Presentation from Al Goerner from Valtech at the Agile Edge Conference in London Oct 28th 2008

1. Adopting Agile in the Organization
Al Goerner
Agile Edge - UK
28 October 2008
Bottom Line
An Agile team in a non-agile
environment
will not
long survive.
Development Agility
& Business Agility
go Hand-in-Hand.
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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2. It Starts with Trust
... or the Lack Thereof.
”Trust Us!”
says the Agilist.
”Trust What?
I am the one
hanging out here!”
says the Partner.
What Your Partner is
Thinking when you say …
“Everything you think you know is wrong.”
“What arrogance! You’ve got 3-6 months, max,
to impress me.”
“Leave us alone. We’ll get the job done.”
“I don’t have the time to baby-sit you, but I doubt
that I can afford to leave you alone.”
“We need 1 of your top people, full-time.”
“I need him/her more than you do. You’ll get
them in their spare-time.”
“We don’t need no stinking project manager.”
“But, that’s just exactly what you are gonna get!”
“We’re Agile now. We don’t give dates or
do reports.”
“That’s what YOU think!”
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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3. Legitimate Concerns of …
Executive
Business Customer Management
Usable solutions to real
Line
problems. Management
Responsiveness to
Business
changing needs and
Customer
understanding.
Predictable, reliable
Team
results.
Schedule reliability
amidst dependencies.
Individual
Make the Case
with the Business Customer
Agility is for the Business Customer’s benefit!
To deliver business value …
• Solving a real problem …
• Faster …
Benefit Burden
• With more flexibility …
• At higher quality …
• Reliably and sustainably …
• At the same or lower cost. Remember the Principle of Benefit & Burden!
If your whole message about Agile development is about
tactical development practices, then the best that you can
expect from the business customer is benign disregard.
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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4. Requirements – the Culture Shift
Requirements are not a contract!
“Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough.”
• Perfect requirements take too long.
That is not our objective.
• There are some requirements no one
knows at the beginning of a project.
The business needs to change its mind as it clarifies its vision.
Requirements are more
exploration than specification!
Invest the time to visualize, clarify, and iterate.
Requirements analysis is just another kind of risk management.
Estimates – the Culture Shift
Understand the accuracy of estimates! Project Cost Project
Know the difference between Schedule
(effort & size)
4X 1.6X
estimates and commitments. 2X 1.25X
Insist on an estimation discipline, No-Fidelity
1.15X
1.5X
and train to that discipline. Lo-Fidelity
1.05X 1.05X
1.0X 1.0X
Hi-Fidelity
0.95X 0.95X
Improve estimation accuracy 0.67X 0.85X
0.5X 0.8X
through feedback about actuals.
0.25X 0.6X
Project Inception Elaboration Construction
Expect re-forecasts!
Proposal Phase Phase Phase
Assessment Assessment Assessment
When well done, commitments are
pulled in more often than they are
pushed out.
Insist on knowing when the reforecast
is due and its stability.
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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5. Legitimate Concerns of …
Executive
Line Management Management
What resources to commit
Line
to which project, when. Management
Balancing too many
Business
priorities with too few
Customer
resources.
How to get more with
Team
less, without breaking
your people.
How to serve without
being enslaved.
Individual
Accountability – the Culture Shift
Concerns of Management:
Progress: 100.0
90
90.0
• Is this project on-time? 81
80.0
Is it healthy? 69
66
70.0 63
61
Quality: 60.0 52 51
48 48 50
47 46 47
• Is this release likely to be 50.0 43 43
40
38
40.0
fit-for-release when it is 33
29
40 42
40
37 38 37 36 37 38
30.0 24
ready-for-release? 36 36
33 34 20
30 31 28 15
20.0 26 27
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Diagnostic: 6 5.25 5.75 4.75 5.25 4.75 6
10.0 3.75
3 2.5 1
0 00 0 0 0 0 00
• What can we do to get this 0.0 4
3.5 3.5
3 3
1.5
1 0.5 0
project back on track? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Measure performance and manage by it!
