#154 | Throw Back Episode - #071 Jeff Wood - Transforming outdated PMO practices with Agile ways of working

Throw back to one of our favorites, in case you missed it! 

Jeff Wood has over 20+ years of experience in leading transformational change including the implementation of PMOs within both the public and private sectors. Love making a difference to organisations and the people within priding myself on strong servant-leadership, efficient and effective service design, delivery of complex portfolios, programmes and projects, and development of people. Jeff is now leading a team of professionals in one of the UK's largest water companies.

In this episode, we discuss:

How to transition outdated PMO methods and models and deliver using agile release trains with delivery not against 

How the PMO prioritises their work with stakeholders

Change of metrics to progress vs commitment

Managing risks 

How we record and apply lessons for future epics 

Remote working changes and the impacts 

Building great teams 

And much more...

To connect with Jordan: 

www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-wood-592aa62

Transcript

Transitioning to Agile

Fatimah Abbouchi 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas , the podcast hosted by Fatima Rabouchi . For anyone listening out there not having a good day , please know there is help out there . Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas . I'm Fatima , ceo at Agile Management Office , mental Health Ambassador and your host . This podcast is sponsored by Agile Management Office , providing high-impact delivery execution in an agile era for scaling businesses . In today's episode , I am talking to Jeff Wood .

Fatimah Abbouchi 0:34

Jeff has 20 years experience of leading transformational change within many industries , in both public and private sectors . He loves making a difference to organisations and the people within and prides himself on strong servant leadership , efficient and effective service design , delivery of complex portfolios , programs and projects and development of people With plenty of accreditations , including practitioner status in MSP , managing benefits , prince to and leading safe , to name a few . Managing benefits , prince to and leading safe , to name a few . Jeff came across my attention after his organization that he works at Seven Trent , which is a water company based in Coventry , england , and is also trading on the London Stock Exchange . It was founded in 1989 and organization , as of 2020 , generated over 1.84 billion in British pounds in revenue .

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:30

Jeff came across my attention from some discussions a couple of years ago around Seven Trent's desire to move to more agile ways of working and particularly where Jeff is actually working in and around the delivery and PMO space . It was his responsibility to help transition 7Trent from a waterfall governance model to a more agile , structured and utilizing methods and different techniques , one of which was an agile framework also known as SAFE . He was responsible for designing and implementing a greenfield project portfolio management office for 7Trent . He restructured his PMO to a center of excellence model . He defined SRAs for project management standards and he also helped to implement a number of different frameworks , methods , tools , etc .

Fatimah Abbouchi 2:30

One of the more advanced organizations and people I've spoken to who have taken their traditional project management offers and transitioned it to more agile ways of working . So in this podcast with Jeff , we talk all things about how to deliver PMO services to both agile trains and waterfall programs , how the PMO prioritizes their work , looking at different types of metrics , next steps for PMO , for example , better quantification of non-financial values , diversity and inclusion , and skills management . In this conversation we cover some of the biggest resistance areas for their move to agile ways of working , but also some of the biggest shifts in his role over the last two to three years . We also talk about managing diverse teams and managing those teams remotely as well , so please join me in welcoming Jeff Wood . Jeff , welcome to the show .

Jeff Wood 3:33

Thank you for having me , Fatima .

Fatimah Abbouchi 3:35

Excellent , I'm really glad to finally connect . I know you and I previously were sort of doing some email exchanges a few years ago I think it was before your organisation's transformation towards Agile and now you've come .

Jeff Wood 3:51

Yeah , two years ago now .

Fatimah Abbouchi 3:52

Wow , time flies . I'm so keen to get into as many of the learnings and insights as we possibly can during that journey and learn more about what you guys have uncovered through that journey . That may be beneficial for our listeners as well . So why don't you start by just telling me me and the rest of our listeners a little bit about your , your role today and the organization that you actually work for ?

Jeff Wood 4:17

yeah , cool . I work for seven trent water , so it's a utilities company . We provide clean drinking water and wastewater removal to a massive patch . It's 8,000 square miles in the UK and that equates to 8 million people . So it's one of life's essentials , fatima . So we do take what we do very seriously , very seriously indeed , do very seriously , very seriously indeed . So I head up what's called the delivery practice within our technology and transformation functions at 7trend , and that's made up of a portfolio management office that's staffed with analysts , approximately 30 scrum masters , which reflects determined on the need and demand , approximately 10 deployed support resources and , most recently , the product managers as well . Mm-hmm .

Jeff Wood 5:18

A little twist for the PMO is that technology deliver change in an agile way , so through a safe construct , whereas transformation so the business readiness is predominantly waterfall . They are dipping their toe in the water with agile . So as a PMO that spans both tech and transformation , we try our hardest for our controls and governance to be agnostic . That's the challenge .

