Join me in becoming a little more agile every day.
Shannon Bouchet: Agile Transformation Coach
Shortly after college I started my career in consulting, and I LOVED the fast pace. A few years later I began my SAP career, where I was what is now called a solution architect in the data integration space. I quickly learned the criticality of systems thinking in the ERP term of "Order to Cash." I began to believe that it meant that whatever came in on the purchase order from the customer very likely needed to be reflected on the invoice, otherwise the company did not get its cash.
Eventually I married my love of consulting and of SAP, becoming successful at implementing full-scale SAP implementations as a Program Manager that maintained the golden triangle of on time, on budget and on scope.
At the same time, agile principles began taking hold at a lot of client sites, and great strides were being made to deliver quick wins. So I took a step away from program management to consult within a small startup environment that was leveraging agile. I immediately saw the benefit of incremental delivery with fast feedback loops... and I saw the potential perils of not leveraging systems thinking concepts to design an appropriate architecture. Consultant heavy teams would build the most amazing stand-alone applications, not recognizing the need for real time data calls to ensure the integrity of the content displayed.
In my quest to find a symbiotic relationship of "just enough" architectural design while embracing speed and incremental delivery, I discovered the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe.) While nothing is perfect, this model helps address the real world problems many large and encumbered corporate IT organizations were facing. I then committed myself to becoming an expert.
Since that time I have led agile transformation initiatives for numerous companies, which has necessitated adaption and refinement of the framework for each context and culture. I find the work incredibly rewarding and the results very powerful for my clients.
