WAIºOºBLUE

How lean are your steps before writing an agile contracts and are todays proposals really as lean as they could be?-Is it may be possible to create a proposal on just ONE A4?

In my long time experience at delivery companies we were more and more allowed to close agile contracts. Main reason was that the customer was aware of booking an agile team, invoicing was in T+M and scope wasn’t really defined yet. However the offering process somehow still stayed the same: RfI >> RfP >> RfQ.

  This meant a lot of effort fur as a delivery company. We had just a team of presales consultants and developers that mainly just did that. We had to create the answer to the Rfx documents, create milestone plans and cost estimations. Both based at no clear defined scope. Furthermore we usually implemented a customized demo application too.

"Going through a classic offering process cost us for a bigger project an effort of usually 3-5 man months all-in"  -- Mirko Kleiner, ex VP Delivery of a Swiss software company

The through-put time from first request until we got the final notice quite often took 2-3 months. From both sides delivery company and customer this seemed to me a loose-loose situation. The customer might loose his window for time-to-market and also at his side the classic offering process needs a *lot of resources *over a long time. But what is the alternative?

The agile contract gives already the answer: We should focus more finding the best partner with the best matching resources we trust, than loosing opportunities while going through a sequencial process. Of course we still need to know do we have the right solution, that will resolve our problem and how long will it take and cost.

Therefor I see the following steps to achieve a* more lean offering process*:

1st step: Setup of an agile x-functional evaluation team

2nd step: New way of the definition of high-level requirements

3rd step: A proposal on an 1 A4 only

4th step: Isn’t there more than the A4?

5th step: Agile process of Evaluation

6th step: Bringing all together

7th step: Starting the cooperation

My main 3 goals are ambitious as I’d like to create with this new toolset a* win-win situation* for customers and there partners:

Proposal document should take place at ONE A4 and with it’s predefined structure it makes it more easy to create and multiple proposals comparable

An evaluation per bidder should be finished within 1 day for both, so that trough-put time of whole evaluation is days and not weeks or months

How lean are your steps before writing an agile contracts and are todays proposals really as lean as they could be?-Is it may be possible to create a proposal on just ONE A4?

In my long time experience at delivery companies we were more and more allowed to close agile contracts. Main reason was that the customer was aware of booking an agile team, invoicing was in T+M and scope wasn’t really defined yet. However the offering process somehow still stayed the same: RfI >> RfP >> RfQ.

  This meant a lot of effort fur as a delivery company. We had just a team of presales consultants and developers that mainly just did that. We had to create the answer to the Rfx documents, create milestone plans and cost estimations. Both based at no clear defined scope. Furthermore we usually implemented a customized demo application too.

"Going through a classic offering process cost us for a bigger project an effort of usually 3-5 man months all-in"  -- Mirko Kleiner, ex VP Delivery of a Swiss software company

The through-put time from first request until we got the final notice quite often took 2-3 months. From both sides delivery company and customer this seemed to me a loose-loose situation. The customer might loose his window for time-to-market and also at his side the classic offering process needs a *lot of resources *over a long time. But what is the alternative?

The agile contract gives already the answer: We should focus more finding the best partner with the best matching resources we trust, than loosing opportunities while going through a sequencial process. Of course we still need to know do we have the right solution, that will resolve our problem and how long will it take and cost.

Therefor I see the following steps to achieve a* more lean offering process*:

1st step: Setup of an agile x-functional evaluation team

2nd step: New way of the definition of high-level requirements

3rd step: A proposal on an 1 A4 only

4th step: Isn’t there more than the A4?

5th step: Agile process of Evaluation

6th step: Bringing all together

7th step: Starting the cooperation

My main 3 goals are ambitious as I’d like to create with this new toolset a* win-win situation* for customers and there partners:

Proposal document should take place at ONE A4 and with it’s predefined structure it makes it more easy to create and multiple proposals comparable

An evaluation per bidder should be finished within 1 day for both, so that trough-put time of whole evaluation is days and not weeks or months

Met me and the greatest AGILIST'S from all over the world facing scaling agile at November, 10-11th, in London.

Contact us to get a voucher for reduced tickets now!

For more informations check RallyON.

