It's time for course correction

After a year of doing Agile development with 6 teams and getting 2 releases out, it's time to reflect on how we are doing and identify areas for improvements across the organization. As with any organizational change the key is to move forward, because only when you move you can make course corrections.
This month I have facilitated a half day Cross-Team Retrospectives workshop with our global product development organization. Prior to that session each team has identified their own pluses and deltas an filled out an Agile Maturity Assessment survey. Output of these two activities has fed the Cross Team Retrospectives.
After identifying top 6 issues we've asked small groups to work on finding the root causes of these issues, describing the desired state and proposing ways to get to the desired state. Teams were told about "5 why's" and "Force Field Analysis" techniques, but in the time allocated for the workshop we could implement these techniques only at the high level.
Teams were given opportunity to present their findings and rest of the group has engaged in the discussion on each topic.
Overall the session was very productive. Main contributor to the session success was openness with which people shared their opinions, despite the fact that some senior managers took part in the discussion.
This workshop has not solved any of the 6 identified issues, but this wasn't the purpose. The idea is for the Engineering Management team and the Product Management team to analyze the outcomes of discussions, come up with concrete proposals for improvements and follow up with all the Agile teams.
Here is an example of what can be a follow up. Let's take the problem that people do not see value in daily stand ups. The action that we recommend taking in such case is for the team to identify what is the right information to be shared at the standup, such that it will benefit team members coming to the meeting. This is not "a" solution, but this will help the team to help itself to find value with stand ups. Another example. Let's take an issue with carry overs. Specific techniques would be to break down stories that are 8 points or bigger, and otherwise to not pull them into the sprint.
Now couple words about Agile Maturity Assessment. There are several assessments available on the web. I tried to stay away from the ones focusing on the actual SCRUM practices, and have designed a model that focuses on desired behaviors and results. The assessment measured our Agile Maturity in following areas:
1. Communication and Collaboration
2. Embracing Feedback and Change
3. Focusing on Working Software
4. Technical Debt Control
5. Planning and Predictability
Each area has topics and each topic has questions and weights. Total score is presented on a "radar" where we can see how we as a team perform with respect to being Agile.
Both the Cross-Team Retrospectives and the Agile Maturity Assessment are great tools in transformation leader's toolbox to assess and correct the organization's course.