Only metrics – the right metrics – allow you to know
the answers to these questions.
• When? Who? How much? Why? What if?
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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6. Responsibilities – the Culture Shift
Only cross-functional teams get projects done!
Handoffs are a productivity and quality killer.
A matrix is the natural structure
of an effective organization.
Share your people so that others will share theirs.
All stars shine in the night sky.
… They don’t have to dim others.
Beware of staff fractionalization!
The Rule of 10%: for every project assigned, you lose 10% of
that person’s productivity to overhead and context switching.
Consider the Stable Team pattern: it is more effective to
assign projects to teams than teams to projects.
Planning – the Culture Shift
The Plan is not the Product!
Keep your eye on the prize. Prefer Checklists to Plans!
“The plan is worthless. Don’t tell me what you plan to do;
The planning is priceless.” - Eisenhower tell me what you have done!
Planning is risk management, too!
Planning may proceed forward or backward!
Acme Project Reality Machine
[Depth]
[Risk]
Function Resource Schedule
The 3+2 Dimensions of the “Triple Constraint”
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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7. Legitimate Concerns of …
Executive
Executive Management Management
How to allocate budget to
Line
maximize ROI. Management
How to advance company
Business
strategic goals.
Customer
How to stay on the right
side of the law and the
Team
marketplace.
Individual
Governance – the Culture Shift
Governance should be aligned
to the development process,
not vice versa!
Project Governance
Financial Governance
Security Governance
Legal, Risk, & Compliance Governance
Technology & Strategic Architecture Governance
The right question,
asked at the right time,
answered and recorded.
Audits, after the fact, add no value.
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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8. 6 Missions of a Project Mgmt Office
Broaden and balance your PMO!
Enabling Establishing Empowering
Change Behaviors Planning
Coaching & Project
Evangelism
Mentoring Monitoring
Energy for Change
Shaping Behaviors Measuring Outcomes
Owning Portfolio
Training Practices Management
Vocabulary for Change
Certifying Skillsets Setting Goals
6 Wishes for Financial Governance
Implement a rolling funding cycle
1.
& rational contingency planning!
Institute a deliberate process of project
2.
proposal assessment and prioritization!
Release project funding incrementally!
3.
Incent for project success, not just
4.
individual contribution!
Accept and enculturate that canceling
5.
a failing project is, itself, a success!
Require a project benefit evaluation annually
6.
for the 3 years following project completion!
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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9. As for the rest, …
Security, Legal-Risk-Compliance, &
Technology-Architecture governance
processes should be facilitative and
consultative, not juridical.
The issues that are important to these
governance groups must be articulated
if they are to be constructively complied with!
Finally, for you consideration:
the Zen of Agile Adoption
Problem in Evidence
The symptoms and (eventually) causes are made visible and evident.
Simple Elegance
A few simple elements and the rules of their combination and
interrelationship produce a rich behavior or set of possibilities.
Balanced Reciprocity
The participants in the transformed system must all benefit from the
transformation in proportion to their investment and participation.
Evolved Vocabulary
Language shapes Thought. Thought shapes Values. Values shape Behavior.
A new vocabulary must emerge and be differentiated from the old in order
to ensure that Thought, Values and Behavior are in alignment.
Embodied Metaphor
Don’t make the metaphor abstract too soon. Don’t take it
from our hands too soon, lest we abdicate of the responsibility
to own & master the metaphor to our tools.
Establish Context
If only the affective levels of a system are modified,
change will still not last. At least one contextual level
must be mutated to establish the environment for success.
Single Voice
The voice of the change-agent must be unified and consistent.
change-
Otherwise, the voice of the client will be dissonant.
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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10. Three Things to Do Now…
Thank you for attending!
Questions???
Contacts:
Al Goerner Jonathan Cook
Principal Emterprise Consultant Business Development, United Kingdom
al.goerner@valtech.com jonathan.cooke@valtech.com
+01 214 724 7240 +44 7748638031
©2008 Valtech Technologies, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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