Capability Building · EST. 2011 · APAC

Executive capability in place before the programme started. IAG's leaders led agile they didn't just sponsor it.

The Situation

A significant programme of work was set to commence across IAG and the executive leadership group needed to be ready to lead it — not just sponsor it. IAG engaged ZXM to build the capabilities required to lead an agile operating model at portfolio scale: setting strategic direction, prioritising investment under genuine uncertainty, and participating actively in the system of work rather than standing above it.

The cohort included senior leaders accountable for complex, interdependent portfolios. The challenge was practical, not conceptual — the executives understood the need for agile; what they needed was a working model for their specific responsibilities within it.

What the diagnostic found

Before designing the session, ZXM mapped the leadership cohort’s current operating context: the portfolio structure, the nature of the incoming programme of work, and the specific decision-making points at which executive engagement would be most consequential. Three conditions shaped the design.

Executives were working in a delivery system that was transitioning to agile at scale, but the governance and prioritisation mechanisms they were using had not evolved with it. Investment decisions were still being made using stage-gate logic, which produced mismatch between portfolio-level intent and team-level execution. Feedback loops from delivery to executive leadership were too slow and too summarised to drive meaningful course correction. And the framing of executive accountability in agile — managing the system rather than managing the plan — had not been operationalised for the specific portfolio context IAG was entering.

What changed

The intervention targeted the decision-making architecture, not the executives’ general understanding of agile. ZXM designed and delivered a structured executive workshop that worked through each of the three conditions identified in the diagnostic — directly, in IAG’s portfolio context, with IAG’s specific investment decisions as the working material.

The session established a consistent model for managing investment prioritisation using cost of delay — moving from stage-gate approval logic to portfolio backlog discipline. Executives worked through the mechanics of evidence-based management for portfolio reporting: how to read the signals that matter, which metrics indicate system health rather than activity, and how to use OKRs to connect strategic intent to delivery outcomes. The session also addressed the operating rhythm required for genuine executive participation in an agile system: how PI Planning works at their level, how feedback loops from delivery should inform portfolio decisions, and what active governance looks like when the plan is not fixed.

The design was grounded in IAG’s incoming programme structure throughout. No generic agile theory. Every model applied to a real IAG prioritisation decision or portfolio scenario.