Every Agile transformation begins with a need.

This need can be unlocking innovation, overcoming a complex challenge, more efficient and effective prioritization, removing roadblocks, or the desire to delight customers through innovation and value delivery.

Ganesh Jayaram is John Deere’s Vice President of Global IT. He summarizes the overarching need behind this Agile transformation down to a simple but powerful four-word vision; improve speed to outcomes.

Note this is not going fast just for the sake of going fast – that can be a recipe for unhappy customers and decreased quality. Very much the opposite of Agile.

Dissect Jayaram’s vision, and you’ll find elements at the heart of Agile itself; rapid iteration, innovation, quality, value delivery, and most importantly, delighted customers. Had John Deere lost sight of these elements? Absolutely not.

As Jayaram explains, “we intended to significantly improve on delivering these outcomes.” To do this, Jayaram and his leadership team decomposed their vision of ‘improve speed to outcomes’ into three enterprise-level goals:

• Speed to Understanding: How would they know they are truly sensitive to what their customers – both internal and external – care about, want, and need?
• Speed to Decision Making: Decrease decision latency to improve the ability to capitalize on opportunities, respond to market changes, or pivot based on rapid feedback.
• Speed to Execution: Decrease time to market while maintaining or improving quality and value delivery.

Deere’s Global IT leadership knew achieving their vision and these goals would take more than incremental adjustments. Beneficial change at this level requires a holistic transformation that spans the IT group as well as the business partners.

They needed the right Agile transformation support, the ability to efficiently and effectively scale both training and operations and to build the in-house expertise to make the group’s Agile journey a self-sustaining one. As Josh Edgin, Global IT Transformation Lead at John Deere states, “We needed to evolve.”

 

Section Summary: Before this transformation, John Deere’s Global IT function operated like that of many large organizations. However, legacy business practices can become liabilities in the modern business world. Senior Leadership decided to implement a holistic Agile transformation that would improve every aspect of their business and all of the group’s 500 teams. They created group-wide metrics they would use to measure the success of the transformation. These included: Output: Increase by 125 percent Délai de mise sur le marché : Reduce by 40 percent Engineering Ratio: Improve to 75 percent with “fingers on keyboards” Employee NPS (eNPS): 20-point improvement Le rapport coût-efficacité : They would reduce labor costs by 20 percent

In-Depth:

Before this transformation, John Deere’s Global IT function operated like that of many large organizations. In broad terms, this meant that:

• The department had isolated pockets of Agile teams that implemented several different Agile frameworks in an ad hoc way
• Teams were often assigned to projects which were funded for a fixed period of time
• The exact work to be done on projects was dictated by extensive business analysis and similar plans
• Outsourcing of projects or components to third-party suppliers was commonplace
• The manager role was largely comprised of primarily directing and prioritizing work for their teams

At John Deere, process maturity was very high. Practices such as these were created in the Second Industrial Revolution and they can deliver value, especially if you have a defined, repeatable process. However, if you have a product or service that needs to evolve to meet changing market demands, these legacy leadership practices can quickly become liabilities.

• Pockets of Agile can deliver better results. But isolated Agile teams will inherently be dependent on non-Agile teams to deliver value. This limits the effectiveness and productivity gains of Agile teams specifically and the organization as a whole. The ad hoc use of different Agile frameworks, as Vice President Jayaram explains, compounds this problem by “not being something we could replicate and scale across the organization.”
• Project-oriented teams are often incentivized to deliver only what the project plan calls for – this inhibits a customer-centric mindset and the incorporation of feedback.
• Expecting teams to always stick to a predetermined plan limits their ability to innovate, creatively problem solve, or pivot to respond to changing requirements or market conditions.
• Outsourcing can create flexibility for organizations, but an over-reliance on outsourcing can slow speed to market and value delivery.
• Too many handoffs deliver little if any value. These can also significantly slow progress on any project or product which increases time to market.
• IT managers that are primarily delegators can become a form of overhead since they’re not actively producing value for customers. Their other skills can atrophy leaving them ill-equipped to help develop their team members, and overall team member engagement and talent retention can suffer.

 

2.1 The Transformation Goal

Since its founding in 1837, John Deere has stood on four core values; Integrity, Quality, Commitment, and Innovation. John Deere’s Global IT leadership knew the group needed to evolve to help propel the company forward into its second century of existence. “At this point, we started benchmarking,” explains Global IT Transformation Lead Josh Edgin, “and it became clear we were not where we wanted to be. It was imperative we leap forward not only to drive innovation but to motivate and attract that top talent,” every organization needs.

Improving speed to outcomes required greater employee engagement, decreased time to market, higher productivity, better prioritization, and alignment, and increase the engineering ratio – the percentage of the organization with what Jayaram and Edgin call “fingers on keyboards” who create the products customers used.

Additionally, leadership wanted to increase the group’s in-house technical expertise, modernize its technology stack, unify around a single Agile framework that easily and efficiently scaled both across IT and the rest of the business, and reorganize its products and portfolios around Agile value streams. All while meeting or exceeding current quality standards.

Leadership wanted to go big. They wanted nothing less than a holistic Agile transformation that would improve every aspect of their business and all of the group’s 500 teams.

Next, senior leadership created the group-wide metrics they would use to measure success. These included:

• Output: Increase by 125 percent
• Délai de mise sur le marché : Reduce by 40 percent
• Engineering Ratio: Improve to 75 percent with “fingers on keyboards”
• Employee NPS (eNPS): 20-point improvement
• Le rapport coût-efficacité : They would reduce labor costs by 20 percent

At the time, these goals seemed ambitious to say the least. “I remember standing in front of our CEO and the Board of Directors to make this pitch,” says Jayaram, “because it was the single largest investment Global IT has made in terms of capital and expense.” But the payoff, he adds, would be significant. “We bet the farm so to speak. We promised we would do more, do it faster, and do it cheaper.”

John Deere’s CEO gave the transformation, called the Agile Operating Model (AOM), a green light.

Just two years into the effort it is a bet that has paid off.

 

Section Summary: The Scrum and Scrum@Scale frameworks, entwined with DevOps and technical upskilling, became integral Agile components of the group’s new Agile Operating Model (AOM). “Leadership found the Scrum@Scale methodology to be the best fit to scale across IT and the rest of the business,” – Ganesh Jayaram, John Deere’s Vice President of Global IT “We had used other scaled frameworks in the past—which are perfectly strong Agile processes. But with PSI planning and two-month release cycles, I think you can get comfortable transforming into a mini-waterfall, so we aligned on Scrum being the best fit for our culture and what we wanted to accomplish.” – Josh Edgin, John Deere Global IT Transformation Lead

 

In-Depth:

Picking the right Agile framework is one of the most important decisions an organization can make. This is especially true when effective scaling is a core component of the overall strategy.

As Edgin explains, Agile was not new to John Deere’s Global IT group. “We had Agile practices. We had Agile teams. We were delivering value.”

But says Edgin, they weren’t satisfied with the results. So, a team began evaluating several different Agile methodologies. They examined what had been done at John Deere in the past and anticipated what the group’s future needs would be.