Fatimah Abbouchi 5:57

Oh , absolutely it's . You know the story of most PMO lives at the moment , particularly where there is that hate to say it but hybrid , which I know is being overused as a term right now . But I'm interested to know , when you decided to go down the path of agile , just at a , you know , at a high level , how did you determine which approach to take and and obviously landing on SAFE , but I mean , there's so many out there and approaches that you can take how did you sort of decide what was right for 7Trent ?

Jeff Wood 6:36

Well , 7trent had always delivered change in a waterfall way . So when I arrived there was a lot of of projects ongoing 80 plus and many of them there were some successes , but many of them were overrunning , you know to to the familiar um parameters of time , cost and on quality . And we we had a new CIO come in who had experience of agile , in particular safe , and the company where she'd come from had had a lot of success in delivering that . So really that was the trigger . It was what we're doing isn't really working very well for us . Um , our cio had that experience . So we we trialed it . We didn't flip everything all at once . We trialed it on a particular program . So we turned that program into a train and that that went really well . So after three months we thought was like right , okay , we're going to flip everything . So within three months we went from delivering in a waterfall way to being agile .

Fatimah Abbouchi 7:55

Do you want to just explain to people that may be listening and going train ? You turned it into a train . What's a train ?

Jeff Wood 8:02

I'm not talking about actual transport .

Fatimah Abbouchi 8:03

Do you want to just give an overview ? What is a train's a train ? I'm not talking about actual transport . Do you want to just give an overview what ? What is it ? What is a train ? You mean a release train ?

Jeff Wood 8:10

yes , a release train . So yes , it's um . Well , it's a . It's a container of uh , change , um , where we group very similar . I want to try and avoid use the word projects , because no projects in an agile world but what would have been very similar projects and a train at seven trend is typically around eight to ten teams , so it's teams of people delivering change okay and we have trains that are aligned to parts of our business .

Jeff Wood 8:52

So we'll have a train that's delivering change for the water side of the business . We'll have a train for waste , we'll have another that's in internal to tech , another for group functions like HR and finance . So we have that alignment between train to which side of the business that relates to .

Fatimah Abbouchi 9:18

And that's also obviously linking to organisational strategic goals and objectives .

Implementing Agile in PMO

Fatimah Abbouchi 9:23

I assume , and also you know , the release train in Visage is basically like a value stream of work that is all heading in the right direction , based on those particular areas , like you said water and waste and technology and things like that as well and you probably over time have found you've added more and sometimes made a decision to maybe merge some together . Have you had a view of that ? Has it kind of grown over time ?

Jeff Wood 9:51

Oh yeah , oh yeah , it changes fairly regularly . We've recently done a change where we're delivering that much change to the retail side of the business that we've needed to stand up another train , so another set of five to ten teams in there , um , but yeah , it flexes on , obviously , the demands of the business . We felt we're fairly static in the way that we are . We plan our work for a five-year period , so we know what we're going to deliver for the next five years .

Fatimah Abbouchi 10:25

Okay .

Jeff Wood 10:26

So it's not . So I guess it's fairly stable .

Fatimah Abbouchi 10:31

And you know you mentioned that you trialled it , which I think is actually fantastic . You trialled it on a large program of work . You turned that into a release train and then you realised it was hugely successful . I'm sure you had some KPIs parameters for what success looks like and then in three months you said you flipped and you actually moved all of the work that you were doing into that sort of agile model , if you like . How did you decide , particularly with your background being across a number of different types of PMO roles ? You mean , you've been working in transformational change across the industry for 20 years , so you've obviously got a lot of deep-rooted knowledge on traditional methods and models as well , and now you've been asked to go down a path that's completely different . So where did you start being in the PMO space , wearing that hat ? How did you know where to start and what parts to start shifting from your PMO perspective ?

Jeff Wood 11:29

Yeah , it was a challenge , that's for sure . I reached out to people that were already doing it , because Agile has obviously been around for a long time .

Jeff Wood 11:41

You know , to me it felt completely new , but it hadn't there's people that's been delivering and changing Agile away for a long time . You know , to me it felt completely new , but it hadn't there's people that's been delivering change and agile way for for a long time . And what became apparent ? That , yeah , it's a different framework , yeah , there's different sets of roles and there's different types of governance , and we have these things called ceremonies rather than meets or forums but , but actually there's a lot that's still the same .

Jeff Wood 12:03

We still need to same . We still need to manage risk . Change control is obviously very different , but we're planning to a smaller increment now . We're only planning three months in advance , so we call that a planning increment . So a quarter , so there's less opportunity or need for change . So a lot of the things were what are called the disciplines of a PMO were the same . It was more how are we going to apply it now in a safe way ? And that was , that was the difficult thing . That's what we are to wrap our head around and um is there a specific , maybe , example ?

Fatimah Abbouchi 12:48

I mean one of the ones that I tend to , um , tend to use with clients , particularly when trying to help , you know , people that are trying to take this path , and there is a bit of resistance , and we'll talk to that in a minute , but , um , you know , one of the ways , for example , is , rather than spending an enormous amount of time creating status reports you know , we moved to showcasing models where we actually put stakeholders together and visually showed them progress .

