Agile Transition Lessons That Address Practical Questions

1Copyright © 2007 - 2018, Innolution, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Agile Transition Lessons
That Address Practical Questions
Bucharest Agile Software Meetup
April 25, 2018
by Ken Rubin
@krubinagile
2
1980’s 1990’s 2000’s 2010’s
Ken Rubin Overview
Trained > 26,000 people
Coached >100 companies
Worked with 9
startup companies
1st Scrum Project
1st Managing
Director

3
Essential Scrum in Ten Languages
Copyright © 2007 - 2018, Innolution, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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Agenda
Agile
Approach to
Transitioning
Role of
Training and
Coaching
Traditional
Approach to
Transitioning
Agile Mindset
First
Leveraging
Existing
Scaling
Frameworks
Restructuring
Teams for
Flow
Scope of
Transition
Measuring the
Transition

Traditional
Approach to
Transitioning
6
Agile is a Journey Not a Destination

7
Using Agile, We Don’t Believe We Can
Get the Requirements Right Up Front
8
“Traditional” Transition Approach

Agile Approach
to Transitioning
10
No details “Complete” detailsContinuum of details
Continuum of Transitioning Detail
We’re not going to do
any upfront transition
planning. Just get
started and we’ll just
figure it out
Create the
complete,
accurate, written
transition plan
before we start

11
Upfront Transition Planning Should
be Helpful without Being Excessive
12
Agile Principles Provide the
Foundation for the Transition
Agile principles provide the foundation for
transitioning to agile!

13
Comparison of Traditional vs. Agile
Transition Approaches
Means Uncertainty
EndsUncertainty
High Low
Low
Means Uncertainty
EndsUncertainty
High Low
Low
How will we
get there?
What will it
look like when
we arrive?
“Traditional” Transition “Agile” Transition
14
Executive-level Scrum Team
Executive change /
impediment backlog

15
Iterating Towards Agility
16
Managing Transition Issues with a
Kanban System
Engage Execute Done
DE
F
B
C
A
Backlog
G
Verify
H
I
j

17
Many Agile Transition Frameworks
Leveraging
Existing Scaling
Frameworks

19
Some Companies Equate “Agile Transition”
to Adopting a Scaling Framework
20
SAFe Implementation Framework

21
Many Companies Create Their Own
Company-Specific Agile Framework
It is sensible to review and at least consider starting
with one or more existing scaling frameworks
Mine the frameworks for the elements that you feel
would be a good starting point for our organization
Create first pass of your company’s agile framework
Continuously inspect and adapt your company’s agile
framework based on real experience
22
LEGO Example
(SAFe Customization)
Used SAFe as “launchpad,” but adopted less than 20% of
framework
Framework contains way to much details for LEGO needs
Framework is optimized for a bunch of teams working on
ONE product, while LEGO teams work on a number of
different products and services
For each program increment LEGO customized and
tweaked the process, adding needed elements and
removing elements that weren’t adding value
Main value add was big-room planning (program
increment planning)

Scope of
Transition
24
Not “Selling” or “Convincing” a
Company to Transition to Agile
Assuming a company has already substantially decided to
use agile

25
Do Agile in the Small before Agile
in the Large
If you can’t do small-scale agile, you
should have no confidence you can do
large-scale agile
26
So, the Company Could (Should) Already
Be Doing Agile On a Smaller Scale

27
Most Companies Focus Their
Transition Effort on Dev / IT
28
Need to Determine How Broad to
Focus in Dev / IT?
All of Dev / IT
Particular Department
Specific Product
Development Value Stream

29
Not Involving Other Departments In
Transition Can Cause Misalignment
Throughout the Value Chain
We want fixed-date,
budget, & scope
We write contracts to shift
risk to other party
We need well-defined,
legally defensible annual
performance assessmentsWe need an annual budget
that pre-allocates every $ to
be spent
We need to know the complete
feature set and delivery date
upfront so we can plan
We build things our own way,
we’ll get you the finished
stuff when it’s done
We push work into
the system as fast as
we can
We’re AGILE!
We release according
to our own schedule
30
Departments Outside of IT Using
Scrum
2015 Scrum Alliance State of Scrum Report

31
Tension Due to Misalignment
2015 Scrum Alliance State of Scrum Report
Agile Mindset
First

33
Agile Adoption
First focus on adopting agile mindset
Second focus on adopting agile practices
Avoid cargo-cult adoption
34
US Airdrops and Cargo Staging

35
Cargo Cult
36
Cargo Cult Issues…
Imitating actions alone produces desired results
Correlation implies causation
Process is more important than core principles
No need to know the foundational “why”

37
Agile Principles Provide Context
for Inspecting & Adapting
People who apply Agile without understanding its
underlying principles lack the necessary context to
understand why they are doing things and when and
how best to inspect and adapt their approaches
Role of
Training and
Coaching

