Adapto™ Core Guide

Use Adapto to:

• Deliver business goals in an Agile way
• Improve your organization’s performance and adaptability by implementing an Agile Operating Model

This guide introduces the core framework of Adapto, used to deliver business goals. It covers the essential concepts, definitions and terminology, with a minimum of examples and discussion. This guide will be evolved over time and is currently in MVP form.

Delivering business goals with the Adapto Core framework

Adapto uses the concept of Business Improvement Goals (or Objectives) that run within an Agile (Target) Operating Model.

Goals/objectives are an effort to deliver something of value - it can represent a steady stream of business operations with targets, it can be an improvement of business processes, it can be product development, it can be a project… it can be practically anything that represents concrete value.

Examples of Adapto goals/objectives:

• Develop a new version of a product or service
• Sell or operate an existing product or service
• Improve the sales process we use to sell an existing product or service
• Deploy a product to a new customer

While some of these scenarios, to some extent, can already be addressed by Scrum and other agile product development methodologies, these typically fall short of considering the full organizational and business lifecycle, being more focused on product development and innovation than on actual operations.

Adapto also distinguishes itself from methods such as OKRs by specifically addressing initiative execution and behavioral change, and by connecting goals and metrics to continuous improvement concepts such as organizational culture and agile operating models.

Adapto takes a holistic approach to all the work that is necessary to successfully build and run an organization and defines a universal framework that not only guides product development but also organizational design, general business operations and their continuous improvement.

Adapto Core Framework

The Adapto Core framework works through two connected movements: a Bootstrap Phase and an Improvement Loop. Together, they form a complete system for aligning strategy, execution, and continuous improvement.

The basic Adapto improvement core framework is: Execute improvements to increase Maturity, increased Maturity drives reaching your target Metrics, which achieves your Goals.

The key steps to implement it, in sequence, are:

• Identify what matters most and kick it off. These are your goals (or objectives).
• Define how success will be measured. These are your metrics (or key results).
• Define what needs to improve. These are your maturity indicators, and you use them to build a Maturity Model for the goal. Maturity indicators can be of two types: behaviors or milestones. Behaviors are the most important.
• Propose actions to improve behaviors and achieve milestones, and execute them using agile methods. These are your improvements or experiments.
• Review results, adapt, and scale iteratively and incrementally.

Adapto Roles

Teams do the necessary work to deliver. These are meant to be Agile teams (cross-functional, self-organized, continuously improving, using an agile method to manage their work, etc).

Stakeholders provide support and feedback
Stakeholders can be end users, leadership roles, external parties, internal dependencies… just like in Scrum, correct stakeholder identification and collaboration is critical for success.

Adapto Coach guides everyone to success

The Adapto Coach is responsible for the successful implementation of Adapto. 
A successful Adapto implementation either delivers the desired outcomes (Metrics), or generates early feedback on why this is not feasible or realistic.
Experienced Adapto Coaches are experts in Agile (skills: Scrum, Facilitation, Agile at Scale, Training,  Consulting), in Lean (Lean Six Sigma), in Change Management (Kotter, ADKAR, etc) and in Leadership and organizational development.
Other, more generic names for this role could be “Business Agility Coach” or “Enterprise Agility Coach” or we can simply consider this role an evolution of the classic “Agile Coach”.

Adapto Artifacts

The Adapto artifacts are:

• Goal(s)
• Metrics (linked to Goals)
• Maturity Model composed of Maturity Indicators (linked to Metrics)
• Improvements Backlog (linked to Maturity Indicators)

Events: Adapto Bootstrap Phase

The Bootstrap Phase is used to kick off an Adapto initiative, or to convert an existing initiative into Adapto. An Adapto Bootstrap Phase should be as short as possible relative to the duration of the Improvement Loop phase. Actual duration is highly context dependent as each organization has different timeframes for kicking things off. As a reference, it could range from a couple of days in a dynamic context to a couple of months for a large initiative in a traditional enterprise environment.