Fatimah Abbouchi 13:12

Is there any other examples you can share ? Where you know your PMO went from what could typically be looked as traditional to more of an agile flavour .

Jeff Wood 13:21

I think planning . So typically with planning , we'd have a dedicated planner who would help with the creation of very long and lengthy detailed program and project plans that would span years . But instead now we have yes , we have a roadmap of delivery for the next five years , but we're instead creating a plan based on priorities of the business , which are the most valuable things for the next three months , in detail . So really planning in detail for three months . So we still support that .

Jeff Wood 13:57

Yep , and we've got a different set of tooling , so it's not microsoft project or gantt charts but , instead we're doing it via JIRA so obviously we have to skill ourselves in in that , but we still provide support , we still assure , we still set out what good looks like and what data . Everything comes down to data with me , fatima . So it's data . So whether it's data in a Gantt or data in JIRA , there needs to be a minimum data standard for it to enable us to do that rolled up reporting and insights . So we still very much had a role to play .

Fatimah Abbouchi 14:36

Yeah , absolutely .

Fatimah Abbouchi 14:37

Just slightly different was what do you think sort of when you obviously had a lot of challenges , what , what would you say some of the resistance , um , that you might have gotten , or as a result of the challenges , or maybe some of the more specific challenges like that originally caught you out at the beginning that you know maybe needed a bit more attention and time to get to get through um , I think , um the DMO being very much analytical in terms of skill set and background and wanting to know the detail of everything , we had to make a shift there .

Jeff Wood 15:22

Really , we're very much used to detailing step-by-step work instructions and processes for how to manage and deliver programs of change , and we had to , and we stumbled a few times because we went back to our comfort zone in trying to do that and it took a while for us to lift ourselves up a bit and instead create frameworks for delivery from which we can operate within . So , an example being , you know , it wouldn't be a step-by-step instruction on how to identify , record and manage risk , but instead lay out the bare minimum that we'd need from risk management .

Fatimah Abbouchi 16:04

And here's a suggestion that to have a go about it , but we wouldn't be prescriptive and how did you , how did you find , when it came to sort of that shift in mindset , which is sometimes harder to come by for some people than others , how did you ? What , what , what , if anything , did you guys consider doing ? Did you do road shows ? Did you , um , start introducing the droppings ? Did you have showcases , was it ? Did you send everyone on safe training , like what were some of the things that you did to kind of help make that mindset shift ?

Jeff Wood 16:39

yeah , so we did . We did the sheep dip to start with , so we did put everybody through training , um , but at the time there wasn't any specific training for PMOs in SAFE . No .

Jeff Wood 16:52

It's changed . Now there are some options for us . So we selected a couple of SAFE training courses which gave us a really good idea of the framework , which helped give us a grounding . Also brought in a couple of agile coaches as well and , in particular , a SAFE coach who had implemented SAFE previously . Yeah , so that was very , very helpful . It enabled us to guide us a little bit . Sorry , what was the rest of the question , Fatima ?

Fatimah Abbouchi 17:29

Yeah , just in terms of getting that mindset shift , you know , bringing , getting them on training and bringing an agile coach . I assume that having the agile coach there maybe helped people with that mindset shift oh , yeah , yeah , absolutely .

Jeff Wood 17:44

Um , it is a different way of of looking at things , um . But so what ? What quite I think is quite novel with with our pmo is that we now operate in an agile way , and what I mean by that is we deliver our work via increments , so we plan our work for three months in advance and that's , that consists of bau work . So you know , like your regular reporting and insight and assurance , but also the change that we're going to deliver us as part of a pmo yeah that that's .

Jeff Wood 18:21

That's delivered in an agile way . So the team they meet every morning for a stand-up to to say how they're getting on and what blockers they've got and what they're going to do that day . And then at the end of each two weeks , each sprint , they showcase their work to their customers and stakeholders . So they get that instant feedback and at the end of the three months , because it being safe , we do an end of PI showcase and that's to everybody . This is what we've done as a PMO in the previous three months .

Fatimah Abbouchi 18:56

It's excellent . I think that's it's really good , because you're not just supporting the agile delivery teams , but you're actually being part of it , because you're actually leveraging whatever you're telling them to do or supporting them with you're actually doing yourself .

Jeff Wood 19:12

Exactly , yeah , we walk in the walk and talk in the talk , and that has really helped the fact that we're doing it ourselves . We've had to be upskilled , you know , it's forced us . Yes . And to , as I say , to practice what we preach .

Fatimah Abbouchi 19:27

Yeah , 100% . And I think I don't know about your experience , but often I find a lot of organisations have PMOs that are kind of like a black box you don't actually know what's inside until you have to change it or bring in someone new to set another one up . And I think having this sort of agile approach really does bring to mind the ability to work directly with your stakeholders . Whether your stakeholders are , you know , the scrum masters or the delivery teams or technology or release team managers , et cetera .

