Cesario Ramos

In Cascais last year at our trainer meetup, we asked, "What are the principles of CAO?" Initially, we saw the Guides in the book as potential principles, but the question stayed with me... Now, back in Cascais for some remote work, I’ve distilled those guides into these principles. Here they are:

Around 2010, a manager asked me something like: “𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘈𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪-𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘙 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬. 𝘚𝘰, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?” Instead of traditional top-down evaluations, implement: - 𝐏𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Frequent, informal feedback helps individuals and teams grow without the constraints of traditional appraisals. - 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝: Teams must develop new skills to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. - 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡: Performance must focus on team outcomes, not individual metrics. When orgs follow these ideas, it tends to support adaptable teams, people who embrace change, and a more resilient organization.

Instead of outcome, “We need to increase customer retention by 10%,” We ask: “What capability will keep improving customer retention over time?” Maybe it’s learning to gather and act on customer feedback faster. Maybe it’s the ability to run small, cheap experiments. Whatever your specific capability is, when you focus on building the capability, the outcomes take care of themselves. The real question is: What capabilities will make us better every day? Outcomes are the result—capabilities are the key.

Agile promises efficiency, but why do we keep adding people? An executive once asked me:
"We’ve been practicing Agile for years. It’s supposed to bring improvements, right? But we keep adding people. Where are the freed-up resources?" This question really made me pause and think. Agile is designed to help organizations deliver more value, not necessarily reduce headcount. But if the efficiency gains from Agile aren’t explicitly aligned with strategic goals, they often get absorbed into “doing more stuff.” The result? More features, more people, more meetings—but not always more value.

Despite massive investments in Digital Transformation, with $6.3 trillion projected by 2024, failure rates remain high—around 84%. The issue? Many large organizations lean heavily on scaling frameworks like SAFe or LeSS, but without adapting them to their unique needs, they struggle to achieve Agile success. Rather than simply adopting a framework, organizations should focus on evolving it to fit their specific, changing context. The key question isn’t “How can I adopt Framework X?” but “How can I evolve my framework to meet my organization’s needs?”

In my previous post on Product Definition, which you can read here, I introduced the basics of how products—both internal and external—are defined in an agile organization. Today, I’m excited to share a deeper dive into this concept through a new video, where I walk you through how we apply Systems Thinking in the Creating Agile Organizations (CAO) approach.

When designing your own Agile framework, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The key is to find the right balance based on how work flows through your system, particularly focusing on the type and frequency of dependencies. Your framework design should prioritize eliminating the most common dependencies first.

In the late 90s, many companies adopted a 150-person rule for organizational units to maintain manageability and cohesion. However, this approach often led to fragmented products and complex management structures, making strategic execution a challenge. Today, a new idea is emerging. Instead of splitting units by size, companies are forming dedicated product groups with full P&L responsibility, encompassing entire product families. This shift has streamlined strategic units, reduced reporting lines, and enhanced agility in responding to market changes.

As a Scrum Master, it's time to rethink our approach to agility. Instead of forcing strategies into predefined frameworks, evolve your operating model to align with unique strategies and empower your teams. This fundamental shift creates a dynamic organization that continually evolves and improves. In this blog, I share seven steps to help you out.

In the Creating Agile Organizations prototype organization, semi-independent product groups and shared services coexist. Product groups are operationally coupled by shared services but functionally decoupled from each other, that is: actions by a product group does not negatively impact the ability of other product groups to achieve their function. This design ensures that product groups can make necessary changes without being negatively impacted by other groups. Understanding and implementing both product-level and organizational adaptability is crucial for modern agile organizations. By balancing tight and loose coupling appropriately, organizations can remain resilient, responsive, and competitive in ever-changing markets. This dual-level adaptability allows organizations to thrive by continuously optimizing value and enhancing the customer experience.