3 Stages of Agility: Agile Austin 2016

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3 Stages of
Enterprise Agility
@DaveSharrock
#agile42

3 Stages of
Enterprise Agility
Sputnik and the Space Race
The International Space Station
Space Tourism

4th October, 1957
• Russians launch Sputnik, which
kicks off the space race
• 22.8 inches in diameter, orbits
the Earth for less than 6 months
•
http://www.coalwoodwestvirginia.com/sputnik.htm

Proliferation of Ideas
• Isolated examples, but ubiquitous
• Solving very different problems
• Varying degrees of success
By 2010, there are 1,100
active satellites, and 2,600
that no longer work

Stage 1: Isolated Agility
• Simple technology stack
means team is completely
cross-functional
• Single product under
development, with all teams
focussed on the same
product backlog
• Small team size (7±2)

agile teams and small organizations
get things done
by creating an environment where good
practices are easy to do

collaboration
small, dedicated
cross-functional teams

collaboration
focus
small, dedicated
product owner,
ordered backlog

22% of teams have
no product owner
http://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/state-of-scrum-report

collaboration
focus
transparency
small, dedicated
Product Owner,
ordered backlog
simple, big visible
charts show progress

Isolated Agility Team agile42 home team board

cross-functional
product backlog
• Scale by adding teams not
growing team size

cross-functional
product backlog
• Scale by adding teams not
growing team size
• Product Owner team for
larger development
environments

Six-team Isolated Agility Team formation exercise

3 Stages of Enterprise Agility
Isolated Synchronous Organic
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
#products single few many
technology
stack
simple complex unknown
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
Isolated Synchronous Networked
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60
#products single
technology
stack
simple
team structure local
Proliferation
of Ideas

International Space Station
• Launched in 1998, permanently inhabited since 2000
• Five different space agencies representing 15 countries
built the $100-billion International Space Station
• Spans a US football ﬁeld, including the end zones

Development of New Skills
• Solve larger and more complicated problems
• Builds on foundations of old thinking
• Old and new live uncomfortably together

Stage 2: Synchronous Agility
• Deep technology stack
means team is rarely
completely cross-functional
• Multiple products sharing
common platforms or
services
• Built with isolated agile teams
(not dev & test teams…)

Size and complexity
breakdown these constraints
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/mlevin/4488369118
collaboration
focus
transparency

functional silos
single-points-of-failure
residual bureaucracy
collaboration
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/sebastiandooris/2449853812

informal networks
time slicing
project funding
collaboration
focus
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/onemananhisdog/5718624579

collaboration
focus
transparency
terminology
local optimization
illusions of progress
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/wwarby/2460655511/

Stage 2: Synchronous Agility
• Deep technology stack
cross-functional
• Multiple products sharing
common platforms or
services
• Built with isolated agile teams
(not dev & test teams…)
• Scale by decoupling
components not adding
teams
• Component team product
owners serve feature teams

Experience
#1
#3
#5
#4
#6
#2
Capability Delivery
Team #1
Capability Delivery
Team #2
Capability Delivery
Team #3
Capability Delivery
Team #4
Capability Delivery
Team #5
Capability Delivery
Team #6
Integration, front-end
development, creative
design
Shared services &
platform
Experience visioning
and conception
Experience Delivery
Team #1
Experience Delivery
Team #2
Experience Delivery
Team #3

Common Patterns for
Synchronous Agility

Common Integration Points
Aligned sprints and common
integration points; sequential
delivery; either on or oﬀ ‘train’
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0002422_003_L%C3%A4uferinnen_beim_Weiterreichen_des_Staffelstabes.jpg

Real Cost of
Integration
•Some form of hardening
sprint (real cost to
deployment/integration)
•Watch for different
‘releases’, different
‘done’ states
•Dependencies should be
visible and continually in
discussion
https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/53370644@N06/4975888229/

#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-1000
#products single few
technology
stack
simple complex
team structure local global
Learning
New Skills
Proliferation
of Ideas

Dave Sharrock
agile42
29 April 2015
• The New Shepard blasts off on
its first developmental test flight
over Blue Origin’s West Texas
Launch Site
• The uncrewed vehicle flew to an
altitude of more than 93.5 km
(307,000 ft) and achieved a top
speed of Mach 3 (2,284 mph;
3,675 km/h)
Built on the back of the space race, private companies
(Blue Agility, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX) now lead the way

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Blue_Origin_Incremental_Development_%28Spacecraft%29.jpg
Innovation with New Skills
• New learnings are the
foundation not an extension
• New way of thinking is in DNA;
the old paradigm is lost
• Take on radically different
challenges

Two pizza teams
No, communication is terrible!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Characteristics of Organic Agility organizations
• Asynchronous delivery
• Different teams deliver on their cadence, not the release cadence of product
• Automated deployment
• Not continuous integration or continuous deployment
• Automated immediate feedback on different versions
• Dynamic budgeting
• Earn-to-play (not pay-to-play)
• Treat budgets as malleable
• Value-based decision-making

#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s
technology
stack
#people < 50-60 100-1000 10’s
technology
stack
simple complex decoupled
team structure local global local
Innovation
Learning
New Skills
Proliferation
of Ideas

Get ready to lose control
“I tell people I push more code
by 9 AM Pacific than most people
do in a lifetime. And that’s
[just] 2% of what I’m going to do
in the next couple of hours,”
Garo Taft
Facebook’s Release Engineer
“Step by Step,
Ferociously”

thank you
dave.sharrock@agile42.com
@davesharrock

3 Stages of Agility: Agile Austin 2016

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