lean and agile practices for product development are these principles applied? 8 product development...

Lean and Agile Practices for

Product Development

Dr. Suzette Johnson, NG Fellow

Certified Enterprise Agile Coach

Scaled Agile Program Consultant

Copyright © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation,

Approved For Public Release #16-2095; Unlimited Distribution, Dated 11/1/16

Discussion Outline

• What are Lean and Agile Principles?

• How are these principles applied?

• What are considerations for moving towards a Lean Agile

environment?

• What are lessons learned for Lean Agile adoption?

3Copyright © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation,


What are Lean and Agile

Principles?

4

We must become the change we want

to see.

…. Gandhi



Principles Built From Lean

5

Optimize flowEliminate waste

(Muda)

Take a systems view (value

stream)

ContinuousImprovement

(Kaizen)

Base progress on objective

evidence of working systems

Build-in quality

Create self-organizing teams

Regular program alignment and synchronization

See, Plan, Do, Act



Agile Principles

6

Early and Continuous Delivery of Value

A Working System is the Primary Measure

of Progress

Welcome Changing Requirements

Deliver a Working System Frequently

Business People and Developers Must

Work Together Daily

Motivated and Empowered Individuals

Face-to-face Conversation

Promote Sustainable Development

Continuous Attention to Technical Excellence

Simplicity

Architectures, Requirements, and Designs Emerge

From Self-Organizing Teams

Regular Team Reflection on How to

Become More Effective

http://agilemanifesto.org/Copyright © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation,


Lean and Agile

7

LEAN Agile

A business methodology to increase

overall efficiency and customer focus

A family of collaborative and adaptive

methodologies for efficient, lean

development in an environment of

technical complexity, and evolving

requirements and customer priorities.

A way of working together to ensure

business and engineering processes

are efficient as possible with products

moving smoothly and fluidly from

concept to delivery.

Develop iteratively with the goal of

delivering value to the customer

frequently and reducing waste across

the value stream

Creates and nurtures a culture of

continuous improvement

Integral product and process

continuous improvement.

Emphasizes product quality (“Stop the

Line” practices)

Focus on building quality products.



How are these principles applied?

8

Product development is the process of converting

uncertainty to knowledge.

—Dantar P. Oosterwal

The Lean Machine

Director of Product Development

Harley Davidson



Daily Scrum

Release 0

(Project Startup)

Sprint

Planning

Sprint

Review

Release

Planning

(Program

Increment)

9

Release

Closeout

Principles into ActionNorthrop Grumman Agile Framework

Sprint

Execution

Project Closeout

3-month cycle 2-week cycle

15-min

• Identify team

• Product Vision

• Training

• Define schedule/cadence

• Initial architecture

• Capabilities/Features

• Product Roadmap

• Infrastructure Setup

• Features to stories

• Initial Agile Modeling

• Stories estimated

• Release Plan

• Release Def of Done • Stories to tasks with

hours

• Story Def of Done

• Tasks

completed

• Regular

collaboration

• Demonstrations

• Review progress

and quality

• Potentially

Shippable

Sprint

Retrospective• Prioritized actions

for improvement

• Features complete and

ready for release

• Improvement Workshop

~4-8 weeks



10

Taking a Systems View

3 Month Cycle of Planning, Execution, and Demonstrations

1/2 3/31

Sprint 12-weeks

Sprint 22-weeks

Release/Increment Planning starts in

Dec.

Sprint 32-weeks

Sprint 42-weeks

Sprint 52-weeks

Sprint 62-weeks

Stabilization /Planning

= Sprint Planning

= Day 10 Sprint Review and Retrospective

= End of Release or Increment

= Day 1 Release Planning Meeting

Example

The schedule is

aligned with teams

across the value

stream



Regular Synchronization at the Systems Level

• Part of Release/Increment Planning to coordinate and align activities

• Regular integration of components/subsystems

• Shift from team-level only demonstrations per iteration to system-level demonstrations

11

Syst

em

Level

Agile

Team

s

Release Planning Event

Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint

Con

tin

uous In

tegra

tio

n

Con

tin

uous In

tegra

tio

n

Co

ntin

uous In

tegra

tio

n

Con

tin

uous In

tegra

tio

n

Con

tin

uous In

tegra

tio

n

Con

tin

uous In

tegra

tio

nCopyright © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation,


What are considerations for

moving towards a Lean Agile

environment?

A common disease that afflicts management the

world over is the impression that

“Our problems are different". They are different to be

sure, but the principles that will help to improve

quality of product and service are universal in nature.

