ADAPTing to Agile Development

© 2009 Mountain Goat Software© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®
ADAPTing
to Agile
Mike Cohn
mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com
June 7, 2010
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© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®
®
Mike Cohn
Founding member and
director of Agile Alliance
and Scrum Alliance
Founder of Mountain
Goat Software
Doing Scrum since 1995
Started my career as a
programmer
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®
Agenda
Why transitioning to agile is hard
ADAPTing to agile development
Iterating toward agility
The role of leadership
Overcoming resistance
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Two simplistic views of change:
Top down: Powerful leader shares a vision
Bottom-up:A team starts and everyone else sees the
But, transitioning to agile is neither top-down nor
bottom-up
It’s both at the same time
Change is not top-down or bottom-up;
it’s both
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It is tempting to codify things that work in a given
context into best practices
†
Once we know what’s “best” we stop adapting
Or even thinking about what we’re doing
Once we’ve stopped inspecting and adapting we’re
not agile, or won’t be for long
Best practices are tempting
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†Anderson, P. “Seven Layers for Guiding the Evolving Enterprise”
in The Biology of Business.
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The transition process must be congruent
with the development process
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Self-organize
Write feature 1
Write feature 2
Part of the move to agile is a
move to self-organizing teams
Moving to self-organization
requires self-organization!
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Traditional view of the organization is as a machine
together
Organizations are unpredictable, living systems
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Assessment Gap Analysis Plan
Current
State
Desired
State
Vision
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We need a different mental model
The organization as a Complex Adaptive System
(CAS)
John Holland in Complexity:The Emerging Science at the
Edge of Order and Chaos
Overall system behavior is the result of a huge
agents
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Local agents (individuals, project teams, discipline
coworkers) identify local gaps based on their goals
Vision
Current
State
Desired
State
Current
State
Desired
State
Current
State
Desired
State
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Closing the gap with
the desired state
Newtonian View
of Success
Achieving a good ﬁt
with the environment
CAS View
of Success
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Traditional
view
CAS view
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Traditional
view
CAS view
Relationships are empowering
Responsiveness to the environment is the
measure of value
value
tensions
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Agenda
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Awareness that there is room for
improvement
A
DesireD
Ability to work in an agile mannerA
Promote
momentum and get others to follow
P
Transfer
T
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We also have the issue with at least one other developer as
well.”
1. Is this a problem of Awareness, Desire or Ability?
Why?
2.Thinking about ADAPT, what might you try?
?
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All individuals will need to move through the
Awareness, Desire, and Ability stage
But will do so at different rates
Early adapters and leaders:
Use the Promote stage to build Awareness
and Desire in later adopters
fail
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Tools for building...
Awareness
Communicate that there’s a problem
Use metrics
Provide exposure to new people and experiences
Focus attention on the most important reason or
two for changing
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On the following slides, identify
create ability, promote the
transition, and transfer its
implications.
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Desire Ability
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TransferPromote
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Stop!
My thoughts on desire,
ability, transfer and promote
are on the following pages.
You don’t want to see them
before you think about your
own.
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Tools for building...
Desire
Communicate that there’s a better way
Create a sense of urgency
Build momentum
Get the team to take agile for a test drive
Align incentives (or, at least, remove disincentives)
Focus on addressing any fears
Help people let go
Don’t discredit the past
Engage everyone in the transition
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Ability
Provide coaching and training
Hold individuals accountable
Share information
Set reasonable targets
Just do it
Promote
Publicize success stories
Host an agile safari
Attract attention
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Transfer
Transfer the effects of agile beyond the current group
A team transfers to its department
A department transfers to its division
If you don’t transfer, the transition will eventually and
inevitably fail
organizational gravity
status quo
Example:
If you don’t align promotions, raises, annual reviews, those
will work against you
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Agenda
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Enterprise Transition Community
(ETC)
Improvement
backlog
Improvement Communities
Improvement
backlog
Improvement
backlog
Improvement
backlog
Impediments
Energy, suppport, resources,
guidance, & direction (occasionally)
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Enterprise Transition Community (ETC)
Creates a culture in which passion and
desire to improve thrive
Does not direct the transition effort
Removes organizational impediments to agility
Encourages Improvement Communities to
form
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ETC members
Sponsor
supported
Others
From any level but driven by desire to
improve
Disbands when the “transition” part of
adopting agile is over
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ETC responsibilities
Engage everyone
Set appropriate aspirations
impediments
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Item Who Note
Jim (CTO) to talk this up at
monthly development meeting.
Let’s see if there’s any interest.
Establish an internal program How do we identify good
develop them?
SC
in this.
JS
Get more teams to do
AR
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Form around the passion of a small number
of people
Expand from there
Do the real work of improving how the
organization implements agile
Focus on goals with practical relevance
Examples:
ScrumMaster,Testing, Product Owner,
Continuous Integration
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Working with an IC
An IC works with a project team
Work is not done in an ivory tower
Most ICs work in 2–4-week iterations
Disband or refocus when goal has been
achieved
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ETC Improvement
Backlog
…
Establish an internal
program for developing
…
Not everything on an
IC’s improvement
backlog needs to tie
back to the ETC’s
backlog
An IC Improvement Backlog
Figure out how to identify good
in this program).
Establish an internal mentoring program.
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Improvement backlogs
1.Write some items that you would like an on
your organization’s initial improvement backlogs.
2.What improvement communities would you like
to see form that could help with some of these
improvements?
3.What obstacles are in the way of making these
improvements?
4.What obstacles are in the way of forming an
ETC or improvement community to get started?
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Agenda
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Transition team and other formal leaders
must lead the transition
but cannot do so in the usual ways
Self-organizing groups still require leadership
Lead through example, questions, and focus
“Nudge” the organization; Poke and prod;
See how the organization responds
Leading an agile transition
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Container
Glenda Eoyang: Conditions for Self-Organizing in Human Systems
Differences
system
Transforming Exchanges
Information, money, energy (vision)
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Using the CDE model
by altering the:
Containers
D
E
tools
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Containers
Enlarge or shrink teams
Enlarge or shrink the responsibility
boundary of teams
Change team membership
Create new teams or groups
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Don’t require consensus
Ask hard questions
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Encourage communication between teams
and groups
Who isn’t talking who should?
Add or remove people from exchanges
Change reporting relationships
Encourage learning
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trouble spots.Think about how you might help them by
Cotrainers, amplifying or dampening
.
Note whether you are tweaking their Container,
than one.)
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database engineer and you.The developers and
testers are not working well together. Developers
work in isolation until two days are left in the
the testers.
1
2
The team is failing to deliver potentially shippable
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will soon.
3
4
team has its own testers who are starting to go in
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Jeff, a senior developer, is very domineering. During
iteration planning the team defers to him on every
when he suggest very low estimates on some tasks.
5
6
You are responsible for two teams.Team members on
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The self-organizing path
Self-organization is not something that
happens one time
A team is never done doing it
and-respond manner to its environment
As you see the team self-organize you can
We can view this as the evolution of a team
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~Philip Anderson
divisions of labor and routines not only emerge but
also self-adjust in response to environmental
mastered the art of planning and monitoring
†Anderson, P. “Seven Layers for Guiding the
Evolving Enterprise” in The Biology of Business.
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Evolution is the result of three elements:
Variation, selection and retention
Consider a giraffe:
Variation:

A random mutation that leads to

a longer neck
Selection:

The long neck helps it reach food

others can’t; so it it more likely to

survive and breed
Retention:

The mutation is passed to its

descendants
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1.
2. Manage meaning
3. Evolve vicarious selection systems
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help us survive will be the ones retained
should survive
What message is your organization sending about the
What messages are sent if the organization:
Provides training
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Manage meaning
bees responding to a “danger” message
ants responding to a “food found over here” message
e.g., putting the the team in touch with customers
Or keep messages out
are repeated
“Our GM counts the cars in the lot every day at 5 PM”
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Can take a long time
rather than eating it
takes too long
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Agenda
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Why They Resist
Like status quo Dislike agile
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehards
Skeptics
Saboteurs
Followers
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Pick one type of resistor. (Or two if you have time.)
Identify some underlying reasons for the behavior
and some things you could try to overcome it.
Why They Resist
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
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Why They Resist
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Skeptics
Let time run its course
Provide training
Solicit peer anecdotes
Appoint a champion skeptic
Push the issue
Build awareness
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Why They Resist
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Saboteurs
Success
Reiterate and reinforce the
commitment
Move them
Fire them
Encourage a thriving set of
communities
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Why They Resist
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Diehards
Align incentives
Create dissatisfaction with the
status quo
Acknowledge and confront fear
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Why They Resist
PassiveActive
HowTheyResist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Followers
Change team composition
Praise the right behavior
Model the right behavior
Involve them
Identify the true barrier
(awareness, desire, ability)
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Mike Cohn
(720) 890−6110
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ADAPTing to Agile Development

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