genuine agility through less product ownership

Genuine Agility at scale through LeSS Product Ownership

September 2017

with Rowan Bunning, CST & CLP

@rowanb #auscrum

© 2017 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com @rowanb #auscrum

Session Outline

• Context

• Problems that Product Ownership can solve

• Problems with team-centric Product Ownership

• Scaling Product Ownership with LeSS

• Objections to product-centric Product Ownership

• Objections to empowered business person as Product Owner

• Conclusions

Context


Agile is not about “faster”

“We considered a bunch of names, and agreed eventually on “agile” as we felt that captured the adaptiveness and response to change which we felt was so important to our approach." - Martin Fowler

“Agile does not mean delivering faster. Agile does not mean fewer defects or higher quality. Agile does not mean higher productivity. Agile means agile - the ability to move with quick easy grace, to be nimble and adaptable. To embrace change and become masters of change - to compete through adaptability by being able to change faster and cheaper than your competition can." - Craig Larman and Bas Vodde

References: Writing the Agile Manifesto: martinfowler.com/articles/agileStory.html

Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2008.

http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileStory.html

@rowanb #auscrum© 2017 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com

Which has agility?

Image credit:YouTube Source: invorma.com/16-super-jumping-animals

or


Is it the case that…

• …agility and/or Customer Value are what you would like to optimise for?

• …you would like to realise substantial benefits from Scrum at multi-team scale?

LeSS is designed to achieve this.

Problems that Product Ownership can solve

Reduced Bureaucracy


Control systems in organisations

Market system

Bureaucratic system

Clan system

• Prices drive very efficient decision making • Measure Input and Output

• Formal rules, roles, processes, compliance • Supervision, direction and hierarchy • Specialisations enable clearer comparison with

like workers

• Informal value based rules • Allows innovation and collaboration • Most suitable for unique, interdependent or

ambiguous work e.g. software development Reference: A Conceptual Framework for the Design of Organizational Control Mechanisms, William G. Ouchi, Management Science, Vol. 25, No. 9. 1979.


Which has your organisation been scaling up?

Market control

Clan control

Bureaucratic control


Most organisations have been scaling up Bureaucratic

Control for many years

Elimination of the Contract Game

@rowanb© 2016 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com

External contracts spawn internal contracts

Business

External customers

Development / I.T.

External contract

Internal contract


We want a solution. How much is it going to cost? How long is it going to take?

Product

Management

R&Dstart end

(release)

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde

All rights reserved.

Business Development

http://scrumwithstyle.com


Product

Management

R&Dstart end

(release)content freeze

(release contract agreed)

more,

more,

more!

1

The Milestone point

is arbitrary

The Contract

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde


Business

Date & Scope

Development



Product

Management

R&Dstart end



The Milestone point

is arbitrary

more,

more,

more!

less,

less,

less!

1 2

The Contract

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde



The date and scope contract point represents the time that

both parties have maximised the ability to shift blame when

something goes wrong.

Date & Scope



Product

Management

R&Dstart end



The Milestone point is arbitrary

The Contract

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde



Date & Scope



Product

Management

R&Dstart end




The Contract

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde

All rights reserved.Date & Scope

Responsibility

low controllow flexibility

low transparencybig batches

cannot release earlynot “done” until the end

Businesshave

completed date and

scope move

Development

shifts


@rowanb #auscrum

Product

Management

R&Dstart end



* Development Phase for The Contract is controlled by R&D.

* The order of work is decided by R&D.

* Product Management does not have control, and there is low

visibility into the status of true progress.

The Contract

ineffective bonus schemes and "tracking

to plan" behaviors are injected, since

there is no real control or visibility

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde


Business

• Development Phase for The Contract is controlled by the development group

• The order of work is decided by the development group• The Business does not have control, and there is low

visibility into the status of true progress.

Development


Shifting blame

Product

Management

R&Dstart end




The Contract

www.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde


DevelopmentBusiness

There’s been a surprise!

But you committed!

