Agile 2012 inside out leading change from the middle

Inside-OutLeading change from the middle using lean tools and

principles

Monday, August 20, 12

About Me


Ed KraayAgile Coach at Yahoo!


My Story

• 2003: new development manager, team of 5

• My boss:

• Expert in craft of development (did file system and kernel work in MS OS/2)

• Believed in not telling people how they should work - mentor, facilitator

• 2004: Let me try out Agile in 2004


enthusiasm.com

# o

f rep

orts

InfluenceMonday, August 20, 12

About you


How many of you are going through an agile

adoption at the moment?


How many of you are in organizations larger than

500 people?


How many direct of you have one or more direct

reports?


How many of you are more than three levels

from the CEO?


Middle Management: Anyone two levels

below the CEO and one level above line

workers and professionals


Outline

• Introductions

• Some Data

• What is Middle Management’s Role Anyway

• Key Point and Actions

• Lean Management Principles

• Apply the model


Some data


25% of companies surveyed have greater than 500 employees

up from 5% in 2006

*State of Agile Development Survey Version One 2011


67% of initial champions in

management layer



27% “lack of management support” as barrier to change



26% “general resistance to change” as a barrier

to adopting



What’s going on here?


Either:


Told to go agile “Top Down” and resists?


or


Middle management are champions but lacks support from upper

management?


We will focus on the top first case.


All In

Stealth Mode

Top DownLe

vel o

f Cha

nge

Spon

sors

hip

Bottom Up

Pilot

Public Display of

Agility

Types of Agile Adoption - Mike Cohn: http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-articles/734-

Typical Agile Adoption Change Strategy


http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-articles/734-






All In

Stealth Mode

Top DownLe

vel o

f Cha

nge

Spon

sors

hip

Bottom Up

Pilot

Public Display of

Agility

Types of Agile Adoption - Mike Cohn: http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-articles/734-

what happens to middle management?

Typical Agile Adoption Change Strategy








Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/artotemsco/4805582233/


What is middle management’s role in an agile organization?



Really?


Recommendation

Remove roadblocks

Coaching and

Mentoring

Input/advice on features and

technical difficulties

Training and skills

development

Stay abreast of industry and technology developments

Performance evaluations and

career development

Recruit, hire, build teams

Decide and Assign Tasks

Track tasks and what

people are doing

Make commitments to mgmt on what team can do

Weekly status reports

Do Don’t Do

Weekly staff

meetings?

Work across teams


Derby on Middle Managers

• Want to do a good job, may not know how

• Little training in management

• Peers perceive them differently now

• They are responsible for results over which they have no direct control

• They are pulled from demands from above and below

• They receive little support from above and below

• They have little training in system thinking


Key Point


Middle management is essential to succeed

with agile adoption in large companies


Your role must shift from fire-fighter to mentor and guide.


Problems present opportunities for you to mentor, serve and lead.


Lean management and social science can help

encourage these behaviors


What you need to do

1. Use the six sources of influence to encourage management to change your behaviors.

2. Pick a problem solving tool (A3, Current Reality Tree and use it to teach system thinking)

3. Find a mentor and mentee


Benefits if you do this

• Less firefighting

• Build up your organizational immune system

• You will frustrate the teams less - more engagement, lower attrition.

• You will impress your boss - making it possible to increase your influence across the organization.


Lean Management


"In almost all the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully understanding this science.."

Taylor




“The greatest waste … is failure to use the abilities of people…to learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager to make.”

“Out of the Crisis” 1982 – Ch.2 -Principles for Transformation-, page 53

Deming


Lean Management

• Workers have a head as well as hands

• Leaders role is to mentor and coach through problem solving

• Team / Management create the standard


Managers at Toyota

Facilitator Coach

Bureaucrat AutocratAut

onom

y

HighLowMastery

HighTrue North

Yes, but how?

Adapted from Jeffrey Liker: Toyota Way


http://techblog.netflix.com/search/label/chaos%20monkeyMonday, August 20, 12

http://techblog.netflix.com/search/label/chaos%20monkey

http://techblog.netflix.com/search/label/chaos%20monkey

Through Problem Solving

• Firefighting?

• 6 month Six Sigma Analysis Projects?


Lean “Tools”

• Root Cause Analysis

• Ishikawa Diagrams

• Cause and Effect Diagrams

• A3 Problem Solving Reports

• Value Stream Mapping

• Kaizen Workshops

Tools can be of value, but the point is not the lean tool, the point is to train problem solving


Fishbone

Diagrams 5 Why’s

A3 Reports


Cause and Effect Diagrams


Value Stream Maps


And yet, there is a problem -- how to

sustain these changes?


