1.
: HEIDELBERG : +4916099872449 PIERRE.NEIS@AGILESQR.COM
the AO model
how to build a system allowing agile behaviour
1
RA _Un-Symposium
NYC, 02/19

2.
2

3.
3
and what kind of agile is
your agile?

4.
Agile & Agile
Mindset, what does
this mean?
4
1

5.
what kind of agile is your
agile?
5
• this question has been asked to most of the team
(around 70 people) before explaining what agile
means
• quantitative means that agile is seen as results
• behaviour means that agile is how people are
interacting together
• process, agile is understood like a process or a
methodology
• bypass, people didn´t answered the question due
to communication issues or lack of focus
17 %
17 %
behaviour
47 %
19 %
quantitative
behaviour
process
bypass the question

6.
6
from Gallup
2018 study of employees in France,
Germany, Spain and the UK
In operational terms, the concept of agility can be defined as employees’
capacity to gather and disseminate information about changes in the
environment, and respond to that information quickly and
expediently.
From a strategic perspective, this combination of speed and data-driven
innovation is increasingly important for many businesses to maintain a
competitive advantage.

7.
8
points of attention
Learn to be wrong Make working together
expected and easy
“Matrixed” does
not equal “agile”
Agile
organisations are
grounded in
strong, customer-
centric cultures
one of the most powerful advantages fo agile
companies is ability to give employees a sense of
optimism about the organisation´s capacity to
survive - and thrive - amid disruptive marketplace
conditions.
mindset

8.
9
cultural values and practices
with real impact
organisation performance
innovation & growth
customer satisfaction & reputation
profitability
iterating
rapidly
collaborating
fluidly
decisions
taken with data
moving fast
obsession
over customers
quickly
taking advance of
opportunities
working
seamlessly cross
boundaries
Deborah Soule, MIT Emeritus
mindset

9.
10
Agility requires the capability to survive
and prosper in a competitive environ-
ment of continuous and unpredictable
change by reacting quickly and
effectively to changing markets, driven
by customer-designed products and
services
Cho et al. 1996

10.
Key to Agility and Flexibility?
11
• To determine customer needs
quickly and continuously reposition
the company against it’s
competitors.
• To design things quickly based on
those individual needs.
• To put them into full scale, quality ,
production quickly.
• To respond to changing volumes
and mix quickly.
• To respond to a crisis quickly.

11.
44
agile as a
system
12
2

12.
JASON
Jason is a junior. He is very passionate about his new job.
Where can he get the right information.? How long should it take?
13
the story of
Jason

13.
JASON
Jason love to dance. He meets Elsa, the assistant of the CEO, at the salsa course.
They become closer. They talk a lot together, they talk all the time about the
company during their free time. Jason has now more information than his boss.
14
ELSA

14.
JUNIOR
ELSA
THIS IS ORGANIZATION
15

15.
JUNI OR
ELSA
this is structure
16

16.
JUNI OR
Agile means organisation over structure.
ELSA
17

17.
44
the AO
concept
18
3

18.
19
AO means agile Organisations and
it is a simple framework allowing
your organisation to experiment with
agile behaviour.
Organisations are behaving like
social networks with very simple
rules:
• agents or people as a single entity
• alignment: how agents line up
with each other
• cohesion: what binds agents
together
• separation: what separates agents
from each other
This is also known as flocking
behaviour experimented by Craig
Reynolds with Boids or with the
magic roundabout in Swindon(UK).