In the past, Edgin states, “We had used other scaled frameworks—which are perfectly strong Agile processes. But with PSI planning and two-month release cycles, I think you can get comfortable transforming into a mini-waterfall,” he says, “So we aligned on Scrum being the best fit for our culture and what we wanted to accomplish.”

Early on, leadership decided to implement a tight partnership where the IT delivery team(s) are closely coupled with the product organization that is the voice of the customer. When connecting multiple products together, “leadership found the Scrum@Scale methodology to be the best fit to scale across IT and the rest of the business,” says Jayaram.

The Scrum and Scrum@Scale frameworks, entwined with DevOps and technical upskilling, became integral Agile components of the group’s new AOM.

Picking the right Agile consulting, training, and coaching support can be just as important as the choice of framework. Scrum Inc. is known for its expertise, deep experience, and long track record of success in both training and large and complex transformations. Additionally, Scrum Inc. offered industry-leading on-demand courses to accelerate the implementation, and a proven path to create self-sustaining Agile organizations able to successfully run their own Agile journey.

Section Summary: From the beginning, John Deere’s relationship with Scrum Inc. was built around creating a self-sustaining Agile organization. One where the Foundry’s own internal trainers and coaches would build all the capabilities they needed to ensure the Global IT group’s Agile transformation was a self-sustaining one. Internal training capacity increased by 64 percent over a two-year span The number of classes led by internal trainers doubled (from 25 to 50) between 2020 and 2021 John Deere trainers are now leading customized, context-specific courses including Scrum Master, Product Owner, Engineering Manager, Agile for Leaders, Scrum@Scale Practitioner, et Scrum@Scale Foundations

 

In-Depth:

Speak with any number of John Deere team members about their company and you’re likely to hear the phrase “hard iron.” It’s a nod to the construction, agricultural, forestry, landscaping, and other products the manufacturer is best known for.

When it came time to name the final and arguably most important component of the AOM, the Foundry was a clear choice. It recognizes the company’s proud heritage while also symbolizing the change that would drive the Global IT group into the future.

Many organizations incorporate a “learning dojo model” when implementing an Agile transformation. These dojos and their teams are often home to Agile practices, conduct training sessions, and provide immersive coaching for newly launched Agile teams.

Training is, of course, a critical piece of any transformation. As is coaching. After all, switching from a traditional command and control approach to an Agile servant leader approach is a significant, sometimes disorienting change.

However, some corporate dojos work on what could be considered a “catch and release” strategy. They provide one or two weeks of baseline Agile training to individuals and teams, then say “get to it”. Coaching is limited and provided primarily by outside consultants.

The first problem with “catch and release” dojos is the cookie-cutter-like approach. A mass “baseline only” training strategy focus on volume — not understanding and usability.

The second problem is the over-reliance on outside consultants for team and organizational coaching. The cost-prohibited nature of outside consultants can limit the levels of coaching each team receives. This approach also equates to an organization outsourcing its Agile knowledge base and thought leadership — a critical competency in modern business.

The John Deere Foundry and Deere’s approach to embedding Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters across the organization represents the evolution of the dojo model by addressing these problems head-on.

4.1 A Relationship Built on Creating a Self-Sustaining Agile Organization

From the beginning, John Deere’s relationship with Scrum Inc. was built around creating a self-sustaining Agile organization. One where the Foundry’s own internal trainers and coaches would build all the capabilities they needed to ensure the Global IT group’s Agile transformation was a self-sustaining one.

This included not just materials needed to train new Agile teams. This relationship included sharing all the knowledge, skills, expertise, content, and tactics critical to training the coaches and trainers themselves.

The Foundry was launched by a dedicated team comprised of both John Deere’s internal trainers and coaches and their Scrum Inc. counterparts. They worked from a single backlog which prioritized knowledge sharing along with the “hands-on” work of training John Deere’s Global IT teams in Scrum.

Scrum Inc.’s consultants took leading roles during the first wave of training, while their John Deere counterparts observed and learned the content and techniques. By the third wave, John Deere’s internal trainers and coaches were taking the lead, with Scrum Inc.’s consultants there to advise and refine the program.

As time passed, a significant number of trainers and coaches inside the Foundry and across the organization showed the level of mastery needed to successfully pass Scrum Inc.’s intensive Registered Scrum Trainer et Registered Agile Coach courses. They could now credential their own students. More importantly, they demonstrated the ability to drive the Global IT group’s Agile transformation forward on their own.

This approach removes any reliance on outside contractors for key competencies.

4.2 Unified, Context-Specific Training

Implementing an Agile transformation is a complex challenge. Research continues to show that ineffective or insufficient levels of training and coaching are leading causes of failed implementations. So too are misalignment, misunderstandings, or outright misuse of the concepts and terminology important to any Agile framework.

In short, everyone needs to share a unified understanding of the new way of working for it to have any chance of working at all.

The best way to overcome the problem of a cookie-cutter approach is to ensure all training content is as context-specific as possible.

Here too the connection between the Foundry and Scrum Inc. was important.

The joint team of John Deere and Scrum Inc. staff swarmed to create Agile courses packed with customized, context-specific material that would resonate with the company’s Global IT group.

This content removed any feeling of a cookie-cutter approach and increased the usability of each lesson.

4.3 Results 

John Deere’s Global IT group is well on its way to becoming a self-sustaining Agile organization.

• Internal training capacity increased by 64 percent over a two-year span
• The number of classes led by internal trainers doubled (from 25 to 50) between 2020 and 2021
• John Deere trainers are now leading customized, context-specific courses including Scrum Master, Product Owner, Engineering Manager, Agile for Leaders, Scrum@Scale Practitioner, et Scrum@Scale Foundations

Perhaps the best measure of success is the waiting list of teams wanting to go through Agile training and coaching. Initially, hesitancy over implementing the Agile Operating Model and undergoing training was high. Initially, there wasn’t a high demand for the training, however as early adopters experienced success, demand for the training grew. Soon teams were actively seeking admission to the next planned cohort. Now, even with greatly expanded capacity, there is a waiting list.

The Foundry model has been so successful that John Deere’s Global IT group has expanded its footprint to include coaching in Mexico, Germany, and Brazil and launched a full-scale Foundry program at the company’s facility in India. In addition to the Foundry, embedded Agile coaches continuing to drive transformation locally are a key component to the model’s success.

Section Summary: John Deere implemented a wave/phase approach to training at scale. This ensures effective training and minimal interruption to daily operations. The first week of the immersion phase is the only time teams aren’t dedicated to their usual duties. John Deere’s internal coaches created their Ten Immersion Principles (TIPS) as a way of measuring team health once they leave the immersion phase. Foundry coaches and trainers can then focus their efforts to create a continuous learning backlog that the team owns. The Wave/Phase approach has ensured both effective and efficient training across John Deere’s Global IT group. As of December 2021, roughly 24-months after its inception: 295 teams have successfully completed a full wave of training Approximately 2,500 individuals have successfully completed their training 50 teams were actively in wave training Approximately 150 teams were actively preparing to enter a wave

 

In-Depth:

The goal of all large-scale training regimes is to maximize the level of learning while minimizing the impact on daily operations. This is not always easy to do.

