Keys to Crafting an Effective
Agile Development Culture
Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com

Keys to Crafting an Effective
Agile Development Culture
Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com

Ron Lichty,
Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST
© Ron Lichty 3

Coauthor, Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
© Ron Lichty 4

Addison Wesley: http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
© Ron Lichty 6

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
• Measure twice, cut once.
• Life is simpler when you plow around the
stump.
• Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.
– Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html

Before We Begin
• What is your role in your company today?
• Manager?
• Project Manager?
• Product Owner?
• Scrum Master?
• Individual Contributor?
• Have you completed Agile Projects?

Agenda
• Insights from successful software cultures
• Q&A

So what defines “Success”?

So what defines “Success”?
• Delivering scope?
• Within budget?
• On schedule?

So what defines “Success”?
• The Agile Principles begin…
–Our highest priority is to satisfy the
customer…
-- www.AgileManifesto.org

So what defines “Success”?
In the beginning, everyone will talk about
scope, and budget, and schedule.
But in the end, nobody really cares about any
of those things.
The only thing they care about is this:
People will love your software, or they won’t.
So that’s the only criterion to which you should
truly manage.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, CTO

So what defines “Success”?
• Go beyond the Agile Principles…
–Our highest priority is to delight the
customer…
-- www.AgileManifesto.org

How do we do that?
• Agile practices?

Agile Practices Do Deliver Value

Agile Practices Deliver Value
• Planning Daily
• Planning Weekly (or biweekly or…)
• Planning Publicly
• Ordering Work Based on Customer Value
• Together defining “Done”
• Delivering Frequently
• Sharing how we’re doing
• Reflecting on how to do better

Agile Practices Deliver Value
• Standups
– Standups matter:
– Effective, Daily Standups
--2015 Study of Product Team Performance

Agile Practices Do Deliver Value

Voting Machines Deliver Value, too

Voting Machines Deliver Value, too
• But no one claims voting machines are
what make us a democracy

Similarly…
Agile Practices Don’t (by themselves)
Make Us Agile

Similarly…
Agile Practices Aren’t Enough to
Make Us Agile
“Becoming Agile is hard. It is harder than most other
organizational change efforts I’ve witnessed or been
part of [for reasons] including…the need to avoid
turning Scrum into a list of best practices.”
--Mike Cohn

Agile Values and Agile Principles
Make Us Agile

Agile Values Make Us Agile
The Agile Manifesto
– We value:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/

Agile Principles Make Us Agile
• Build projects around motivated
individuals
• Trust… to get the job done
• Face-to-face conversation
• Self-organizing teams
• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/

Agile Principles Make Us Agile
• Build projects around motivated
individuals
• Trust… to get the job done
• Face-to-face conversation
• Self-organizing teams
• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/

Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?

Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
• If our self-organizing team were a
music group, …
What kind of music do we perform?

Self-Organizing Teams
• If our self-organizing team were an
acting troupe, …
What kind of acting do we do?
• If our self-organizing team were a
music combo, …
What kind of music do we perform?
• Who is the leader?

Support Agile Values
Value the Agile Manifesto over sets of practices
– We value:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/
© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
32

© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
33
http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement

Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers

Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up
• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back

Shared Leadership… and Managers

• Managers of teams
• Project managers
• Program managers
• Scrum masters
• Product managers?
• Product owners?
Shared Leadership… and Managers

• What do all those managers have in common?
Shared Leadership… and Managers

• What do all those managers have in common?
– we run things
– we give direction
– we tell people what to do
– we like being the center of attention
Shared Leadership… and Managers

“If you’re the ScrumMaster and everyone is
looking at you, you’re doing it wrong.”
--Marilson Campos
Shared Leadership… and Managers

Managers and Agile
• “A common misconception is that because
of this reliance on self-organizing teams,
there is little or no role for leaders of agile
teams. Nothing could be further from the
truth.”
--Mike Cohn, Succeeding with Agile
© Ron Lichty 43

