Agile, Digital & the new

management paradigms

Allan Kelly

allan@allankelly.net

@allankellynet

heuristics

Agile on the Beach

Falmouth, July 2018

Allan Kelly

Bringing technology & business together

Inspiring Agile Teams

• Writing

• Training

• Advising

• Troubleshooting

Its Digital, Stupid

0100 0001 0100 1100

0100 1100 0100 0001

0100 1110

Welcome to Planet Digital

0

1E+09

2E+09

3E+09

4E+09

5E+09

6E+09

7E+09

8E+09

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Transistors per CPU: 1970->2016

Data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count

2016 Intel 22-core Xeon Broadwell-E5

(7,200,000,000)

1976 Ziloz Z80 (8,500)

1971 Intel 4004 (2,300)

1975 Mostek6502 (3,510)

do

t.com

bo

om

Ubiquitous, cheap CPU cycles are changing

the world

Changing business

Digital

Apps

Online retailThe Web

Gig economy

Uberisation

GPS

Big Data

Drones

Analytics

AI

Mobile phones

Smart phones

Sensors Lidar

Deep Learning

Social media

Robotics Cloud

Social marketing

Crowd funding

Internet of Things

3D printing

Self driving cars

Agile makes Digital possible

• Rapid releases

• Test in the market “Lean Start Up”

• Technology teams working with business

Planet Digital is built on

• Cheap CPUs

• Software

• Agile

Technology Change

Stage #1 – Do the same things faster

Stage #2 – Adopt new processes to increase benefit

Stage #3 – Innovation from process change

Repeat

Electricity

Factories needed redesign

Processes needed changing

Lean?

Factory image © Unknown - https://pin.it/qyb3sfi7uhhrwd

Admiral Grace Hopper, 1906-1992

"I've always been more

interested in the future than in

the past."

What does process

change look like on

planet digital?

AgileAgile is the process change that

accompanies digitisation

Agile processes unlock more value from digitisation

Plan less, release more

Planning is learning

Va

lue

of

pla

nn

ing

Time

Planning has rapidly diminishing returns

A little

plan

nin

g

is ben

eficial

Mo

re p

lan

nin

g d

oe

s

no

t ad

d va

lue

Excess

planning

reduce

s value

IBM 360

IBM 360 at Computer History MuseumDave Ross: CCL license via WikiMedia

46 years …

1970 OS/360 model 195

• 10,000 KIPS (10 MIPS)

• 4096kb (4Mb)

• COBOL on OS/360

• IMS database

• Monthly rental $250,000

(Approx. $1.25m in 2016 prices)

2016 Raspberry Pi 2

• 4,744 MIPS

• 1 Gb

• Linux

• Python, Scala, Ruby, …

• SQL, NoSQL

• Buy $35

CPU cycles €€€ expensive

-> Planning is cheapCPU cycles €€€ cheap

-> Planning is expensive

36,000 million instructions hour

17,078,400 million

instructions hour

Planning is learning

Doing is also learning

He who learns fastest wins

“We understand that the only

competitive advantage the

company of the future will have

is its managers’ ability to learn

faster than their competitors.”

Arie de Geus, The Living Company 1988

Which is the fastest way to learn?

A. Planning

B. Doing

C. Other, please specify

Learn by doing – iterate!

Planning is learning

Planning is valuable

But…

Planning is expensive

Planning has rapidly diminishing

returns

If you want to finish sooner

Then

Start sooner

Plan less, release more

Do it right,

then

Do the right thing

Yesterday

1) Do the right thing

2) Do it right

Decide what the

right thing is

Build it the right

way

The Alignment Trap

Less

Effective

More

Effective

Highly aligned

Less aligned

‘Alignment trap’

11% companies

+13% IT spending

-14% 3 year sales

growth

‘Maintenance zone’

74% companies

Avg IT spending

-2% 3 year sales

growth

‘IT Enabled growth’

7% companies

-6% IT spending

+35% 3 year sales

growth

‘Well-oiled IT’

8% companies

-15% IT spending

+11% 3 year sales

growth

So

urc

e:

Sh

pil

be

rg,

Be

rez,

Pu

rye

ar,

Sh

ah

:

MIT

Slo

an

Re

vie

w,

Fa

ll 2

00

7

1

2D

oin

g t

he

rig

ht

thin

gs

Doing things right

Humphrey's Law

Watts Humphrey

“Users do not know what

they want until they see

working software”

How do I know

what the right

thing is?

Learn by doing – iterate!

Today

1) Do the right thingBuild a machine which can iterate

A learning machine

2) Do it rightUse the machine to iterate your way to the right

thing

Zen’in keiei

Every person a manager

Uniqlo HR documentation.

“UNIQLO’s Zen-in Keiei

philosophy, under which every

employee adopts the mindset

of a business manager,

regardless of his or her

position.”

Zen’in keiei for programmers #1

Self-organizing teams

Zen’in keiei for programmers #2

Think like you are business

Tim O’Reilly

MIT Sloan Management Review, March 2016

a large part of the work of [Google,

Amazon, Uber, etc.] … is performed by

software programs and algorithms. These

programs are the workers, and the human

software developers who create them are

their managers.

Manager

Workers

Managers

Workers

55000

60000

65000

70000

75000

80000

85000

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

UK students

studying management1st degree

1st year students studying business & administration - https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis

18% increase 2012-2017

Zen’in keiei

Learn about Management

#BizTech

Business

Everyone together

Technology

#BizTech

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Remember this?

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Coding

Programmers take

design & refactoring

Then Agile happened

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Coding

Test First + Test

Automation

Programmers take

designer & refactoring

Testing got automated

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Coding + Design + Automated Test + Operations

Then DevOps happened

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Analysis + Coding + Design + Automated Test + Operations

BDD takes analysis

System

Requirements

Software

Requirements

Analysis

Program

Design

Coding

Testing

Operations

Requirements +

Analysis + Coding + Design + Automated Test + Operations

Finally #BizTech

#BizTech

Techies learn more about business

Non-techies learn more about tech

Everyone works as one team

Agile is the process change that accompanies digitisation

Digital businesses needs to be Agile

1. Plan less, release more

2. Build a machine that can iterate to learn

3. Everyone is a manager

4. #BizTech: One Team

Allan Kelly – allan@allankelly.net - @allankellynet

https://www.allankellyassociates.co.uk/blog/