a draft approach to the framework

1. P I E R R E E . N E I S
E D I T E D B Y C H R I S T O P H E R M A N N
A N A G I L E D I G I TA L
E N T E R P R I S E A P P R O A C H
A P R I L , 2 0 1 6
DROP

2. 2
I B E L I E V E T H AT D I G I TA L W O R K C A N N O T B E
A C H I E V E D W I T H O U T A N A G I L E A P P R O A C H .
T H E M E A N I N G O F A G I L E A P P R O A C H I S T O
O N B O A R D A L L T H E S TA K E H O L D E R S I N
T H AT J O U R N E Y. A L L D O E S N ’ T M E A N A
S M A L L E L I T E . A L L M E A N S A L L T H E A G E N T S
O F Y O U R O R G A N I S AT I O N A L E R T I N G W H E N
O P P O R T U N I T I E S O C C U R S .
P U R P O S E O F T H I S A P P R O A C H I S T O G I V E
Y O U T H E D I R E C T I O N T O C R E AT E
S E R E N D I P I T Y M O M E N T S O F VA L U E
C R E AT I O N B E A B L E T O P I V O T O R
P E R S E V E R E I N A V E RY I N T E N S E T I M E S L O T.
P I E R R E

3. D E D I C AT I O N
This work is dedicated to all the those colleagues and clients
alike who always bring new challenges, support and trust
in approaches that can seem complicated before mastery.
3

4. F O R E W O R D
Work on Digital Projects for couple of years and you discover
amazing methods and techniques.
ServiceJam is one of them, it’s also called Hackathon in
Software Development or Startup Weekends. Two days are
simply structured around a common purpose. These events
innovate solutions by "Doing, not Talking." Purpose is simply
understood without need for deep rational analysis. You have
to try it to really connect with the concept.
Another is the Scrum framework which manages by time
constraints for self-organized people progressing together on
a shared purpose. The main lesson that you can learn from
Scrum is the power of teamwork in a hyper productivity
manner.
And, Lean Startup brought interesting Digital aspects to the
forefront : Minimal Valuable Product and Build-Measure-Learn
amplifying the aim to test an idea before start.
Old habits poison the best intentions. Service Design replaces
time consuming Scope Management. Scrum Team work in
Feature Teams induce jumping around different projects
instead focusing on a single product at a time. Lean Startup is
rarely practiced; instead people are developing a never
ending idea and running like crazy for funding or for a budget.
Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework gives us keys to unlock
the power of Complex Systems. Let's use them! We are
proposing a framework enabling a Safe-to-fail approach for all
the stakeholders expecting and creating the value of a digital
project in a highly creativity intense manner like a Hackathon /
Service Jam for participants from Business, IT, HR, Finance,
Marketing and Customers.
Agile Digital Enterprise goes beyond IT and Business
collaboration. We include HR and Finance, the heart and soul
of the business to resonance the hearts and souls of persons
to better serve interacting customers.
4

5. I N T R O D U C T I O N
Digital is as old as the
Internet, but continues to
challenge our approach
towards change and
innovation.Tools and
technologies can work well
or not. Startups and small
structures appear to
respond more effectively
than better-resourced
larger structures.
The Agile Manifesto
changed the rules of the
game in software
development in 2001. It is
possible to do better,
faster by focusing on the
relationship between
developers and customers.
Agile Digital Enterprise
exaptates* methods like
Cynefin, Scrum, Service
Design, Lean Startup,
Customer & User
Experience. Be light, sharp
and nimble.
Startups, digital ventures,
SMEs and any company
developing digital
products in a highly
competitive market needs
to a heart-and-soul shift in
function of customer-
relationship value.
* exaptation: « a shift in the function of a trait during evolution ».
* coherence: it is the distance between "we know it's true" and "this is the
assumption of a person"
Agile Digital Enterprise is a coherent* framework
for rapid crossover delivery of actionable
minimal state-of-the-art solutions.
Communication and time constraints provide
constructive co-creation: minimum viable
solutions come in one iteration measured in
weeks.
Opportunities emerge from self-organizing
operations and support caring for customers.
Improvement is measured from one release to the
next. Releases are necessarily early, often and
involve fast client feedback.
Agile Digital Enterprise creation is microcosmic of
state-of-the-art emergent innovation.

