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Presented by Tracey Barrett – December 2, 2014

Persuading your Organization to

Be Agile

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Agenda

How to Make a Persuasive Argument.

Understand the Audience.

Anticipate Objections.

Articulate the Problem.

Propose a Small Start. Be Agile.

Basics of conflict resolution, or in this case – avoidance.

Gain supporters and start collaborating.

Identify the top problems Agile will solve for you and your organization.

Know what you’re up against and prepare for it.

Know what you can do on your own. You have more power than you think.

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But first, Introductions…

Clients engage NVISIA when:

Building a sustainable competitive advantage through software innovation is part of their business strategy

Increasing IT effectiveness is critical to their business

New solutions require a high degree of integration or interoperability across multiple systems

Tracey Barrett is Executive Director of NVISIA, a Software Development Partner that works closely with the client’s team to deliver their solutions in their environment.

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Basics of Conflict Resolution

The Rules

Avoid “You” Language.

Anticipate Objections.

Appeal to Self-Interest.

Watch for body language.

Be direct. Set limits.

State the consequences.

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Making an Argument for Agile

Setting up the argument

I understand that [common objection…]

But I feel [a problem the person can relate to…]

I think we have to [change the way we work…]

What if we start by [propose a small start. Be agile.]

Otherwise, [restate the problem and how it doesn’t go away.]

I get that we already have a lot on our plate this year

But the team feels pressured to meet these commitments

And thinks the only way to do it is by using agile.

What if we assign a single developer day one to Project X?

Otherwise, [restate the problem and how it doesn’t go away.]Without changing, we won’t get any more done than last

year.

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To make the argument, you need to:

Discover the objections

Know who’s willing to help

Understand the self-interest – problems or opportunities

people are facing and Agile may be able to solve.

Start by talking to people one on one.

Ask questions that allow people to disagree with you.

Listen to their answers – this is a fact finding mission!

Know your Audience

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Start the Underground

Conversation

Example questions…

“I’m really jazzed about Agile lately. Do you think it

would work here?”

“Agile has worked really well for me at other jobs.

Has anyone tried to introduce it here?”

“I feel like we’re behind the times. Why do you

think Agile hasn’t caught on here yet?”

“How have your projects been going recently?

Lately, I feel like there just isn’t enough time to get

everything done.”

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Collaborate!

Identify the starting points you could accomplish together

Identify the stakeholders! Do you need approval for the

small starts? From who?

Your conversations should

identify others who are

interested in Agile.

Discuss the objections and

opportunities

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Propose a Small Start.

Be Agile.

Ideas

Trying agile on one project – yours.

Holding standups with your team.

Give the business bi-weekly demos.

Install a continuous integration server.

Some tricks of the trade…

You can keep others informed of what you’re doing without asking

them for permission. If they want to stop you, they will.

People don’t want to hear how you can help them. It’s much better

if they can help you by doing almost nothing.

Highlight the ways you’re already agile – make the case for a next

step instead of a small start.

Never leave the ball in their court.

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Approaching the Stakeholders

Common Concerns and Approaches for Various

Stakeholders

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Business Users

Common Objections to Agile:

Not Interested: They have their own IT

requests to accomplish, and aren’t

interested in how the work gets done.

No Funding For Organizational Change:

Business projects have all the funding. An

“Agile Rollout” project never makes the

cut.

No Time Available: Cannot dedicate a full-

time Product Owner to the project.

No True Product Owner: You build highly

integrated applications with no single

owner.

Typical Problems

Their goals depend on IT – something

they have no control over.

Weeks and months of up-front

requirements gathering is painful.

Not sure about the UI they want – they’ll

know it when they see it.

The system they get usually isn’t what

they want.

They still have to do their full-time job

during a project.

Motivator: They want their project done – and done well.

IT decides when the system is done –

and forces it on them.

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Business Users

Common Objections to Agile:

Not Interested: They have their own IT

requests to accomplish, and aren’t

interested in how the work gets done.

No Funding For Organizational Change:

Business projects have all the funding. An

“Agile Rollout” project never makes the

cut.

No Time Available: Cannot dedicate a full-

time Product Owner to the project.

No True Product Owner: You build highly

integrated applications with no single

owner.

Typical Problems

Their goals depend on IT – something

they have no control over.

Weeks and months of up-front

requirements gathering is painful.

Not sure about the UI they want – they’ll

know it when they see it.

The system they get usually isn’t what

they want.

They still have to do their full-time job

during a project.

Motivator: They want their project done – and done well.

IT decides when the system is done –

and forces it on them.

