• Cases

Environmental Defense. Support for Climate Justice? You do that Agile

Vereniging Milieudefensie asked Scrum Academy to scale the success of its first Scrum Team to other teams. The goal? An Agile organization with radical focus on environmental results.

Step-by-step toward support

Approach the transition Agile, too? Good idea. The plan was as follows: train all teams, train Agile coaches and bring the mindset into the organization. After just two training sessions, the first plan took off. The teams picked up Agile working much faster and easier than previously estimated.

The focus shifted to bringing synergy between teams. How do you get 5-6 teams to work toward the same goal? The answer was the introduction of Radical Focus. This is a system for using a cascade of goals to link all efforts to the organizational goal.

And then…

Teams acted more purposefully and found each other working together. A fruitful way of working emerged that was Agile to the core. With Radical Focus on goals, teams quickly came up with better project plans compared to how things were before. A fine result!

“What have you done to us? We only talk about focus at parties anymore!”

“Thanks! Valuable and useful. Gradually the feeling is growing in me that the need in the organization is changing.”

Support

The next issue was to better support and excel the teams. The first step was to work with management on managing for results rather than managing for execution according to plan. It was time for a new kind of alignment that focused on a culture of inquiry and learning.

The second step in support was to redesign the accounting systems… Facilitating the learning organization. The new dashboards made tracking budgets and results very clear. The teams intervened quickly – where necessary – and were agile in the learning moments.

“The speed with which Environmental Defense picked up the Agile mindset is unparalleled. Their focus on their mission was very inspiring. The resulting energy led to a fine collaboration.”

Concrete result

– Multiple Agile teams working in a coordinated manner
– Agile transition throughout the organization, including beyond the project teams
– Adapting ERP systems to Agile working methods
– More active and creative teams
– Organization-wide focus and harmonization of objectives.