executives are decision-makers.

Leaders must remember that those under their supervision must live with their decisions. Thus, the leader needs to listen to the ideas and concerns of everyone involved before making and imposing a decision.

This does not mean leaders must follow the suggestions or ideas of everyone. But they must hear and consider what those under their supervision believe before making a decision.

A leader needs to make decisions in a way that those affected by the decision can believe they were heard. Those affected should also know there were reasons why their ideas were not incorporated into the final decision.

Leaders are not “commanders” but must make decisions and be clear about them. Transformations with executives who attempt to please everyone in the moment only ensure that nothing is clear. In this situation, happiness is, at best, temporary.

No connection to middle management

Middle managers have complicated jobs with conflicting priorities. They must focus on in-the-moment concerns as well as long-term strategies. Also, they must find ways to care about the humans that work for them while completing the larger mission of the company. And in most cases, they are not incentivized for these behaviors. 

Rewarding these middle management behaviors and outcomes builds a system unable to transform:

  • Siloed improvements
  • Heroics by individuals over systemic improvements that eliminate the need for heroics
  • Meeting dates at the sacrifice of employee and end-user well-being

Passivity

Passivity is the biggest failure of executive leadership in times that need change and transformation.

Passive leadership, in my experience, is executives who say they want a transformation and even hire a team to do so and then stop getting involved.

To create a generative culture of engaged workers, a leader must engage.   Executive leaders who step back from the decisions and motivations of their workforce may have happy accidents. But they won’t have the intentional system that builds the culture required to keep their enterprise focused on the appropriate risks and learnings to speed up outcomes.

List - 4 ways executives make transformations. 1. Leading with heart. 2 - Leading with honesty. 3 - Leading with accountability. 4 - Leading by example

Four Ways Executives Make Transformations

I’ve managed to interact with many executives throughout my career. Because of this, I’ve internalized my belief on what makes an “agile executive.”

Agile executives hold these transformation leaders accountable for outcomes and results while taking accountability for removing blockers and giving the group the time needed to change. They vocalize and act upon SAFe transformation as a journey that should have measurable and time-bound moments but is never complete.

Agile executives understand their most important asset is the people who work within the company.

Leading with heart

The desire to inspire others comes to mind first. Agile executives are purposeful about inspiring individuals they come across day to day as well as large groups. They do this through clarity of vision but also by taking the time to do so. They find pride in making others feel better, even momentarily, for having spoken with them.

The agile executive doesn’t talk at people; they talk with them and encourage others to talk with each other along the way. Agile executives understand their most important asset is the people who work within the company. They understand this in economic and human terms: employees who are happy, enabled, and mission-driven produce better economic outcomes than those who are not.

A motivating example of leading with heart is in the customer story from Porsche’s leadership. I felt inspired by these agile executives’ connection to the heart of their workforce and how they brought that heart to life together across organizational boundaries. 

Leading with honesty

Agile executives know that if those they lead doubt for one second that they are being honest with them or that they don’t have the best interest of their people at the forefront, harm will occur.

Depending on the products the enterprise creates, this harm could result in not only decreased customer outcomes but actual physical or mental harm to employees and end users.

Agile executives know that trust doesn’t occur in meetings; it happens in moments between them. And they encourage leaders throughout the company to know the same. They own up to mistakes immediately and celebrate those who act upon errors as learning moments.

Leading with accountability

Agile executives hold themselves and others accountable for the transformation at hand. They provide clarity of strategy, prioritization reasoning, and clear intent, creating a fertile ground to hold people accountable.

They also select and empower a group of trusted individuals who have shown desire and competency to move the full business along. To do this, they look for those who believe the company mission and customer outcomes could improve through change and have the relentless positive energy to make it happen.

Agile executives hold these transformation leaders accountable for outcomes and results while taking accountability for removing blockers and giving the group the time needed to change. They vocalize and act upon transformation as a journey that should have measurable and time-bound moments but is never complete.

A personal vignette

This moment continues to stick with me as a clear example of leading with honesty and accountability.

