“Our customers have told us they’re getting the products and services they have always wanted. We’re connecting with them to understand and solve their pain points at a pace previously unheard of in Fletcher Building”
—Wayne Armstrong, GM Digital & Marketing at PlaceMakers
Industry:
Construction, Manufacturing, Recycling
Quick Facts:
Approximately 150 people trained and practicing SAFe
2 ARTS, 5 Value Streams
Fletcher Building followed the full implementation roadmap to ensure all their people (including multiple partners across multiple geographies) were trained and aligned before launching each of the trains.
They also focussed on gaining buy-in from executives of the business units as well as IT leadership through a Leading SAFe course. This helped them understand the theory and enabled buy-in to the radical change in approach.
Including the Business Change team in the ART created the organization’s first cross-functional business team with marketing, operations, digital team, and digital support.
Outcomes & Lessons Learned:
Improved reliability (~ 94% predictability) and frequency of releases as well as accelerated development into market enabled better comms and created a competitive advantage
Creating a cross-functional alignment helped to drive digital adoption.
Following human-centred design and focusing on solving customer pain points was integral to achieving the organization’s goals.
They shifted conversations from time/cost/budget to customer experience and prioritisation (fixed capacity) and benefit realisation.
They did discovery in parallel to development, which enabled a relentless improvement of products.
The transformation resulted in a more than 90% customer satisfaction in products. Customers are more highly engaged than ever before.
Ecommerce revenues jumped from $0 in 2019 to $300+ million in 2022
Over time, the teams created strong bonds, took ownership of the objectives, and created their own innovation features, which accelerated development and ensured that Fletcher Building achieved its initial $100m sales target a year ahead of schedule.
Overview
SAFe helped Fletcher Building transform their large, complex portfolio organisation by completely changing how they implement technology solutions. They moved from siloed teams and waterfall technology practices to customer-led cross functional teams aligned around delivering prioritised business outcomes.
The company faced initial challenges, such as getting buy-in from a decentralized IT department and overcoming the organizational mindset that “going fast” was a problem for IT to solve. Additionally, there was a six to seven hour time difference between Fletcher Building and their software development vendors, which made it more challenging for people to align and communicate.
“There is always resistance to change,” explains Wayne Armstrong, GM Digital & Marketing at PlaceMakers, the retail trading arm of Fletcher Building. “Initially there was a belief within parts of the organization that this is a nice theory but would never work in our highly complex, fragmented organization with a huge number of disparate systems and vendors.”
To overcome this, Fletcher Building worked with a dedicated partner, Pretty Agile, and focused on ensuring the culture of the teams was strong with a very engaged leadership who actively addressed some of the risks quickly. Pretty Agile was able to challenge the organization’s thinking and help set them up for success leading up to launch.
In the end, SAFe helped Fletcher Building to halve the time and cost to implement technology, exponentially increase digital revenue, and make a step change in staff engagement and customer satisfaction.
A closer look at a successful transformation journey
“Ultimately it’s not about the SAFe framework. It’s about people. It’s about engagement. It’s about satisfying our customer that is ultimately what matters.”
— Hao Li, iSPCT, Allianz
Industry:
Insurance, Financial Services
Quick Facts:
With 159,000 employees worldwide, the Allianz Group serves more than 122 million customers (private and corporate) in 30+ countries
The BMP is organized around value streams in four business areas, with more than 95+ assets in its portfolio targeting over 66% of Allianz Group Property and Casualty Gross Written Premium
Key Takeaways:
Implementing SAFe allowed Allianz BMP to build trust, address five problem areas and find answers to:
Make data quality and measurement practices more consistent and transparent
Increase team delivery and predictability by addressing excessive work in progress
Improve alignment and address conflicting priorities across product segments, markets, operating entities, and stakeholder needs
Improve ownership and engagement to ensure clear connectivity between objectives and individual efforts
Decrease resistance to change with better change management structure
Overview
The Allianz Group is one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers. Allianz is the world’s #1 insurance brand, ranking among the top 30 global brands according to Interbrand 20241.
Within Allianz, the Business Master Platform (BMP) represents one of the largest transformation programs in the company’s history. The BMP aims to simplify and scale products and processes across the property and casualty business units. The platform involves multi-year transformation initiatives that bring business and IT together to harmonize products and processes across 30 countries.
