Introducing Path to Agility to the Team

Keys to Success

One of the keys to a successful P2A workshop is orienting the participants to the Path to Agility approach.

There are several ways you can introduce Path to Agility to your team, team of teams, ALT, Leadership, etc. 

Prior to the workshop, you may opt to send: 

• A link to the video Path to Agility Overview (6 minutes)
• A link to or a PDF of the Overview of Path to Agility (P2A)

You may also opt to show the video, or present "slides" at the beginning of your workshop.

As part of your introduction to Path to Agility, you will be setting the expectation that the participants of your workshop are on a transformation journey. Because this journey introduces changes to the status quo, chaos, adverse reactions, and resistance are all likely to arise. This has been accounted for within Path to Agility. 

When explaining the five Path to Agility stages with your workshop participants, be sure to explain that each stage builds upon the previous one. It is not necessary to complete one to begin the next; for example,  it may make sense for a team to focus on two stages at once while working towards different outcomes. 

Lastly, and most importantly, it should be emphasized that the goal during the transformation is not to simply implement more practices, but instead focus on achieving desired outcomes. 

“Why” Transform?

When organizations undertake an Agile transformation, it is important to understand why they are making this investment. Organizations should not undertake a major change initiative like this simply to be “Agile.” Instead, they should be seeking specific business outcomes such as reducing waste, increasing ROI, becoming more predictable, faster time-to-market, developing the ability to embrace change, and pivoting in the face of changing market needs. 

Team and Team-of-Teams Context

Typically, before a team Path to Agility workshop or a team-of-teams assessment is conducted, a separate leadership workshop will have already identified specific business outcomes which will drive the overarching themes for why the organization should transform. In addition, the Agile Leadership Team, ALT, will frequently have communicated these business outcomes with the appropriate portfolios, programs, team of teams, and teams.  

Team Coaches will then discuss how team-level Agile outcomes and capabilities will help achieve the organization’s business goals.

When discussing the “Why” at the Team level, this often translates into things like:

• Need for a common vision and roadmap
• Need for a clear understanding of who their customer and stakeholders are
• Team and Business/Customer Alignment
• Effective work prioritization 
• Working Agreements and a shared understanding of what it means for work to be “done”
• The importance of incremental delivery and quality feedback loops

Example Script to Introduce Path to Agility

Consider using the following language to introduce Path to Agility to the participants in an upcoming Path to Agility team workshop. 

Has your [insert your context here, e.g., Team, Release Train, Program, Portfolio, etc. ] struggled with embracing more agile ways of work? Do you or others around you feel it's not working and want to go back to the old way? 

Transforming isn’t easy and tends to be very uncomfortable. Transformation involves stretching in ways you never have before, perhaps even in ways you thought impossible. In many cases, you will even see and experience some challenges to your core beliefs. Because being Agile is a journey, it is not a checklist nor a simple formula or recipe for everyone to follow. To help you along the journey, we’re going to use a proven approach called the Path to Agility®. 

In this workshop, we will walk through Path to Agility®, a model used to connect business and Agile capabilities to reach desired outcomes like faster time-to-market, increased customer satisfaction, greater predictability, etc. 

You will help to identify where to focus your efforts, which capabilities are needed in order to achieve those outcomes, and how to show your progress along the way. 

Supporting Documents

The following slides, handouts, and graphics are available for your download and use:

Path to Agility Stages and Change Curve.pdf	Path to Agility Slides.pptx	Path to Agility Multi-page Handout.pdf	Path to Agility One-page Handout.pdf	Path to Agility Business Outcomes Poster.pdf

Facilitating for Outcomes

It is critical for Business Outcomes to remain front and center of the transformation as well as during this team workshop.

Path to Agility connects Agile Outcomes and Agile capabilities that will help accomplish those Business Outcomes. And the desired Business Outcomes should help prioritize which Agile Outcomes to focus on. So, be sure to mention the Business Outcomes selected during the Leadership Workshop to help orient the participants in your workshop around a compelling and urgent goal.

After you have introduced Path to Agility to your participants and have shared the Business Outcomes, you are ready to help them execute their first exercise: assessment of the current state to help identify the areas of greatest risk or improvement opportunities focusing on Agile Outcomes for the first two or three Path to Agility stages (e.g. Align, Learn, and Predict).