—W. Edwards Deming



13

Culture Shift

Historically traditional practices

(low rate of change) emphasize…

Adaptive and agile practices (high rate of

change) emphasize…

Directive and top-down Leading, empowering, and collaboration

Managing the people and the work Create teams that are self-managed with

distributed control

Limiting and reducing change Adapting to and welcoming change

Promoting continuous learning and

improvement

Enforcing compliance to processes Readily adapting processes as needed with

emphasis on the minimal amount needed

Reducing waste in business and engineering

processes

Functional teams with handoffs

between the teams

Cross functional teams responsible for

delivering end-to-end capabilities including

design, development, testing, configuration

management, integration…Copyright © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation,


Getting Started

• Get trained on the processes

• Create environments that emphasize collaboration, team empowerment,

trust, and organizational learning

• Establish cross functional, empowered teams as a technique for

managing complexity and improved problem solving

• Give people time to collaborate, focus on improvements, and innovate

• Address team needs and impediments

• Each iteration/sprint demonstration is an opportunity for recognition and to

celebrate team success



Build a Coalition for Change

Executive Leadership leads the change…

…Provides vision and resources

…Develops change agents

…Who develop Lean-Agile leaders…

…Who build successful Agile teams



Active Coaching for Agile Programs

Ensure all teams include

coaches or staff with Agile

experience.

While training is helpful, hands on

experience helps the team

members learn and transition

quickly.

Ensure all components involved

in Agile projects are committed

to the organization’s Agile

approach.

This practice encourages

organizations to ensure that

everyone contributing to a project

understands and commits to the

organization’s approach.

Leveraging guidance from

GAO report, 2012• As part of Northrop Grumman’s Agile Center

of Excellence, our Agile coaches are actively

involved with our programs and engage

regularly with our Agile teams.

• Provide a common framework for getting new

Agile programs up and running quickly

• Lead programs in defining and shaping their

transition strategy covering all phases of the

system development life-cycle and

management practices

GAO = US Government Accounting Office



What are some lessons learned for

Lean Agile adoption?

17

Create a workplace where people want to be,

where people are valued, and are full contributors to

forming and supporting the direction of the organization.

-Pollyanna Pixton



Lessons Learned for Lean Agile Transition

• Adopting Agile practices is a paradigm shift across the organization

– Requires active leadership support

– Personnel structure must empower cross-functional, collaborative teams

• Common training is essential for the whole project team

– Creates a common language and understanding of practices and roles/responsibilities

for the team

– Creates effective and knowledgeable employees for all team roles

– Establishes team expectations and accountability

• Ongoing coaching ensures the training translates into culture

• Whole team engagement is required for planning and retrospective

– Facilitates shared commitment to vision and release/iteration plans

– Encourages collaboration across development roles

– Enables team-owned processes and commitment to continuous improvement



Lessons Learned for Lean Agile Transition

• Sustainable pace means protecting work-life integration

– Reduces the need for individual heroism or bottlenecks

– Plans work around real-life team work hours

– Reduces wasted/speculative work by focusing on only “doneness”

– Celebrates team achievement at demonstration points

• A healthy team dynamic is essential

– Agile does not cure a dysfunctional team – but it will clearly highlight problems

– Mutual trust, respect, and accountability are required for success

– Consider team training as a part of transition

• Customer/Stakeholder commitment to Agile execution is key

– Understanding before the RFP is released

– Team evolve a mutually acceptable business rhythm

– Customers engage regularly



Leading Causes of Failed Agile Projects

Reference: http://www.versionone.com21

Find someone to help you through the transition



Reflect Back…We discussed…

• Foundational Lean and Agile Principles

• How these principles are applied

• Considerations for moving towards a Lean Agile environment

• Lessons learned for Lean Agile adoption



Brought to you by…

The Agile Center of Excellence

24

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you today.

We provide Northrop Grumman Corporation business units, programs, project teams, employees, and other stakeholders with Agile

engineering resources, training and coaching, and related services to drive high-quality solutions and meet mission success.

Request a service (training, coaching, business development support) by sending an email

to Suzette Johnson, Agile Lead, or submit a Request for Service when visiting the Agile

CoE sharepoint site:

https://oursites.myngc.com/ENT/eCOE/Agile/SitePages/AgileHome.aspx



Special Acknowledgments and References

• Many of the ideas in this presentation originated from:

– Dean Leffingwell and Scaled Agile Framework

– Toyota Production System and Edwards Demming

– Ken Schwaber (scrum.org) and Mike Cohn (mountaingoatsoftware.com)

– My Northrop Grumman coaching experiences with the many programs and projects

• References and Recommended Agile Reading List

– Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby

– Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle

– Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn

– Scrum and The Enterprise by Ken Schwaber

– Scrum – The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland

– The Power of Scrum by Jeff Sutherland, Rini van Dolingen, Eelco Rustenburg

– Any of the books listed at PMI: http://www.pmi.org/Certification/~/media/Files/PDF/Agile/PMI000-

GainInsightsAIGLE418.ashx



http://www.pmi.org/Certification/~/media/Files/PDF/Agile/PMI000-GainInsightsAIGLE418.ashx

lean and agile practices for product development are these principles applied? 8 product development...

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