When I was a senior director a few years into leading a SAFe® transformation inside an organization, a new C-suite leader asked to meet with me in her first couple of weeks on the job.

During this meeting, we discussed where I saw opportunities and what I was hoping to achieve over the next year. She ended the call with a few statements that renewed my energy and began an amazing working relationship.

She said:

I appreciate your candor and ability to see the full system. I know this is a journey, not a destination. My ask is to continue to be bold, open, gritty, and kind. My other ask is a challenge to you. If you can help the teams and trains gain 5 percent efficiency in how they produce their work, we will have $$ (number left out on purpose, but it was A LOT) to fund additional efficiencies and improvements. Be the person who tells me how to do this, what you need from me, my peers, and the organization to succeed. I will be there with you, and I ask you to be accountable to that initial result, with more challenges from me after we succeed.

Leading by example

Agile executives are action-based. The transforming organization mimics their actions, not their words.

First, they ask for and receive coaching and education, knowing that lifelong learning is how they got to their position. And no title they have eliminates the need to continue learning, especially in today’s changing age.

Then Agile executives work hard to form teams amongst their peers, exemplifying team behaviors and living the same practices they ask their employees to have. They share their improvement backlogs and communicate their wins, failures, and hopes authentically. 

Finally, agile executives show up, physically and mentally, to events made up of cross-functional roles spanning hierarchies held within the organization, encouraging behaviors that create alignment and discouraging siloes. They learn the words of the transformation and frequently meet with those they hold accountable for the transformational steps. This ensures space to raise and resolve risks, blockers, and detractors to progress.

Aspire to Your Own Transformation

Transformational agile executives have a good sense of themselves and their role in the overall scheme of the endeavor in which they’re engaged. Leaders cannot take themselves too seriously but need also to recognize that their conduct establishes a pattern for those under their leadership to follow. Agile executives teach by example as much as by any other means available to them. 

Leadership requires that a leader respect those under their supervision and treat them as equals. Regardless of the type of transformation which you are deciding to lead, I hope this blog inspires you to inspire others and to continue aspiring to your own transformation.

Be the change.

About Rebecca Davis

Rebecca Davis is a Scaled Agile Framework team member within Scaled Agile, Inc.

Rebecca Davis is a Scaled Agile Framework team member within Scaled Agile, Inc., a SAFe Fellow, SPCT, and a Principal Consultant. She has led multiple transformations as a LACE Director, RTE, Portfolio Manager, and Coach. Rebecca has experience helping organizations create joy in the workplace by connecting employees to each other and user outcomes.

Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn.

Adopting ABC – AI, Big Data, and the Cloud

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How the Business Agility Value Stream will prepare you to win in the post-digital economy with AI, big data, and the cloud.

Introduction

At the 2021 Global SAFe Summit, Dean Leffingwell presented the idea that we are at the threshold of a new technological revolution. A post-digital economy that’s being driven by the adoption of ABC: artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and the cloud. Dean further explained how the Business Agility Value Stream (BAVS) creates a system that will allow businesses to rapidly react to the insights provided by ABC.

If you’re anything like me, listening to Dean’s talk generated many different ideas. In fact, several weeks passed before I went back and re-listened to the keynote to identify the core intent of the talk.

Those insights are what I’m sharing with you today: an understanding of the BAVS and how the concepts of ABC fit into the future of organizations using SAFe.

The Business Agility Value Stream

The value stream construct has been discussed in every version of SAFe dating back to SAFe 2.5 (2013). However, the conversation wasn’t top-of-mind until SAFe5 and the introduction of SAFe Lean-Agile Principle #10, Organize Around Value.

Now, and rightfully so, every organization that seeks to embrace SAFe is challenged to identify and optimize how value reaches the customer via their operational value streams (OVSs). We then challenge organizations to go a step further and optimize the relationship between the OVS, its supporting development value streams (DVSs), and the Agile Release Trains (ARTs) that realize them by considering complexities of the business architecture, technical architecture, and how the people who support the systems are dispersed. 