Enter the Wave/Phase training approach implemented by the Foundry with Scrum Inc.

In this model, each team includes IT engineers along with their Scrum Masters and business-focused Product Owners. A training cohort, usually comprised of 40 to 50 teams, constitutes a wave.

The waves themselves are comprised of three distinct phases:

• The Pre-Phase: Where teams and locally embedded agile coaches prepare for an immersive wave coaching experience
• The Preparation Phase: Focuses on product organization and customer journeys
• The Immersion Phase: Team launch, coaching, and full immersion into the AOM

All three phases are designed to run concurrently, which keeps the pipeline full, flowing, and ensures efficient training at scale. The transformation doesn’t end with the wave experience. Continuous improvement and ongoing transformation continue well beyond the Immersion Phase, led by embedded agile leaders in partnership with The Foundry.

The quality and context-specific nature of the training itself, along with the “left-seat-right-seat” nature of the coaching, ensures the learning is effective.

5.1 The Pre-Phase

Embedded Agile coaches are continuously transforming teams in their organizations even before they enter a wave. One goal of the Pre-Phase is to ensure readiness of teams looking to enter a wave. Acceptance criteria include:

• Proper organization design review to ensure teams are set up to succeed with the correct roles
• A draft plan for their product structure (explained in more detail in section 6 of this case study)
• Les rôles du Scrum of Product Owner, Engineering Manager, and Scrum Master are filled

Ryan Trotter is a principal Agile coach with more than 25 years of experience in various capacities at John Deere. Trotter says experience shows that not meeting one or more criteria “causes deeper conversations and could result in some mitigations or delaying until they’re ready.”

5.2 The Preparation Phase

The benefits of an Agile mindset and processes can be significantly limited by legacy structures.

Therefore, product organization is the primary focus of the preparation phase.

“We want to create a much stronger connection between the customer, and the Product Owner and team” explains Heidi Bernhardt who has been a senior leader of the Agile Operating Model since its inception. Bernhardt has been with John Deere for more than two decades now. She says individuals in the product and portfolio side of the house learn to “think in a different way.”

Participants in the preparation phase learn how to create customer journey maps and conduct real-world customer interviews to ensure their feedback loops are both informative and rapid — key drivers of success for any Scrum team and organization explains Bernhardt, “They’re talking with the customer every Sprint, asking what their needs are and what they anticipate in the future.”

They also learn how to manage and prioritize backlogs and how to do long-term planning in an Agile way.

Scrum Role training is a critical component of the preparation phase. Product Owners and Scrum Masters attend both Registered Scrum Master and Registered Product Owner courses.

Team members and others who interact regularly with the team take Scrum Startup for Teams, a digital, on-demand learning course offered by Scrum Inc. “Scrum Startup for Teams provides a really good base level of understanding,” says Ryan Trotter, “People can take it at their own pace and they can go back and review it whenever they want. It really hit a sweet spot for our software engineers.”

By the end of 2021 Scrum Startup for Teams had helped train roughly 2,500 people in the Global IT group and nearly the same number of individuals throughout the rest of John Deere — including those who aren’t on Scrum Teams but who work closely with them.

5.3 The Immersion Phase

The 10-week long immersion phase is where the Agile mindset and the AOM take flight. Where the Scrum and Scrum@Scale frameworks are fully implemented and the teams turn the concepts they’ve learned in the prior phases into their new way of working.

For John Deere’s Global IT group, immersion is not a theoretical exercise. It is not downtime. It is on-the-job training in a new way of working that meets each team at their current maturity level.

The first week of immersion is the only time teams aren’t dedicated to their usual duties.

During this time, says Trotter, coaches and trainers are reinforcing concepts, answering questions, and the teams are working through a team canvas. “This is where the team members identify their purpose, their product, and agree on how they’ll work together.”

Teams are fully focused on delivering value and their real-world product over the next nine weeks.

The Product Owner sets the team’s priorities, refines the backlog, and shares the customer feedback they’ve gathered. The Scrum Master helps the team continuously improve and remove or make impediments visible. Scrum Masters collaborates with an embedded Agile Coach that continues to champion transformation. Team members are delivering value. John Deere’s technical coach for the team is the Engineering Manager, a role that has transformed from the original team leader.

Those in the immersion phase receive intensive coaching, but they are also empowered to innovate or creatively problem solve on their own. The goal is for the coaches to help make agility and learning through experimentation a part of each team’s DNA.

The transition from students to practitioners becomes more apparent towards the end of immersion. Coaches take more of a back seat in the process explains Trotter. “We don’t want to create a false dependency. We want the teams to take ownership of their own Agile journey, to know the Foundry is here when needed but to be confident that they’ve got this and can run with it so they can continuously improve on their own.”

5.4 Measuring Wave Training Effectiveness

Measuring the effectiveness of any large-scale Agile training program requires more than just counting the number of completed courses or credentials received. The instructors and coaches must be able to see the Agile mindset has also taken hold and the implementation is making a positive impact on the organization. They also need the ability to see where problems are arising so they can provide additional coaching, training, and other resources where needed.

John Deere’s internal coaches created their Ten Immersion Principles (TIPS) as a way of measuring team health once they leave the immersion phase. Foundry coaches and trainers can then focus their efforts to create a continuous learning backlog that the team owns.

The TIPS are:

• Value Flows Through the System Super Fast: The team can deliver new products or features to customers very quickly. Any impediments or dependencies hindering delivery are quickly identified and addressed
• Amplify Feedback Loops: Rapid feedback from customers is a reality
• Continuous Learning Organization: The team is taking ownership of their learning paths and Agile journey
• Deliver Value in Small Increments: The team delivers value to customers in small pieces in order to gather feedback, test hypotheses, and pivot if needed
• Customer Centricity: The team is focused on those actually using the product and not just the stakeholders interested in the value the product should deliver
• Continuous Improvement: The team is always looking for ways to improve product and process
• Big and Visible: The team make progress, impediments, and all needed information transparent and easy to find
• Team is Predictable: The team tracks productivity metrics and estimates backlog items so that the anticipated date of delivery for products or features can be known
• Data-Driven Decisions: Feedback and real data, not the loudest voice or squeaky wheel — is used to make decisions
• Culture of Experimentation: The team is willing to take calculated risks and are able to learn from failure

 

5.5 Results

The Wave/Phase approach has ensured both effective and efficient training across John Deere’s Global IT group. As of December 2021, roughly 24-months after its inception:

• 295 teams have successfully completed a full wave of training
• Approximately 2,500 individuals have successfully completed their training
• 50 teams were actively in wave training
• Approximately 150 teams were actively preparing to enter a wave

The positive business impact this training has had is outlined in section 8. Metrics and Results of this case study.

Section Summary: The weakness in traditional project management becomes apparent when you have a product or service that will evolve and emerge over time. There are just too many unknowns for the traditional approach to work effectively. All products are now segmented into one of three categories based on actual value delivery and market feedback. These categories are: Grow: High-value products or opportunities worth a higher level of investment Sustain: Products worth continuing at current investment levels Monitor: Products that aren’t delivering the ROI expected or aren’t delivering the anticipated value. Investment levels may need to be adjusted There are some products that may have problems that need to be addressed immediately, or the investment levels are decreasing in certain areas of the product due to rationalization efforts.  Those products are flagged with Fix or Exit so the MetaScrum can have prioritization conversations more easily.

