In this episode, we have the privilege of having Mauro Sacchi, an esteemed leader in digital R&D at Wärtsilä, whose innovative approach and vast experience in transforming traditional industries into agile powerhouses.
I’m excited to share our transformation story at Wärtsilä, where we’ve embraced Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) principles to break down organizational silos and unlock our teams’ full potential. This journey wasn’t just about implementing a framework – it was about fundamentally changing how we approach product development and team collaboration.
When I took over leadership of our digital R&D organization three years ago, I encountered two critical challenges:
Let me illustrate this with a real scenario: One team was working on something extremely valuable for a customer who had complained about our development not meeting promises. Meanwhile, other teams couldn’t help because they were bound to their own backlogs and priorities – even though those priorities were objectively less valuable.
Though I’d been a Scrum practitioner since around 2007, I hadn’t been exposed to LeSS until taking this role. When my predecessor mentioned the organization was founded on LeSS principles with a Spotify model, I did what any responsible leader would do – I studied up and enrolled in the first available training with Bas Vodde.
That training was nothing short of a revelation. It wasn’t about falling for a theoretical framework (I’m not easily lured by process-heavy approaches). Instead, LeSS addressed my two concrete problems through two powerful principles:
We decided to implement the change in one go rather than incrementally. Why? With around 10 teams, we needed a meaningful critical mass to truly make a dent in our agility. So we merged all previous backlogs into one and elevated the role of the product owner.
This created what I call “necessary friction” – the productive tension that forces meaningful conversations about what truly matters to customers. Many organizations avoid this friction by creating silos, but that’s a missed opportunity for value creation.
“When you start to question and challenge, especially when you put items in competition with each other, you create friction. In my view, that friction is absolutely positive – it’s a dialogue you need to have for proper product ownership.”
In a LeSS organization, product ownership is a serious role that requires making hard decisions. The product owner isn’t just a requirements analyst – they must mediate across multiple organizations and customer requests to create one prioritized backlog.
This isn’t about being “nice” or popular. It’s about having the courage to say “no” or “not yet” to stakeholders, which can be politically challenging in a large corporation. Sometimes you need to compromise, but the focus must remain on maximizing value.
In our context, we have a product owner who owns the product we develop, while product managers from various organizations process customer requests to this product owner. Our product isn’t sold standalone – it’s part of a bigger ecosystem of services, which adds complexity to these relationships.
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of our transformation has been seeing our people flourish. In traditional industrial settings, software teams are often treated as IT service providers who simply code what they’re told. But in our world of maritime and energy equipment, software has become a critical engineering discipline that should sit at the same table as mechanical and electrical engineering.
This represents a massive cultural shift for corporations that don’t have software in their DNA. It means elevating software engineers to work alongside other disciplines to solve problems together – that’s true product development.
The results? Teams taking ownership, caring about the work they do, and helping each other regardless of their comfort zones. When it clicks, it’s a pleasure to witness.
“I see teams with excellent positive dynamics because they embrace the simple principle that we are doing product development. The success of my team is the primary objective for value creation, and I do whatever it takes to help that team succeed and deliver value to customers.”
I want to be transparent – this journey hasn’t been easy. Some individuals don’t want to work in an environment where more is demanded from them. Some truly just want to code and be told what to do. We’ve been adamant that people belonging to teams need to do their best to make the team successful, even if it means working outside their comfort zones.
We’re also bridging two cultures – the software domain and the mechanical world – which operate at different speeds and often involve different generations. The youngsters need to respect the deep domain knowledge of experienced mechanical engineers, while the mechanical engineers need to recognize software engineering as a distinct profession requiring its own expertise.
Creating this culture takes time. While there are quick wins, building an organization with this mindset is a long-term journey. We’re far better than we were three years ago, but we’re still learning and growing.
For organizations considering a similar transformation, remember that you need to play the long game. The necessary friction will never (and should never) completely disappear – if it did, that would signal a return to silos and disconnection.
If you’re considering implementing LeSS in your organization, I’d recommend the training not just for product developers or coaches, but especially for organizational leaders. The principles of LeSS are fundamentally about designing organizations to succeed from both human and structural perspectives.
And if you’re in the middle of this journey already, remember: don’t give up. It’s worth it.
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