6. A G I L E D I G I TA L E N T E R P R I S E
N E C E S S A R I LY ! T H I S I S D I G I TA L !
The digital takeover presents
opportunities and threats for all
kind of business.Mobile and
social media, big data are now
the playing field.
Our Customers want to buy more
through digital channels
nowadays. We need to use
available technology, connected
devices and all means at our
disposal.
Challenges always emerge and
often affect the whole value
chain of the enterprise.
Most digital projects are using an
iterative approach in their
development phases and then
snap back to a waterfall
manufacturing mindset: 6 month
scope management replaced by
6 months customer journey
creation and all-or-nothing
deliveries.
Agile Digital Enterprise is more
highly responsive, client-driven
and state-of-the-art. Digital
disrupts the structure of the
Enterprise by shifting to a « front-
based » responsive organization
kept honest by Agile.
More than buzzwords, Agile Digital Enterprise is
a behavior shift where Business-To-Customer
move to Customer-To-Business relations.
3119
hours
minutes
Average time
spent per month
browsing online
on PCs or laptops
23.7millions
Number of UK
fixed residential
& SME
broadband lines
80%
Proportion of
adults with
broadband in
the UK (fixed &
mobile)
72%
Proportion of
online adults
who use social
networking
sites
61%
Proportion of
people who use
their mobile
handset to
access the
internet
source: OFCOM - UK - 2015

7. R E S P O N D
• Respond to customers
• Take customer’s experience into
account from end-to-end
• Unleash creativity
• Ensure high ROI
• Create value in time
C O V E R
• Fill the gaps in all
communication layers
• Decide in time
• Lead
• Know
• Collaborate
L E A R N
• Engage innovation
• Create value through learned
artefacts
• Jam and Retro-inspect
challenges
• Learn lessons as an assets for
both personal and
organizational development
T H E S E A R E T H E B E N E F I T S O F A G I L E
D I G I TA L E N T E R P R I S E
7

8. A G I L E D I G I TA L E N T E R P R I S E
B E A F R A I D ! B E C O N F I D E N T !
At Senior Management level, Digital is
no longer seen as technology only but
as a real strategic need. The goal is to
generate innovation to ensure future
enterprise wealth. This challenge
impacts all parts of the business. To get
this, the strategy is to foster rupture with
more organization and less structure :
• Organize human resources
• Rationalize production means
• Keep the customer in sight
• Pace your development
• Put innovation in the driver's seat
• Engage customers
• Address complex systems
• Center development on the
customer
• Respect boundaries that allow
scale
• Vary practices
• Make sense
• Embrace empiricism and iteration
ValueAxis
0
17,5
35
52,5
70
Synonymous with IT Tech investments in all parts of businesses Customer-facing activities Tech innovation activties Data & analytics activties
13
46
37
45
41
11
62
49
25
29
14
50
33
4141
CEO CMO CDO
Source:PwC,2015GlobalDigitalIQ®Survey
“[Digital] is no longer just
technology or a cost centre . . .
digital has now become a
revenue generator and cost
saver, a productivity play.”
– C E S A R R A I N U S S O

9. U S I N G T H E P O W E R O F T H E D R O P - G O A L
F O R O R G A N I C G R O W T H !
9
PR OBLEM ,
OPT ION S, PROTOTYP E
VIABLE SOLUTION
M A S T E RY
A U T O N O M Y
S A F E
C O N TA I N E R
C O M P E T E N C E ,
L E A R N I N G ,
E X P E R I E N C I N G
P U R P O S E
C U S T O M E R J O U R N E Y, T E A M
A L I G N M E N T, T E A M E X C E L L E N C E ,
C U S T O M E R D E L I G H T
Solutions are emerging
from a small baby steps
approach from hypothesis
to actionable solution.
In ADE, baby steps are
more likely Drop-Goals of
concrete solutions. These
solutions are helping to
increase the level of
conversation between
people with a common
interest but just speaking a
different language.
source: « Drive », D.Pink, improved by Agile4HR working group.

