ENTERPRISE LEVEL LEAN & AGILE: THE ART OF STARTSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasmSuren Samarchyan, PhDHead of project management department, Innova SystemsAuthor of fundamentally new approach to investigate fast approximation problemsEmail: approximation@gmail.comTel: +79169368701

GOALEncourage participants to learn and improveSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm2

WORKING AGREEMENTSGet your brain to see this talk as really importantThink ahead, suggest your solutionsAsk questions , there are no dumb onesGet emotionally involvedDrink lot of water , dehydration decreases cognitive functionSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm3

CAUTION "Past success stories are generally not applicable to new situations. We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models." – Akira MoriSuccess is going from failure to failure without los of enthusiasm4

INITIAL CONDITIONS Unrealistic expectations, wishful thinkingShortchanged quality assuranceInadequate designConfusing estimates with targetsExcessive multi-taskingLack of user involvementSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm5

MORE PROBLEMSWeak personnelNoisy, crowded officeFeature creepAbandoning planning under pressureInsufficient risk managementSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm6

SOME MATHMcConnell’s list of highest impact mistakes0-probability? So it’s impossible…But it exists, its not a dream, its tangible … actually the leader in the industry0-probability doesn’t mean the event is impossible (pick an arbitrary point of an interval)It just means … we meet the outlier …Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm7

XEROX PARC INNOVATIONSGraphical user interfaceMouseEthernetNotebookPersonal workstation, Laser printer, Smalltalk and OOP, “WYSIWYG editors, Aspect oriented programming, …Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm8

XEROX PARC STRATEGYPeople usually prefer to be in control of mediocre processes and focus on the things they understand rather than feel out of control with possibly great processes and surprises.Xerox PARC strategy was to focus only on the most surprising outliersSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm9

THE GOALMeet extremely hard make-or-break deadlinesCreate an advantageous initial conditions for the next projectsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm10

RECALL: INITIAL CONDITIONS Unrealistic expectations, wishful thinkingShortchanged quality assuranceInadequate designConfusing estimates with targetsExcessive multi-taskingLack of user involvementWeak personnelNoisy, crowded officeFeature creepAbandoning planning under pressureInsufficient risk managementSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm11

RATIONALIZATION OF SUCCESS“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” - Ralph Waldo EmersonSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm12

CORE TEAMFujio Cho’s strategy reinventedHuge amount of enthusiasm and energyBrilliant in some areasSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm13

INITIAL ACTION PLAN?Agile suggests “Let’s pick a direction and get on with it”?!Toyota suggests “Make decision slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement rapidly”Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm14

OPTIONS: SURGICAL TEAMOrganic surgical teamVery little disciplineEmpowermentCultivate the strengthsHuge enthusiasm, energy and overtime of core teamRecently worked well in Chicago Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm15

OPTIONS: CLASSIC APPROACHHierarchy, top-down controlFunctional departmentsPlan-driven developmentRigid rulesSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm16

OPTIONS: SOME AGILEAgilize development teams, use classic approach in other departmentsAgilize development teams, then adapt agile for other departmentsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm17

OPTIONS: START WITH PRACTICES?Start with practices and then go deeper with principles and valuesStart with values and principles, install practices laterSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm18

OPTIONS: HRAgile says “Hire brilliant people, give them what they need and trust them to get the job done”Toyota says “Brilliant process managementis our strategy, we get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes”Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm19

MORE OPTIONSInvestigate the subject area, categorize the tasks and install established best practicesHire experts to analyze the situation and give us the list of good practices to followSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm20

EVEN MORE OPTIONSGo with empiric approach i.e. create environment, conduct many experiments and look the emergent patternsTake immediate directive actions to establish order, look for what happens and adapt action accordinglySuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm21

INITIAL ACTION PLAN??Too many options … analysis paralysis?!… and there is no even retrospective coherenceSocio-psychological picture suggested that the cost of process adoption failures is too highand I hate that hard deadlines …Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm22

INITIAL PLANThe best of the best HR strategyOne2One with all employeesSome basic platform to build process on itWeekly process-adding meetingsTraining for each principle or practice prior to its adoptionEnterprise Transition ScrumSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm23

REALITY: HIRING BEST TALENTThere is no human resources departmentThere is even no recruiterSo let’s recruit a recruiter andIn parallel start recruiting people for the most important positionsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm24

BEST TALENT: PRE-CRISIS vs. NOWDo you remember pre-crisis hiring challenges?It was awful …Do you think current situation is better?Its much better … but “stars” remain “stars”Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm25

BEST TALENT: SOME STATISTICSProject managers success rate is less than 1%Developers success rate is 1-2%Architects success rate is 1%Marketing director success rate is 0% CEO success rate is 0% … …… and the problem is not the money. Currently we have very very brilliant tech and management gurusSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm26