“Having data and tools in place of course requires that people are able to use them, use them in the right way effectively… Data is the driver of transparency. And transparency is fostering alignment, and alignment at the end of the day stimulates the clarity, and trust is built through clarity”
— Lucia Krajcovic, Head of Business Master Platform (BMP) Management, Allianz SE
“The Lean Portfolio Management is really unique for our business and now it’s being requested all over the place, because it really was a game changer. We outperformed in 2023 financially. We achieved our OKRs. The strategy was super clear. We had improved our quality significantly. So we didn’t have any major noncompliance… and most importantly we gained back the trust from the markets and the customers first.”
—Ruti Avitan, VMO Leader, EMR & CM, Philips
Industry:
Healthcare, Medical Devices, Technology
Quick Facts:
Philips Global has 18 businesses across multiple continents, including 5 informatics businesses, which have adopted SAFe
In 2021, Philips Global invested 1.8 billion euros in research and development across all its business units
The Philips EMR & CM informatics products alone improve the lives of 95 million patients every year
Informatics customers include more than 9,000 hospitals across 70 countries
Lessons Learned:
Transformation is possible in a highly regulated environment like healthcare. Philips EMR & CM assigned a person to each team who was dedicated to documentation and validation in order to reduce delays and meet the more than 27 different compliance requirements they faced.
By moving away from an endless backlog of service tickets and managing defects to developing new tools and services, teams create more room for growth and innovation. They do this by defining epics, MVPs, and understanding value streams.
People-centric innovation: Philips asked themselves, what do people (in this case, patients and clinicians, nurses and technicians, consumers) really need? And how can they best support healthcare professionals with their workflow?
Sometimes focusing on fewer projects allows for greater scale, more innovation, better quality, and better flow of value to the customer.
Overview
In the past decade, Philips has transformed from a household products company to a focused leader in healthcare technology. The company offers medical devices such as CT and MRI machines, healthcare devices for personal use such as toothbrushes, and informatic systems for hospitals.
Philips has five informatics or software business units ranging from electronic medical records (EMR) and care management to clinical informatics, radiology, cardiovascular, and more. They began their SAFe transformation within informatics. “When I joined, this business specifically was fully waterfall, very hierarchical, especially in the R&D organization,” says Ruti Avitan, VMO Leader of the EMR & CM informatics business at Philips. “It was a business in trouble. We had a lot of red projects because of delays. We have more than 25 projects running in parallel. Each one had a different delivery date. We had escalation from customers on quality, and so on. So the motivation to do something was really high.”
Beginning in 2022, SAFe allowed the organization to define a Lean-Agile way of working and move from the traditional hierarchy to cross-functional teams. They shifted from project to product centricity, enhanced their knowledge, reduced the backlog, and made room for innovation. The result is an enterprise that is people- and patient-centric, focused on scalable innovations that prioritize safety, patient outcomes, supply chain resilience, and quality.
“When I joined, this business specifically was fully waterfall, very hierarchical, especially in the R&D organization… It was a business in trouble. We had a lot of red projects because of delays. We have more than 25 projects running in parallel. Each one has a different delivery date. We had escalation from customers on quality and so on. So the motivation to do something was really high.”
“I think our story has resonance with lots of other people, probably like myself, who find themselves in positions of leadership in today’s world and maybe don’t have the background in technology particularly. That’s one thing I will say, and I think this is sometimes controversial, but I often get nods when I say it. Technology is not the main event.”
—Saima Satti, Head of Global Exams Business Improvement, British Council
Industry:
Education, English language, and Cultural Sectors
Quick Facts:
Founded in 1934, the British Council has focused on building connections for 90 years.
It is a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. Most income comes from partnership agreements, contracts, philanthropy, teaching and exams, and they also receive grant-in-aid funding from the UK government.
The Council is currently present in 100+ countries.
As part of their growth and development, the British Council’s Global Exams Business Improvement team created a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence and embedded a SAFe think tank.
Most of the team’s leadership is SAFe certified.
Outcomes & Lessons Learned:
It’s not all about technology. The adoption of SAFe enabled the development and delivery of over 150 initiatives including a balanced proportion of both Technology and non-tech improvements that deliver value across the world.
SAFe enabled the delivery of value more efficiently and more broadly across the globe.