19.
20
alignment
cohesion
(system)
separation
interaction of agents
Quarterly Roadmap
F L O C K I N G B E H AV I O U R I N T H E A O C O N T E X T
Example

20.
21
R O B U S T N E S S /
R E S P O N S I V E N E S S

21.
22
B L A C K S WA N
In 21st-century work, the strong focus on
robustness leads to critical disaster.
T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY B U S I N E S S W I L L H AV E T O
O V E R C O M E T H E C H A L L E N G E S O F C U S T O M E R S
S E E K I N G H I G H - Q U A L I T Y, L O W - C O S T P R O D U C T S , A N D
B E R E S P O N S I V E T O C U S T O M E R S ’ S P E C I F I C U N I Q U E
A N D R A P I D LY C H A N G I N G N E E D S
B U N C E A N D G O U L D 1 9 9 6
A G I L I T Y R E Q U I R E S T H E C A PA B I L I T Y T O S U R V I V E
A N D P R O S P E R I N A C O M P E T I T I V E E N V I R O N - M E N T
O F C O N T I N U O U S A N D U N P R E D I C TA B L E C H A N G E
B Y R E A C T I N G Q U I C K LY A N D E F F E C T I V E LY T O
C H A N G I N G M A R K E T S , D R I V E N B Y C U S T O M E R -
D E S I G N E D P R O D U C T S A N D S E R V I C E S
C H O E T A L . 1 9 9 6
Focus on robustness

22.
23
B L A C K S WA N
In 21st-century work, the strong focus on
robustness leads to critical disaster.
T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U RY B U S I N E S S W I L L H AV E T O
O V E R C O M E T H E C H A L L E N G E S O F C U S T O M E R S
S E E K I N G H I G H - Q U A L I T Y, L O W - C O S T P R O D U C T S , A N D
B E R E S P O N S I V E T O C U S T O M E R S ’ S P E C I F I C U N I Q U E
A N D R A P I D LY C H A N G I N G N E E D S
B U N C E A N D G O U L D 1 9 9 6
A G I L I T Y R E Q U I R E S T H E C A PA B I L I T Y T O S U R V I V E
A N D P R O S P E R I N A C O M P E T I T I V E E N V I R O N - M E N T
O F C O N T I N U O U S A N D U N P R E D I C TA B L E C H A N G E
B Y R E A C T I N G Q U I C K LY A N D E F F E C T I V E LY T O
C H A N G I N G M A R K E T S , D R I V E N B Y C U S T O M E R -
D E S I G N E D P R O D U C T S A N D S E R V I C E S
C H O E T A L . 1 9 9 6
Focus on robustness
TERRIBLY
W
RO
NG

23.
24
B L A C K S WA N

24.
25
responsive organisations
crowd
B U I L D A R E S P O N S I V E O R G A N I S AT I O N T O A L L O W E M E R G E N T B E H AV I O U R .

25.
26
“BIG” responsive
organisations
swarm
organisation
a consolidated
portfolio
border is the
structure
1 team = 1 portfolio
T H E C O N C E P T R E M A I N S T H E S A M E A S F O R S M A L L E R O R G A N I S AT I O N S T O AV O I D O V E R P R O C E S S I N G WA S T E .

26.
where to start?
27

27.
For the understanding, we need to discover how
we work
28
structure
organisation
Boss
orders
assumption is
made that a single
person has the
whole knowledge
subordinates
execute orders,
managers are
planing and
executing
Leaders
assumption is made that
leaders gives a direction and
participants are focusing to
deliver as much value
possible to the organization

28.
The situation
29
structure:
focus on
career within
the company:
individual value
organisation: focus on
business value, customer
value
a lot of
decoupled
individual
initiatives
a few high
valuable and
value bringing
initiatives
management
driven
customer driven

29.
30
Self directed Teams (Agile) Traditional Organization
customer-driven management driven
multi-skilled workforce workforce of isolated specialists
few job descriptions Many Job Descriptions
Information widely shared Information limited
Few levels of management Many levels of Management
Whole-business focus Function/department focus
Shared goals Segregated goals
Seemingly chaotic Seemingly organized
Purpose achievement emphasis Problem-solving emphasis
High worker commitment High Management commitment
Continuous improvements Incremental improvements
Self-controlled Management-controlled
Values/principles based Policy/procedure based
organisation structure
Our challenge is to switch the organisation from traditional to self directed
O A

30.
Pain points
31
• reactivity to change
• engagement at work
• waste of management work: bureaucracy
over productivity, distraction
• lack of accountability
• lack of transparency
• decision taken on non tested
assumptions
• more reactive work than pro-active work
• focus on image and branding
• surviving strategy

