Agile Cambridge, 27-28 September 2012

Agile Transformations, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Wanda Marginean

Wanda  Marginean  wmarginean@rallydev.com      

WHY  :  The  Vision.  Has  goal,  aspira<on,  emo<on,  cause  and  belief    HOW  :  The  guiding  principles.    Has  logic,  a  bias  towards  ac<on  and  provides  an  infrastructure  of  inten<on    WHAT  :  Prac<ces  and  results.  Is  dynamic  and  organic  

WHY  do  we  want  to  become  an  Agile  organisa7on?      

HOW  do  we  want  to  do  it?        WHAT  do  we  need  to  do?  

When does WHY go Bad and Ugly?

Woolly WHY or no WHY

Corporate level Departmental level Team level Personal level

Five Key Benefits of Agile, which all executives have heard about:

1. Reduced time-to-market

2. Increased quality

3. Reduced waste

4. Better predictability

5. Better morale

From: “The Truth About Agile Processes,” by Forrester Research analyst Carey Schwaber, 8/28/07

checkbook commitments

Not making the vision clear

JUST  DO  IT!  

immediate RESULTS

"Apple  is  commi;ed  to  bringing  the  best  personal  compu7ng  experience  to  students,  educators,  crea7ve  professionals  and  consumers  around  the  world  through  its  innova7ve  hardware,  soBware  and  Internet  offerings."    

"Facebook's  mission  is  to  give  people  the  power  to  share  and  make  the  world  more  open  and  connected."     Zuckenberg’s  own  vision  statement:  "People  

use  Facebook  to  stay  connected  with  friends  and  family,  to  discover  what’s  going  on  in  the  world,  and  to  share  and  express  what  maOers  to  them."    

Famous  quote  from  Steve  Jobs  in  the  1980’s:  "Man  is  the  creator  of  change  in  this  world.  As  such  he  should  be  above  systems  and  structures,  and  not  subordinate  to  them."    

WHY do YOU want to become an Agile

organisation?

When does HOW go Bad and Ugly?

   Principles to follow Slowing down in order to speed up Investing time and effort

Think about:

FOLLOWING the PLAN

Maintaining culture that doesn’t support CHANGE

0  

20  

40  

60  

80  

100  

1  2  

3  4  

5  

Perc

ent

Number of Simultaneous Projects

Time spent working Context switching time

Gerald Weinberg, Quality Software Management: Systems Thinking

Not slowing down to speed up

the same

metrics

traditional performance

appraisals

rewarding individual

heroics

ignoring the need for infrastructure

not pulling

testing FORWARD

pushing deliver

to

Build Build Build Test

2  weeks   4  weeks   6  weeks   8  weeks  

8  weeks  <ll  shippable  

6  weeks  <ll  shippable  

4  weeks  <ll  shippable  

often see this

Build   T   Build   T   Build   T   Build   T  

2  weeks   4  weeks   6  weeks   8  weeks  

No  feature  more  than  2  weeks  from  shippable  

a little better

Start testing here…

… instead of here

Why not this?

Define your HOW

Agile  manifesto  

Principles  of  Lean  

Principles  of  Product  Development  

Learn  

Build  Measure  

Principles  of  Lean  Startup  

V0.81

Or mix of all… •  take  a  phased  approach,  inspect  and  adapt  •  transparency  and  collabora<ve  decision  making  •  servant  leadership  •  bring  tes<ng  forward  •  release  more  frequently  •  limit  queues  of  work    •  implement  feedback  loops  •  accept  we  need  help  -­‐  agile  coaching  •  implement  infrastructure  to  support  new  approach  

When does WHAT go Bad and Ugly?

We “can’t” create teams

IGNORING THAT TEAMS PERFORM BETTER THAN INDIVIDUALS

•  Persistent •  Cross-functional •  Multi-disciplinary •  WIP limit •  Slack time •  Metrics (throughput, velocity) •  Mid-range planning •  Continuous improvement

Retrospectives Ineffective use of

What are we doing well?!!What’s not serving! us as a team?!!What would we change to improve?!

Retrospectives what we mean by

No retrospectives

Ignored

There is absolutely nothing !wrong! !

NO Action

lack of full planning participation

what is the cost of not having the information?

insights through dialogue

Acceptance and commitment

unavailable product owner

communicating or, too busy for all the

bad scrum master

COMMAND CONTROL

and

serve and facilitate

remove impediments

not having a onsite coach

who cares? who listens?

advise, motivate protect and serve

team lacking  authority

red tape decisions

Bureaucracy assumes mediocrity

Agile assumes competence

Everyone Pulling

Together!

CHANGE is HARD

Rever7ng  to  form  

Nothing would be done at all If we waited until we could do it so well That no one could find fault with it

Cardinal Newman

WHY  :  The  Vision.  Has  goal,  aspira<on,  emo<on,  cause  and  belief    HOW  :  The  guiding  principles.    Has  logic,  a  bias  towards  ac<on  and  provides  an  infrastructure  of  inten<on    WHAT  :  The  Method.  The  results  and  prac<ces  both  dynamic  and  organic  

CALL ACTION

Start from asking yourself: WHY are we doing this agile transformation? …answer it on the organisational as well as personal level

TO

This Way To

Successful Agile

Transformation

Thank you

3  Keynotes  –    •   Ryan  Martens,  Rally's  Founder  &  CTO  •   Dean  Leffingwell,  World  Renowned  Agile  Author  &  Methodologist      

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