Fortunately, much work on this in the last 7

yearsDavid Mann Mike Rother


Lean Management

Visual Control

Daily AccountabilityProcess Leader Standard Work

go see


David Mann, Creating a Lean Culture, Lean Aerospace Initiative Plenary Conference 2005

Leader Standard Work




Visual Controls



Coaching Kata

currrent

target

Fog

plan do check

plan do check

plan do check

mentor

mentee

Go See

Establish target

conditionMonday, August 20, 12

Everyone at Toyota has a mentor


The Five Questions*

1. What is the target condition? (The challenge)

2. What is the actual condition now?

3. What obstacles are now preventing you from reaching the target condition? Which one are you addressing now?

4. What is your next step? (Start of next PDCA cycle)

5. When can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step?

*Rother, Mike (2009-08-11). Toyota Kata : Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results (Kindle Locations 2260-2265). McGraw-Hill. Kindle Edition.


How does this fit with software teams

• Tiered Daily Standups

• 9:30 - 10:00 Teams Meet, 10-10:15 Portfolio Management Meets

• Purpose - Blockers escalated

• Benefit - Solve problem when they are easy to solve



• Visual Controls

• Kanban Boards

• Burn up Charts

• Build Monitors



• Leader Standard Work

• Team Lead Leader Standard Work - Note standups they go to, impediments that were raised

• Daily Accountability Process

• Impediments with Owners

• Backlog of A3 Improvement Proposals

• Go and SeeMonday, August 20, 12

How to make change stick.


http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/09/psychological-experiments-in-self-control-the-marshmallow-test/

Marshmallow Test




identify key behaviors -> get results you want, sustain the change


Step 1• Identify a vital behavior

• Think of “positive deviance”

• A scenario where you or a manager you coached exhibited positive behavior

• Usually in an environment where you typically exhibited a negative behavior


Identify Vital Behavior

• Think of a behavior for management that, more than anything else, will help you succeed.

• They are usually challenging or outside your comfort zone.


Six Sources of Influence

Visit your Default Future

Surpass your limits

Harness peer pressure

Find strength in numbers

Invert the Economy

Change the environment

Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


What will make the behavior motivating?

• Visit your default future. What happens if you don’t change?

• Really visit it.




Surpass your limits


Find strength in numbers

Invert the Economy


Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


What do you need to learn?

• Do a skill scan.

• Brainstorm at least 3 skills with your neighbor that would help you achieve your vital behavior.




Surpass your limits


Find a coach, social network

Invert the Economy


Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


Who can you ask to motivate or coach you?

• Identify “enemies” or people who keep you from exhibiting the behavior you want to see

• Brainstorm ways to turn these enemies into friends.




Surpass your limits



Invert the Economy


Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


Who can you turn to to improve your skills

and hold you accountable?

• Identify a peer, mentor or a coach

• Make the commitment to talk with them about supporting you




Surpass your limits



Invert the Economy


Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


What incentives can you offer?

• Be careful. As Dan Pink’s work shows, incentives can reduce our desire to complete complex work

• Think of non-monetary incentives

• What about donating to a non-charity in 30 days if you don’t keep up with your behavior?




Surpass your limits



Invert the Economy


Will Skill

Individual

Team

Structural


How can you make you environment conducive to excercising your vital

behavior? • Identify 3 things with your neighbor that

you can do to make the physical environment more conducive to lean leadership.


Under the creative commons license

• Man getting squeezed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pyhooya/2326244567/

• Chicken: http://www.flickr.com/photos/locomotion/3556879530/

• Expert: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/3380860520/

• Eye: http://www.flickr.com/photos/capsicina/138910801/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/pyhooya/2326244567/




http://www.flickr.com/photos/locomotion/3556879530/




http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/3380860520/




http://www.flickr.com/photos/capsicina/138910801/




References

• Mann, David. "Creating a Lean Culture Process Focus and Leader Standard Work." Lecture. Lean Aerospace Initiative Plenary Conference. 23 Mar. 2005. LAI MIT. Lean Advancement Initiative, 28 Mar. 2005. Web. 15 Aug. 2012. <http://lean.mit.edu/downloads/doc_download/591-creating-a-lean-culture-process-focus-and-leader-standard-work>.

• Mann, David. Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions. New York: Productivity, 2005. Print.

• Patterson, Kerry. Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print.

• Rother, Mike. Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness, and Superior Results. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.


http://lean.mit.edu/downloads/doc_download/591-creating-a-lean-culture-process-focus-and-leader-standard-work




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Agile 2012 inside out leading change from the middle