Fatimah Abbouchi 19:57

By actually bringing the two together , I think you're actually going , you're significantly better off , but also you're able to , I think , pivot a lot faster where maybe there's some changing requirements or circumstances in your business , oh yeah so the speed you could do that must have must be significantly faster than what a traditional bureaucratic approach , bureaucratic approach would have been yeah , yeah , this I mean , as you say , I've been doing this for 20 odd years and I would I'm a big convert now .

Jeff Wood 20:31

So the governance that we've set up for the PMO themselves we have . We have a steer co which is made up of myself and then senior representatives from technology and transformation , and we we meet monthly to determine the priorities of the PMO , what are the , what are the problems we're going to solve or what are the opportunities that we're going to exploit . So every month we get together and have that chat and we've got a roadmap and we tinker with the roadmap and then the team then take that and break that down into work for which they then deliver in a sprint by sprint basis . And we're not reactive , yeah , anymore we're , we're proactive .

Jeff Wood 21:16

A bit cliched , but it's true . It's like we had uh , we just we learned of an audit action a couple of weeks ago , yeah , and normally we would be panicking , thinking how are we gonna ? How are we gonna do that , as well as all the other expectations that we set and all the work we're gonna do . But it enabled that intelligent the other expectations that we set and all the work we're going to do , but it enabled that intelligent conversation at Steadicam to say well , this is a massive chunk of work we need to do here . Where does this sit within the priorities ? So we're having a prioritised conversation about the work of the PMO . Every month Works fantastically well .

Fatimah Abbouchi 21:47

And how do you prioritise ? There's obviously so much that you could do or need to do . There's probably problems , lots of opportunities . I want to know , like , what is some suggestions you have around prioritizing ? And then , on the sort of other side of that , what happens when maybe a big compliance piece comes up or something that really is going to knock the team out for a little while ? Like , what sort of approaches have you taken for prioritising the PMO work ?

Jeff Wood 22:16

Yeah . So for things like compliance or regulatory stuff you have to do that will take priority , so that has to be done . You still have a conversation with your senior stakeholders to say you know , this has come in , this is the deadline . It is a hard deadline . We had that one recently with the , with the audit action where is that ? Was able to still negotiate an extension to it , but it still needs to be priority number one . And then the other stuff and there's there's a big old list of stuff . There's a massive backlog of , of change that we want to affect for the PMO and the trains and the programs that we support . That is a again a joint conversation between technology transformation and myself , because there is some stuff that we want to do internally within the DMO as well .

Jeff Wood 23:04

They're not sharpening the saw . We want to . You know , we want a really good , uh , central sharepoint site for all our standards and we want to be able to automate all our reporting or as much as we can do , so we can be leaner . So there is stuff that we want to do as well and we we have a sensible conversation , so we base it on on , say , value , not monetary value , because he's not going to release any money by delivering some of the stuff that we're going to do but , what's , what's the quickest return and for the highest value that we can get .

Jeff Wood 23:42

And we do so . We do that on a on a regular , regular basis . So if it's going to be , you know , a huge amount of work to implement , I know a new process or new procedure , but we , we think we're going to get very little out the back of it .

Fatimah Abbouchi 23:55

It might still be a good idea , but it'll be right at the bottom of the backlog yep , absolutely , and in terms of sort of the work that's sitting on the backlog , no doubt you'll be constantly

Learning and Accountability in Agile

Fatimah Abbouchi 24:07

reviewing that . But what about lessons ? How do you , how do you record and apply lessons are you , are you doing that as part of your , your stand-ups and your um , your , your showcases , or are you running retrospectives of a different point in time , like how are you doing the lessons learned ?

Jeff Wood 24:26

yeah , is this for the ? I was gonna say , is this for the pmo or for the delivery ? But it's , it's both the same really yeah we . We capture lessons via our retros , which we do religiously every fortnight .

Jeff Wood 24:40

So after the sprint review , yeah and from those lessons we determine which of those are we going to do something about . Are you , what are we going to change as a result of learning that lesson ? And we ensure the actions to do something about that lesson enough form part of our plan for the next sprint . Yeah , so we do that in the PMO and that can be anything to do , you know , in terms of how we work together , behaviours or performance , or whether there's something we need to change to our tooling or whether we need to automate something or some little tinkering to ensure that the insight that we produce is more meaningful . We'll take that forward into the next sprint . They're not massive or significant enough to derail our delivery .

Jeff Wood 25:32

No no , but we'll ensure that actions are put in place each sprint to get better , and that's what the trains do . That's what the trains and the teams within those trains do in delivery .