 

In-Depth:

Erin Wyffels keeps an old whiteboard in her office as a reminder of the moment she and her team solved a particularly complex problem.

Wyffels leads the product excellence area of the Foundry, supporting John Deere’s product leaders in product ownership and the dynamic portfolio process. She has a long history with traditional project management, inside and outside of IT. Over the past two years, she has grown her expertise in Agile product and portfolio management.

John Deere’s Global IT group manages a catalog of more than 400 digital products across 500 teams. These support every business capability in the broader company — from finance and marketing to manufacturing and infrastructure and operations.

Most large organizations are built on legacy systems. Left unchanged, these systems can limit the effectiveness of an Agile transformation. Wyffels says the prior structure of projects and portfolios within John Deere’s Global IT group was just such a system. “Our old taxonomy would in no way work with Agile.” So, she was picked to help change it for the better.

6.1 Why the Product and Portfolio Structure Needed to Change 

Before implementing the AOM, portfolio management was an annual affair. One that Wyffels says, “left everyone unhappy.”

Stakeholders and senior leadership would come with a list of desired projects. Financial analysts, IT department managers, and portfolio managers would then hash out funding for these projects. Teams would then be assigned to the resourced projects. All pretty standard stuff in the corporate world.

There are, however, several problems with this approach.

Take the focus on projects. Traditional project management is a very effective approach for defined processes. By definition, a project has a start date and an end date. A set amount of work is to be done at a predetermined cost.

The weakness in traditional project management becomes apparent when you have a product or service that will evolve and emerge over time. There are just too many unknowns for the traditional approach to work effectively.

Then there’s the time it takes to make decisions based on customer feedback. As Wyffels points out, the annual nature of the pre-AOM process meant, “The best information and data you could get would be a quarter old.” Agility requires far more rapid feedback loops.

Throw in a taxonomy built more around project type than the value delivered and employees who were moved to projects instead of allowed to own a product end-to-end, and John Deere’s Global IT group had a system that was optimized based on constraints but didn’t support where the company was headed next. They were ready for a system that promoted total product ownership including value, investment, and quality and move to the next level of product maturity.

6.2 Customer Perspective and Value Streams

The need to adopt Agile product and portfolio management processes became apparent early in the AOM’s implementation.

Amy Willard is a Group Engineering Manager currently leading the AOM Foundry. She says this also becomes apparent for individual teams taking part in the immersion phase of wave training. “We see changes in their product structure evolving. They have that aha moment and realize the structure we had before wasn’t quite right.”

The new, Agile structure focuses on three critical components — customer perspective, value streams, and a product mindset.

• Customer Perspective: Willard says the value delivered to customer personas is now used to more logically group products and product families. This Agile taxonomy helps to reduce time to market and boost innovation by fostering greater coordination and collaboration between teams.
• Value Streams: Dependencies, handoffs, and removing bottlenecks are also considered when creating product groups and portfolios. Willard notes, “We’ve had a lot of success with developing value stream maps across products,” also from a customer journey perspective.
• Product Mindset: Projects are defined by their scope, cost, and duration. Products are different, they evolve based on market feedback to continually deliver value to customers.  The difference may sound small, but Willard says it represents a “major shift” in mindset for the Global IT group.

The group has developed a curriculum for people in product roles in each transformation wave, with coaching support available to each person. The same content has been made available for all roles through a self-learning option, which is great for non-product roles or people that take a new position after their group’s wave is complete. Additionally, the communities being established for product roles and collaboration across people in the roles are the final building blocks to continued maturity after the transformation waves are done.

6.3 Highlighted Result: Better Value-Based Investments

The implementation of Agile product and portfolio management has yielded numerous positive results for John Deere’s Global IT group. These structural changes were critical drivers of the success noted in the Metrics and Results section of this case study.

This shift has also increased the ability of the group’s senior leadership to act like venture capitalists and invest resources into areas and products with the most potential value to both the organization and customers.

All products are now segmented into one of three categories based on actual value delivery and market feedback. These categories are:

• Grow: High-value products or opportunities worth a higher level of investment
• Sustain: Products we want to continue investing in, but not to differentiate
• Monitor: The capability is required to run a successful business, but the investment level may be reduced

There are some products that may have problems that need to be addressed immediately, or the investment levels are decreasing in certain areas of the product due to rationalization efforts.  Those products are flagged with Fix or Exit so the MetaScrum can have prioritization conversations more easily.

The heightened levels of business intelligence and customer feedback the AOM has fostered allow leadership to make better decisions about investments faster. It also reduces the cost of pivoting when market conditions change.

Strong products, as well as prioritization and alignment at every level of the organization are what will make the portfolio process most effective at John Deere.

Section Summary: At John Deere’s Global IT group being Agile isn’t defined by holding Scrum events, it’s about implementing Scrum the way it was intended by Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland. Log into John Deere’s AOM transformation portal and you’ll find a section with dedicated self-learning and career advancement paths. This includes everything from User Experience Practitioner to Scrum Master and Product Owner. “We’re a company that is walking the talk. We’re making investments both in terms of our team members and technology.” – Ganesh Jayaram, John Deere’s Vice President of Global IT

 

In-Depth:  

John Deere has a long history of finding innovative solutions to common problems. Today, they’re still focused on driving customer efficiency, productivity, and value in sustainable ways.

As the company states, “We run so life can leap forward.”

That alone is enough to make the company iconic. For John Deere, that’s just the start.

People matter at John Deere. So too do concepts like purpose, autonomy, and mastery made famous by author Daniel Pink in his book Drive. “It’s no secret that there is a war for talent right now,” acknowledges Global IT Transformation Lead Josh Edgin, “and the market is only getting more competitive.” John Deere’s Global IT group is not immune to that competition. However, it has an advantage over other organizations — a thriving Agile culture.

Psychological safety, empowerment, risk-taking, are the foundations of the AOM.  At John Deere’s Global IT group,being Agile isn’t defined by holding Scrum events, it’s about implementing Scrum the way it was intended by Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland.

Work-life balance is important. The environment is one of collaboration and respect. The group also has a common sense based remote work policy and a number of hubs for when collocation is imperative.

All this doesn’t mean everything is perfect at John Deere’s Global IT group. Leadership is the first to tell you they can and will do even better. This itself is a powerful statement — this is a place where continuous improvement is everyone’s goal, not something management demands of delivery teams.

“We’re a company that is walking the talk,” says Global IT Vice President Ganesh Jayaram, “We’re making investments both in terms of our team members and technology.” Here are just three of the important ways John Deere’s Global IT group is indeed “walking the talk.”

7.1 Transformation Portal 

Big and visible. That is the goal of the group’s transformation portal. Everything relating to the AOM implementation can be found here.

Resources, wave schedules, thought leadership, and shared learnings are all available in this in-depth dashboard. Far more than you often see in other organizations. So too are metrics for individual teams and the group as a whole.