10. A N A G I L E D I G I TA L O R G A N I Z AT I O N
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer
Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight
« If you can draw a model
on a napkin you cannot
create meaning.
The objective is to create
value for people, not for its
creator. »
–D.Snowden
Like in rugby, this example
process is a drop-kick to
(re)starts the game at the
current field position
(re)establishing momentum
towards a goal.
10

11. P R O B L E M
It is
• an idea generation workshop
• an initial alignment for common interest
• a time-boxed rough momentum
• the first time of stakeholder gathering
• the Customer Journey Development
It is not
• a presentation, a report, a review
• a scope, a roadmap workshop, a story
mapping workshop
PRACTICES: facilitation, Service Design, co-creation
PROCESSES: explain the demand, generate first ideas, destroy first ideas (resilience), generate new idea,
align the idea (resilience), refine the idea on robust story telling shape (obvious for all stakeholders)
TOOLS: visual management and facilitation tools only.
INFRASTRUCTURE: safe facilitation room, ideally not in the day-to-day business facility
11
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight

12. O P T I O N S
It is
• a solutions generation workshop
• an initial alignment for common interest
• a time-boxed rough momentum
• the first time of stakeholder gathering
• the Customer Journey Development
It is not
• a presentation, a report, a review
• a scope, a roadmap workshop, a story
mapping workshop
PRACTICES: facilitation, Service Design, co-creation
PROCESSES: explain the demand, generate first ideas, destroy first ideas (resilience), generate new idea, align
the idea (resilience), refine the idea on robust story telling shape (obvious for all stakeholders)
TOOLS: visual management and facilitation tools only.
INFRASTRUCTURE: safe facilitation room, ideally not in the day-to-day business facility
12
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight

13. P R O T O T Y P E
It is
• a single minimal valuable solution
generation workshop
• a single team prototyping event
• a time-boxed rough momentum
• a coded ready-to-use Alpha / Beta 1
It is not
• a presentation, a report, a review
PRACTICES: facilitation, Service Design, co-creation, UX Design, Software Architecture, everything
that matters to create a powerful solution
PROCESSES: improve the option, design a prototype, build the prototype, test the prototype,
destroy to reach the Minimal Viable Solution with the customer
TOOLS: visual management and facilitation tools, and all the necessary tool set that helps to get the
prototype done.
INFRASTRUCTURE: safe facilitation room, ideally not in the day-to-day business facility
13
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight

14. V I A B L E S O L U T I O N
It is
• the development sprint/iteration when the
Minimal Valuable Solution (MVS) is build
• A beta 2 / Release candidate in a subset
of production
• A used feature
• Customer feedback on effective use of the
feature
It is not
• Pussy-footing
PRACTICES: visual management, Scrumban, development, QA
PROCESSES: the Development Team helps their early involvement knows what and how to build the
MVS
TOOLS: visual management to track progress and highlight impediments, daily standup meetings,
review and retrospective the last day, social communication tools for alignement and information
purposes
INFRASTRUCTURE: usually the team sits together in a team room and has everything they need.
14
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight

15. T I M E C O N S T R A I N T S
The Problem to Viable Solution (MVS) cycle takes an iteration. An
iteration can be one to six weeks.
The outcome of the PROBLEM is a Customer Journey (CJ). The
CJ is the interpretation of Customer’s expectation. A CJ should
be obvious for all stakeholders and ensure understanding and
engagement. For a two-week iteration, the Problem stage should
not take longer than 2 days with a preference for 1.
The outcome of OPTIONS is a collection of different CJ
interpretations. By selecting the most coherent option, the
customer clarify its expectations. OPTIONS should not take
longer than 2 days.
The outcome of PROTOTYPE is an actionable case. Actionable
means working prototype. Case means having a Business Model
Canvas. PROTOTYPE should not take longer than 2 days.
The outcome of the VIABLE SOLUTION is the Deployment of the
Solution. MVS should not take longer than a working week.
week 1 week 2
IDEATION
OPTIONS
PROTOTYPE
MVS
DEPLOY