Fatimah Abbouchi 25:44

And I think one of the biggest things would be that it drives accountability as well , because you're actually , you're coming together , you're talking about it , you're agreeing what you're going to do about it . Next time you get together it's going to be like how have we progressed on the things we said we're going to do , whereas , um , in sort of in an older , sort of traditional way of working , others outside of the PMO typically , or outside the delivery office in general , wouldn't really know what you're working on at any point in time . People often assume , um , that you know the PMO has an abundance of resource , but often , if they get down and understand the amount of work and activity that's going on and you're actually able to present that now with your roadmap and obviously win those prioritization conversations as well , so definitely will drive accountability if you have you seen an increase in that using this , this approach oh , yeah , definitely , definitely .

Jeff Wood 26:32

So obviously the senior stakeholders know exactly what the DMO are doing and are forming the , the roadmap for them . And that's been a little bit unique in itself , because in other organizations I've had to force that and almost come up with the plan myself and then try and convince everybody that it's a good plan . But I don't need to this time because they're forming the plan with me . Yeah , um , so that's at senior level , so that's that . That's . That's a nice breath of fresh air .

Jeff Wood 26:59

But also program managers and project managers uh release trade engineers and scrum masters are invited to help shape the work . So at steerco level , we are identifying opportunities or problems that we need to fix , but we're not coming up with the solution . We then have that refined with a working group which is made up of that population I just said , and they're they're helping identify the definition of done for those things . So again , we're getting buy-in at that level as well . That's amazing . And then they'll come along to the sprint reviews and they'll give feedback there or they'll sign stuff off , and suddenly you've got champions then for that piece of work , whatever it may be that we've just landed .

Fatimah Abbouchi 27:47

Yes , amazing , it's actually really interesting because the definition of done is something that is've just landed . Yes , amazing , it's actually really interesting , because the definition of done is is is something that is so absolutely critical , and I think sometimes it's misunderstood or or assumed that when you think you finish something , it's finished , but it's actually not about being finished . It's actually about what constitute it being done at a point in time , because there's always an opportunity to improve it . But what that means and getting that directly from your stakeholders is absolutely critical , so it's really good that you apply that .

Jeff Wood 28:17

Yeah , One lesson with that and we've still got some maturing to do in that definition of done is that we fell into the trap of identifying everything we wanted to do , as you've just alluded to , of identifying everything we wanted to do as you've just alluded to , and the team would be working on it PI after PI , months after months , and we still wouldn't be finished and it took a while for us to think , oh , we're slipping back here , our old ways of working , wanting everything . So when we do definition of done now we are constantly asking ourselves well , you know , where's the value ? Where's the value ? Do we really need all these shiny bits as well ?

Jeff Wood 29:02

yeah or can we stop ? Can we stop at this point and then move on ? And I'm not saying those shiny bits , we don't want another day , but again we can pop it down the priority list and come at it in another six months , nine months , whenever .

Fatimah Abbouchi 29:18

That's a really good point and probably a good lesson for others listening , because it can be quite easy to just assume that you need to do a little bit more and add a bit more and spend . You know , you could spend weeks . I remember one organisation creating , I think they were creating 25 reports within a month and they went to basically two audiences , but yet there was 25 variations and it absolutely made no sense whatsoever . So it's kind of one of the avenues that you can start streamlining just by showcasing and bringing people together , and it's one simple thing that you can start streamlining just by showcasing and bringing people together . And it's one simple thing that you can do . It's just yeah , it's just crazy to think that such small behaviours like that can really change and save a lot of time . What do you think is probably one of the biggest time-saving opportunities that Agile ways of working have created for you ? Like , is there one specific example that you could share that really was something that's given you back a lot of time in your day , or one of your favorites ?

Jeff Wood 30:22

I hate to steal your example , but I'm gonna , I'm gonna , and that's the reporting side of things .

Jeff Wood 30:29

Yeah , so we don't need to produce so many status reports yeah , we don't need to produce any really , and this is for the , you know , for the dmo and for the delivery trains , because you say we've got the ceremonies in place and they happen at the same time every fortnight and they can . Your stakeholders who or whoever wants to see what's going on , can rock up and experience it . We still produce , at the end of at the end of a quarter , a little bit of a display that can go on our internal social media , on our Yammer pages , to add a little video as well . We put a little video together , a little fun video that shows the stuff that we've delivered , which is nice . But we don't have to invest so much time in collating information and making it look pretty and tailoring it for the audiences , because , yeah , that's given us so much time , so much time back .

Fatimah Abbouchi 31:36

And creating five different templates and changing the formatting and font on one , because you know , executive manager number one wants this and executive manager number two likes purple .

Fatimah Abbouchi 31:45

And you know it's just such a waste of time and so unnecessary , but definitely a time-saving opportunity , so you're welcome to steal it . I think one of the things I tend to say to organisations , particularly when they are trying to make that transition not just from a PMO perspective , from a project delivery perspective and just even for people in the business when they make that shift one of the things that I sort of kind of call out often is it sort of becomes more of a it's up to you , as part of the system of change in your organization , to pull for information .