“People want purpose,” says Edgin, “they want to solve hard problems. They want to know the work they do matters.”  This portal allows individuals to better understand their roles and they work together.

7.2 Agile Career Paths

Log into John Deere’s AOM transformation portal and you’ll find a section with dedicated self-learning and career advancement paths. As Amy Willard explains, “We have a path for every persona and community led CoPs, supported by the Foundry.” This includes everything from User Experience Practitioner to Scrum Master and Product Owner.

Having clearly defined career paths and self-learning opportunities is an important step. It not only empowers continuous improvement, but it also shows professional agilists that they’re valued, their skills are important, and they have a bright future at the organization which does not dictate they must choose between agility and career advancement.

7.3 Prioritizing Team and Organizational eNPS Scores

Through the AOM John Deere was focused on creating a great place to work. Leadership believed that healthy teams would drive creativity, productivity, and sustainability.

John Deere’s Global IT group regularly measures this through both team and organizational Employee Net Promoter Scores, or eNPS. By asking employees if they would recommend their team to others, leaders can gain a better understanding of the health and engagement of the team.

Edgin explains the importance of these metrics this way, “When you create a culture where you have awesome employees with the right mindset and great technical skills you want them to stay here because this is where they want to be.”

The Global IT group began with a 42-point baseline. A score above 50 is considered excellent. The group now has a score of 65, greater than the 20-point improvement targeted by leadership.

Individual teams show similar results across the board.

Section Summary: Across the board, Deere’s Global IT Agile transformation has met or exceeded every initial goal set by senior leadership. Output: Has increased by 165 percent, exceeding the initial goal of 125 percent. Délai de mise sur le marché : Has been reduced by 63 percent — leadership initially sought a 40 percent reduction. Engineering Ratio: When looking at the complete organizational structure of Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile Coaches, Engineering Managers, UX Professionals, and team members, leadership set a target of 75% with “fingers on keyboards” delivering value through engineering. This ratio now stands at 77.7 percent. Le rapport coût-efficacité : Leadership wanted to reduce the labor costs of the group by 20 percent. They have achieved this goal through insourcing and strategic hiring–even with the addition of Scrum and Agile roles. Employee NPS (eNPS): Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, is a reflection of team health. The Global IT group began with a 42-point baseline. A score above 50 is considered excellent. The group now has a score of 65, greater than the 20-point improvement targeted by leadership.  The results for some teams are exponentially greater than for the group overall. John Deere’s return on investment on the Global IT group’s transformation is estimated to be greater than 100 percent.

 

In-Depth:

Truly successful Agile transformations don’t have a finish line. That’s why they call it a journey of continuous improvement.

Still, just two years into this implementation, John Deere’s Global IT group is clearly well down that path. The results are as indisputable as they are impressive.

“When you look at a product area and you see a 1,000 percent improvement can’t help but think they got the baseline wrong,” says Global IT Vice President Ganesh Jayaram.

But, digging deeper, the improvement is real.

Take the productivity gains seen from the teams with Order Management. Jayaram says these teams were chosen for the AOM’s pilot project because it was “the most complicated, had the most dependencies, and had tentacles throughout the organization.” He believed that if Scrum, Scrum@Scale, and the AOM worked for Order Management, other teams couldn’t question if it would work for them.

Metrics show just how successful the pilot was.

• Le nombre de Fonctions/caractéristiques fournies par sprint has increased by more than 10X
• Les number of Deploys has improved by more than 15X

Both results are exponentially greater than the 125 percent increase target set for the transformation. While the Order Management results are leading the way, results from other business capability areas inside the Global IT group are closely following.

Take the ERP-heavy environment of Manufacturing Operations. Here, Edgin notes, thanks to the Agile transformation and the modernization of the technology stack, “this year we’ve delivered an order of magnitude more value and bottom-line impact to John Deere in the ERP space than in any previous year.”

He adds that “Every quality measure has improved. We’re delivering things at speeds previously not thought possible. And we’re doing it with fewer people.” Other Manufacturing Operations results include:

• Délai de mise sur le marché : Reduced by 87 percent
• Déploie : increased by 400 percent
• Features/Functions Delivered per Sprint: Has nearly tripled

 

8.1 Global IT Group Overall Results

Across the board, Deere’s Global IT Agile transformation has met or exceeded every initial goal set by senior leadership. Even when you combine results from both more mature teams and those that have just left the Foundry.

The targets that leadership set were to be reached within six months after completing immersion, but John Deere is seeing continued progress led by the business capability areas to achieve even higher results with the ongoing guidance of embedded change leaders such as Scrum Masters and business capability Agile coaches.

• Output: Has increased by 165 percent, exceeding the initial goal of 125 percent.
• Délai de mise sur le marché : Has been reduced by 63 percent — leadership initially sought a 40 percent reduction.
• Engineering Ratio: When looking at the complete organizational structure of Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile Coaches, Engineering Managers, UX Professionals, and team members, leadership set a target of 75% with “fingers on keyboards” delivering value through engineering. This ratio now stands at 77.7 percent.
• Le rapport coût-efficacité : Leadership wanted to reduce the labor costs of the group by 20 percent. They have achieved this goal through insourcing and strategic hiring–even with the addition of Scrum and Agile roles.
• Employee NPS (eNPS): Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, is a reflection of team health. The Global IT group began with a 42-point baseline. A score above 50 is considered excellent. The group now has a score of 65, greater than the 20-point improvement targeted by leadership.

 

8.2 Return on Investment and Impact on the Bottom Line

Agile transformations are an investment, in people, culture, productivity, innovation, and value delivery. Like any investment, transformations must deliver a positive return to be judged a success.

Deere’s ROI on the Global IT group’s transformation is estimated to be greater than 100 percent.

Successful Agile transformations also make a material impact on their company’s bottom line. Financially, 2021 was a banner year for John Deere. The company generated nearly $6 billion in annual net income — far more than its previous record.  So, it takes a lot to materially impact the company’s bottom line.

Both Global IT Transformation Lead Josh Edgin and Global IT Vice President Ganesh Jayaram believe the AOM has indeed helped move the financial needle at Deere.

“The metrics we track show very clearly the answer is yes,” says Jayaram.

Edgin states, “We’re helping the company achieve our smart industrial aspirations by improving how we serve our customers and boosting productivity.” He adds that the AOM allows the group to “innovate and deliver high quality, secure solutions at a much faster pace to meet and exceed our customer needs.”

Section Summary: John Deere used Scrum and Scrum@Scale to help successfully navigate the challenges caused by a global pandemic and major supply chain disruptions. Additional results for the Supply Chain Solutions teams include: Durée du cycle : Improved by 79 percent Délai de mise sur le marché : Reduced by 66 percent Fonctions/caractéristiques livrées par Sprint : Improved by 448 percent  Déploie : a augmenté de 567 Overall Costs: Reduced by 20 percent  Team eNPS Score: Improved to 60 (anything over 50 is considered excellent)

 

In-Depth:

Un leader mondial avec plus de 25 marques, John Deere s'appuie sur une chaîne d'approvisionnement complexe et une logistique efficace pour garantir que la production et la livraison se déroulent comme prévu.