Date & Scopesign-off


We have a two party competitive game

your faultyour fault

Product

Management

R&Dstart end

(release)

your fault your fault

The Contractwww.craiglarman.com

www.odd-e.com

Copyright © 2010

C.Larman & B. Vodde



© 2016 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com @rowanb

Now development pulls out the ‘Secret Toolbox’ including…

• Stopping testing

• Crappy code

• No longer thinking about the design

• No longer taking time to learn

• Not fixing weakness in organisation

• Overtime leading to attrition of the best people



LeSS aims to eliminate The Contract Game

Business stakeholders

External customers

Teams

External demand

✘ No Scope and Date contract✔ Business steers directly

☸PO

📖


What does the Agile Manifesto have to say about this?


Most organisation are implementing “Scrum” inside of the traditional Contract Game

The Collaboration Gap


The Crevasse of Doom problem

Domain knowledge Technology knowledge

Yawning Crevasse of Doom!

Source: infoq.com/presentations/Fowler-North-Crevasse-of-Doom


PO should create a bridge, not be a ferry

Domain knowledge Technology knowledge

Collaboration!Source: infoq.com/presentations/Fowler-North-Crevasse-of-Doom

Compelling Direction


Compelling Direction

“Effective team self-management is impossible unless someone in authority sets the direction for the team’s work.” - J. Richard Hackman

Book reference: Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances by J. Richard Hackman, Harvard Business Review Press, 2002.

Problems with team-centric Product Ownership


The Frantic Order Taker anti-pattern

Image credit: kellyexeter.com.au/cause-of-overwhelm

@rowanb #auscrum

Product Owner interpreted as “Temporary Team Mission Owner”

☸ What mechanism is there to steer the whole product?

Source: blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-spotify


Agility constrained by a hierarchy of objectives, budgets & people

Delivery DeliveryDelivery

Scrum is put in these boxes

Team

Program

Value Stream

Portfolio


Program execution focus within status quo structure

Delivery DeliveryDeliveryTeam

Program

Large Solution

Portfolio

Source: scaledagileframework.com

@rowanb #auscrum

Product Owner interpreted as “Temporary Feature Owner”


Product Ownership contained within something else

Team

Business Owner

Customer

Product Manager

2..4

Product Owner

1..2

@rowanb #auscrum


Project focus or Product / Customer focus?

Project abstraction

Focus on project delivery

😃

😞

Focus on customer-centric Product


Program

Project

Abstractions that contain and disconnect us

“Epic”Delivery

“Devs”

Book reference: The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers by Gillian Tett, Simon & Schuster, 2015.


Control mechanisms in LeSS

Market control

Bureaucratic control

Clan control

self-managing teams

self co-ordination decisions at level of richest information

PO

≪component≫ Publishing

≪component≫ Scheduling

≪component≫ Expenses

≪component≫ KPI Dashboards

Direct co-ordination

Communities for knowledge sharing and agreements Architecture, UX, Testing etc.

💡 $😀 ☸

Minimum Viable Bureaucracy

(MVB)

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Intervention opportunity

Reference: Lv Yi https://blog.odd-e.com/yilv/2017/03/seeing-the-system-dynamic-1-vs-n-product-owners.html

B1: Scaling anti-pattern

R: Shifting the burden addiction

B2: LeSS Solution


Try… whole team Backlog Refinement direct with users/customers

Image credit: Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde

Scaling Product Ownership with LeSS

@rowanb #auscrum

TheProductOwner“TheProductOwnerisresponsibleformaximizingthevalueoftheproduct”

© 2017 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com

The Product Owner steers product development

“The Product Owner is the one and only person responsible for managing and controlling the Product Backlog. This is the person who is officially responsible for the value of the work done. This person maintains the Product Backlog and ensures that it is visible to everyone. Everyone knows what items have the highest priority, so everyone knows the order in which the items will be addressed.”

- Ken Schwaber


Ability to steer the Whole Product

Photo credits: thoughtcatalog.com and static.ezermester.hu

not

@rowanb #auscrum

Reference:World’s Best Product Owner: Evil Genius Steve Jobs by Jeff Sutherland: scruminc.com/worlds-best-product-owner-evil-genius/

@rowanb #auscrumImage credit: Tribute to Elon Musk codepen.io/laitsky/full/pNXENL

@rowanb #auscrum

Failure as learning, learning as progress

Video: youtube.com/watch?v=GeIHJ-i7yVk


Story: Entrepreneurial Product Owner

@rowanb #auscrumPO is entrepreneur actively managing Risk-Reward


Product Strategy

Source: Melissa Perri melissaperri.com/blog/2016/07/14/what-is-good-product-strategy


Product Strategy Canvas

Source: Melissa Perri

@rowanb #auscrumCredit: Joseph Perline

@rowanb #auscrum

Organisational context


Whole Product Focus

- Bas Vodde

“It is really really hard to get teams to always consider the whole product instead of just “their tasks”. And in the LeSS Framework we do everything we can to avoid sandboxing, such as not preselecting items to teams, not having separate backlogs, not having separate POs, etc.”

