James Shore & Diana Larsen's Proficiencies of Planning

During Agile Open Northwest, James Shore and Diana Larsen held a session called Proficiencies of Planning. They presented a concept they had been discussing to the group of standing room only people and solicited feedback and input. This blog post is what James posted after the conference. I felt this was one of the best sessions at AONW. It was the one that made me think the most.

I really like the progression of agile adoption shown:

• Level 0: We build code.
• Level 1: We create business value.
• Level 2: We deliver business value.
• Level 3: We optimize business value.
• Level 4: We optimize our organization's business value.

During the session we documented a progression of customer involvement in projects along these levels which also showed an interesting progression starting at level zero with a “disconnected customer” to level four having a “customer as investor/constituent/strategic partner/co-inventor.”

In my organization, I can see a spread across the first few levels based on the attributes described on these sticky notes. We do some things well on most of the levels and fall over on some of the other things. But I do feel that my team is pushing in the right direction and now we have a blueprint to help us identify targets of opportunity.

Where does your organization fit? Are you and your team pushing toward a productive mutually beneficial relationship with your customers?