Author: Mario Aiello

Hi, I’m Mario – retired agility warrior from a major Swiss bank, beyond agile explorer, lean thinker, former rugby player, and wishful golfer. I’ve been in the agile space since 2008. I began consulting in 2012 with a Scrum adoption in a digital identity unit — and that path eventually led me to design an Agile Operating System at organisational scale. What pushed me further was frustration: poor adoption, illusionary scaling, and “agile” that looks busy but doesn’t improve business outcomes. That’s why I developed the Adaptive Fitness System (AFS) — an approach that treats agility as fitness for change: fit for purpose, fit for context, fit for execution, and fit for continuous improvement. Today, I use AFS to help organisations sense what’s real, learn fast, and adapt with intent.

A thought on agility implementation

At the organisation level, an agile transformation usualy consists in two interlaping phases: a transition to new ways of working and an evolution of the new ways onto business agility.

Team agility litmus test

Agility is all about priority, simplification, cooperation, ownership, value delivery, feedback, and continuous improvement. The test could help teams assess their agility and identify areas that may provide improvements.

The dynamics of value generation through needs

Needs define value, needs generate value add activities, and needs drive flow efficiency.

The AOS seen as a generative agility model

In a generative model we learn about needs by exploring the context, figuring out what knowledge will enable the right changes.

Simplifying the transition to business agility

When the organisation thinks about “moving to agile” or “adopting agile” commonly they think Scrum to form agile teams, then start the debate about how best to scale agile, SAFe, Scrum@Scale, Less, etc.

Break silos for business agility

Business agility is hindered by operational silos, breaking these optimizes the flow of value.

The AOS supports Business Agility

The Agile Operating System facilitates the scaling of an agile transformation by promoting suatainable business agility . Sustainable agility and meaningful change relies on an ecosystem that supports new ways of working that extend from the team level to the executive level.

What agility for an organization?

This question is quite relevant and should be: does the organization need and want agility? How can we then implement it and express it?

Three phases to start an agile transition: the purpose (why), the context (because), the practice (how).

An agile transformation in an hour.

If I was asked to transform an organisation to new ways of working (WoW); agility being the key word; and I was given an hour to complete the task ….

The AOS revisited

The Agile Operating System (AOS) addresses the value stream of an organization by identifying the relevant workflows that intervene in the business value creation process.

Initiative to value delivery flow

Business as well as technical initiatives flow through the value streams and the respective workflows in order to generate value outcomes.

Value stream, workflow, teams, and feedback loops

These concepts are all intimately related within the flow of value, as the value stream guides the way, workflows organize activities, the teams make value happen, and feedback loops allows for adjustment and pivoting.

The dual loop of needs and outcomes

The relationship among teams is a continuous dual loop of needs and outcomes, the basic links bettween the workflows of a value stream.

The lean/agile fabric

This is about how lean and agile principles come together in support of an ecosystem that allows the organization and its teams to express new ways of work (WoW).

The good, the bad, and the ugly

While examining an agility initiative and implementation look out for good, bad and ugly practices and conditions that are affecting the agile environment.

The AOS through the Kanban lens

The Kanban Lens

In his blog Andy Charmichael defines the Kanban lens as follows:

See work as flow
See workflow as a sequence of knowledge discovery steps
See knowledge work as a service
See the Organisation as a network of services

The Agile Operating System (AOS) can be then analized through this lens as follows:

The AOS seen as a loop chain of services

See the Agile Operating System (AOS) as a consensual chain of inter connected services:
– The AOS is a chain: sequence of services linked through feedback loops
– The AOS is consensual: work agreed is decomposed and handled by adjacent level service
– The AOS is inter-connected: blockers on work items affect other services

Outcome of an agile transition

The evolution towards agility is achieved through an iterative and adaptive approach: the why it should be done, is backed up by the because it needs to be done, in order to define the how to do it.

The AOS and handoffs

Handoffs are a sort of waste (they represent the transition from one ownership level to another, the equivalent to transportation as a sort of manufacturing waste) and the Lean nature of the Agile Operating System (AOS) aims at preventing waste.

Are there any handoffs within the AOS, and how are they dealt with?

The answer is NO!