Fatimah Abbouchi 32:19

so go to the ceremonies , attend the showcases , like you said with the video go and watch the video that's been recorded , because you might not be in that time zone at that point in time , but it's up to you to pull for information that's it , not push yeah exactly . It's not up to the PMO to push out information to you in a way that you like to see . It's up to you to come and grab what you need , you know , just in time .

Jeff Wood 32:40

And there was a bit of resistance to start with . For that , you know , because people you know , particularly very busy execs , would be used to that , wouldn't they ? Yes , the reports landing on their desks or in their email , and , and there was that expectation to start with . So there was that teething .

Fatimah Abbouchi 32:55

So how did you get around that ? Because , just to precursor that , the reason I ask that is a lot of PMOs , I'm sure you would agree . They don't necessarily have the authority and the autonomy that some PMOs do . The senior PMO and the higher up in the organisation , I understand , have a lot more push and can actually get stuff like that , um you know , implemented . But what , what was your um experience in trying to get you know the executives to see a different way ? Did you have the authority ?

Jeff Wood 33:26

yeah , well , say not , not alone , but we have a place at the table . So , say , setting up a steer co , I would strongly suggest where you've got your senior member of the PMO and you've got your head of delivery For us , because we service two different areas of the business . It's two of them and we agree where time is going to be spent on the DMO . So it's still an option . You know we could , if they want to , because they're paying for it , if they want us to spend all of our time , you know , producing reports that are tailored to the audience .

Jeff Wood 34:11

If they want that , that's fine , they can have that , but obviously we won't be delivering the roadmap of change which we know , we , we know and they know we need . So it becomes a a mute point . Yeah , so you still present it as an option , but of course , uh , the execs will want to be able to realize benefits faster . We wouldn't want to be able to plan better , to make better commitments and deliver against those commitments ? We're going to want all that stuff , over 25 sets of reports .

Fatimah Abbouchi 34:40

Yeah , absolutely . It's interesting you say that because you know again if I use a lot of PMOs today and some of them are still going down this path , as I've experienced in my own past . You know it sounds simple , but in the past the executives still have the choice on whether they wanted you to spend all the time doing 25 reports or spend all the time doing something else . The problem was executives , for the most part , either don't have the visibility that they need or don't have the time . But what you've created and what organizations that go down this agile way of working is it brings the executives and the people in the projects and delivery space together .

Fatimah Abbouchi 35:20

So you've got the same ceremonies , the same visualization , the same everything , which means you don't have to try to convince the executive to see it from your point of view , which is what PMO spend a lot of time fighting for now . Now they're forced to see it because they actually have to come to the same place to get that information . Again , pulling for information .

Jeff Wood 35:41

Yeah , yeah , yeah , exactly . And you're staring at the same roadmap that you've all created , you've all been part of . They're not being done to .

Fatimah Abbouchi 35:50

Yeah , yeah , yeah , absolutely .

Jeff Wood 35:58

So it's actually a really easy meeting again . Like with everything , there were some problems to start with with that . So you know some .

Jeff Wood 36:03

Some people that we selected just didn't have the time or commitment to it yes and therefore , you know , if they didn't show up or , um , you know , didn't , wasn't able to send a delegate with authority , it slowly slipped back into being done to again , because we still crack on , but in their absence . But of course they'd be upset then because we wouldn't be delivering something that they deemed priority . So you've got to really put the time and effort into selecting the right people , ensuring that they are committing , committed and have that level of authority yeah , absolutely .

Fatimah Abbouchi 36:41

And going back to your earlier point around , um , you know some organizations tend to say , you know , like , like you did with trialing it on a program , you know , maybe you trial it , you know sometimes this spurs out of it , and then it grows and might spur out of a particular department or function in the organization and then you create those champions that become the voice of the change across the enterprise , and so I think that's a really smart way of introducing that change as well . I just want to . I just want to circle back just to you know . Earlier on you mentioned around . You know you might have some things visually placed on a wall , you know , in an office corridor or in a meeting room , et cetera .

Fatimah Abbouchi 37:18

What I wanted to touch on is just with the whole . You know , remote working , which I'm sure 7Trent has had to pivot to at some point in the last couple of years , particularly with the situation around the pandemic and whatnot . I'm interested to know how did you go about that and sort of what did you guys find , guys and girls find helpful to support remote working during that time ?

Jeff Wood 37:46

So collaboration has been really , really good actually , with us working remotely and we pretty much all of us have been doing that during the pandemic and have only started to reintroduce ourselves back into the office . Obviously , the right tooling helps .

Effective Tools and Collaboration in Agile

Jeff Wood 38:04

So Microsoft Teams is what we use at 7trend and we'll pop in video and we're able to share our files across Teams . But we also store all of our roadmaps there so you can lock down the permissions to who can see those , but they're pretty much open to all . So it's making everybody aware of the existence of things like roadmaps and plans and again encouraging them to go seek out that information rather than being served to them .

