Lean-Agile Center of Excellence Workshop

Course Description

The LACE is a small, dedicated team of leaders and change agents who are responsible for driving real and lasting organizational change.

An effective Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) is a critical success factor differentiating organizations fully committed to adopting Lean-Agile practices and achieving significant business results from those practicing Agile in name only.

The challenge is that most of the people qualified to drive change have full-time responsibilities in their current roles. While a significant portion of their time can perhaps be devoted to supporting the change, a smaller, more dedicated group of people is needed to drive SAFe® adoption throughout the organization.

Objectives

Create the mission statement and charter for the LACE
Understand and learn how to carry out the responsibilities of the LACE
Determine the organizational model for the LACE (centralized, decentralized, or hub-and-spoke)
Set up the LACE as an Agile team
Build your initial SAFe® Implementation Roadmap
Learn how to prepare to launch your first Agile Release Train (ART)

Topics Covered

Proven SAFe® adoption patterns described in the SAFe® Implementation Roadmap
Which LACE organizational model is best for your organization
LACE roles and responsibilities and the key practices the LACE can leverage to drive enterprise adoption
An action plan for generating the short-term wins critical to organizational change
A roadmap and Kanban system to sustain and expand on early successes
Fostering Release Train Engineer (RTE) and Scrum Master Communities of Practice (CoPs)
Extending SAFe® to Lean Portfolio Management, Human Resources, and Finance

Audience and Certification Details

Executive Sponsors
Change Agents
Certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPCs)
Agile Coaches

Prerequisites

All participants must have attended an Implementing SAFe® or Leading SAFe® class
Completion and socialization of a Value Stream Workshop

Duration

1 Day

Price

Email sales@iconagility.com or call (636) 530-7776 for private, on-site pricing.

Interested in this training course? Let us know!

Training Course Feedback

Tom was a fantastic partner, teaching SAFe for Teams with me Tuesday and Wednesday. I appreciated his knowledge first and foremost, but also his adaptability and collaboration as he was thrown right in and was instrumental in pulling off a successful training. Fingers crossed we get to work together again, but if other ICON partners are half as good to work with as Tom, I’ll be thrilled.

Alexander T., SAFe^® for Teams Student

Thanks to Kathy Marshak I got the highest score I've ever gotten on a SAFe exam.

Alvin Jackson, SAFe^® RTE Student

I felt that our Instructors, Kathy and Doug, did an excellent job of presenting the SAFe program. They were diligent about keeping us on track and focused on the end result of making sure that we all understood the processes and practices of SAFe in preparation for the exam. I believe their presentations combined with the interactive activities kept everyone highly engaged.

Barb T., Implementing SAFe^® Student

Thoroughly enjoyed and learned a great deal from the course. Can't imagine anyone doing it better!

Implementing SAFe^® Student

I recently attended one of the highest value, 1-day training sessions of my career. Led by Larry LaSalle and offering a comprehensive look at the pathways and pitfalls to implementing OKRs at enterprise, I heartily recommend this opportunity.

Kim Gokce, Scaled OKRs Certified Facilitator Student

I attended the Certified Scrum Product Owner course last week and now have a new certification. After attending two certification classes in addition to ICON's SA class, I can definitely say that Icon provided a much better experience. The content was superior and there was more of it. The food was also better.

Leading SAFe^® Student

As an instructor, I found Dan James' DevOps class to be extremely well organized, exceptionally presented, and immediately relevant. Our team began using the SAFe methods right after the class and found tremendous benefit, initially saving over 30 hours of waste time in each iteration. We revisit every program increment and continue to see improvement. Our Value Stream and Health Check evaluations continue to be the single most impactful ceremony for our team.

Lisa F. from GFS, SAFe® DevOps with SDP Certification

Covid forced training to a fully remote style. The folks at ICON have responded with class offerings that mash up the standard training slides from SAFe with tools that nicely facilitate remote training gaining the engagement of the class participants and team breakouts.

Lisa F. from GFS, SAFe® RTE Certification Class

The training did a nice job packaging and presenting core software development practices that have been foundational to excellent software development over the last several years.

Lisa F. from GFS, SAFe® Software Engineering with ASE Certification

I really appreciated how the perspective of the Architect was always compared to the Business Perspective and IT Perspective. Whether the topic was DevOps, aligning to Strategy, or steps in the Program Increment Planning; it really helped me to see what the Business or IT representative would be thinking, compared to what I need to be thinking about for the architecture, and how to relate to them as collaborators in the process.

Lisa F., SAFe® for Architects ARCH Certification

I really enjoyed the course, given the current situation with remote work/learning, ICON has really nailed the ability to deliver this content online. Thank you all so much for a great course.

Nina Chavez, Implementing SAFe^® Student

Strongly recommend this course. It provides instrumental tools to help the Agile practitioner expand beyond the bounds of dev teams to identify and quantify bottlenecks in the flow/delivery of outcomes from an idea's inception to delivery to customers.

SAFe^® DevOps Student

ICON's SAFe DevOps class struck a great balance of establishing foundational concepts and equipping participants with tactical tools to influence outcomes. You’ll take away a tangible game plan to create efficiencies, better empower teams and instill proven practices to transform your delivery pipeline.

SAFe^® DevOps Student

Many thanks to ICON and Dan [James] for his fabulous instruction. This class was not a DevOps refresher. The ongoing discussion and activity forced me to think about my operational value stream in a way I hadn't before. I feel like I have some strong, data-based arguments for change - and that's what it's all about.

SAFe^® DevOps Student

True to the course description, this course will enable Agile leaders to implement 'Order Of Magnitude' advancements, regardless of your company's Agile maturity.

SAFe^® DevOps Student

The SAFe DevOps training helped me understand how DevOps principles and practices are critical to delivering business value faster and equipped me as an RTE to help support our organization's journey towards DevOps. Dan James is one of my favorite SAFe course instructors who brought a depth of knowledge, real-world experience to make concepts understandable, and a fun sense of humor which made the class an engaging experience.

SAFe® for DevOps Student

I recently attended one of the highest value, 1-day training sessions of my career. Led by Larry LaSalle and offering a comprehensive look at the pathways and pitfalls to implementing OKRs at enterprise, I heartily recommend this opportunity.

Scaled OKRs Certified Facilitator student