Met me and the greatest AGILIST'S from Switzerland and near Europe at the agile un-conference November, the 4th, 09:30 at the SIX Swiss Exchange, ConventionPoint, Zürich.-For more informations check saq.ch.

Up till now strategies were developed top-down, 1-5 years ahead and where quit static. As agile teams are getting continuously market feedback a strategy could get out of date very fast. But how to overcome this mismatch?

In classic organizations strategies were developed by management together with business development department top-down. Output of this is as quit static strategy, summarized with tools such as a company balanced score card, business model canvas, LEAN Canvas, etc with 3-5 focus topics  for the current year. Based at these focus topics the line organization gets it’s targets and budgets for projects are given and prioritized usually 1-2 times a year. How agile is that?-Especially if there are multiple agile teams this gets another dimension of complexity. But how to overcome all this issues?

"The strategy is developed by people that are to far away from the „problem“ or market and might be out-of-date within weeks"  -- Mirko Kleiner, July 2015

It seems as there is a more agile tactical layer missing between strategy and operational execution?-With some of our customers we’ve solved this with an agile portfolio Board. This group of people (representatives of the main business areas) decides together about the business value of the upcoming new ideas, if the current priorities needs to be changed and if original strategy is still fine. The key thing is to form/update a strategy together, so no more political games for resources in the agile teams.

The way they practices this is agile too. They do continuous improvement by retrospective meetings to improve the process and update the frame conditions.

As the business portfolio kanban board is transparent to every employee everybody is always inline with the current priorities. This gets very important in a scaled agile organization of multiple agile teams. Furthermore by putting all initiatives to a kanban board makes these visible and more easily to identify constraints and work in progress. As the business portfolio board is meeting on a regular bases the progress is getting visible and the strategy becomes alive. Even better, things are getting done and everybody could celebrate joint success!

What, if work wouldn't dominate your life?-The Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler, book author of "The SEMCO System - Management WITHOUT Manager", has a Vision that reminds me to the principles of Manament 3.0. In his TED.com inspiration speech he further developed and has already implemented this idea: What, if schools would work like this too?

Am 20. Juni 15 hatte ich das Vergnügen an der Züricher Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) ein Gastreferat im Rahmen des Masterstudiengangs Product Management & Innovation zu halten, was auch für mich spannend war in weit die agilen Werte und Methoden bei heutigen Product Manager bereits angekommen sind?

Um es vorweg zu nehmen, ich habe sehr wissbegierig und auf Ihre Weise agile Product Manager angetroffen. Einige wenige, nur gerade 7-14% (bei einer Klassengrösse von 14 Studenten), waren früher schon mit Scrum oder Business Model Canvas in Berührung gekommen. Aktiv in ihrem Alltag nutze aber niemand diese Werkzeuge.

Somit hatte sich meine These leider bestätigt, dass hier grosser Nachholbedarf besteht. Oder in den Worten von Rainer Fuchs (Leiter Product Management Center) sollte ich mit meiner Inspiration Speech aufzuzeigen wie heute mithilfe von agilen Werten und Instrumenten wie Lean Canvas in Kombination mit Scrum/Kanban/etc Innovation- und Produkt Management betrieben wird. 

Die Slides dazu findet Ihr nachfolgend bzw. unter Slideshare.

 Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse waren:

Minimum Valuable Products (MvP) mittels Lean Canvas erleichtern die Schärfung des Business Cases in einer effektiven Weise, vergleiche Ash Maurya „Running Lean"

Diese MvP’s schnell am Markt zu testen erhöhen Time-to-Market um Faktoren und liefert wertvolles Kunden-Feedback für die Weiterentwicklung der Business Idee

Scrum ist dabei ein effektives Mittel zur Erhöhung der Kommunikation und der Zusammenarbeit in einem x-funktionalen Team

Met me at the greatest EBussiness CONFERENCE OF GERMANY September, the 18th and 19th, in MUNICH.-For more informations check K5-Website.

Met me at the greatest EBussiness CONFERENCE OF GERMANY September, the 18th and 19th, in MUNICH.-For more informations check K5-Website.