Jeff Wood 38:46

Also , we use Jira for our planning , as we said , so people are free to access that and see at any point live where teams are at yep or or if they don't want to do that , and then you'd rather be told it's a rock up to one one of the ceremonies , whether that's a daily stand-up to see where that team is at that point in time , or to come to a sprint review to see what they've done for the for the previous two weeks and what's coming up in the next and that's um probably really good um by having the tools in place , particularly if you have them in place .

Fatimah Abbouchi 39:24

I know some organizations um that I've worked with recently . Some had tools in place and some had to , unfortunately , try to set them up while people were working remotely . So it was quite a bit messy to start off with . But I think you're right , because a lot of these sort of whole agile ways of working , there's a lot of tools that support the exact same activities and ceremonies and things like that . So , if you've got them in place , but I think there's still definitely that collaboration in person when the opportunity provides for itself , I find showcases are really beneficial when they're in person so trying to get some some balance , for that has definitely been important .

Fatimah Abbouchi 39:58

But I'm sure there's definitely a lot of things that you've probably experimented with in your business , especially because you guys have got so many people and actually seeing what works and maybe what doesn't work . Over the last couple , or at least last year and a half , yeah , yeah , I .

Jeff Wood 40:14

We tried pretty much all different types of mediums , such as WhatsApp , for checking in daily with each other . We're using Microsoft Teams . We did have other collaborative tools as well and we tended to be a bit overloaded to start with and we started to lean down a little bit now on that . But yeah , I'll tell you points about , you know , seeing people face to face . I was holed up for so long , for a couple of years , because of our vulnerable daughter . I made sure I didn't really go out at all . I was a little bit worried when I went back into the office , but after , after going back , like I can really sell the point of seeing people face-to-face and having those corridor conversations at a safe distance , of course , but those corridor conversations that you wouldn't necessarily have had because they're impromptu , they're unplanned and there's a richness in that .

Fatimah Abbouchi 41:10

Yeah , absolutely . And you know what ? The other thing I see , like you know , doing some coaching , walking around and just overhearing conversations . Obviously they're open to be heard , but you know I've literally passed someone who was saying something like oh , hang on . Actually , you know , john , so-and-so happened over here , and then you know you actually address a problem that probably would have been 15 emails if you hadn't caught it .

Jeff Wood 41:31

Yeah , so , that's another efficiency that and I learned so much as well . Yeah , yeah . So I sat in the office I'm just making time of day with uh , with a chap who was sitting opposite me , and he turned out to be one of the cyber security graduates that we'd uh , we'd hired to put in place . I was integral to that , but I've never met him face to face . So it's lovely to you know , just to see him , but also , you know , he's able to teach me about cyber security at the same time .

Fatimah Abbouchi 42:00

Yeah , absolutely . And again , having access to those people and and working in this what I found working in the agile sort of ways of working and actually bringing people together that normally wouldn't work so closely together you do get answers to things you need much quicker and you don't have to wait until someone's read your steering committee report that you collate on the 30th of the month for the month prior , and then it's already four weeks behind in in you know information , so yeah , yeah , exactly um , just to just one other thing I was kind of curious about how do you manage rewards and recognition in an agile environment ?

Fatimah Abbouchi 42:35

I mean , what sort of things have you put in place that may be different to traditional rewards and recognition ?

Jeff Wood 42:45

One thing that we have at 7Trend and it's not an agile thing , it's more a 7Trend trend , ism is we have something called brilliant people , where where an individual , um , I say , perform as well , but it could be anything , it could be something small that they've done or something big it's recognized via a thank you that is shared across the organization , so everybody gets to see what that thank you was for and who was to , and then there's a reward that is associated with that and it's uh , it's vouchers that that , uh , that individual then can spend on on whatever they , whatever they choose , and I think that's a really , a really nice touch and it's something we've been talking about actually within our teams . Is that , you know , we want to say thank you more yeah , yep doesn't take .

Jeff Wood 43:39

Doesn't take long , does it ? Doesn't take long to say those words no , definitely we can get , so we can get so busy , um and and miss that . So , yeah , it's something that we want to start doing more of . Yeah , absolutely , and I think the other thing

Promoting Team Culture and Collaboration

Jeff Wood 43:51

is as well .

Fatimah Abbouchi 43:51

So some of the things I've seen like in something that we want to start doing more of yeah , absolutely , and I think the other thing is as well . So some of the things I've seen , like in organisations that are trying to go okay , well , we need to reshape , because often you know some agile teams , you're a team , so it's about the team , not about the individual necessarily , and so it can kind of get lost when some people go above and beyond their day job to actually , you know , make something happen .

Fatimah Abbouchi 44:13

So , you know , one of the things that I've sort of said to organisations is make the rewards and recognition about not only that individual recognition , which is absolutely important , but also make , as an individual in that organisation , the feedback you get from your peers and your stakeholders every single day through the showcase , through the conversations , through that's your measure of success as to whether you're on track or whether you need to , you know , improve in any particular areas . And I think line managers could really take a look at that and get that feedback quite regularly , rather than just waiting once a year to annual performance reviews .