Lean Principle: Optimise the Whole


Insurance company

What is your Product really?

Insurance Sales

Underwriting Solution

Premium Billing

Claims System

Quoting engine

Leads and Opportunities

Policy provider application

Rules engine

Premium system

Insurance booking system

Premium payment system

Claim checker

Pay back engine

Underwriting workflow manager

Thanks to: Viktor Grgić for the example

The Market I see a Get Insurance system

…and a Handle Claim system ‘Whole Product’ (LeSS)

Insured Customer

Head of Department

No, This is a product

Architect

No, This is a product

Project Manager

This is a product


Scaling by distributing Product Backlog management workload

Does not scale Scales well

Objections to product-centric Product Ownership

@rowanb #auscrum

Objection: “Would be too much work for one Product Owner!”

Image credit: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-financial-advisors-can-overcome-client-objections-holtman-rrc/


LeSS Scales Product Ownership by delegating clarification

PO

Requesters Users Market / domain experts

PrioritisationContent and order of Product Backlog

ClarificationSplitting, acceptance criteria, sufficient detail etc.

💡 $😀

“Yes” “No” “A little now, rest later” “Sooner” “Later”

☸

@rowanb #auscrum

Q: “What do you see as the scope of the developer role? How does that compare with Scrum?”

Objection: “Clarification would take too much developer time.”

Image credit: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-financial-advisors-can-overcome-client-objections-holtman-rrc/

Q: “Are we optimising for resource utilisation, or agility?”

Q: “Are we considering how separate specifiers lead to the wastes of

handoff, information scatter and a mini-waterfall process?”

@rowanb #auscrum

Objection: “Would be too many teams to deal with.”

A: If more than 8 teams, try Requirement Areas

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x 4 items per team x 8 teams x 2 Sprints = 92 fine-grained “Ready” items

A: Keep fine-grained items to no more than 100.

Objection: “Product Backlog would be too large for one PO.”

@rowanb #auscrum

Objection: “It sounds like several current PO’s would be demoted!”

Q: “Is PO a role or a pay grade?”

Q: “How can the two be more clearly separated?”

Q: “How can the organisation show that it values domain experts collaborating on or with teams appropriately?”


Temporary fake Product Owner

Objections to empowered business person as Product Owner


Business resistance dynamic

Intervention opportunity

Reference: Lv Yi: blog.odd-e.com/yilv/2017/03/seeing-the-system-dynamic-1-vs-n-product-owners.html


“Shifting the burden” archetype

Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_archetype#Shifting_the_burden

This is the dynamic in addiction!


Story: Negotiating Product Owner empowerment

© 2016 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com

PO selects Who and Why, collaborates on What

Requester

Responders

Who WhyThe group or person we

are serving.The reason.

The desired value.

WhatCollaboration space

The suggested solution, arrived at through dialogue and collaboration.

HowThe tools, techniques and

methods the team will use to meet the request

Task

Item

Source: Tobias Mayer.

Conclusions


Key points

• Product Owner implementation choices are relative to organisation optimising goals (agility vs predictability etc.)

• The Product Owner model has the potential to solve several big picture organisational problems

• LeSS, SAFe, “Spotify Model” all differ greatly on the above

• If Product Owner is not at whole of customer product level then you’re not optimising for agility and customer value*

• Generally requires understanding at executive level to optimise the whole

* Assuming that you’re not wrapping Scrum teams in something with equivalent or better agility and customer value optimisation

@rowanb #auscrum

Beware…


More about LeSS Product Ownerless.works


@rowanb au.linkedin.com/in/rowanbunning

Rowan [email protected] scrumwithstyle.com

mailto:[email protected]