Steps 1 and 2: Define the Goal and Plan the Change

The purpose of this step is to kick off your change in a structured way, making sure we set the foundations for success (or failing fast and cheap if it would be the case that we cannot succeed). This is the equivalent of what is informally called “Inception” or “Sprint Zero” in Scrum.
In this phase we talk about vision, strategy, key people, budget, time, and the context of the change in general.
We try to answer as many of the following type of questions as deemed relevant and possible:

• What do we want to deliver or improve?
• Why is it important?
• How urgent is it?
• How valuable is it?
• How much time do we have?
• How much are we willing to invest?
• Who needs to be involved?
  • Who is leading?
  • Who are the stakeholders?
  • Who is the delivery team?
• What are the risks?

• Do we have a well documented starting point or do we need to do some work to understand the as-is?
• Do we know the solution, or does it need to be researched?
• Do we already have a feeling for the metrics we will use? If yes, are they already baselined?
• Do we have a delivery team, and if yes, what is their available capacity for this?
• If part time allocated, what is the relative priority of this work vs other work in scope?
• When should we start?

• Who needs to be communicated on progress?
• Is there a “development” stage and a “rollout” stage?
• If yes, what needs to happen during rollout? (training, comms, flip-the-switch process changes, etc) Also if yes: can they be overlapped so we do the full implementation in an Agile way?

• What other questions can you think about that are relevant to discuss before starting?

Step 3: Create your Metrics

Metrics are lagging indicators that demonstrate business value has been achieved.
We aim for Metrics to be the ultimate standard of truth - if a metric target is hit, this should signify success. Ideally, there should be no discussion of the value, no gaming of the metrics. The whole organization should agree that achieving our target metrics is a “good” thing. This creates alignment around the goal.

Metrics can also be called Key Results in wording alignment with the OKR world, but they are not exactly the same. One thing that is the same is that we should "Measure what Matters". But KRs in the OKR world can map to either Metrics or to Maturity Indicators in Adapto.

Types of Metrics: Numerical vs non-numerical

• Numerical metrics: A numerical metric is, as the name implies, a variable we can measure with a target number we want to hit.

If desired we can use confidence levels, as is sometimes used in the OKR world. i.e. We can say “Hitting 50% of this number is a minimum, 75% would be a great outcome, and >90% is a stretch target and would signify an outstanding result”.

• Key Maturity Indicator metrics

Sometimes success is determined by achieving something that cannot be easily measured with a number. Or it is binary in nature (true or false). Normally and by default, these should be considered Maturity Indicators and they go in the maturity assessment.
But if it is an outcome and is we agree to consider it a critical indicator of success, we can create a Key Maturity Metric around it.

Frequency of updates for numerical metrics

Most metrics produce intermediate results that can be measured and discussed incrementally over the initiative’s period. This is desirable as it will give us feedback on progress towards our Goal. We just need to be careful that we are not misinterpreting the data. An ideal Metric produces a new measurement at the end of each iteration of the Improvement Loop.

Some metrics are true lagging indicators that update only once at the end date of the initiative or even afterwards. These metrics may define success but have no other use. Try to avoid having only metrics of this type.

Example:

Goal: “Yearly sales > $10M“

• If the organization generates steady sales throughout the year, we can regularly monitor sales and make projections. This gives fast feedback to the team and allows them to proactively adjust the maturity model and the improvements.
• But if 50% of yearly sales are typically generated during the holiday season, monitoring this metric becomes more complicated. We need to measure, for example, month-by-month variation vs last year and make projections based on that.
• Finally, if the team has no access to actual sales figures throughout the year for some reason, they might not be able to monitor this metric at all - even though it still defines success for the team.

Step 4: Create your Maturity Model

The Maturity Model is the key differentiator of the Adapto model.
Maturity models in Adapto are based on:

Behaviours we want to change or introduce that we believe will drive success
and 
Milestones we want to achieve which are leading indicators or intermediate deliverables (outputs, as opposed to outcomes). 

