FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF AN AGILE TRANSFORMATION€¦ · Seth Dobbs | @sethdtech 11 • Estimations,...

FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF AN AGILE TRANSFORMATION

Seth Dobbs@sethdtech

https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-dobbs/

Seth Dobbs | @sethdtech

1. WHAT IS AGILE?

3Seth Dobbs | @sethdtech

THE AGILE MANIFESTO

Individuals and Interactions

Working Software

Customer Collaboration

Responding to Change

Favor This Over This

Process and Tools

Comprehensive Documentation

Contract Negotiation

Following a Plan

• Scrum

• Teams commit to ship software through sprints

• Learning loops

• Kanban

• Visualizes work

• Limits work in progress by capacity

RELATED TERMS

• Companies being slow to adapt to change or new challenges

• Inability to test and learn

• Inability to ship frequently

• Lack of predictability in process

• Lack of team ownership

PROBLEMS AGILE SOLVES

• Planning is everything, plans are nothing• Changes will always occur

WHY WE USE AGILE: FLEXIBILITY

TRADITIONAL RELEASE PLAN

Release

Analysis Design Implementation Test

TRADITIONAL RELEASE PLAN

Release

Analysis Design Implementation Test

Release

AGILE APPROACH

AnalysisDesign

ImplementationTest

AnalysisDesign

ImplementationTest

AnalysisDesign

ImplementationTest

AnalysisDesign

ImplementationTest

ReleaseRelease

• Working code gives clear measurement of progress• Tracking progress by time is a lie

WHY WE USE AGILE: TRANSPARENCY

• Estimations, unless granular and short, are inaccurate

• “I’ve spent 30 hours on a 60 hour task, therefore I’m halfway done!”

• How do you manage impact of a task that takes longer:

• If it’s a one-time problem

• If it’s indicative of a durable change

TRACKING BY TIME (IS A LIE)

• You’ll see progress in variations of a stair step

• It’s clear when progress is being made and when it isn’t

PROGRESS BY COMPLETED WORK

• Over time, burndown becomes relatively consistent• Can start predicting future

WHY WE USE AGILE: PREDICTABILITY

• Predictability makes it easier for us to make tradeoffs if we are off track

• What’s fixed, what needs to change?

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRIANGLE

Time Cost

Quality

2. THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS

DYSFUNCTION I:POOR LEADERSHIP SUPPORT

Organizational change isn’t easy, and it’s even harder if you don’t have real buy-in at the highest levels.

Financially “lean” organizationsDon’t have time to interact with the agile team

ANTI-PATTERN: “TOO MANY MEETINGS”

Can’t proceed without full spec

ANTI-PATTERN: ARCHAIC APPROVAL PROCESS

Real change can be blocked“Do what you want as long as you don’t need help”

ANTI-PATTERN: SKUNKWORKS

I’m giving you space to try this outvs.

I’m committed to the success of this

ANTI-PATTERN: PERMISSION IS NOT COMMITMENT

SOLUTION I:EXECUTIVE OWNERSHIP

This represents a real commitment to change

Starts with the end mindWhat are our business drivers leading to Agile?

SOLUTION APPLIED: KNOW WHY WE’RE GOING AGILE

Time is allocated to support doing it rightApprovals given without “full scope”Help removing blockers at the highest level

SOLUTION APPLIED: TRUE OWNERSHIP

DYSFUNCTION II:DOGMA

Insistence that there is an absolute right way to “do Agile”

“There’s a right way and everything else is the wrong way”

ANTI-PATTERN: RIGID VIEW

“We’ve got this”Reproduce exactly with a bunch of other teams

ANTI-PATTERN: COOKIE CUTTER

“As seen on TV”Posters & slogans

ANTI-PATTERN: PERFORMATIVE

“That’s not Agile”“This is the only way to do it”

ANTI-PATTERN: ELEVATE THE MEANS

SOLUTION II:BE ADAPTIVE

Spread a mindset, not a prescription

Make the process serve your needs

Foster a learning organization

Someone from outside the team cannotdictate how the team will best operate

Corollary: Don’t reinvent the wheel

SOLUTION APPLIED: NO IVORY TOWERS

It helps to have someone on the team that has been through it before

It can take experience to truly adapt

SOLUTION APPLIED: THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

Regularly critique the effectiveness of the process (retrospectives, etc.)

SOLUTION APPLIED: CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

DYSFUNCTION III:ORGANIZATIONAL SILOESOur work methods often reflect our structure

Handoff / review is the only point of contact between teams

ANTI-PATTERN: VIRTUAL WALLS

“I thought that’s what requirement ___ meant”

ANTI-PATTERN: EASIER TO ASSUME

“We don’t care how you build it, it just needs to be exactly what we’ve asked for.”“Just give us the requirements and we’ll take it from here”

ANTI-PATTERN: AGILE IS JUST FOR ENGINEERING

Signoff is about shifting blame, not collaboration

ANTI-PATTERN: FORMAL SIGNOFF

SOLUTION III:ALIGN STRUCTURE WITH VALUE CREATION

Break organizational barriers to create effective teams

SOLUTION APPLIED: VIRTUAL TEAMS

Business BA Team Design Dev Team QA

THE ANTI-PATTERN

SOLUTION APPLIED: VIRTUAL TEAMS

Business BA Team Design Dev Team QA

Cross-functional Product Team

SOLUTION APPLIED: MATRIXED TEAMS

Team A Team B Team C Team D

Design

Development

SOLUTION APPLIED: MATRIXED TEAMS

Team A Team B Team C Team D

Design

Development

The notion that you aren’t on the development, design, etc. team. You are on a cross-functional team delivering value. This team is your first priority.

