"Real strategy deployment empowers teams to act on strategic intent with ownership and clarity." - Karl Scotland

We’re joined by Strategy Deployment expert Karl Scotland in this episode.

Karl helps businesses become Learning Organisations through outcome-oriented, continuous transformation, engaging everyone, everywhere.

Over the last 20+ years, he has been an advocate of Lean and Agile approaches to achieve this, working with companies including the BBC, Yahoo!, EMC Consulting, Rally Software, Cisco, SDL, Legal & General, Allegis, HSBC, Bank of America, Vocalink, Sky, and Irwin Mitchel.

During this time, he has been an early adopter of XP and Scrum, a contributor to Agendashift, and a pioneer of using Kanban Systems and Strategy Deployment for product development. He is a founding member of both the Lean Systems Society and Limited WIP Society, active in the Lean and Agile community, and a regular conference speaker. As a result, he was awarded the honorary Brickell Key Community Contribution Award at the 2013 Lean Kanban North America conference.

Our conversation explores Karl’s journey with Strategy Deployment, particularly how he learned and applied it during his time at Rally Software. He explains how models like the X-Matrix help to align aspirations, strategies, and tactics by visualizing and connect strategic decisions to tangible actions. Karl emphasizes that strategy deployment is a continuous, evolving process that requires ongoing feedback and adaptation rather than a static plan. He shares how using Strategy Deployment at Rally fostered collaboration, benefited from customer involvement in strategic planning, and enabled the organization to make more informed decisions about what to prioritize and what to stop doing.

Karl also introduces us to the “TASTE” model he has developed as a framing model for understanding the state of a group’s strategy deployment:

• (T)rue North - What direction are we trying to head in?
• (A)spirations - How are we defining success?
• (S)trategy - How are we going to get there?
• (T)actics - What are we actually going to do?
• (E)vidence - What leading metrics will indicate whether we’re making progress?

In this episode, we cover:

• (00:00) Introduction
• (08:05) What led you to Strategy Deployment?
• (15:42) What is the connection between Strategy Deployment and Big Room Planning?
• (30:45) What happened when you brought real customers into your strategic planning events?
• (38:52) How would you describe the difference between Strategy Deployment and Participatory Budgeting?
• (48:20) What is the thinking behind ‘acting in the present?’
• (54:20) What advice would you give someone starting their Strategy Deployment journey?

Cast:

Karl Scotland

Eric Willeke

Mark Richards

References:

• Karl's Blog
• Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise - Thomas Jackson
• The Art of Action - Stephan Bungay
• Good Strategy Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt

"So on any given day, I'm just managing those planes and flight patterns and trying to make sense and create that sequencing of road maps. Or at least highlight, hey, you're not going to achieve that, because this strategy over here in this portfolio isn't even thinking that way” - Christine Babowicz

When we decided to start inviting guests to join us, we were passionate about finding people with real lived experience to share their hard-won insights and wisdom. We were very grateful when Christine Babowicz agreed to join us as our second guest, and she certainly brought plenty of wisdom.

Christine currently serves as Head of Global Execution Excellence at MetLife. She joined MetLife almost nine years ago after spending time at Intel and Adesa. Initially serving in a PMO capacity, she became involved in the launch of MetLife’s Global Lean-Agile CoE 6 years ago. It quickly became a pull-based global agility and ways of working transformation.

Her role has recently expanded into partnering with Enterprise Strategy and 16 portfolios across MetLife to bring their AI strategy to life, focused on creating differentiated experiences for their associates and customers.

Over the years, she's spoken at various Agile Conferences and SAFe Summits, and her topics show her passion for leadership empathy during times of change. She was also a founding member of Raleigh-Durham Women in Agile. Recently, her leadership style and transformation efforts have earned her the Triangle’s Business Journal 40under40 award.

Our conversation takes us through her journey as a change leader over the past six years. Christine shares the challenges of forming an Agile PMO amidst established practices and how her background in lean thinking shaped her approach. We discuss the importance of translating between old and new methodologies, building empathy and trust with stakeholders, and focusing on the problems portfolio leaders face rather than the solutions the textbook provides. She also shares the value of grounding conversations across portfolio boundaries in the organizational mission and a deep understanding of business processes.

As a leader, she highlights the privilege of these transformative roles and the importance of staying humble and prepared when navigating such complex landscapes.

In this episode, we cover:

• (00:00) Introduction
• (05:44) What was it like forming an agile PMO in the middle of a very project-centric world?
• (11:01) How do you navigate the translation between the old and new worlds?
• (15:21) What triggered your transition to portfolio?
• (21:03) With 16 portfolios, how did you pick where to start?
• (24:50) What was your first step once you found your leverage point?
• (30:08) What’s critical for a coach trying to connect with portfolio-level leadership?
• (35:27) What secrets have you found to enabling change across portfolio boundaries?
• (39:56) As a change leader, how do you make it safe for your team to tackle challenging conversations?
• (47:28) Have you found recurring patterns that enable scaling of your change efforts?
• (52:46) How do you help leaders balance aspiration and obligation?
• (59:52) What parting wisdom would you share?

Cast:

Christine Babowicz

Eric Willeke

Mark Richards

“The right collective organization tends to have fewer blind spots, because, by definition, a team is a transactional memory system of sufficient predictive power that we can know how to work together” - Luke Hohmann

When we decided to start inviting interesting guests to join our portfolio conversations, Luke Hohmann was an obvious first choice.

Luke is a four time author, three time founder, SAFe® Fellow, keynote speaker, and internationally recognized expert in Agile Software Development. His passion is sustainably profitable businesses, because it is only through sustainable profits that a business can thrive.

As Chief Innovation Officer of Applied Frameworks he works with executives to fulfill their mission of helping our customers create sustainably profitable businesses. His most recent book, Software Profit Streams™: Designing Sustainably Profitable Businesses , is co-authored with Jason Tanner and shares key insights from their experience helping businesses succeed.

He co-founded Every Voice Engaged, a nonpartisan 501c3 nonprofit that helps citizens, governments, and nonprofits collaboratively solve unsolvable problems. He founded Conteneo, creator of Weave, the Strategy Engine, and Knowsy, later acquired by Scaled Agile Inc.

Our conversation blends deep insights with practical advice. Luke shares stories from his extensive experience, discussing how to start a Lean Portfolio Management journey by understanding and improving existing practices rather than introducing entirely new ones. He emphasizes the importance of having the right people at the portfolio table, including often-overlooked roles like finance and HR, to ensure a balanced and holistic approach.

Luke also delves into the cognitive challenges leaders face in balancing long-term strategy with immediate operational demands, offering strategies to navigate these complexities. He highlights the significance of recognizing when something should no longer be a portfolio concern, advocating for a focus on reducing unnecessary burdens to maintain agility. Throughout, Luke interweaves his Profit Stream™ thinking, showing how profitability can be integrated into portfolio management, especially in traditional settings. He concludes with a compelling argument for why embracing these practices leads to a more sustainable and successful organization.

In this episode, we cover:

• (00:00) Introduction
• (06:00) Where do you begin your Lean Portfolio Management journey?
• (14:25) What are some common mistakes you see people make?
• (18:57) Who are the right people to have at the Portfolio table?
• (35:56) How do Portfolio Leaders manage the cognitive load of balancing tomorrow’s strategic focus with today’s operational demands?
• (40:17) How do you determine what should and should not be a Portfolio concern?
• (47:43) How do you introduce your Profit Stream thinking into more traditional Portfolios?
• (56:19) What is your parting wisdom on why someone should embark on this journey?

Cast:

Luke Hohmann

Eric Willeke

Mark Richards