Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them!

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

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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.
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copyright © Sally Elatta 2010
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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.”

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Project Management Engineering Principles
Principles (TDD, Continuous Integration,
(Release Planning, Sprint and Refactoring ..etc)
Iteration Planning, Daily Scrum,
Sprint Demo and Retrospective ..etc)
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Agile Characteristics
Product
Backlog

Test Driven Development Business / IT as One Team
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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
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Sample Backlog

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How to Avoid Agile Failure!

 Process
Management
Product Owner
Team

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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!

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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 

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.
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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!
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Real World Agile and Scrum

•

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Evaluations for Real World Agile

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Servant Leadership

•

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Evaluations for Servant
Leadership

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Effective Facilitation

•

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Evaluations for Facilitation

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Requirements Gathering

•

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

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Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them!

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