31.
32
alignment
cohesion
(system)
separation
interaction of agents
Remember Q Roadmap

32.
Principle
33
set up
venture
vision
each work stream defines its
own vision for the next 3
months
all visions are consolidated
into a program vision and
challenged by stakeholders
dependencies are evaluated
and are constraints to
prioritisation
collective validation of the
release of the next 3
months incl. goals
3 months
fixed
strategical
scope
1 single
consolidated
vision
sort from low
to high
dependency
reciprocal
engagement
and
organisation

33.
Levels of Change
34
like traditional scrum
strategy
business
development
3 months Release
sprint
daily

34.
44
the AO change
strategy
35
4

35.
36
AOagile VC
D ISCOVERY
AWA K EN RUBIC ON
+ STRUCTURE + ORGANIZATION
A G I L E A S
E N T E R TA I N M E N T
A G I L E A S
M E T H O D O L O G Y
A G I L E A S
M I N D S E T
A G I L E A S
O R G A N I Z AT I O N
AO - transformation paths
WWW.AGILESQR.COM
paradigm shiftOLD NEW

36.
37
Corporate
structure
organisation plays the
game of agile
Robustness Responsiveness
+
+
-
-
• high control
• high consistency
• growth $$$$
• customer response
• pro activity
• mastery
The path step 1

37.
Step 2
38
Corporate
structure
organisation plays the game
of agile
+
+
-
-
• mostly
business-as-
usual work
• admin work
• everything to
control the
variability in
that system
• support as
commodity
• projects
• programs
• development
• research
• agile support
Managers
Leaders
reduce waste
less managers

38.
step 3
39
structure as safe-to-fail boundary
organisation plays the game
of agile
Step 3
light
structure
protecting the
organization from
turbulences allowing
a safe-to-fail
environment
• Company is working like
a venture capital
managing a portfolio of
ventures
• Product Owners of the
organization are
behaving like
intrapreneurs
• Projects or Programs are
Profit Centres
• Core structure activity is
funding, portfolio
management and
commodity
management.

39.
structure as safe-to-fail boundary
step 4
40
organisation plays the game of agile
Step 4just enough flat
structure
• Maturity level is
as its highest
level
• 100%
empowered
and engaged
people working
from anywhere
• ROWE working
model
• Working model
is similar as
Open Space
Tech

40.
41
Corporate
structure
organisation plays the
game of agile
Robustness
Responsiveness
+
+
-
-
• high control
• high consistency
Most of the scaling methods are maintaining structural status quo against paradigm shift.
old
paradigm
new
paradigm
Enterprise Scrum V1
Nexus

41.
42
Corporate
structure
organisation plays the
game of agile
Robustness
Responsiveness
+
+
-
-
• high control
• high consistency
• growth $$$$
• customer
response
• pro activity
• mastery
• most of
management
activities are
automatized
this is about doing more from the bad things. “Organization” means creating wealth for the
company and not for the purpose of a functional silo. All activities are cross-functional and teams
are mixed from people of all necessary areas to transform demand into value.
old
paradigm
new
paradigm
finance
marketing
sales
i t
support

42.
agile organisation
challenges when you are
global
43

43.
44
1 2 3
4
56
Main locations

44.
45
main location and subsidiaries
new system
all org
improvements
are feeding the
new system

45.
46
• For large organisation the challenge is to think that this model is not a
transposable pattern.
• Organizational development is continuous. Like when the behaviour of
a single team changes when a new mate is arriving, the whole
organisation will change when people are joining, people are leaving
or when the company is merging with another one.
• The AO Model is only helping you to understand how your “system” is
behaving and where you have to take action.

46.
44
get more…
47
5

47.
questions?
48

48.
49
W W W. M YA O . B L O G
H T T P : / / A G I L E - C O A C H I N G - A C A D E M Y. C O M
M O R E M AT E R I A L
H E R E

49.
thanks
50

50.
51
www.myao.blog
pierre.neis@agilesqr.com