Breakthrough Agile: The Five Key Business Processes for Cultural Transformation

Agile is being adopted within every type of organization across the world. It is no longer used specifically for software development. This book shows how anyone can adopt the systems of an agile organization within their organization. The book contains a blueprint on how to start a transformation initiative.

Starting with a high-level overview of what companies are seeking to achieve with a transformation platform, the book describes the common approaches used in today’s business world. The book’s discussion includes how common themes between the different types of transformation platforms are more a direct result of five cultural business processes.

Currently, there are three main transformation platforms practiced within the business world: Lean Six-Sigma, Lean, and Agile. After a brief comparison showing the similarities and differences of these platforms, the book presents a blueprint for a successful Agile Transformation within any type of organization by focusing on five common cultural processes.

The five cultural business processes discussed are decision making, conflict resolution, rewards and recognition, project management, and strategic deployment. In this book, each detailed discussion of the cultural business process includes real-life examples showing the agile systems and how they are applied, sustained, and the value they drive.

The tour de force for the book is a theory that for any transformation to succeed, organizations need to change their values and principles in these business cultural processes to align with the value and principles of the transformation platform. Regardless of the platform, successful transformations only give the company the value they are seeking when the values and principles of the organization change. This usually means leaders need to change how they lead throughout the organization from the most senior level to front-line leaders.

Essentially, these five cultural processes influence peoples’ behaviors more than the application of any transformation system or tactics within the transformation platforms.

Christian D. Cater has more than 25 years of experience, primarily within Pharmaceutical, Biopharmaceutical, Medical Devices, and Automotive as a senior leader. Roles included operations and continuous improvement. The majority of his career was spent as a lead visionary/architect for systematic organizational-wide transformations. Designed, coached, facilitated, and trained thousands on transformation tactics and applications. Currently, he is a Global Agile Coach with Hoffman-LaRoche, coaching leaders/teams on the what, how, and why of an Agile Transformation. Expert knowledge and application of lean, six sigma, agile, and other transformative strategies.