Business Case #1

GEN is a department of the Orange Group with 400 people worldwide. GEN employees are a population of hyper experts, working on average for 15 years on the same perimeters.

The entity faced a number of issues that generated tensions at various levels:

• Lack of collaboration and management of collective priorities.
• Scattered energy and abortion of current projects due to lack of synchronization.
• Recurrent reorganizations that monopolize a lot of energy and generate stress, for very little efficiency. A reorganization takes one year of reflection, six months of implementation and once in place, it no longer meets expectations.
• Strong demand for change coming from teams that see the world moving and feel the need to adapt.
• Tensions between colleagues due to lack of common vision, shared priorities, opaque organization.

The challenge expressed by Emmanuelle Métivier-Byrd, Head of Agility, was clear: The world is changing all the time and we must take it as a component. How can we adapt more quickly to our rapidly changing ecosystem: new technologies, very different new competitors? How can we accept that everything changes very quickly, without stress?

How can we adapt and react to these very fast and permanent changes by taking it as an opportunity and not a constraint?

The needs were as follows:

• Realign teams to why we’re together and who does what: clarify why and what everyone’s roles are.
• Put clarity in the organization and learn to adapt and to trust.

1. Clarify department and each project purpose: Why are we together?
2. Agility awareness at the management & team level.
3. Mentorship & coaching to adopt agile governance for each team on the field. Readjustment in real time.

Key factors for success:

• Test agility on a small perimeter with motivated people and observe, then duplicate.
• Test agility on the field very quickly after training because it gives theory a meaning.
• Very progressive transformation by applying the theory of small steps. Involve the people from the field, listen to them, collect feedback: which generated an oil stain effect.

From a quantitative point of view:

• Priorities are better shared at global level.
• The number of projects that launch spontaneously, without managerial impulse increased.
• Demands for agility training increased
• Projects that were dragging on before, they accelerate thanks to a global prioritization and collective energy focused on high-priority projects

According to internal surveys:

• Collaboration and team spirit is developed and installed.
• Clarity of roles.
• Teams have more fun, feel more fulfilled and celebrate successes.
• “Agility adds a more human and fun dimension to our projects.”

« Agility is a mindset that applies to all areas of life. You need to trust people. People have the right skills to achieve the things they are placed on. By doing this you gain a level of freedom that is fantastic, but you have to let others have their own freedom. »

Emmanuelle Métivier-Byrd