Agile Leadership Is Essential to Agile Transformation
Many so-called “agile transformations” are really just business as usual with some new words and a few process changes at the team level. In contrast, the enterprise business systems group at Whole Foods Market has experienced a real and deep transformation in the past few years. Roles are different. Teams self-organize in new ways. Budgeting, forecasting, and reporting now support complexity and learning. Business stakeholders and teams collaborate to find high-value, minimal solutions neither could come up with alone. Part of that transformation is due to new practices and skills at the team level. But it has become clear that certain leadership behaviors and structural changes have been essential to this transformation. Without agile leadership, teams could not have achieved the results they have. Join Tracy, Golda, and Richard for the Whole Foods story that illustrates how leaders can uniquely contribute to—or impede—a successful agile transformation.
Whole Foods Market executive director Tracy Briscoe is responsible for guiding teams that develop and support business intelligence and enterprise data warehouse, financial systems, and team member systems. Tracy is an advocate for agile practices across the technology team. She works to evangelize the senior leaders in the technology and business teams—up to the C-level—on the importance of value prioritization, transparency, and self-directed teams.
Golda Sahayam is a technology team senior director at Whole Foods Market where she leads application delivery, operational support, and is the executive champion for agile practices across the enterprise business systems area. Golda's passion for continual improvement has led to an empowered culture where teams self-evaluate, self-manage, and are relentless in delivering business value through technology.
Agile for All’s Richard Lawrence trains and coaches teams and organizations, including Whole Foods Market, to become happier and more productive. Richard draws on a diverse background in software development, engineering, anthropology, and political science. Richard is one of a handful of Certified Scrum Coaches and a certified trainer of the accelerated learning method, Training from the Back of the Room.