It’s Hard to Roadmap Your Way to Agile Excellence

Written By Allison Pollard

Photo by Lindsay Henwood

Imagine a Powerpoint slide with a graphic of a roadway that stretches from left to right. Along the road, there are callouts for different scenic features or attractions along the way. You can imagine what you’d see as you move along the road. It’s visually appealing and easy to understand.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen these road images used as a metaphor for the agile transformation journey. They can be reassuring to leaders in providing more certainty of what changes will happen and when. They can be challenging for agile coaches to create and agree upon.

If you find yourself struggling to create a roadmap to excellence for your agile transformation, check out this presentation on Getting to Better Problems that Tim Haagenson and I shared virtually at the AgileShift conference. We applied the improvement kata to frame desired outcomes and experiments, and we found that it enabled teams to have more ownership and buy-in of the changes needed for success.

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
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