In an Adapto standard implementation, a maturity model is a list of questions we want the team to answer “YES” to. 
A behavioral question will typically take a form similar to the following:

• “We always do XXX”
• "We generally feel XXX"
• “We are happy with the way we do XXX”
• "XXX usually happens"
• “When XXX happens, we usually do YYY”

And so on

A milestone question will typically take a form similar to the following:

• “We have done XXX”
• “We have delivered XXX”
• “We have learned XXX”
• “XXX has happened”

And so on

Maturity assessments are domain specific - the questions we ask are related to the work we want to improve or deliver.

It is the responsibility of the Adapto Coach to help the team, the stakeholders and the organization come up with the right list of questions that will drive the outcomes (metrics) we want to achieve.

The number of questions we ask is related to the complexity of the change. For simple changes, 3 to 10 maturity questions might be enough. For complex changes, we could easily scale up to hundreds of questions, divided into different levels from beginner to advanced.

Maturity assessments and their questions can evolve and change during the course of the initiative. 

A Maturity Model can be thought of as a Behaviors and Outputs Product Backlog: when you start with Adapto, you create an initial Maturity Assessment based on what you think you need to achieve (behaviors and milestones) in order to generate true business success (Metrics). As we progress and we learn more about ourselves and our environment, our description of what behaviors we need might change. Our description of what we need to do also. The Maturity Assessment evolves.

A key difference between other methodologies and Adapto is that we address straight on the issue of behaviors and culture as part of the framework. Adapto explicitly recognizes and integrates the fact that behaviors represent organizational culture, and changing culture is necessary to improve performance, agility and adaptability. This is why we say that Adapto, besides used to improve performance, is also used to drive organizational (cultural) transformation.
While achieving “high maturity” sounds desirable, the Maturity Assessment itself is not a performance management tool, but a coaching and continuous improvement tool.
In Adapto, real business success is determined by achieving your target Metrics.

Step 5: Baseline Maturity and Metrics

In this step we do our first run of our Maturity Assessment and we capture the current state of our metrics.

Events: Adapto Improvement Loop

The improvement loop is an Agile iteration and follows the traditional sequence of Refine->Plan-Execute->Review->Refine. The only thing unique about Adapto is that we add a step between Review and Refine for updating our Metrics and Maturity.
Duration of the loop should follow general agile framework guidelines, i.e. typically somewhere between a week (shortest typical Sprint) and 3 months (longest typical PI planning).

Step 6: Refine the Improvements Backlog

The Improvements Backlog is a list of things we want to do or deliver in order to improve our Maturity and Metrics.

Sometimes a Maturity Indicator will map almost 1:1 with an Improvement Backlog item. These improvements are straightforward and will usually affect the maturity indicator directly.

Most times, the Improvement Backlog item is not a direct mapping with the Indicator and is an action or deliverable that we believe will drive the behavior in question. The improvement is an experiment, we do something that we think will drive the desired result, but we do not know until it’s done if it will work.

Examples:

Maturity indicator: (current answer: No)
“We invite Stakeholders at the end of each Sprint to our Sprint Review and we ask for feedback”

(Straightforward) Improvement actions:
“Invite Stakeholders to the Sprint review meeting”
“Ask stakeholders for feedback during the sprint review meeting”

Maturity indicator: (current answer: No)
“Our stakeholders give us useful, positive feedback at the end of each Sprint”

(Indirect) Improvement actions:
“Organize a training session for our Stakeholders on how to give quality feedback”
“Organize an offsite with Stakeholders in order to create a feeling of connection and trust with the team”

Normally the Improvements Backlog is populated with a limited number of backlog items coming from a decision on the part of the Team on what Maturity Model questions (or sometimes, what Metrics) we want to target next.

The improvements backlog is refined every iteration, adding, changing and removing items as they are delivered, cancelled, or change priority.

