toom Baumarkt GmbH / REWE Group has embarked on the Agile Journey

Initial situation: IT at toom embarked on the agile journey at the end of 2019 and started the first sprint in April 2020 and thus actually started the first PI from the beginning. Almost 2 years later, during which the organisation has grown rapidly, we, the transformation team of IT, had to realise that the implemented agile frameworks such as Scrum & Kanban no longer fit sufficiently for the 150-strong team: the dependencies became less and less transparent, the coordination deadlines more and more and the teams more and more dissatisfied. So we looked for support and, through a workshop with SeibertMedia, came across KEGON and, in persona, Kurt and Florian.  

KEGON solution: Together with Kurt, we forged a plan in several sessions on how the SAFe building blocks implemented in toom IT (e.g. PI Planning) can be optimised and other elements can be completely redesigned (e.g. identification of value streams) - an "Agile & SAFe renovation".

In order to be able to actively support this renovation on the part of toom IT, three of us attended an Implementing SAFe training with Nikolas and Silke in May 2022. As subsequently certified SAFe Programme Consultants (SPC), we were able to organise a Leading SAFe training course together with KEGON on site in Cologne in the summer of 2022 with around 20 managers from IT and other departments. With this knowledge in hand, the important value streams for toom were identified in autumn 2022 together with many other toom colleagues.  Since the beginning of the year, we have been validating the results and cutting the corresponding Agile release trains. 

There is still no end in sight for our journey, but we would like to thank Kurt and the entire KEGON team for their support up to this point. The decades of experience, the fresh impulses and the right questions have helped us a lot!