ONE2ONE: WHY WE NEED IT?“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it” – Albert EinsteinSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm27

ONE2ONE: LOGICAL LEVELSEnvironmentBehaviorCapabilitiesBeliefs and valuesIdentityPurposeSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm28

REALITY: NO ONE2ONEsOne2One with all employeesSocio-psychological pictureBiggest problems and possible solutionsWhat can I do right now to improve their life“I need 2 months” - Suren“You have just one week” – CEOSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm29

REALITY: QUASI-ONE2ONEsDiscussions with key people on key problems and key counteractionsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm30

REALITY: ONE2ONE REAPPEARReturned to One2Ones after 6 monthsDoing it well requires lot of training“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.” - Peter DruckerSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm31

REALITY: BASIC PLATFORMStandard things: Meetings, wiki, jira, email lists, CI, …It was a real challenge to start doing productive meetingsThe biggest impediment – no one was on time …Second challenge was politics, huge amount of politicsAfter a month or so the first problem was solvedSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm32

REALITY: PROCESS-ADDING M.Monday 11:00-11:30All key tech people and managers must attend, everyone else is free to attendPrepare list of the most important problems beforehand4 minutes to very energetic discussion + 1 minute to make decision or arrange the separate meetingDuring the first few months most of the problems were solved in 4 minutesSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm33

REALITY: TRAININGSThere was no conference room at that time …Should it have been done anyway?No retrospective coherence, not sureNext time I’ll do! Currently we have the best workplace and equipment in the industrySuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm34

ENTERPRISE TRANSITION SCRUMGoal is to improve the enterpriseEnterprise transition backlogGather impediments and initiatives from all teams, prioritize and actEnterprise transition councilWeekly iterationsPlanning, demo, retrospectivesPO – CEO, Team, Scrum Master – meSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm35

REALITY: ETSAt first I couldn’t find people in the company who is able to participate in ETCDecided to do semi-ETS with all key people involved and with 90% of job done by myselfAfter 5 months project managers team was formed and became ETCAfter 2 more months ETC was restructured. Now it includes less people.After few more months we moved to Kanban.Currently we are about to refactor it again …Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm36

REALITY: ETS  RESULTSWe have fixed all highest impact impediments, even ones that seemed impossible to deal with a year agoWe did aggressive restructuring 3 timesIt was risky, stressful and required going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.It is really hard!Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm37

SUCCESS REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE“To turn really interesting ideas and fledging technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines” – Steve JobsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm38

LOT OF KNOWLEDGE: THEORIESEconomicsPsychologySociologyMath StatisticsTheory of complexityChaos theoryGame theoryTheory of constraintsNeuroscienceComputer scienceQueuing theorySystems thinkingNLPControl engineeringManeuver WarfareSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm39

MORE KNOWLEDGELean - don’t trouble you customer; develop people, then build products; no wasteful work; team and individuals evolve their own practices and improvements; build partners with stable relationships, trust, and coaching in lean thinking; develop teams; go see; spread knowledge; retrospectives; 5 whys; eyes for waste: variability, overburden, non-value-added work, handoff, WIP, delay, multi-tasking, defects, wishful thinking; long-term great engineers; mentoring from manager-teachers; cadence; cross-functional; team room; visual management; entrepreneurial chief engineer; set-based design; create knowledge; long-term; flow; pull; stop & fix; master norms; consensus; …Agile - …, people & project management - …, …Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm40

EVEN MORE KNOWLEDGEMarketingData miningDecision theoryCase studiesTypical patterns…Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm41

SUCCESS REQUIRES COURAGE“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision” - Peter Drucker“A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.”- John MaxwellSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm42

SUCCESS REQUIRES OPTIMISM“Whether you think you can do a thing or you can't do a thing, you're right” Henry FordSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm43

SUCCESS REQ. SELF-CRITISISM"The combination of self-criticism and boundless optimism is the hardest and the most important factor of success" Alan KaySuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm44

SUCCESS REQUIRES …Talent, creativity, innovative thinkingDedication, huge overtimeWill-powerEnthusiasmEnergy…and a great piece of luck.Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm45

TODAY: HARD DEADLINES?We completed the toughest project 2 times faster with 3 times less resources and with higher quality than competitorsSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm46

TODAY: PURPOSEMoney?"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.“ – Steve Jobs“Your ability to learn faster than your competition is your only sustainable competitive advantage.” - Arie de GuesInnova core purpose “To grow culture that continuously improves and breeds outstanding results”Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm47

LOVE WHAT YOU DO"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.“ – Steve Jobs"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.“ - Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Prize recipientSuccess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm48

THANKSfrom failure to failure49without loss ofSuccess is goingenthusiasm