Most companies that work in an agile way today while simultaneously trying to implement AI will not survive the next decade, in my opinion. The reason: their operating system is too old. The future is not agile. The future is not AI either. The future is cybernetic.
How much agility can software development really handle, and where does agility tip into chaos? In this episode of the “Modern Work 2 Go” podcast (in German), I speak with Florian Schneider about exactly these questions. We dive deep into a concrete real-world example: an agile transformation at a Swiss bank that I accompanied over eight years. The conversation covers the shift from waterfall to agility, scaling with SAFe, building value streams, and why continuous improvement is the central pillar of every transformation.
Learn is the last step of the SAFe for DevOps Health Radar, and in many ways it is the most important one. This is where we make the hard decisions about where to invest, where to stop, and how to continuously improve everything we do. In this video, I walk through what the Learn step involves and why it is the key to building the right thing right.
The second way to introduce DevOps is to build a strong flow of feedback going in the opposite direction of the value flow — from customers and production back into the business and into development. This is the Second Way in Gene Kim’s Three Ways framework, and it is what stops the First Way from optimising in the dark.
A value stream is the path that value takes from the first idea all the way into production. It is the sum of every step, handover, and wait in between. In this video, I walk through a simple seven-step approach for identifying a value stream, measuring how it really performs, designing a target state, and then improving it step by step. The numbers in the example are simplified on purpose, so the method shines through more clearly than any single result.
At first glance, a DevOps transformation seems to be a major undertaking for any company. But with the right approach, you can keep the process lean and agile.
Insight in brief # Start small with a small to medium sized project or product. Select the right people to ensure sufficient credibility and influence. Continuous improvement is key to success.