39
Importance of Training and
Coaching
Agile training and coaching are critical
success factors in an agile transition
effort!
40
Internal stakeholders
Internal Coaches
Teams
Agile Training – Who to Involve
and Timing (An Example)
Time
DecisiontoAdoptatScale
Internal stakeholders
Internal Coaches
Teams
Pilot Teams
Managers

41
Internal vs. External Trainers
Initial training is almost always provided by
outside trainers
Good idea to leverage the training expertise of
people who do this for a living
Over time, some (or all) of the training can
transition to internal trainers
Internal trainers might participate in a train-the-
trainers program with external trainers
42
Internal vs. External Coaches
On large transitions it would be foolish to not
leverage a battle-proven external coach
You want to leverage the expertise of someone
who has assisted a number of different companies
with their agile adoptions
Given the scale that most companies want to
embrace agile, they will need to have internal
coaches as well

43
Internal Coach the Coaches
Program
1. Candidate internal coaches receive agile training
Set up an internal program to assist employees in
becoming agile coaches
2. External coaches initially provide the transition and team
coaching while internal coaches act as apprentices
3. After an appropriate apprentice period, candidate coaches
become internal coaches and external coaches observe
and provide next-level issue backup
4. Experienced internal coaches acts as mentors to the next
wave of candidate coaches
5. External coaches are weaned out
44
Companies Dislike This Dialog with
Their External Coach!
What do you think about X?
X is really important
How should we proceed with X?
There are 3 ways to proceed, which would
you like to do? I’ll support whichever you prefer
I don’t know, that’s why I’m paying you!

Restructuring
Teams for Flow
46
Component teams
Example component: Routing algorithms
(component) inside of a GPS

47
Feature teams
48
Example – Typical Large Company
with Many Component Teams

49
Creating Staggering Dependencies
50
Each Team Has Multiple Competing
Requests in Its Product Backlog

51
Where Teams Deal with Competing
Priorities
Do my stuff!
52
Leading to Team Misalignment
We’re
ready
now!
Okay,
now
we’re
ready!
Finally,
we’re
ready!
Time

53
And the Accrual of Economically
Damaging Inventory
This is all
inventory
54
Consequences of Relying on Too
Many Component Teams
Organizations that relies heavily on
components could have idle work up to
90% or more of the time!

55
Want to Structure Teams to Achieve Fast,
Flexible, and Economically Sensible Flow
56
Issue – Organizational Resistance
Interferes with
fiefdoms
Too hard to
reorganize into
feature teams
A general belief
that feature teams
will lead to
significant
technical debt

57
Example Company –
Many Component Teams
Geo 1
Geo 2
Geo 3
Geo 4
Geo 5
Geo 6
10 teams
2 teams
2 teams
5 teams
8 teams
1 team
20 teams 25 teams 15 teams
58
Example Issues Impeding
Immediate Team Restructuring
Team as currently structured are responsible for
getting in-flight releases out the door
Making significant team-structure changes early on
is considered risky from a cultural perspective
Not enough information to know what is the
“proper” team structure

Measuring the
Transition
60
Quantifying Agile Transition Costs
How much will the agile transition cost?
For some companies, naively the bottom-line
number in the response to an RFP!
Cost of training Cost of coaching
Cost of (re)tooling
But there are many other costs…
E.g., cost of organizational restructuring

61
Measuring Agile Transition
Success – the Right Way
Which is more compelling?
A company that increased its velocity by 400%
after adopting agile, or
A company that increased its share price by
40% after adopting agile
62
Output vs. Outcome Measures
Outputs measure “what we do or produce”
Outcomes measure “what difference we make or
the value we create”
E.g., velocity, throughput, cycle time, utilization, #
of widgets created, # of hamburgers server, # of
clients served
E.g., net promoter score, profitability, delighted
customers, % reduction in malaria infections

63
Applicability of Agile Output
Measures
If we double velocity, it implies we get twice the work
done in the same amount of time
If we get twice the work done in half the time, then we
increased velocity by 400%
Maximizing output could have little correlation with
delivering products or services that delight customers
Producing more output could contradict a core Agile
Manifesto principle: “Simplicity — the art of maximizing
the amount of work not done…”
From an economics perspective, minimizing output
while maximizing outcome (value to customer) is more
favorable
64
How Success is Measured with
Agile Initiatives

65
How Success is Measured on a
Day-to-Day Basis
66
Measuring Agility (Using
Comparative Agility as an Example)

67
Correlating Agile Measures with
Business Outcome Measures
Correlations
Outcome Measures
Contact Info for Ken Rubin
Email: krubin@innolution.com
Website: www.innolution.com
Phone: (303) 827-3333
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kennethrubin
Twitter: www.twitter.com/krubinagile
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InnolutionLLC
Google+ plus.google.com/+KennyRubin1/
Essential Scrum: A Practical
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