16. M O M E N T U M S
PROBLEM is a time-boxed
workshop, facilitated by the
Customer Journey (CJ) to ensure
that we know what the customer
want in terms of « DO-THINK-
FEEL ».
OPTIONS is a « Service Jam » or
« Hackathon » with a team of self
organising people gathering in a
2 days rush to create a working
prototype including its business
case. Like in Hackathons or
ServiceJams, purpose is to
produce as much as possible
options for the customer.
OPTIONS closes with a Review
and the customer select the best
option to work on it. Customer
can be involved during this
workshop as an agent in
immersion. Outcomes of
OPTIONS are working
prototypes and cases in Lean
Canvas format as example.
PROTOTYPE is a second run of
a 2 days co-creation workshop
with a team of self organizing
people. In PROTOTYPE, all the
attendees are working on the
same CJ (outcome of OPTIONS).
The first day is a build, the
second day is a "destroy".
Destroy means to push away all
the unnecessary features from
the prototype to provide a
Viable Solution (MVS). MVS is
the minimal set responding to
the CJ. Outcome of
PROTOTYPE is the readiness to
realease.
VIABLE SOLUTION is a one
week iteration where the
Development Team build the
MVS ready to deploy. The MVS
ends with the Review and a
Retrospective.
16
P R O B L E M O P T I O N S
P R O T O T Y P E
V I A B L E
S O L U T I O N
Customer
Journey
Team
Alignment
Team
Excellence
Customer
Delight

17. R O L E S
D E V E L O P E R S
M A N A G E M E N T C L I E N T / U S E R S
A D E
Developers are the people with the
necessary skills to develop the
solution, ex. agile coach, CJ owner,
full stack developers, UX designers,
facilitators, engineers, DevOps,
graphic designers, etc…
Client is the people who buys the
solution to solve their problem.
Users are client’s customer, the
people expecting a great Customer
and User Experience.
Management are the
people in charge of the
host-organization willing
to provide the best
Customer Experience for
their Client. They give the
space to experiment in a
short time according to
their business strategy.
They are taking benefits
from ADE to engage all
the stakeholders to
reduce business risks,
collect innovations and
opportunities.
Management provides a
Safe-to-Fail environment.

18. R O L E S
Roles are important, we need to know who needs to be involved,
who needs to interact with whom.
Trying to keep the Roles&Responsibilities matrix as simple as
possible to enable Complex momentums to happen, only 2 roles
are mandatory as a pair: a Customer-Journey Owner (CJO) and an
Agile Coach. The first has a focus on the content, the second on
the organisation.
Management, manages the boundaries of the Agile Digital
Enterprise and protects the participants from external threats and
impediments, involved for risks, contracts, strategic alignment, to
understand customer’s expectation and response capabilities.
Provides the resources to enable the opportunity of the value
creation flow. She collects the un-used outcomes from OPTIONS
as business opportunities..
Client is involved to directly interact with the developers. She
addresses her needs and vision. Validates the customer journey
and selects the option to be prototyped. Is available for feedback
at least in the reviews but ideally all along the project.
User should be committed to ensure effective customer
experience. They are the solution testers keen to leave feedback.
Developers is a Team, engaged in the whole project cycle and
completely dedicated to its accomplishment. Developers have the
necessary available skills to get the work done.
Agile Coach, ensures the dynamic on the framework in a safe-to-
fail approach. Agile Coach can be one or a couple of coaches
facilitating and coaching all the stakeholders during the journey..
Customer Journey Owner (CJO) are translating more likely the
Client Vision than a fixed plan. She ensures that the purpose is
obvious for all the participants and collects the outcome from each
phases to improve the solution as response to the purpose.
*organisation: an organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department (wikipedia).