Met me at the greatest MARKETING CONFERENCE OF GERMANY September, the 10th and 11th, in COLOGNE  all day long and in the evening at the PARTY.-For more informations check DMEXCO-Website.

Met me and the NOMINEE'S of the Swiss ICT Award 2014 Switzerland and over 800 representatives of Swiss Economy Leaders November, the 5th, 14:00 at the KKL in Lucerne.-For more informations check Swiss ICT Award-Website.

After a great time of 19 months at wordpress we decided to make all new, even giving us a name.

How it came to the name [WAI•O•BLUE]?

One of our principles is to always start with WHY. So it was clear that a new name has to start with "Y", or pronounced [WAI]. As Agile is all about collaboration and organizations an "O" should be part of it too. Well "y-o" was nice, but there was somehow no goal. Where this all should lead to?-As inventing of new improved agile approaches is our aim too the [BLUE] Ocean Strategy hits the target. 

[WAI•O•BLUE] - The CONTINUOUS LOOKING FOR BLUE OCEAN'S TO BECOME ORGANIZATIONS MORE AGILE, EMPLOYEES HAPPIER AND MAKING A BETTER WORLD!

- Mirko Kleiner, July 2014 -

The logo underlines meanings above.

Ω pronounced [Omega] is the last greek letter, capital [o] or mega [o]. In other words we are caring about the weakest link in Organization as we do for the best'.

While the Organization Ω is always just surrounding the WHY [Y], that represents the Business Outcome. In other words Organization has to be as adaptable, or AGILE, as needed and never the other way round!

[WAI] or water/flow in Māori underlines that everything is in a constant flow.

Furthermore stands [WAI•O] for an Italian expression used to call a young person; often to get their attention.

After a great time of 19 months at wordpress we decided to make all new, even giving us a name.

How it came to the name [WAI•O•BLUE]?

One of our principles is to always start with WHY. So it was clear that a new name has to start with "Y", or pronounced [WAI]. As Agile is all about collaboration and organizations an "O" should be part of it too. Well "y-o" was nice, but there was somehow no goal. Where this all should lead to?-As inventing of new improved agile approaches is our aim too the [BLUE] Ocean Strategy hits the target. 

[WAI•O•BLUE] - The CONTINUOUS LOOKING FOR BLUE OCEAN'S TO BECOME ORGANIZATIONS MORE AGILE, EMPLOYEES HAPPIER AND MAKING A BETTER WORLD!

- Mirko Kleiner, July 2014 -

The logo underlines meanings above.

Ω pronounced [Omega] is the last greek letter, capital [o] or mega [o]. In other words we are caring about the weakest link in Organization as we do for the best'.

While the Organization Ω is always just surrounding the WHY [Y], that represents the Business Outcome. In other words Organization has to be as adaptable, or AGILE, as needed and never the other way round!

[WAI] or water/flow in Māori underlines that everything is in a constant flow.

Furthermore stands [WAI•O] for an Italian expression used to call a young person; often to get their attention.

After a great time of 19 months at wordpress we decided to make all new, even giving us a name.

How it came to the name [WAI•O•BLUE]?

One of our principles is to always start with WHY. So it was clear that a new name has to start with "Y", or pronounced [WAI]. As Agile is all about collaboration and organizations an "O" should be part of it too. Well "y-o" was nice, but there was somehow no goal. Where this all should lead to?-As inventing of new improved agile approaches is our aim too the [BLUE] Ocean Strategy hits the target. 

[WAI•O•BLUE] - The CONTINUOUS LOOKING FOR BLUE OCEAN'S TO BECOME ORGANIZATIONS MORE AGILE, EMPLOYEES HAPPIER AND MAKING A BETTER WORLD!

- Mirko Kleiner, July 2014 -

The logo underlines meanings above.

Ω pronounced [Omega] is the last greek letter, capital [o] or mega [o]. In other words we are caring about the weakest link in Organization as we do for the best'.

While the Organization Ω is always just surrounding the WHY [Y], that represents the Business Outcome. In other words Organization has to be as adaptable, or AGILE, as needed and never the other way round!

[WAI] or water/flow in Māori underlines that everything is in a constant flow.

Furthermore stands [WAI•O] for an Italian expression used to call a young person; often to get their attention.