Originally created by Donald Patti, The Agile Transformation Playbook is set of plays, or work patterns, that work well during agile transformations, significantly increasing the likelihood of success.
An agile coach, trainer and veteran of more than a dozen agile transformations, Patti saw that detailed transformation plans resulted in as many failures as they did successes. He also noticed that Scrum-style backlogs containing prioritized transformation work were much better, but this approach required quite a bit more experience with transformations than the typical coach, Scrum Master or organization leader had.
To bridge the gap, he created the Agile Transformation Playbook to describe the “plays”, or approaches, that could be executed during the transformation based on the organization’s current situation. Enough information was provided with each of the plays to know when to call them, so less experienced agilists could use the playbook to successfully guide transformations. Then, Patti went one step further – he open-sourced the playbook and published it online under the Creative Commons license, so others could both reference and contribute to the playbook.
The playbook you see today is a product of the open-source effort made by dozens of agile practitioners across the globe. If you’d like to contribute a play or provide a working example of a play you’ve used, to make the playbook even better, please do so. We’d love to benefit from your talents and experience!
You can also see the plays in greater detail here. Or, you can learn more details about how to use the playbook by reading more in this section.