The Culture of Agile Change

Session 1

Culture Shock!

What will we discuss?

• What caused the drive for Agile?

• Software as Art

• Values & Beliefs – Drivers of Behavior

• Anatomy of Culture Shock

• Square Pegs, Round Holes, Round Pegs, Square Holes

• Semi-Agile (Agile-ish, Agile-esque)

• Where do we go from here?

Genealogy of Scientific Management

• Eli Whitney

• Henry Gantt

• Frederick Taylor

• Henry Ford

Discordant Note from the Past…

• You can not step into the same rivertwice; the water is always different

• The Only Constant is Change

Heraclitus535 BC – 475 BC

Why the Agile Movement Got Started

• Modern Project Management Practice builds on these scientific manufacturing concepts

• Measure the steps and predict the outcome.

Software Development is Creative!

• Software Development is an act of creation

• More Art than Science

• How do you dictate/predict creativity?

Values & Beliefs

• Neuro-Associative Conditioning– Values = What is important

– Beliefs = Tests for values• Global Beliefs

– (Life is, People Are…)

• Rules– (If X happens, I’m successful)

• What you value and believe drives your behavior & what you seek

Tony Robbins

Agile Manifesto

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Culture Shock - Definition

• Term generally used to refer to adapting to life in another country.

• Stranger in a Strange Land

Stages of Culture Shock

• Honeymoon Phase

– Excitement at new experiences

• Negotiation Phase (3+ months)

– Begin to experience some of the difficulties

• Adjustment Phase (6-12 months)

– Start understanding/accepting CRITICAL TIME!

• Mastery Phase

The Valley of Despair

Graphic copyright ©2002 – P. David Elrod II & Donald D. Tippett

Outcomes of Adjustment Phase

• Full Integration

– Embrace new culture.

• Adaptive Blend

– Accept some aspects of the new culture, while clinging to aspects of the old

• Total Rejection

– Cannot accept new culture. Give up.

Becoming an Expert

Graphic copyright ©2006 – Kathy Sierra, http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

Square Pegs

• Turning a Group of Individuals into an Agile Team

– Forming

– Storming

– Norming

– Performing

Smoothing the Rough Edges

• Functioning Scrum Teams

• Applying Agile Principles

• Delivering working product

The Agile Team vs. Traditional Process

Perceived as Missing out on some Process

Traditional Team vs. Agile Process

Weakening Agile

Definitions

Missing out on Some Agile Practices

The Grassroots Adoption

• Adoptions @ Team Level:

– Focus on tools & processes

– Miss vertical cultural change

• They meet the cultural “glass ceiling”

Cultural Dissonance

Disparate values between…

• Business & technology

• Management & “line workers”

• Executives & mid-upper management

All build Change on a shaky foundation

Weakened Agile

Wagile

What is “Agile enough?”

Enterprise Wagile

Manifesto for Half-Arsed Agile Software Development

We have heard about new ways of developing software by paying consultants and reading Gartner reports. Through this we have been told to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsand we have mandatory processes and tools to control how those individuals (we prefer the term ‘resources’) interact

Working software over comprehensive documentationas long as that software is comprehensively documented

Customer collaboration over contract negotiationwithin the boundaries of strict contracts, of course, and subject to rigorous change control

Responding to change over following a planprovided a detailed plan is in place to respond to the change, and it is followed precisely

That is, while the items on the left sound nice in theory, we’re an enterprise company, and there’s no way we’re letting go of the items on the right.

Cobbled together one Saturday morning before breakfast by Kerry Buckley (@kerryb), following an article by Ron Jeffries and this suggestion from Eastmad.

These are people that need our help…

There are Those Who Believe…

• Agile is a Methodology

• Agile is tools & processes

• They’re “Agile Enough”

• They’ve “Finished”

Q: “When will Agile give me what I want?”

A: “When will you want what Agile provides?”

Doing Agile vs. Being Agile

Discussion

So where do we go from here?

• This is a battle for Hearts & Minds

• Focus on Values & Beliefs

• Focus on Culture change

• People do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure

• This culture change must start as high in the organization as possible