--Agile Learning Labs, Laura Powers
© Ron Lichty 44

Agile: “Servant Leaders”

Managers and Agile
• Fostering an Agile Culture
• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
© Ron Lichty 46

Managers and Agile
• Fostering an Agile Culture
• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
• Removing Impediments
© Ron Lichty 47

Managers and Agile
• Fostering an Agile Culture
• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
• Removing Impediments
• Counseling, Coaching and Mentoring
• Scaling Scrum
• Hiring and Firing
© Ron Lichty 48

Managers and Agile
• Fostering an Agile Culture
• Modeling, Defending, Evangelizing Agile
Values
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
© Ron Lichty 49

Creating an Agile Culture
• TheoryY:“enabling”,“empowering”,“developmental",“continuousimprovement”->ServantLeadership
McGregor's X-Y Theory© Ron Lichty 50

Managers and Agile
• Creating an Agile Culture
Lean-Agile management is the art of leading people, not
managing them... Leading people involves creating the
correct environment, focusing them on the right things,
and trusting them to do their work...
In Lean-Agile, the manager has two primary
responsibilities:
• setting the outcomes or goals expected of the team;
• assisting the doers in creating a better process and
workspace to get their jobs done...
--Alan Shalloway, Net Objectives
© Ron Lichty 51

Leaders and Agile
• Rules of Thumb
Management sets the boundaries of what needs to be done and
says to the team, I trust you to figure out how to get it done.

Empowerment
Trust but verify.

Empowerment
54© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN

Empowerment
55© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN

Empowerment
56© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN
– imperative not to micromanage
– the essence of delegation
– setting expected outcomes for teams

Empowerment
57© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VALDIMIR LENIN
I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quoting LOU GERSTNER

Communicating
• Create a culture of communication
– at every level
– with everyone
• up, down, within and across
• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wiefling

Communication
59© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
You cannot overcommunicate.
-RON LICHTY

Communication: Virtual Teams
• There is never enough communication
• Commitment to communicate
• No substitute for face-to-face meetings
60
© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty
The more distance between teammates, the more you have to
formalize communication and make it explicit.
-TED YOUNG, Development Manager & Agile Coach, Guidewire

• Agile Culture lives inside Corporate Culture
• Agile Culture Corporate Culture≠
• What’s your corporate culture?
Establishing Culture inside Culture

Establishing Culture inside Culture
• Does your company live its values?
– What of those values can you leverage?
– Wherever you can, leverage culture & values
• Programming culture corporate culture≠
– Leverage
– Bolster
– Wall off incompatible values
– Substitute agile values

Teamwork and Collaboration
• Base agile culture around creating self-
organizing, high-performing teams
• Reward teamwork and shared leadership
over heroism
63© Mickey W. Mantle &
Ron Lichty

Establishing Culture
Publicly reward or acknowledge engineers who act in a way
that supports the culture that you want to create.
-Juanita Mah, engineering manager

Managers and Agile
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
“Managers are still needed. Not so much for
their planning and controlling ability, but for
the important job of interfacing on the team’s
behalf with the rest of the organization.”
--Diana Larsen, co-author, Agile Retrospectives
© Ron Lichty 65

Managers and Agile
• Removing Distractions and Impediments
Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO
John Evans, Winchester, Hants, United Kingdom, www.thetippingpoint.co.uk
© Ron Lichty 66

Capacity
• Slack is critical to throughput
– 100% capacity results in bottlenecks
--photo (c) Bud Adams, SXC, www.aimpgh.com

How Do We Foster an Agile Culture?
• Trust Our People
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
• Expect / Enable Truly Shared Leadership
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Foster a Culture of Communication
• Encourage Teamwork and Collaboration
• Shield Teams from Politics & Distraction

Creating an Agile Culture
• Establishing Culture
© Ron Lichty 69
http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
© Ron Lichty 70