SOLUTION APPLIED: FIRST TEAM

DYSFUNCTION IV:FOCUS ON OWN WORKCan be thought of as individualized siloes

Thinking about how “I” want to do “my” work

Measuring how many points/cards each person is individually delivering“How do I measure individuals if it’s a collective effort?”

ANTI-PATTERN: INDIVIDUAL METRICS

“This way is easier for me. Who cares about the impact to the team.”

ANTI-PATTERN: OPTIMIZING INDIVIDUAL WORK

Working on multiple cards at the same time means nothing is really progressing

ANTI-PATTERN: TOO MANY CARDS OPEN

When the smallest unit of work is more than a couple days you lose control of the process

ANTI-PATTERN: WORK UNITS ARE TOO BIG

The sum of individual efforts does not equal a collaborative effort

ANTI-PATTERN: NO ONE OWNS THE COMBINED RESULT

SOLUTION IV:TEAM FOCUS

Software development is a team sport

After siloes are broken down and we’ve become adaptive, we should be able to see the greater effectiveness of supporting team optimization.

SOLUTION APPLIED: OPTIMIZE TEAM, SUB-OPTIMIZE INDIVIDUAL

Smaller chunks of work:• Move faster

• Give greater visibility to progress

• Give greater flexibility to adjust team

SOLUTION APPLIED: BREAKDOWN WORK TO MAXIMIZE THROUGHPUT

Team owns the resultsUltimately, the real measure of success is simply value created for the company.

SOLUTION APPLIED: MEASURE SUCCESS OF A TEAM

• It doesn’t matter how fast an individual can go

• You might have to give up your preferred rowing method

• Slower start to get coordinated

• Only thing that matters is team’s collective velocity

ROWING TEAM: A METAPHOR

• Scrum: review burndown daily

• Everyone is focused on their own work, nothing is moving

• Team should ask “how do we get back in motion”

PROGRESS IS A TEAM SPORT

DYSFUNCTION V:SKEPTICISM

A passive form of dysfunction

“It won’t work here”

“It’s just a developer’s excuse to miss deadlines”

ANTI-PATTERN: AGILE IS CHAOS

“It seems ok but is very backlog/task focused”

ANTI-PATTERN: AGILE IS TOO MICRO-FOCUSED

Still trying to jam as much work into the next release as possible

ANTI-PATTERN: OLD HABITS DIE HARD

“Why aren’t things better yet?”

ANTI-PATTERN: INSTANT FIX

If we measure the wrong things, we won’t see the value

E.g. individual productivity

ANTI-PATTERN: BAD KPIS

SOLUTION V:CREATE ADHERENTS

Focus on moving to Agile for the right reasons

Let those reasons drive how the process evolves

Set expectations, but demonstrate value early

An “official” skunkworks can be set up to succeed and demonstrate value

SOLUTION APPLIED: START SMALL

Focus on the value of what is being delivered

SOLUTION APPLIED: VALUE MINDSET

Agile is not a cure for all software development ills

It takes work and being adaptive

SOLUTION APPLIED: MANAGE EXPECTATIONS

3. CASE STUDY

• Goal: re-platform tech and re-design experience

• Waterfall process - product spec + design took 6+ months

• Handoff: held tight by engineering team

• 18+ months of development without visibility

• UAT was rough

• Deployment was a disaster

THE HISTORY

• We had a small team doing quick hits on existing platform

• Continually delivering value for over a year

• “How are you making it work?”

AT THE SAME TIME…

• CTO skepticism• Working model in isolation garnered

limited support to “try”

STAGE 1: BUILDING SUPPORT

• Cross-functional team• Cross-company team• Laid out common vision of what we

wanted to achieve together

STAGE 2: FORMING

• Siloed thinking remained• Individualized work remained• Still asked “when can I see results?

STAGE 3: CRAWLING

• Attrition• Team ownership

STAGE 4: TRANSFORMING

• Spinning up new teams• Continual learning

STAGE 5: EXPANDING

4. FINAL THOUGHTS

Understand the organizational / operational problems you’re trying to solveUnderstand how Agile applies to itRepeat

SHAPE YOUR PROCESS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

Mistakes will be made!

That’s ok – that’s why you have an adaptive process!

WARNING

DYSFUNCTIONS AND SOLUTIONS

Executive OwnershipPoor Leadership Support

AdaptiveDogma

Aligned with WorkSiloes

Team FocusFocus on Own Work

AdherentsSkeptics

Thank You!

Twitter: @sethdtech

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-dobbs/

Blog: https://www.seth-dobbs.com

Seth Dobbs

FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF AN AGILE TRANSFORMATION€¦ · Seth Dobbs | @sethdtech 11 • Estimations,...

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