Plus de 10 000 pièces sont nécessaires pour assembler un seul des véhicules John Deere. Le X9, qui a été primé, combine — twice the number of components needed to build a new car.

Les moissonneuses-batteuses modernes, tout comme l'agriculture moderne, nécessitent beaucoup plus de technologie que vous ne le pensez.

Sensors, antennas, and motherboards are now just as critical as tires, treads, and tines. Of course, John Deere makes far more than combines. Its iconic logo appears on everything from tillers and tractors to marine engines, motor graders, and the John Deere Gator utility vehicle. In all, the company manufactures more than 100 distinct lines of equipment.

Each product relies on efficient and effective supply chain management — from procurement and sourcing to cost control, shipping, customs, and final delivery.

Globalement, John Deere dépend d'un réseau complexe de milliers de fournisseurs du monde entier pour fabriquer des produits John Deere de pointe.

La coordination et la collaboration avec ce réseau par le biais de solutions numériques incombent en grande partie aux équipes Supply Chain Solutions de l'entreprise et à Karen Powers, Digital Product Manager for Supply Chain Management and Worldwide Logistics chez John Deere.

"Nous sommes responsables de chaque expédition dans le monde entier, explique-t-elle, depuis le fournisseur jusqu'à l'usine, en passant par tous les composants, et jusqu'à l'expédition finale du produit fini au revendeur. Pour ce faire, l'équipe de Mme Powers s'occupe également de certains aspects du commerce mondial de l'entreprise, notamment les importations, les exportations, les douanes, la documentation et les droits de douane.

It’s a mammoth undertaking even in the best of times. And 2020 and 2021 were hardly the best of times.

Mais les équipes des solutions de la chaîne d'approvisionnement de John Deere ont été plus qu'à la hauteur de la tâche. Elles ont utilisé avec succès Scrum comme cadre d'équipe pour augmenter le rendement et Scrum@Scale comme cadre organisationnel pour optimiser l'alignement et la valeur ajoutée. Ensemble, ils ont aidé Supply Chain Solutions à relever les défis posés par une pandémie mondiale et des perturbations majeures de la chaîne d'approvisionnement.

John Deere n'a pas seulement survécu à cette période complexe, l'entreprise a prospéré. À la fin du mois de novembre 2021, l'entreprise a annoncé des bénéfices records.

Jay Strief, the Group Engineering Manager of Supply Chain Solutions, connects this success in part to managing through supply chain issues and puts it in personal terms. “The awesome story here is the change in the culture; innovation, risk-taking, and many clear examples of teams stepping out of their comfort zone to deliver new value.” All of this, he adds, “was made possible through our digital transformation.“

9.1 Why Supply Chain Solutions Went Agile

Mme Powers a joué un rôle de premier plan dans le domaine des technologies de l'information chez John Deere pendant la majeure partie de sa carrière, qui s'étend sur deux décennies.

Elle a dirigé l'organisation de l'intégration des processus d'affaires de l'entreprise et la mise en œuvre d'un système ERP pour la division Construction & Forestry de l'entreprise. Mme Powers a également dirigé l'organisation mondiale d'analyse de John Deere et diverses équipes techniques dans les domaines de la finance et de la fabrication. Elle maîtrise les méthodes de travail "classiques".

When asked if there’s anything Powers misses about those pre-Agile days she quickly answers “no,” before adding, “looking back at the challenges we had to overcome in the last 18 months, I can’t fathom trying to do that without being this Agile.”

Les tactiques traditionnelles de gestion de la chaîne d'approvisionnement ont longtemps été utiles à John Deere. Après tout, il est impossible de devenir une entreprise du Fortune 100 avec une large empreinte mondiale sans coordonner efficacement son réseau de fournisseurs et de livraisons.

Mais, en tant qu'entreprise, John Deere comprend que ce qui est suffisant aujourd'hui ne le sera peut-être plus demain. Mme Powers et ses équipes pensaient que l'approche traditionnelle ne serait pas assez rapide ou flexible pour suivre le rythme de l'innovation et les demandes de solutions numériques de la part de l'organisation mondiale de la chaîne d'approvisionnement.

Powers says procurement of digital solutions could take months to materialize – or longer. The needs of the business line making the request often changed during that time. What was delivered was what they originally asked for but not always what they now knew they needed. It was clear that John Deere needed to adapt to continue to support customers with growing technology needs and increasing expectations for efficiency.

Les solutions de la chaîne d'approvisionnement devaient être plus rapides et plus efficaces pour aider John Deere à rester un leader du secteur. Ils ont donc commencé à se poser les questions suivantes : "Comment éliminer le plus grand nombre possible de manipulations ? Comment rationaliser ce processus ? Comment mieux interagir avec le client ou les partenaires internes ?" Et Mme Powers s'est demandé : "Comment nous assurer que nous disposons des bonnes compétences et des bons talents pour pouvoir réagir plus rapidement ?"

L'innovation est l'une des valeurs fondamentales de John Deere et l'entreprise est fière de sa capacité à résoudre les problèmes de manière créative. Cela fait partie de l'ADN de l'entreprise et de sa culture. Lorsque Mme Powers et son équipe ont pris connaissance du modèle opérationnel agile (AOM) - une stratégie de transformation introduite pour moderniser le groupe informatique mondial de John Deere - et de la collaboration avec Scrum Inc., ils ont fait pression pour être inclus dans la deuxième vague de la transformation.

Au début de l'année 2020, alors qu'ils se trouvaient encore dans la phase d'immersion de leur formation, les responsables de Supply Chain Solutions ont été appelés à soutenir l'organisation Global Supply Management pour faire face à la volatilité, à l'incertitude, à la complexité et à l'ambiguïté (V.U.C.A.) qui sont désormais devenues la norme pour les chaînes d'approvisionnement du monde entier.  

9.2 Overcoming V.U.C.A.: COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruptions

Désignée comme entreprise essentielle, John Deere a poursuivi ses activités et continué à fabriquer des produits qui contribuent à la construction et à l'entretien d'infrastructures essentielles et à l'alimentation de la planète, et ce tout au long de la pandémie.

Le défi consistant à faire fonctionner toutes les chaînes de montage de John Deere serait immense. Mais comme le souligne M. Powers, "John Deere relève toujours le défi".

À ce stade, les équipes de John Deere chargées de la solution de la chaîne d'approvisionnement ont effectivement mis en œuvre les deux programmes suivants Scrum et Scrum@Scale. Selon M. Powers, ces deux cadres ont permis à Supply Chain Solutions d'être à la hauteur de son nom.

N'étant plus ralenties par une approche trop lourde et bureaucratique, les équipes sont rapidement passées d'une approche essentiellement stratégique à une approche équilibrée entre les besoins tactiques et stratégiques requis pendant la pandémie.

Le fait de travailler par sprints de deux semaines a permis aux équipes de replanifier et de redéfinir les priorités plus rapidement. Elles ont pivoté pour surmonter de nouvelles difficultés ou pour faire face à l'évolution constante des conditions sur le terrain. Les équipes chargées des solutions de la chaîne d'approvisionnement de John Deere ont toujours disposé d'analyses solides et fiables et pouvaient détecter les goulets d'étranglement potentiels dans leur réseau. Associées à Scrum et Scrum@Scale, ces équipes disposent désormais de la flexibilité nécessaire pour agir sur les goulets d'étranglement avant qu'ils n'empêchent l'acheminement de pièces essentielles.