Jeff Wood 44:51

Oh , absolutely yeah . So at the retrospectives retrospectives , you know they're looking at well at the reviews as well . It's , it's what it's lessons collated and feedback given on the team's output , not on the individuals . Yeah , and it has engendered more of a team ethos and we celebrate as a team as well , you know so , at the end of a big deliverable , whether that's uh , you know , at the end of a pi , when we've implemented something and it's uh , it will always be a success because we deliver it to the definition of done that's been cited then we will , we'll celebrate that as a team and I'm sure the same happens where you may .

Fatimah Abbouchi 45:35

Maybe something doesn't go to plan or you know something's being so . I'm sure it's not often , but it's the whole team takes accountability and you know you're working as a team . There's no I in team , so everybody is equally . Equally , you know to be supported and celebrated but at the same time , if things go wrong , I'm sure everyone's staying back or staying online late to get things sorted so that it gets done .

Jeff Wood 45:55

Oh yeah , yeah , exactly , Absolutely . You operate as a collective .

Fatimah Abbouchi 45:59

Yeah , definitely , definitely , awesome . Well , we're getting close to our end of our conversation today . I have a couple of rapid-fire questions for you , if you are okay with those . Yeah . What is your favorite holiday destination ?

Jeff Wood 46:19

Iceland .

Fatimah Abbouchi 46:20

Iceland , have you been ?

Jeff Wood 46:21

absolutely love Iceland . I've been a few times to Iceland , to Reykjavik , and I can recommend the Blue Lagoon if anybody goes to Iceland , which is the spa is it on my list .

Fatimah Abbouchi 46:32

I'm just and my , I would just absolutely my husband and I would absolutely love to go there . So it's on the . I've been to denmark , but not , yeah , iceland , but yeah , I think I need to go back towards that way and get .

Jeff Wood 46:44

If it's not at the top of the list , get it to the top of the list absolutely so .

Fatimah Abbouchi 46:48

Have you ever been to australia ? No , not yet oh , you've got to come down .

Jeff Wood 46:53

Is that an ?

Fatimah Abbouchi 46:53

invite . Yes , absolutely , show you around . It's beautiful . There's so much to do , so much to do but this is an anniversary of . Australia . But yeah , you definitely .

Jeff Wood 47:06

What about your favourite food ? Ah , bautis , I do love curries , curries .

Fatimah Abbouchi 47:12

Any particular .

Jeff Wood 47:12

Yes , yeah , I always go . Well , we'll always go too hot , yes , okay . So you know , the mal bravado comes out and I , you know , I'll pick a madras or a jalfrezi , and then and then certainly regret it , but yes , I do enjoy it at the time and what was that about ?

Jeff Wood 47:41

that's really good . That's it putting further from the title that you know your , your team , come first . I do love , I do love , um , I do love learning generally , particularly about leadership and servant leadership . You know , being there for your team , not being directive and hierarchical , but instead serving your team , being of real use . Really , yeah , absolutely Removing the blockers for them to deliver and enabling them to be the best that they can be .

Fatimah Abbouchi 48:15

Yeah , absolutely , absolutely . It all sounds like you're doing an amazing job and I think what 7Trent has been doing and the work and even from the first time we spoke to a couple of years , you know on it sounds like a lot of transformational shifts , a lot of growth , a lot of ongoing opportunities as well . So it's been really amazing to kind of hear more about the story Geoff . This has been really wonderful If there is Well thank you .

Fatimah Abbouchi 48:46

No , it's been an absolute pleasure . I've really enjoyed learning more and the specifics , and I think this will help a lot of people , to be honest , because there's a lot of questions I've asked today that I'm sure others probably would have wanted answered as well . But before I let you go , is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners ? A call to action , a piece of advice or a question to ponder ?

Jeff Wood 49:09

Maybe something to ponder , and that is how , how do your PMOs prioritize their work , and is that prioritization done with your senior , with your senior executives and those that hold the purse strings ? I'd have that as a little , a little question , really .

Fatimah Abbouchi 49:41

I think it's probably something that every PMO should be doing , if they're not already . But um that ? Could be the first step of many that takes them down that agile way of working that really can transform the way their PMOs work absolutely yeah an absolute pleasure .

Jeff Wood 49:55

Fatima , Thank you ever so much for your time .

Fatimah Abbouchi 49:57

No , no , you're absolutely welcome and I'll make sure I put your LinkedIn profile and your connecting for anyone who'd like to connect with you into the show notes .

Jeff Wood 50:07

And more than happy to . More than happy to and to share what we've done at 7Trend with anybody that's interested .

Fatimah Abbouchi 50:13

Amazing . Thank you so much , jeff . Have a wonderful day . Thank you so much for listening to this podcast . Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it . Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile ideas . Go to our website , wwwagilemanagementofficecom . I hope you've been able to learn , feel or be inspired today . Until next time , what's your agile idea ?