Awesome! Just to keep you

informed, we’re going to be using

Agile on your project.

I get it. We’ll use Agile on the project

that’s funded. It’s a more efficient

way to use that budget.

This is going to be a problem

regardless of methodology. Let’s go

with Agile and assign a BA to act as

proxy.

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Common Objections to Agile:

Business isn’t interested: Business has

its own IT requests to accomplish, and isn’t

interested in how the work gets done.

We’re not structured for Agile: We have

a PMO, a BA group, Development, QA,

etc.

Too much to do already: We can’t get

done everything we need to, why would we

add something else?

You need a strong team to do agile: We

hire a lot of junior developers who need

guidance.

IT Leadership

Typical Problems

They are removed from the work – but

accountable for it.

Often required to prioritize business

requests – and constantly saying no.

Production problems throw everything

off schedule.

Their staff is vocal – they get a lot of

suggestions and complaints.

They feel extremely pressured to meet

commitments and deliver quality.

Motivator: They need to keep the business and their team happy.

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Common Objections to Agile:

Business isn’t interested: Business has

its own IT requests to accomplish, and isn’t

interested in how the work gets done.

We’re not structured for Agile: We have

a PMO, a BA group, Development, QA,

etc.

Too much to do already: We can’t get

done everything we need to, why would we

add something else?

You need a strong team to do agile: We

hire a lot of junior developers who need

guidance.

Awesome! If they don’t care about

methodology, let’s use Agile!

IT Leadership

Typical Problems

They are removed from the work – but

accountable for it.

Often required to prioritize business

requests – and constantly saying no.

Production problems throw everything

off schedule.

Their staff is vocal – they get a lot of

suggestions and complaints.

They feel extremely pressured to meet

commitments and deliver quality.

Motivator: They need to keep the business and their team happy.

We don’t have to re-org the company

to get started. Let’s just work within

our project teams.

I agree! Agile will spread the work

out through the team, and Lean it out

so we only do what’s truly necessary.

This one ticks me off. Have some

faith in your people already….

True, we’ll have to balance the team

with a mix of seniors and juniors, but

we do that already.

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Common Objections to Agile:

Business wants to know how much a

project will cost: We need an estimate for

the project in order to approve its budget.

Business wants to know if we’re on

schedule: If there’s no set end date, how

can we measure our progress?

We can’t assign developers day one: #1

– they’re busy and #2 – we won’t have the

work.

Project Managers / PMO

Typical Problems

They run from meeting to meeting with

little time to do work.

They’re often not familiar with the

technology of their project.

They’re managing part-time resources

who are rarely productive.

Their team doesn’t inform them of issues

until they miss their date.

They feel extremely pressured to meet

commitments and deliver quality.

Motivator: They want to deliver on time and budget.

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Common Objections to Agile:

Business wants to know how much a

project will cost: We need an estimate for

the project in order to approve its budget.

Business wants to know if we’re on

schedule: If there’s no set end date, how

can we measure our progress?

We can’t assign developers day one: #1

– they’re busy and #2 – we won’t have the

work.

They’ll get demos every

two weeks and regular

updates on what will be

in by the deadline.

Project Managers / PMO

Typical Problems

They run from meeting to meeting with

little time to do work.

They’re often not familiar with the

technology of their project.

They’re managing part-time resources

who are rarely productive.

Their team doesn’t inform them of issues

until they miss their date.

They feel extremely pressured to meet

commitments and deliver quality.

Motivator: They want to deliver on time and budget.

Okay! I’ll give you a top-down

estimate to start the project, and I’ll

re-commit at 8 weeks.

There’s work for a small team.

What’s the advantage of starting

before they’re available?

With waterfall, scope is fixed

and deadline moves. With

Agile, you can fix the deadline

and adjust scope.

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Business Analysts

Common Objections to Agile:

Business needs me: They need help to

determine the requirements of the

software.

Developers want detailed requirements:

I’m always getting asked for more detail,

and now we’re going to go without

requirements?

Business Analyst isn’t a role in Scrum:

If we move to Agile, what will BA’s do?

Typical Problems

Up front requirements gathering is a

huge, painful task.

With modern systems, the UI is tactile –

and difficult to plan.

They receive lots of change requests

once the users finally see the system.

They get a lot of questions from IT – or

they don’t. Which is worse?

They make commitments the final

system doesn’t deliver on.

The business doesn’t usually care about

every little decision – but you have to.

Motivator: They want to deliver the best system for the business.

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Business Analysts

Common Objections to Agile:

Business needs me: They need help to

determine the requirements of the

software.