Toutefois, le changement le plus important est peut-être venu du renforcement de l'alignement et de la responsabilisation des équipes que Scrum et Scrum@Scale ont contribué à mettre en place.

Dans les anciennes méthodes de travail, les acheteurs et les responsables de la base d'approvisionnement demandaient souvent aux équipes de solutions pour la chaîne d'approvisionnement de mettre en œuvre une solution prédéterminée, ce qui limitait la possibilité pour les membres de l'équipe de solutions pour la chaîne d'approvisionnement de partager leur expertise.

L'état d'esprit agile qu'apportent Scrum et Scrum@Scale signifie que ceux qui font le travail, et qui le connaissent le mieux, sont libres de trouver la manière la plus efficace de le faire. "Pour moi, c'est ce qui a changé la donne", explique M. Powers, "parce que vous disposez de cette matière grise collective, des personnes qui connaissent les données et les tenants et aboutissants qui peuvent fournir des choses dont l'entreprise n'avait même pas rêvé".

Prenons l'exemple de la pénurie de matériaux provoquée par la pandémie. Au sein de leur groupe de produits de composants ferreux, les équipes chargées de l'analyse de la chaîne d'approvisionnement et de l'approvisionnement ont adopté une nouvelle approche pour gérer les coûts et les risques. John Deere s'est appuyé sur sa nomenclature pour obtenir une meilleure visibilité sur tout ce qu'elle achetait tout au long de sa chaîne d'approvisionnement. John Deere a utilisé une taxonomie des niveaux pour indiquer la différence entre un composant achevé (niveau 1) et les pièces nécessaires à sa fabrication (niveau 2). La visibilité accrue de ces différents niveaux a permis à l'entreprise de surmonter les goulets d'étranglement de manière créative avant que les problèmes ne surviennent. Elle a ainsi pu mieux gérer les coûts et les risques.

"Alors que le projet initial portait sur un seul produit, d'autres opportunités sont rapidement apparues au fur et à mesure que le groupe d'analyse développait des vues d'ensemble de nos dépenses totales par catégorie", explique M. Powers. "L'évolution du projet de dépenses échelonnées a été une excellente illustration de la méthode Agile en action. Le développement itératif et la connexion permanente entre les responsables de catégories et les membres de l'équipe d'analyse ont permis de s'assurer que le résultat final était utile à un large groupe d'équipes internes."

La solution proposée par l'équipe pour remédier à la pénurie mondiale de puces électroniques en 2021 était encore plus créative.

Normally, John Deere does not buy microchips directly. Instead, it buys completed boards that contain those chips from suppliers. Still, explains Powers, Supply Chain Solutions knew the shortage could detrimentally affect their businesses because “if the suppliers can’t get the chips, they can’t make the boards and we can’t put them into machines.”

Supply Chain Solutions a donc demandé à son réseau comment il pouvait aider les fournisseurs à sécuriser directement les micropuces. Quelques membres de l'équipe ont été chargés de créer des scripts d'automatisation qui parcouraient l'internet à la recherche de micropuces répondant à leurs besoins spécifiques et de la date à laquelle elles seraient disponibles. Ce nouveau système a permis de compléter l'offre des fournisseurs.

Tout cela, explique M. Powers, était assorti d'une seule condition pour les fournisseurs : "toutes les puces que John Deere a contribué à sécuriser devaient nous être revendues sur une carte complète".

Là encore, les lignes de John Deere ont continué à fonctionner. C'est une chose que les autres grands fabricants ne peuvent pas dire. "Il est évident que nous sommes confrontés aux mêmes défis que les autres entreprises", explique M. Powers. "La différence réside dans notre capacité à faire des choses que nous ne faisons normalement pas pour aider nos fournisseurs. Cela nous aide à obtenir ce dont nous avons besoin."

La même équipe, un nouveau modèle opérationnel, un nouvel état d'esprit et la "capacité de fonctionner avec succès dans n'importe quelle situation". C'est ce que le modèle opérationnel agile, Scrum et Scrum@Scale ont apporté à l'organisation informatique mondiale de John Deere.

M. Strief l'explique ainsi : "La numérisation de notre chaîne d'approvisionnement ne se limite pas à une nouvelle technologie : "La numérisation de notre chaîne d'approvisionnement n'est pas seulement une question de nouvelle technologie, c'est une transformation en termes de nouvelle valeur commerciale que nous apportons. En cours de route, nous avons amélioré la satisfaction professionnelle de nos ingénieurs logiciels et nous continuons à investir dans le développement de compétences de pointe au sein de notre personnel."  

9.3 Structured to Deliver Strategic and Tactical Goals

Comme nous le savons, les années 2020 et 2021 ont été parmi les plus difficiles de l'ère moderne pour les professionnels de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. Le simple fait d'atteindre des objectifs tactiques pouvait constituer un accomplissement majeur compte tenu du niveau de V.U.C.A. auquel la fonction était confrontée.

L'ingéniosité et le dévouement des membres de l'équipe Supply Chain Solutions de John Deere, ainsi que leur utilisation de Scrum et Scrum@Scale, leur ont permis de répondre aux besoins tactiques et stratégiques.

Parallèlement à la formation Scrum, le parcours Agile de Supply Chain Solutions a commencé par deux changements structurels importants qui ont aidé les équipes à obtenir des résultats bénéfiques.

Comme l'explique M. Powers, le premier de ces changements a fait évoluer la manière dont l'unité était dirigée. "Nous avons pris ce qui était auparavant un poste de direction unique et l'avons divisé en deux rôles avec des responsabilités différentes et plus ciblées".

L'un d'entre eux, le responsable des produits numériques commerciaux, se concentre sur les problèmes commerciaux que l'unité contribuait à résoudre et examine comment la technologie peut contribuer à obtenir les résultats souhaités. C'est le rôle de M. Powers.

The second role, held by Strief, focuses on ensuring teams have the right capabilities with digital skills, technical acumen, and depth of experience to innovate and deliver successfully and rapidly.

Cette nouvelle structure de direction permet à M. Powers et à M. Strief de se concentrer sur leurs domaines d'expertise spécifiques. Ils ont des responsabilités claires, savent ce dont chacun est responsable et permettent des lignes de communication plus claires et un minimum d'obstacles bureaucratiques. M. Powers estime que cette structure divisée "est ce qui fait vraiment fonctionner ce modèle".

Le deuxième changement structurel important concerne les équipes elles-mêmes.

"Dans le passé, les équipes étaient structurées autour d'une application ou d'une technologie spécifique", explique M. Powers. "Le passage d'un projet stratégique à un besoin tactique pouvait donc ralentir considérablement ce projet stratégique."

Nous avons commencé à examiner nos applications et nos processus d'une nouvelle manière", explique M. Powers. Ils ont identifié ce qui était obsolète et ce qui pouvait être rationalisé ou regroupé. Supply Chain Solutions a ensuite complètement réorganisé sa taxonomie de produits autour de ces flux de valeur nouvellement identifiés et a restructuré ses équipes en conséquence.