The adoption of LPM and work on multiple portfolios with an overarching Portfolio of Portfolios was game changing for the teams, stakeholders and ultimately the realisation of value. Even though we realised we were already working at portfolio level when we started our SAFe journey we adapted and embedded accordingly ensuring SAFe worked for us .. and it did! Key lesson there is to try and find a way through and not get overly worried that your context is already more complex.
With SAFe, they were able to shift their focus to “people, passions, and pivots” and accelerate the flow of value.
Critical to success was culture and it was important to foster a culture of safety through communication events, peer support, and sharing vision and strategy across every level.
Involve everyone, from the most junior person to leadership. Respect your people and culture.
Work toward alignment, transparency, and continuous improvement.
If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the business and they will take care of the customer.
Overview
The British Council is an organization that works for a more peaceful and prosperous world by building connections and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. Working with people in over 200 countries and territories and with presence on the ground in more than 100 countries.
Uniquely combining the UK’s deep expertise in arts and culture, education and the English language, global presence and relationships in over 100 countries with unparalleled access to young people, creatives and educators, and their own creative sparkle, the British council will reach 650 million people this year alone.
One of the focus areas of the organization is administering examinations, helping people gain access to trusted qualifications to support their career and study prospects. About 5 million exams are administered at more than 850 locations worldwide.
The British Council’s Global Exams Business improvement team, dispersed across 23 countries, implemented SAFe to help break down silos and to reduce wasted time in handovers between tech teams, systems teams, process, and implementation. They also wanted to align their culture around a shared strategy and vision and were able to do so with SAFe.
Though transformations are widespread, not all feel successful.
I am blessed to have been able to take part in many transformations.
And in the transformations I’ve been a part of, I’ve found similarities. This goes for Agile transformations, digital transformations, business transformations, and my own more personal transformations.
In this blog post, I’ll share executive behaviors that I’ve seen produce unhappy employees and decreased outcomes:
Lack of clarity and communication
No connection to middle management
Passivity
I will also share patterns that created positive outcomes for the employees and the end users:
Leading with heart
Leading with honesty
Leading with accountability
Leading by example
Executive leadership is not the only impact on success or failure. But I’ve seen and felt that strong agile executives enable transformations to be motivational and positive.
Three Ways Executives Break Transformations
Beginning a transformation and not following through can have immense ripple effects throughout an organization.
To begin a transformation, we must ask people to change. Change is something humans have a natural negative reaction to unless they feel safe.
Transformation failures start with this basic premise: we must feel safe to change. Executives who don’t enable safety at scale are not enabling a transformation.
Lack of clarity and communication
Executives are decision-makers.
Leaders must remember that those under their supervision must live with their decisions. Thus, the leader needs to listen to the ideas and concerns of everyone involved before making and imposing a decision.
This does not mean leaders must follow the suggestions or ideas of everyone. But they must hear and consider what those under their supervision believe before making a decision.
A leader needs to make decisions in a way that those affected by the decision can believe they were heard. Those affected should also know there were reasons why their ideas were not incorporated into the final decision.
Leaders are not “commanders” but must make decisions and be clear about them. Transformations with executives who attempt to please everyone in the moment only ensure that nothing is clear. In this situation, happiness is, at best, temporary.
No connection to middle management
Middle managers have complicated jobs with conflicting priorities. They must focus on in-the-moment concerns as well as long-term strategies. Also, they must find ways to care about the humans that work for them while completing the larger mission of the company. And in most cases, they are not incentivized for these behaviors.
Rewarding these middle management behaviors and outcomes builds a system unable to transform:
Siloed improvements
Heroics by individuals over systemic improvements that eliminate the need for heroics
Meeting dates at the sacrifice of employee and end-user well-being
Passivity
Passivity is the biggest failure of executive leadership in times that need change and transformation.
Passive leadership, in my experience, is executives who say they want a transformation and even hire a team to do so and then stop getting involved.
To create a generative culture of engaged workers, a leader must engage. Executive leaders who step back from the decisions and motivations of their workforce may have happy accidents. But they won’t have the intentional system that builds the culture required to keep their enterprise focused on the appropriate risks and learnings to speed up outcomes.
Four Ways Executives Make Transformations
I’ve managed to interact with many executives throughout my career. Because of this, I’ve internalized my belief on what makes an “agile executive.”
Agile executives hold these transformation leaders accountable for outcomes and results while taking accountability for removing blockers and giving the group the time needed to change. They vocalize and act upon SAFe transformation as a journey that should have measurable and time-bound moments but is never complete.