We do our best to support SAFe enterprises and SPCs in this difficult conversation with the Value Stream and ART Identification workshop, and the newly released Value Stream Mapping workshop (both are available on the SAFe Community Platform). Even with the assets and expert consulting available, changing and optimizing the system to focus on outcomes instead of outputs is no small undertaking. And for what purpose?

Though optimizing these value streams is a goal, we must also consider why optimized value streams are so important and what to do with them.

Enter the BAVS.

business agility stream

Powered by optimized OVSs and DVSs, the BAVS puts those charged with strategy in a position to: 

  • Sense market opportunities
  • Formulate a hypothesis to exploit the identified opportunity via the Lean Business Case
  • Gain alignment and approval to pursue an MVP through Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
  • Organize around value by introducing the MVP to existing ARTs (or if needed, standing up a new ART)
  • Leverage the tools of Agile product management and design thinking
  • Develop a customer-focused solution
  • Deliver the MVP in 2–6 months via the continuous delivery pipeline
  • Monitor the solution in LPM to determine if the hypothesis holds true or needs to be reconsidered
  • Continue to deliver value and learn until the business opportunity has been fully leveraged

What is ABC?

With the system optimized and the BAVS in place, you are likely now left wondering how the enterprise is expected to sense emerging business opportunities. Though expertise and experience continue to play a role in how opportunities are addressed, we can no longer afford to guess where the next opportunity lies. Partly because an uninformed guess is full of risk to revenue, team stability, and market reputation, but mostly because uninformed guesses could rapidly destroy a business. In the post-digital economy, the amount of time required for an organization to recognize an opportunity, ruminate about how to address it, and then put the plan into action is far greater than the window of opportunity will remain open.

This is where ABC comes in—its three elements power the modern decision engine. 

AI

There are bound to be some really cool applications for AI, but I suspect that the majority will be less dramatic than its portrayal in Hollywood. For many of our organizations, AI will be put to use to address customer service, mitigate fraud and other risks, optimize development processes, and identify emerging trends in data. In terms of the BAVS, when leveraged, AI will serve as the trigger that identifies market opportunities and threats that the BAVS will respond to through business insights, operational efficiencies, and intelligent customer solutions.

Big Data

For AI to work effectively, the algorithms require access to large amounts of data—the more the better. Fortunately, many companies have decades worth of historical data and are collecting more each day. The problem that many organizations are addressing is how to pool that data into an easily accessible common format, but that is a conversation for another day. 

Data is the answer. And for it to power organizations, it cannot be bound by organizational politics or structures. The key to enterprise success in the next digital age is in the organization’s data. We only need to ask the right questions of the data. 

Cloud

With so much data and so much analysis required to make sense of it all, we are fortunate to live in the age of infinitely scalable infrastructure via the cloud. Imagine 15 years ago the amount of work required to bring 100 new CPUs online to address a complex problem. An undertaking of this magnitude would have required new servers, racks, bandwidth, electricity, and a facility to store the new hardware. It would have taken months to a year or longer to bring online.

Today, we can scale our infrastructure to nearly infinite capacity with the touch of a button, and descale it nearly as fast. We have the capacity (cloud), we have the resources (data), and we have the capability (AI) to win in the post-digital economy. The only thing that stands in the way of exploiting those elements is changing our system of work to keep pace.

What Will You Do with ABC?

The purpose of the Scaled Agile Framework is to help organizations thrive in this technological revolution and those that are sure to come. The mission of SAFe is to work differently and build the future. The path to achieving our mission and purpose is constantly evolving with the world of business and technology. Though we don’t claim to have all of the answers, we’re confident that we can provide the tools and intent to help organizations solve for their own unique context.

The BAVS is the latest evolution of a perspective that started nearly eight years ago with improving the delivery of technology to the enterprise. We’re excited to see what organizations do with ABC and how their BAVS delivers value and change to the world. Especially as all we do becomes more interconnected and the true possibilities of the near-limitless potential of people become more apparent.