Besides being more efficient, Powers notes this new product structure also created, “a stronger sense of empowerment and ownership,” throughout the team — from the product owner to the team members. “That’s their baby and their pride and joy.”

So, they get to really take that to the next level and know they had a real hand in making a positive impact,” versus just checking off a list of requirements and requests.

Les équipes ont également modifié leurs méthodes de travail.

In Scrum, teams break large work into smaller increments. This, says Powers, along with a well-prioritized backlog meant “the teams were able to move from the tactical to the strategic without losing momentum.” The net result of these changes in structure and process, combined with John Deere’s strong analytics, is clear; John Deere’s lines kept running — through the pandemic, supply bottlenecks, and shortages. At the same time, the Supply Chain Solutions teams were able to deliver multiple award-winning strategic initiatives that helped the company control or recoup costs and boost efficiency. These included:

• Modernisation de l'application interne "Cost Central", qui est une plaque tournante pour la gestion des coûts des matériaux dans l'ensemble de l'entreprise. Les améliorations ont porté sur la facilité d'utilisation, la visibilité des données telles que le coût prévu, et une amélioration globale de l'expérience et de l'engagement de l'utilisateur.
• Une initiative stratégique qui a tiré parti de l'analytique et de la visibilité accrue stimulée par la transformation Agile de John Deere pour les produits numériques, qui a permis d'améliorer la qualité des produits. a permis à l'entreprise de récupérer quelque $20 millions d'euros de ristournes de droits de douane.
• Une initiative stratégique qui a combiné l'apprentissage automatique et l'analyse pour augmenter le pouvoir d'achat et le contrôle des coûts en créant une visibilité sur les pièces ayant des dimensions, des composants, des performances et des caractéristiques matérielles similaires, mais des numéros de pièces différents.

 

9.4 Additional Results and Metrics

Les dirigeants de John Deere ont entamé leur transformation Agile en fixant des objectifs ambitieux. Chacun d'entre eux représente un niveau d'amélioration ciblée que toute entreprise aimerait atteindre.

Si l'on ajoute à cela le niveau sans précédent de complexité et de V.U.C.A. qui a caractérisé les chaînes d'approvisionnement en 2020 et 2021, on peut s'attendre à ce que les équipes de John Deere chargées des solutions pour la chaîne d'approvisionnement soient, au mieux, sur le point d'atteindre ces objectifs.

Au lieu de cela, six mois seulement après la fin de la phase d'immersion de leur formation, Supply Chain Solutions a pulvérisé ces objectifs ambitieux et a réalisé bien plus que prévu. Les données recueillies par John Deere dans cinq domaines spécifiques sont les plus parlantes :

• Durée du cycle : Avant la transformation Agile de John Deere, il fallait 54 jours pour que les solutions de la chaîne d'approvisionnement passent de l'idée à la livraison. Aujourd'hui, ce délai n'est plus que de 11 jours. This represents a 79 percent improvement, far more than the 40 percent targeted by leadership.
• Délai de mise sur le marché : Les dirigeants voulaient réduire ce chiffre de 40 %. Les solutions de la chaîne d'approvisionnement l'ont réduit de 66 %.Le nombre de jours de travail est passé de 89 à 30.
• Fonctions/caractéristiques livrées par Sprint : Supply Chain Solutions fournissait neuf fonctions par sprint avant sa transformation Agile. La direction souhaitait que ce chiffre augmente de 125 %. Six mois après la fin de la phase d'immersion, Supply Chain Solutions réalise désormais 49 fonctions par sprint, une amélioration de 448.
• Déploie : Dans ce cas, les dirigeants visaient une augmentation de 125 % par rapport à la base de 10. Au lieu de cela, Supply Chain Solutions a fait passer ce chiffre à 67, une amélioration de 567.
• Le rapport coût-efficacité : Le recrutement des bonnes personnes, avec les bonnes compétences pour les bons rôles, a permis à Supply Chain Solutions d'éliminer les "intermédiaires" et les transferts coûteux. Les équipes ont ainsi pu obtenir les résultats susmentionnés tout en réduire les coûts globaux de 20 pour cent.
• L'eNPS de l'équipe :L'Employee Net Promoter Score, ou eNPS, est un moyen efficace de mesurer le bonheur et l'engagement de l'équipe. Un score supérieur à 50 est considéré comme excellent, c'est pourquoi la direction a fixé un objectif de 50+ pour cette mesure. Le score eNPS actuel de Supply Chain Solutions est de 60.

Pour Mme Powers, ce dernier point de données personnifie leur transformation Agile. "S'amuser au travail et faire avancer les choses ne s'excluent pas mutuellement", dit-elle. "Nous avons suivi ce parcours et les gens ont commencé à s'amuser, et nous voyons la différence dans les résultats."

9.5 Conclusion 

Au début de leur parcours Agile, beaucoup se demandaient si cela fonctionnerait dans un environnement structuré et entremêlé. "Beaucoup de gens doutaient qu'Agile puisse fonctionner ici. Qu'il était possible d'opérer une transformation Agile dans le domaine des solutions pour la chaîne d'approvisionnement".

Mme Powers admet volontiers qu'elle faisait partie de ces sceptiques.

C'est alors qu'elle a eu son "a-ha".

“Suddenly I saw how it absolutely applies to everything you do,” no matter how complex or intertwined. She admits that “It may take a little blind faith to start your Agile journey,” before adding,” the pieces will make sense. The teams will deliver more, you’ll accomplish more, and everybody will love what they’re doing.” That, she says, is the game-changer. For Supply Chain Solutions, Agile allows them to adapt while the game itself keeps changing.

In 2021, the use of Scrum@Scale throughout John Deere’s Global IT group represented one of the largest such implementations in the world.

The success of the AOM built on Scrum and Scrum@Scale as well as DevOps, Organization Design and a modernized technology stack is undeniable.

The group’s Scrum Teams are happier, more empowered, and more engaged. As Amy Willard notes, “We can deliver functionality that our customers love faster than ever before.” Rework is down. Quality is up.

“The verdict is in,” says Josh Edgin – The AOM was clearly “the right thing to do.”

Successful implementations are known to spread organically throughout an organization. Well beyond the group that launched the transformation. Edgin says this has already begun at John Deere.

“One of our Agile coaches was asked to go down to the factory floor and work with one of the factory teams. They had tremendous success.”

Global IT Vice President Ganesh Jayaram sees “The fact that Agile has made it into the vernacular of the broader company,” as one of his favorite signs of success.

Research and development, manufacturing, human resources, are all areas where he believes the AOM can help drive beneficial outcomes. “You can transform any function,” says Jayaram, “You have a backlog, you prioritize, you become customer-centric.” That, he says, would be the AOM’s biggest win.

As a company, John Deere’s higher purpose is clear: We run so life can leap forward. The Global IT group is positioned to help achieve that purpose for decades to come.

Update: On May 31st, 2022, Ganesh Jayaram was appointed the Chief Information Officer at John Deere.