SDEC 2014 - Evolving to Agile

Thank you to our Sponsors
Media Sponsor:
Transforming a Public Sector Organization
Jason Little, Ardita Karaj

Hi Ardi, We miss you!
@JASONLITTLE @ARDITA_K #SDEC14

March 2012 March 2013 October 2014
OUR STORY
Evolving to Agile

Born in 1914
4,300 people organization wide
280 in IT
12 Change Agents
(6 internal, 6 consultants)
THE ORGANIZATION

Legislated by government
Funded by insurance premiums
Union and non-union employees
THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

BUSINESS DESIRE
“To be the best public sector organization in Canada”

IT CAPABILITY

NEW CIO
100 person layoff, outsource of IT operations, massive
modernization program started, end of organizational life

`
CIO
Planning &
Architecture
QMO
EA
CM
PP
Application
Development
Dev QA
Business and PM
Stuff
PM/BA
Business
PMO
we worked here

THE PLAN
Training
Evolve Process
Embedded Coaches
Tools/BDD
Q1 2012 Q4 2012
yay! we’re agile!

APPLYING LEAN STARTUP TO CHANGE
www.leanchange.org

THE KANBAN PROCESS
Enterprise stand-ups, 3 times per week, bi-weekly
“transformation meeting”

1 Enterprise Kanban
20+ Team/Dept Kanbans
Risks, Issues, Blockers

KANBAN SAFARI

TEAM + IMPROVEMENT BOARDS
moving to pull-based coaching

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

pfff Agile? Leave me alone!
we’ll try THAT, but not THAT!
Gimme all the things!
3 PROJECTS, 3 APPROACHES

Accepted coaching support
First co-located team
Dedicated team
Involved client
Visualized work, did stand-ups
Accepted all training (Behaviour Driven Development, Agile delivery
etc)

AINO - AGILE IN NAME ONLY
BPUF, no improvements, PM ran the show

DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT?
6 months late, littered with bugs

Co-located team
Dedicated team
Involved client
etc)
Project: high profile, history of late delivery with little warning,
frequently needed more budget, many “fun” meetings!

HR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
“Helped me understand how much work needed to get
done....provided a mechanism to find out problems earlier”

Cost
Scope Time
THE IRON WHAT?
whoopsie.

Co-located team
Dedicated team
Involved client
etc)

58 FEATURES IN 8 MONTHS, 8 ESCAPED
DEFECTS ON THEIR FIRST RELEASE

Their Business client:
From:
“I don’t want to see you
until you are done with my
requirements”
to
“I understand what you are
doing and I trust you”.

VISIBILITY 2.0…

INTAKE PROCESS, LINES OF BUSINESS

RISKS, RELEASE WALL, CHANGE WORK

DEPENDANCIES, ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

CREEPING INTO THE ORGANIZATION

BRANCHING OUT

Lean Coffee Executive Lean Coffee
Stuff we did
Kanbanized HR
Quarterly Budgeting
gamification
Study Groups
Geek Talk
Communities of Practice
Quality CoP
Evening Meet-ups
External training
Yammer Conferences
Management 3.0
Innovation Games
Get Kanban
Re-Designed Workspaces
Hack the Culture!
Lego TDD

Lean Coffee Executive Lean Coffee
Stuff we’ll talk
about next
Kanbanized HR
Quarterly Budgeting
gamification
Study Groups
Geek Talk
Communities of Practice
Quality CoP
Evening Meet-ups
External training
Yammer Conferences
Management 3.0
Innovation Games
Get Kanban
Re-Designed Workspaces
Hack the Culture!
Lego TDD

LEAN COFFEE
To support the transformation

“mandated
CoP” oops.
Geek Talk
LEAN COFFEE LEAD TO…
Quarterly
budgeting
connection to
the PMO
BA CoP
Exec Lean
Coffee
M30
L&P
Lean Coffee
PMO Study
group

CULTURE HACKING
exposing dysfunctions

NON-SOFTWARE TEAMS
Big Visible Gantt Chart FTW!

KANBANIZED HR
moved away from big annual plans

INNOVATION GAMES
Product box game for CoP’s

EXECS CHEATING AT PLAYING GET KANBAN
no really, they tried to cheat

MANAGEMENT 3.0
official management curriculum

TDD LEGO

Study groups and training
from some awesome people!

Transformational Change cannot be scheduled and
budgeted for
Coaching stance is important
Too many simultaneous big changes is bad
Sometimes HR can’t fix people problems
Kanban isn’t necessarily less disruptive
Agile thinking must come with technical capability
WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Q2 to Q3 2013
Half the QMO team moved on
QMO was moved into the PMO
New QMO Manager
Optimus Prime (The CIO) left
Q3 to Q4 2013
Outsourced companies took over the modernization
program
“Kanban” was kicked to the curb to a large degree
~1 year delay on modernization milestones
Severe integration problems
Plan for more outsourcing caused damage with employees
WHAT HAPPENED?

The Last 3 Months
• New CIO (3rd one)
• Supportive of Lean/Kanban approach
• Many pockets of ‘Kanban’ re-appearing
• Moving back to ‘Service Line’ and value stream approach
• Building PO mentality with closer connections to
customers
• Additional outsourcing was stopped by new CIO, trust
building again…slowly
• BA CoP died off :-(
• Kudo cards are back!
WHAT HAPPENED?

“It feels like we are getting back to where we were before, and
everyone is excited about that. Outsourcing is off the table
and we are working on getting our people ready to take on the
support of the new system. They are happy and slowly
starting to trust again.”
“Things that stuck: Kanban when we remember”
“Things that suck: This is MY transformation (<consulting firm>
leads, we follow, take minutes, book rooms)”
“Kanban boards continue to be used across the organization,
Retrospectives are taking place, mostly on IT projects though”
From the People!

CHANGE IS COMPLEX EH?

Biff
Jane
LESS PLANNING, MORE EXPERIMENTS
Bob

Learn more:
fromstoneagetoagile.com
Get the book at:
leanchange.org
use “sdec14” to get 50% off at
checkout
THANKS!

SDEC 2014 - Evolving to Agile

SDEC 2014 - Evolving to Agile

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