About Adam Mattis

Adam Mattis headshot

Adam Mattis is a SAFe Fellow and a SAFe® Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) at Scaled Agile with many years of experience overseeing SAFe implementations across a wide range of industries. He’s also an experienced transformation architect, engaging speaker, energetic trainer, and a regular contributor to the broader Lean-Agile and educational communities. Learn more about Adam at adammattis.com.

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The Unparalleled Value of Emotional Intelligence – Business Agility Value Stream – Part Two

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If you’ve read the first post in my blog series, you may have been inspired to think about how the emotional intelligence competencies manifest in every step of the business agility value stream. From identifying and sensing the opportunity to learning and adapting to ultimately delivering on the business opportunity. So, if we can measure emotional intelligence competencies, my hypothesis is that they, directly and indirectly, impact flow and outcomes as well.

Let’s go step by step in the business agility value stream and see how applying emotional intelligence directly impacts flow and outcomes.

business agility

Sensing the opportunity involves market research, data analysis, customer feedback, and directly observing customers in the marketplace. Applying your own self-regulation, empathy, and social skills can help you have more productive empathy interviews, obtain less-biased, face-to-face research, and control how you react to customer feedback. 

This key step in the organizational agility competency involves not only leaders applying ‘go see’, but offering the same ‘go see’ opportunities to other key roles in the development value stream so that they can better understand and reason about the problem to solve. This expands the social networks so that they can apply and evolve their emotional intelligence competencies to effectively communicate, pitch, reason, and articulate effective hypothesis statements that inspire and engage innovation.

Funding the minimum viable product (MVP) requires the motivation and social skills to help drive change, innovate, and communicate intent at scale. We all know this isn’t easy. It requires you to craft the “why” and use your social skills of influence and conflict management to negotiate and secure the funds. Some of the recommendations from the Lean Portfolio Management competency where we can leverage these social skills include:

  • Engage in participatory budgeting
  • Establish flow and stakeholder engagement through the portfolio Kanban system
  • Roadmap the portfolio
  • Integrate enterprise architecture and SMEs
  • Realize epics
  • Establish Lean budgets and guardrails 

Organizing around value requires even more of the social skills around communication, building new bonds, and fostering the information coherence necessary to build some of the world’s most complex systems. As well as the ability to connect to the customer so that our people embrace and understand what value they’re trying to deliver.

Team and technical agility and organizational agility not only aid in building these bonds but can leverage and grow all of the emotional intelligence competencies of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. This can be amplified with the coveted help from our scrum masters and RTEs. 

Connect to the customer leverages our Agile product delivery and enterprise solution competencies and their design thinking skills to listen, reflect, empathize, and connect with the people for whom we’re designing solutions. 

This requires going deep into the empathy competency of emotional intelligence by leveraging our service-orientation mindset so that we can foresee, recognize, and meet customer needs. Diversity is also important for the ongoing development of opportunities and awareness in all societies and social circles. If we can evolve the empathy competency in all aspects of product and solution delivery, we have the opportunity to excel beyond our competitors in delivering value. 

Delivering that MVP calls upon our product and solution delivery folks to lead, and our social networks to collaborate, iterate, communicate, and deliver using their motivation and social skills. It also pulls highly on our social networks to have courage, collaborate and cooperate, take risks, and instrument rapid change so that we can learn and adapt to our ever-changing market landscapes.

Pivot or persevere pulls on the need for empathy when things don’t turn out as desired and the time comes to pivot or persevere. Our Lean portfolio management fiduciaries reason about the data, facts, and outcomes of the MVP and could quite possibly pivot to a direction of a higher cost of delay at any moment. This means we need to abandon our emotional attachment to what we created and turn to the next-highest value delivery. Self-regulation and empathy both play strongly in this step of the business agility value stream. Having the emotional awareness of why our folks are for or against any change in this step can help mitigate any delays in fostering rapid change and learning. 

Deliver value continuously imposes that our product and solution delivery people and ARTs always work together to share knowledge, build out that continuous delivery pipeline, and innovate. The continuous delivery pipeline and our DevOps mindset enable that fast-feedback loop to foster our continuous learning culture. Our iterative and incremental heartbeat also facilitates that continuous value delivery and learning cycle. All require using our social skills to grow and enable knowledge transfer and information coherence so that the social network can continue to thrive and innovate.

