When an organization begins a new or renewed transition to a more agile way of working, leaders, especially those in executive, management, or transformation roles, face a wide range of challenges. Knowing where to start and how you can best coach your team(s) in a new way of working can be overwhelming.

One of my go-to resources when starting a new leadership position has been Michael Watkins’ book The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter. The book provides a framework for making a positive impact in your first 90 days in a new leadership role by overcoming challenges based on the current situation in which the organization or team finds itself. While the book is focused on transitioning to a new or different traditional management role, its guidance can be applied to the challenges faced by leaders in a new or renewed move to a more agile way of working.

Leaders impacted by such a transition include existing roles such as executives, directors, line managers and project managers, and potential new roles such as agile coaches, Product Owners and Scrum Masters. Watkins’ framework, which he calls the STARS model, helps a leader assess and navigate the different situations they may encounter when in a new environment. STARS is an acronym that stands for five common business scenarios:

S – START-UP: Building something from scratch; no existing structure or processes. In this scenario, teams are forming or are new to agile.  This is an ideal time to introduce agility from the ground up. Leaders should focus on building a shared understanding of agile values and principles, guiding teams through the basics of frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban, and encouraging a mindset of experimentation and learning. The emphasis should be on simplicity, collaboration, and delivering small increments of value.

T – TURNAROUND: Organization or team is struggling; performance is poor or declining. In turnaround situations, the organization or team has attempted to be agile but is under pressure due to poor performance or crisis. Agile leaders must overcome low morale, mistrust, and resistance to change. They need to stabilize team(s), rebuild confidence, and demonstrate quick wins through agile delivery. The challenge lies in balancing urgency with sustainable transformation and ensuring psychological safety while driving accountability for creating value.

A – ACCELERATED GROWTH: Organization or team is growing rapidly; systems and processes may be lagging. When an organization needs to scale rapidly, agile leaders face the additional challenge of fostering agility while expanding teams, systems, and processes. Coordination across multiple teams becomes complex, and there’s a risk of missing the agile mindset in favor of speed. Leaders must coach the teams on the implementation of scalable agile frameworks, ensure consistent practices, and coach teams to preserve quality and alignment with stakeholder and customer value.

R – REALIGNMENT: Organization or team is stable but has underlying issues; performance is slipping. In realignment scenarios, the organization or team may appear stable but is drifting from its goals or losing effectiveness. Agile leaders must diagnose hidden dysfunctions, engage teams, and reignite the agile mindset. The challenge is to introduce change without disrupting what is currently working, and to help teams rediscover purpose and customer focus through agile principles and practices.

S – SUSTAINING SUCCESS: Organization or team is performing well; the challenge is to maintain momentum. Organizations in this scenario are performing well, but the challenge for agile leaders is to maintain momentum, foster innovation, and evolve agile practices to stay competitive. Leaders must encourage continuous improvement, support experimentation, and ensure that agility becomes a strategic advantage rather than a set of routines.

Each scenario requires a different leadership focus, and understanding which situation you’re in guides you in tailoring your strategy for the first 90 days. Here’s how I’d focus my coaching and the activities that can help in each scenario from an agile leadership perspective:

START-UP

Agile Focus: Establish foundational agile practices and culture.

Coaching Focus:

• Introduce agile principles and frameworks (Scrum, Kanban). Help the team(s) determine which framework best suits how they create value.
• Facilitate team formation and role clarity. Allow team(s) to be as self-organizing as possible.
• Support backlog creation and MVP definition. Coach the team on prioritizing value and the importance of “Done” increments.
• Encourage experimentation and feedback loops.

Activities:

• Agile bootcamps and workshops. Create a common understanding of what it means to be agile.
• Team chartering sessions. Ensure each team has created their own team working agreement.
• Coaching on backlog refinement, right-sizing of product backlog items, estimation and sprint planning.
• Regular retrospectives to build continuous improvement habits. Create and maintain a list of improvement items.

TURNAROUND

Agile Focus: Use agile to restore trust, transparency, morale and delivery capability.

Coaching Focus:

• Diagnose root causes of dysfunction and help the team plan solutions.
• Rebuild agile discipline and transparency.
• Prioritize quick wins with “Done” increments to show progress.
• Coach leaders on servant leadership and the importance of self-managing teams.

Activities:

• Agile health assessments and morale surveys.
• Targeted coaching for Product Owners and Scrum Masters.
• Stakeholder alignment sessions.
• Retrospective deep-dives and action planning to guide the team to the appropriate agile practices.

ACCELERATED GROWTH

Agile Focus: Scale agile practices to support rapid expansion while maintaining quality and culture.

Coaching Focus:

• Support scaling frameworks (Nexus, LeSS, SAFe).
• Strengthen agile governance and cross-team collaboration.
• Coach leaders on agility at scale.
• Ensure teams stay customer-focused.

Activities:

• Scaling framework selection and rollout.
• Communities of practice for agile roles.
• Agile portfolio management coaching.
• Metrics workshops to track value delivery rather than activity.

REALIGNMENT

Agile Focus: Reignite the agile mindset and correct course.

Coaching Focus:

• Identify and address issues causing stagnation.
• Reconnect teams with customer value.
• Reintroduce agile principles and practices.
• Coach leaders on change management and influence.

Activities:

• Agile maturity assessments.
• Refresher training and coaching.
• Vision and strategy alignment workshops.
• Leadership coaching on agile sponsorship.

SUSTAINING SUCCESS

Agile Focus: Maintain agility while fostering innovation.

Coaching Focus:

• Promote continuous learning and improvement.
• Encourage innovation and experimentation.
• Support leadership in evolving agile practices.
• Strengthen feedback loops and customer engagement.

Activities:

• Innovation sprints and hackathons.
• Advanced agile workshops (e.g., DevOps, Lean UX).
• Leadership roundtables on agility and strategy.
• Coaching on metrics that drive learning and growth.

The STARS model provides a powerful framework for helping leaders transition to a more agile way of working by aligning their leadership approach with the specific context of their team or organization. Each scenario, Start-up, Turnaround, Accelerated Growth, Realignment, and Sustaining Success, presents unique challenges and opportunities that influence how agile practices should be introduced or evolved.

In a Start-up, leaders can use agile to build foundational practices, foster collaboration, and establish a culture of experimentation from the ground up. In a Turnaround, agile offers tools for rapid feedback, transparency, and restoring trust through iterative delivery and team empowerment. During Accelerated Growth, agile helps scale operations while maintaining quality and alignment, enabling leaders to manage complexity and support distributed teams. In a Realignment, leaders can leverage agile to diagnose issues, re-engage teams, and drive meaningful change without destabilizing the organization. Finally, in Sustaining Success, agile supports continuous improvement and innovation, helping leaders maintain momentum and prepare for future shifts.

By using the STARS model, leaders can tailor their agile transformation strategy to the realities of their environment, ensuring that their approach is both context-sensitive and outcome-driven.