Adapto doesn’t mandate who is defining the priority of the improvements, as long as the backlog is populated. In many cases it is the self-organized Team itself who defines priorities, with support from the Adapto Coach as facilitator.

That said, typically the improvement backlog is managed by whoever is formally responsible for defining priorities in the Team. This varies per framework.

If the Team is a Scrum team, it will be the Product Owner. If the Team is a Vima team, it will be the Catalyst Team Leader. If the Team is a Kanban team, I don’t know.

Steps 7 and 8: Execute with Scrum, Vima or Kanban. Review and gather feedback.

This step is straightforward. Adapto is an Agile framework and requires Agile teams that implement the improvements.

The execution step of Adapto follows the classic Plan -> Do -> Review & Reflect sequence.

If the Team responsible has been assembled especially for or assigned exclusively to this improvement initiative, use Scrum, as the improvement can be considered a Product.

If the Team responsible for the initiative is a business team, combining operational daily business with a multitude of different projects, tasks or value streams and the improvement initiative is one of them, use Vima. (www.vima.cc) Vima is an agile team level framework designed for this purpose. 

If Vima would not be suitable, use Kanban to create an ad-hoc agile process. Or use any other Team level Agile framework that you know or design a new one. As long as you run short iterations, work as a team, deliver early and often and ask for feedback from Stakeholders, you should be fine.

Step 9: Reassess and Update

The final step of the Adapto improvement loop is to update our Maturity Assessment, Model and Metrics (if necessary).

• Update your Maturity Assessment answers with anything that changed
• Update your Metrics with anything you can measure
• If necessary, make changes to the Maturity Model questions
• Select the next Maturity Model questions the Team wants to focus on
• Update the Improvements Backlog with new ideas or experiments. This is, in fact, already leading us into the next step, which was the first step: Refine the Improvements Backlog.

Rinse and Repeat

Once the team completes one full cycle of the Improvement Loop, we continue to iterate until we reach success or declare fast failure. 

Appendix A: Origins of Adapto & Acknowledgements

Adapto has been built by Xavier Quesada-Allué by weaving together a set of ideas, practices and learnings gathered from more than 15 years of Agile Coaching working at Agilar and in the trenches of multinational client organizations. Most of these ideas come from years of work by the international Agile community. Some of these ideas are the original work and opinion of the author.

Key elements that influenced and are integrated into Adapto are:

1. Everything I have learned about Scrum, Agile Software Development and Scaled Agile over the years, including the patterns described by XP, LeSS, SAFe and Scrum@Scale.
2. Everything I have learned about Agile Organizational Design, including the patterns described by the Spotify Model, Team Topologies, Unfix, Org Topologies, etc.
3. Everything I have learned about Agile Leadership and Coaching, including mainly the patterns described in the Agile Leadership Journey model such as Leadership Agility and Competing Values Framework but also many others.
4. Everything I have learned about Leading Change, including the patterns described by Kotter and by the Prosci ADKAR model.
5. Everything I have learned about Personal Productivity, including mainly the patterns described by GTD but also many others.
6. Everything I have experienced and researched about MBOs, Balanced Scorecards, and other traditional performance management and strategy management methods used in large organizations.
7. Everything I have learned about OKRs and how they are being implemented in large organizations.

Original contributions by the author and by the Agilar team:

1. Vima, a team-level framework for business teams and personal productivity, built on years of experience applying agile practices to business and operational teams.
2. The Agilar Scrum Maturity Assessment, which we have been using successfully to coach Scrum teams and organizations since 2008, and has been continuously evolving.
3. Agilar’s vast experience and intellectual property regarding leading Agile transformation and change, including designing Agile operating models.
4. Agilar’s “Companion” tool, of which I am Product Owner, was a catalyst for creating Adapto.

Adapto Core guide v1.1
First version first published 18 November 2025
This version last updated 20 November 2025 (changelog: added artifacts)
xavier.quesada@agilar.com