Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them!

Top Reasons Agile Adoption Fails and How to Avoid Them! Presenter: Sally Elatta 1

About Sally • Sally Elatta • Leading Agile Transformation Coach and Trainer • Background: Java/.Net Software Architect • Certified Scrum Practitioner & ScrumMaster • Certified IBM, Sun, Microsoft Professional • Taught over 1000+ and helped coach over 20+ teams • Sally@AgileTransformation.com I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really passionate about transforming individuals, teams and organizations to doing what they do better. I value instilling soft skills and leadership qualities in the people I coach. I believe in Servant Leadership as the way to lead change and create a culture of empowered teams, as opposed to Command and Control. 1 2 copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 2

The manifesto’s shared value statement: “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 & interactions Over Processes & 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.” copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 3

Project Management Engineering Principles Principles (TDD, Continuous Integration, (Release Planning, Sprint and Refactoring ..etc) Iteration Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Demo and Retrospective ..etc) copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 4

Work Breakdown Process Product Sprint Product Backlog Backlog Tasks Owner Each story is broken Sprint 1 thinks of down into tasks. Each New Idea team member signs up Sprint 2 for tasks and provides estimates of effort. Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Each Iteration is 1 – 4 weeks in length. Multiple iterations Sprint N make up a Release. Features/Stories Small Stories copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 6

Process Success Factors  Please .. Try a successful Agile recipe first before customizing it!  Do understand the motivation behind a specific practice before dropping it.  Do start with a Pilot, prove success, inspect and adapt, then adopt at scale. (avoid too big, too fast)  Do have a thought out adoption rollout plan.  Avoid the ‘Checklist Agile’ adoption by also transforming soft skills and leadership.  Avoid WAGILE! copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 9

Process Success Factors ..  Develop new incentives that recognize team delivery instead of individual delivery.  Do go through Release Planning and Iteration 0.  Do use expert coaches to help through initial phases.  Do pre-planning on iteration ahead of the other.  Do understand what is ‘Just Enough’ documentation.  Do factor in dependency and proof of concept stories upfront during release planning.  Do breakdown stories to the right size. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 10

Process Success Factors ..  Develop new incentives that recognize team delivery instead of individual delivery.  Do go through Release Planning and Iteration 0.  Do use expert coaches to help through initial phases.  Do pre-planning on iteration ahead of the other.  Do understand what is ‘Just Enough’ documentation.  Do factor in dependency and proof of concept stories upfront during release planning.  Do breakdown stories to the right size.  Do solve the organizational impediments Agile exposes. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 11

Management Success Factors  Management ‘genuine’ buy-in to giving Agile a chance.  Converting from ‘Command and Control’ to ‘Servant Leadership’.  Trust the team to self-manage, but provide leadership.  Control resource shifting and multi-tasking.  Structure the teams so they can get a story ‘done’, reduce dependencies. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 13

Management Success Factors ..  Celebrate success, even small wins, and show confidence.  Support the Agile practices yourself. Agile requires discipline at all levels. Support new ScrumMasters and watch against reverting to form.  Avoid Agile Team burn-out!  Remove impediments quickly. Don’t be one  copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 14

Product Owner Success Factors  Educate the business side early (not just IT) on Agile, get their buy-in.  Help the Product Owner develop a realistic plan/schedule for team collaboration.  The right Product Owner should lead with a strong vision and passion for success.  She/he should be Knowledgeable, Empowered and Engaged with the team.  Manages and controls scope changes.  Not the ScrumMaster. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 15

Product Owner Success Factors ..  Manages stakeholder expectations and solicits feedback. Invites them to demos/reviews.  Focus team on top priority stories.  Provides early and frequent testing feedback to the team.  Encourages, supports and motivates the team to continuously improve and deliver the right product.  Keeps an eye on the vision ahead.  Collaborates with the team to develop a release plan that meets the vision. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 16

Team Success Factors  Team is trained and ‘genuinely’ interested in giving the new processes a chance.  Team members represent cross-functional roles that collaborate daily to get stories ‘Done’. Team is empowered and engaged. They sign up for tasks, provide realistic estimates, make realistic iteration commitments. Members create their team norms, define ‘Done’, have mutual accountability. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 17

Team Success Factors ..  Developers deliver small testable code every day.  Team is co-located as much as possible.  Team measures progress in terms of story points accepted by product owner.  Team tracks tasks and progress visibly.  Team members provide input to continuously improve processes.  Team members care about quality and focus on ways to reduce defects. copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 18

How We Can Help Real World Workshops Real World Coaching • Management and Business • Agile Project Jump Start Overview of Agile/Lean Coaching • Real World Agile and • Leadership Coaching Scrum team training + • Full Time Project Jump Start ScrumMasters • Effective Facilitation & • Troubled Project Requirements Gathering Assessment & Recovery • Servant Leadership • Enterprise • Agile Project Estimating Transformation and Planning Roadmap Development and Execution • Engineering Best Practices • … More! copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 20

• My Article: http://tinyurl.com/6h5mam 28

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Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them!

by Sally Elatta on Jun 11, 2010

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Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them! — Webinar Transcript