Agile executives understand their most important asset is the people who work within the company.
Leading with heart
The desire to inspire others comes to mind first. Agile executives are purposeful about inspiring individuals they come across day to day as well as large groups. They do this through clarity of vision but also by taking the time to do so. They find pride in making others feel better, even momentarily, for having spoken with them.
The agile executive doesn’t talk at people; they talk with them and encourage others to talk with each other along the way. Agile executives understand their most important asset is the people who work within the company. They understand this in economic and human terms: employees who are happy, enabled, and mission-driven produce better economic outcomes than those who are not.
A motivating example of leading with heart is in the customer story from Porsche’s leadership. I felt inspired by these agile executives’ connection to the heart of their workforce and how they brought that heart to life together across organizational boundaries.
Leading with honesty
Agile executives know that if those they lead doubt for one second that they are being honest with them or that they don’t have the best interest of their people at the forefront, harm will occur.
Depending on the products the enterprise creates, this harm could result in not only decreased customer outcomes but actual physical or mental harm to employees and end users.
Agile executives know that trust doesn’t occur in meetings; it happens in moments between them. And they encourage leaders throughout the company to know the same. They own up to mistakes immediately and celebrate those who act upon errors as learning moments.
Leading with accountability
Agile executives hold themselves and others accountable for the transformation at hand. They provide clarity of strategy, prioritization reasoning, and clear intent, creating a fertile ground to hold people accountable.
They also select and empower a group of trusted individuals who have shown desire and competency to move the full business along. To do this, they look for those who believe the company mission and customer outcomes could improve through change and have the relentless positive energy to make it happen.
Agile executives hold these transformation leaders accountable for outcomes and results while taking accountability for removing blockers and giving the group the time needed to change. They vocalize and act upon transformation as a journey that should have measurable and time-bound moments but is never complete.
A personal vignette
This moment continues to stick with me as a clear example of leading with honesty and accountability.
When I was a senior director a few years into leading a SAFe® transformation inside an organization, a new C-suite leader asked to meet with me in her first couple of weeks on the job.
During this meeting, we discussed where I saw opportunities and what I was hoping to achieve over the next year. She ended the call with a few statements that renewed my energy and began an amazing working relationship.
She said:
I appreciate your candor and ability to see the full system. I know this is a journey, not a destination. My ask is to continue to be bold, open, gritty, and kind. My other ask is a challenge to you. If you can help the teams and trains gain 5 percent efficiency in how they produce their work, we will have $$ (number left out on purpose, but it was A LOT) to fund additional efficiencies and improvements. Be the person who tells me how to do this, what you need from me, my peers, and the organization to succeed. I will be there with you, and I ask you to be accountable to that initial result, with more challenges from me after we succeed.
Agile executives are action-based. The transforming organization mimics their actions, not their words.
First, they ask for and receive coaching and education, knowing that lifelong learning is how they got to their position. And no title they have eliminates the need to continue learning, especially in today’s changing age.
Then Agile executives work hard to form teams amongst their peers, exemplifying team behaviors and living the same practices they ask their employees to have. They share their improvement backlogs and communicate their wins, failures, and hopes authentically.
Finally, agile executives show up, physically and mentally, to events made up of cross-functional roles spanning hierarchies held within the organization, encouraging behaviors that create alignment and discouraging siloes. They learn the words of the transformation and frequently meet with those they hold accountable for the transformational steps. This ensures space to raise and resolve risks, blockers, and detractors to progress.
Aspire to Your Own Transformation
Transformational agile executives have a good sense of themselves and their role in the overall scheme of the endeavor in which they’re engaged. Leaders cannot take themselves too seriously but need also to recognize that their conduct establishes a pattern for those under their leadership to follow. Agile executives teach by example as much as by any other means available to them.
Leadership requires that a leader respect those under their supervision and treat them as equals. Regardless of the type of transformation which you are deciding to lead, I hope this blog inspires you to inspire others and to continue aspiring to your own transformation.
Be the change.
About Rebecca Davis
Rebecca Davis is a Scaled Agile Framework team member within Scaled Agile, Inc., a SAFe Fellow, SPCT, and a Principal Consultant. She has led multiple transformations as a LACE Director, RTE, Portfolio Manager, and Coach. Rebecca has experience helping organizations create joy in the workplace by connecting employees to each other and user outcomes.