Our learn and adapt cycle is integral to the process, Measuring our emotional intelligence competencies will help us learn and grow our own selves alongside the SAFe core competencies. After all, if we don’t learn about ourselves, how can we show up with our truest authenticity to grow and foster that continuous learning culture?

Lean-Agile leadership enables the business agility value stream, as does the evolution of everyone’s emotional intelligence. Leaders model and leverage all of the emotional intelligence competencies so that our development value streams can evolve both their business agility competencies and their emotional competencies. If we don’t consider human emotion, we can inhibit flow, people shut down and lose their motivation, and thus jeopardize providing value to our customers.

business agility

Now, if the business agility value stream is a perspective across operational and development value streams, then the benefits, interactions, and human impacts that the emotional intelligence of the development value stream network provides to the operational value stream will propagate and evolve. The interactions and modeling of emotional intelligence will have a bi-directional impact that will engage and accelerate the operational value stream in delivering value. 

I hope I’ve provided a perspective that it’s not just mastering the SAFe business agility process competencies that enable business agility. The evolution of human emotional intelligence impacts the flow and outcomes of the business agility value stream every step of the way. As I mentioned in part 1 of this blog series, Goleman’s personal competencies of self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation fuel our human agency and our ability to manage our own emotions. The social competencies of empathy and social skills fuel how we handle relationships. Together, the evolution of emotional intelligence within our organization increases our ability to deliver value to our customers, as well as value to our individual people. What enterprise doesn’t want that?

At this point, you may be asking, “Well, how can I bring these into my SAFe transformation and journey toward business agility?” 

Here are a few techniques to get you started on your emotional intelligence journey:

  • Start with you. Allow time for self-reflection, self-work, and to recharge yourself. Leverage your retrospectives, your own personal plan-do-check-adjust cycles, and the teaming activities to evolve your emotional intelligence competencies. Integrate some emotional intelligence workshops with your leaders and teams to help evolve and experience the competencies, starting with self-awareness and self-regulation. This will help build trust so you can continue to unfold into the deeper and perhaps more sensitive competencies of empathy and social skills. 
  • Grow your own internal and external coaching network. In the same way that sports teams need coaches, our operational and development value streams and the individuals within them need coaches too. They help with all aspects of emotional intelligence, wherever folks may need or want assistance. They can provide the tools and techniques to become more self-aware, provide exercises for self-regulation and motivation, and practice empathy. Not to mention offer assistance to help people evolve their social skills. And even more powerful, coaches model the behaviors so that our social networks can lean into what they see and learn.
  • Create a community of practice around the competencies and practices. In the latest Leading by Example module that Scaled Agile released, one of the beautiful outcomes was a cohort that trusted each other and was willing to share their deepest challenges with authenticity. This type of network provides the power of a safe space that people can always come back to, to practice, share ideas and concerns, and grow without judgement or fear.
  • Help evolve assessments around Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Competency Framework. And measure the evolution within your people and the enterprise. You’ll start to see some correlations between the SAFe measurements of flow, competencies, and outcomes.
  • Share with our community. We’d love to hear how evolving your enterprise intelligence will help your employees achieve their aspirations and help customers receive better products and solutions.

And, reach out to me. I’d love to hear how it’s going so I can learn and grow with you! I may not have been born with emotional intelligence but I’m passionate about learning and evolving with you. Find me on LinkedIn.

About Jennifer Fawcett

Jennifer is a retired, empathetic Lean and Agile leader, practitioner,

Jennifer is a retired, empathetic Lean and Agile leader, practitioner, coach, speaker, and consultant. A SAFe® Fellow, she has contributed to and helped develop SAFe content and courseware. Her passion and focus have been in delivering value in the workplace and by creating communities and culture through effective product management, product ownership, executive portfolio coaching, and leadership. She has provided dedicated service in these areas to technology companies for over 35 years. Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn.

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