Developers want detailed requirements:

I’m always getting asked for more detail,

and now we’re going to go without

requirements?

Business Analyst isn’t a role in Scrum:

If we move to Agile, what will BA’s do?

Typical Problems

Up front requirements gathering is a

huge, painful task.

With modern systems, the UI is tactile –

and difficult to plan.

They receive lots of change requests

once the users finally see the system.

They get a lot of questions from IT – or

they don’t. Which is worse?

They make commitments the final

system doesn’t deliver on.

The business doesn’t usually care about

every little decision – but you have to.

Motivator: They want to deliver the best system for the business.

I agree! The Product Owner

deserves a team, too!

We’re not trying to tune the process

for developers. Getting business

decisions made is the hard part.

Developer isn’t a role in Scrum

either. If you’re assigned to the

Team, we’ll use your skills.

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Architects

Common Objections to Agile:

Agile is a free-for-all: There’s no

architectural consistency between agile

projects.

Agile doesn’t have time for architecture:

If you build everything in snippets, you

never consider the big picture.

You cannot build anything complex in

two weeks: Real architecture takes time to

build.

I don’t want to write code: That’s not my

role anymore.

Typical Problems

People with the benefit of hindsight

second guess their decisions.

They may not be familiar with new

technology they need to design for.

Developers don’t follow through on the

architectural designs.

They feel disconnected from the top

problems the business is facing.

Motivator: They want to consistently deliver flexible, high-quality systems.

IT projects to introduce new architecture

don’t get funded.

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Architects

Common Objections to Agile:

Agile is a free-for-all: There’s no

architectural consistency between agile

projects.

Agile doesn’t have time for architecture:

If you build everything in snippets, you

never consider the big picture.

You cannot build anything complex in

two weeks: Real architecture takes time to

build.

I don’t want to write code: That’s not my

role anymore.

Typical Problems

People with the benefit of hindsight

second guess their decisions.

They may not be familiar with new

technology they need to design for.

Developers don’t follow through on the

architectural designs.

They feel disconnected from the top

problems the business is facing.

Motivator: They want to consistently deliver flexible, high-quality systems.

IT projects to introduce new architecture

don’t get funded.

We can put controls in place and

assign an Architect onto the team.

We can make better

decisions and avoid analysis

paralysis if we focus on one

decision at a time.

We’ll be most effective if we set

short-term goals. If it doesn’t result

in a full feature, I’ll deal with it.

Work with your manager to find out

the role they want you to play. I’m

sure we can work it out.

Systems are too complex

to gather all requirements

and consider their design

in its entirety.

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Developers

Common Objections to Agile:

Stand-ups are micromanagement: I get

my work done. I don’t need you to check

on me everyday.

I just want to write code: I shouldn’t have

to plan / gather requirements / design /

test, etc.

Unit testing is a waste of time: I could

get my job done faster if I didn’t have to

write unit tests / do code reviews / etc.

Typical Problems

They are told what to do, but not why –

or how it fits into the overall project.

They’re constantly pulled off projects to

deal with production support issues.

Up front activities run long, but their

deadline doesn’t change.

There are issues in the code that they

are not given time to refactor / resolve.

They have to code to requirements, even

if they have a better idea.

Motivator: They can have more say in how the project is run.

The requirements have gaps, or don’t

match what other API’s need.

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Developers

Common Objections to Agile:

Stand-ups are micromanagement: I get

my work done. I don’t need you to check

on me everyday.

I just want to write code: I shouldn’t have

to plan / gather requirements / design /

test, etc.

Unit testing is a waste of time: I could

get my job done faster if I didn’t have to

write unit tests / do code reviews / etc.

Typical Problems

They are told what to do, but not why –

or how it fits into the overall project.

They’re constantly pulled off projects to

deal with production support issues.

Up front activities run long, but their

deadline doesn’t change.

There are issues in the code that they

are not given time to refactor / resolve.

They have to code to requirements, even

if they have a better idea.

Motivator: They can have more say in how the project is run.

The requirements have gaps, or don’t

match what other API’s need.

You’re right, I don’t need to check on

you. But it’s great mentoring for the

others to hear what you’re doing.

If we ask you to do that it’s because

coding’s not the bottleneck. We’re

applying effort where we need it.

It seems that way, but in a year when

you need to change that code,

having tests will make you faster.

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Exercise

Form Groups of 2

You’ll each get a 5 minute turn.

You will role play the part of the

person you need to convince.

Anticipate the objections!

Your partner will role play you.

Explain your situation to them so

they understand your argument.

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Questions or Comments?

Thank You