19. S C A L E Y O U R A G I L E D I G I TA L E N T E R P R I S E
19
Scaling means that your experiment will
affect the whole organisation and not a single
engineering or development section.
Side effect of ADE is the ignition of a culture
shift to a resilient organic organisation with
continuity of identity: « evolving from parasite
to symbiote ».
We recommend to start with a single journey
as small site effect simulation and then roll-
out to other entities. But we know that
sometimes the conditions makes this
unfeasible and you have to manage one
customer journey in different entities, or
several customer journeys in several entities.
S H I F T I N G F R O M E N G I N E E R I N G M I N D S Y S T E M T O A N O R G A N I C S Y S T E M

20. S E V E R A L T E A M S & L O C AT I O N S
20
ENTITY1
ENTITY2
ENTITY3
ENTITY4
ENTITY5
Each single team operates as described
previously with additions.
Share the Customer Journey.
Broadcasting or video conference helps
participant inspiration. Otherwise
"Catchball" and send your outcome to
all different locations and follow
through. Accept controversies and
collegial decisions. Repeat the process
for OPTIONS.
Ensure development alignment for
PROTOTYPE and VIABLE SOLUTION
via daily synchronization. Outcome can
be a single or several deployments
taking integration into account.

21. S E V E R A L S U B J E C T S A N D T E A M S
21
ENTITY1
ENTITY2
ENTITY3
ENTITY4
ENTITY5
Each subject operates
as described previously
for multiple teams with
additions.
Build cross-team culture
and have pivot
meetings. Concentrate
geographically as much
as possible.
Accept multiple
complementary or even
agnostic solutions.
21

22. W H E R E C A N Y O U A P P LY A D E ?
• of course all kinds of digital work: Apps, e-documents, etc..
• ADE is fitted to start fast without wasting your time and budget in high level activities
• it’s fitted to start a product development (ex. sprint zeros)
• it’s a rough way to test your ability to change your enterprise with more organisation and less
structure.
• ADE needs disciplined time management and trust in self organisation.
• Doing an ADE is perhaps the first time that you will experience agile complex systems
management.
• Point of attention: regards to high level of engagement required, to much ADE, kills ADE. I my
tests, we did a first one, then 2 weeks of business as usual, then ADE again.
• ADE should be fun and not a shock therapy.

23. L I S T O F R E F E R E N C E S
• « A Leader’s Framework for Decision
Making », D.Snowden and M. Boone, HBR
• « Five Dysfunction of a Team », P.
Lencioni
• « An Agile Adoption and Transformation
Survival Guide », M. Sahota
• « The seven habits of highly effective
digital entreprises », ’T. Olanrewaju, K.
Smaje, and P. Willmott ,McKinsey&Company
• « This is Service Design », M. Stickdorn, J.
Schneider
• « Myths and Patterns of Organisation
Change », L. Rising
• « Adhocracy for an Agile Age », J.
Birkinshaw and J. Ridderstråle,
McKinsey&Company
• « How arts and cultural organisations in
England use technology », Digital Culture
2015
• « Digital to the Core », M. Rasking & G.
Waller
• « Organization Design for Desing
Organisations », P. Merholz
• « UX Design for Startups », M. Treder
• « The Goal », E.M. Goldratt
• « Agile Product Management with
Scrum », R. Pichler
• « The New Product Development with
Lean Startup and Scrum », R. Pichler
• « The Lean Product Playbook », D. Olsen
• « The Startup Owner’s Manual », S.Blank
& B.Dorf
• « The principles of Product
Development Flow », D. Reinersten
• « Innovation et Transformation
Organisationnelle », J.M. DeJonghe
• « Canadian Banks 2016, Embracing
FinTech movement », pWc

24. A G I L E D I G I TA L E N T E R P R I S E
Pierre E. NEIS
L O N D O N
pierre@wecompany.me
+352 661 727 867
Christopher Mann
PA R I S
christopher@mann.fr
+33 781 811 811
Pierre Hervouet
B E I R U T
phervouet@upward.consulting
+961 3 665 755
Rudi Bringtowm
L U X E M B O U R G
rudi.bringtown@cx-first.com
+352 691 799 650
Michael Tarnowski
W I E S B A D E N
info@play-in-business.com
+49 172 69 15 261
Giovanni Puliti
F I R E N Z E
gpuliti@mokabyte.it