Stop doing scrum - BE agile (a leadership guide)

© 2013 Trail Ridge Consulting, LLC
Stop “DOING”
Scrum !
BE agile
(a leadership guide)
@petebehrens

75 years
“The Power of Pull” (Basic Books, 2010)
average life expectancy of companies in the 1937 S&P 500 Index

average life expectancy of companies in the 1970’s S&P 500 Index
40 years

average life expectancy of companies in the 2010’s S&P 500 Index
15 years

Corporate Life Expectancy
1930 1950 1970 1990 2010
15 years
75 years
40 years

Corporate Agility
1930 1950 1970 1990 2010
Waterfall
RAD
Agile
Spiral
Computers
Assembly
Line
Lean
15 years
75 years

Corporate Agility
1930 1950 1970 1990 2010
Agile
Assembly
Line
WORLD OF
CONTINUITY
15 years
75 years
WORLD OF
DISCONTINUITY

The World of Discontinuity
2010 IBM survey of more than 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and 33 industries
CEOs identified
creativityand agility
as the
top leadership competencies

However
agility is elusive
This presentation
was given at the
2013 Mile High Agile
Conference in
Denver, CO.
I have include help
text for those not
attending to “hear
my voice over”
through the slides...

Who am I?
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Waterfall
RAD
Agile
agility
RUP

Years
0 1 2 3 4 5
Adopting Agility
Initial
Training &
Coaching
Sustaining Agility
Rolling Agility
Thrashing Agility
Agility

Adopting Agility
Why?
Years
Agility
0 1 2 3 4 5
Why is it that some organizations grow
and thrive on agility while most plateau
and lose their agility over time?

What is Agility?
CULTURE
STRUCTURE
PROCESS
values
form
behaviors
Outside-In
Most agile adoptions
leverage an “outside-in”
approach. Starting with
a process like Scrum or
Kanban, they expose
impediments within the
organization.

Years
Agility
0 1 2 3 4 5
“Outside-In” Adoption
Training &
Coaching
Rolling Agility
Thrashing Agility
Agile doesn’t stick because this
outside-in approach runs into
systemic structures and values
of the organization which don’t
align to agility.

What is Agility?
CULTURE
STRUCTURE
PROCESS
Inside-Out
values
form
behaviors
Taking an opposite
approach - from the
“inside-out”, leaders start
with an understanding of
their culture and build
systems to support and
sustain agility.

Years
Agility
0 1 2 3 4 5
“Inside-Out” Adoption
Sustaining Agility
With an “inside-out” approach, agile sticks
because it builds on values and creates an
organizational architecture to support
agility - much like a software architecture
supports scalability and growth.

Culture is a prevalent problem identified in
the latest state of agility survey (2013) by
Version One.

75% of
Organizations are
“Doing” Scrum

What do we know?
✓ We live in a discontinuous world
✓ CEO’s want creativity and agility
✓ Most organizations are “Doing” Scrum
✓ Organizational agility is hard
✓ Organizational agility requires culture

Agility Dimensions
Clarity to
determine what
to do
Physical &
Technical ability
to change
Executional
competence
to deliver

A Language for Culture

Competing Values Framework
CREATECOLLABORATE
CONTROL COMPETE
Do things together
Do things right Do things fast
Do things ﬁrst
Let’s start with an
understanding of culture.
Using the Competing
Values Framework (CVF) as
a model to understand the
values and norms of what
makes an organization tick.

Collaborate / Clan Culture
Family Team
People
Focused
Interactions
Sacriﬁce
Relationship
Power
Diverse
Communication
Development

Collaborate / Clan Culture
Collaboration cultures
are personal cultures
who value the
relationships and people
over the process and
systems. They believe
teams are stronger
when they work
together.

Create / Adhocracy Culture
Organic
Free
Flowing
Visionary Transformation
Innovation Independent
Expanding
Ideas
Cultivation

Create / Adhocracy Culture
Creation cultures are
personal and focused
on growth of people and
of the world beyond
their organization. They
are quite fluid and
organic structures and
value new ideas,
learning and growing.

Compete / Market Culture
University
Customer
Focus
Excellence
Intense
Competitive
Market
Share Aggressive
Visionary

Compete / Market Culture
Compete cultures are
impersonal and focused
on the work products or
research. It is less about
the people and more
about what they
accomplish. They are
intense and competitive
environments.

Control / Hierarchy Culture
Top-down
Tight
Delegation
Realistic
Methodical
Analytical
Hierarchy
Systems &
Processes
Efﬁcient

Control / Hierarchy Culture
Control cultures tend to
be more impersonal and
focused on the systems
and processes to create
predictability and
performance through
repeatability.

M
agnitude
Velocity
CREATECOLLABORATE
CONTROL COMPETE
Fast
Change
V
E
LO
C
IT
Y
Some dimensions
expressed in the model
in dealing with change,
collaborate cultures
focus on long-term
while compete cultures
change quickly.
Long-Term
Change

M
agnitude
Velocity
CREATECOLLABORATE
CONTROL COMPETE
Transformational
Change
Incremental
Change
Fast
Change
M
A
G
N
IT
U
DE
V
E
LO
C
IT
Y
In addition, control
cultures seek small and
incremental changes
while create cultures
transform through big
changes.
Long-Term
Change

M
agnitude
Velocity
External
Positioning
Internal
Maintenance
CREATECOLLABORATE
CONTROL COMPETE
The cultures on the left
focus more internally on
people and processes.
The cultures on the right
focus on ideas, markets
and solutions.

M
agnitude
Velocity
External
Positioning
Internal
Maintenance
Individuality
Flexibility
Stability
Control
CREATECOLLABORATE
CONTROL COMPETE
The cultures on the
bottom focus more on
systems.
The cultures on the top
focus more on people.

Leading Agility “Inside-Out”
Understand and
align the culture
Build flexibility into
the organization
Focus on learning
& expect change

McKinsey IT Create Culture
People
Learning
Cultivation
Growth
CREATE
Do things ﬁrst

McKinsey IT Create Culture
10
20
30
40
50
20
30
40
50
10
20
30
40
50
10
30
40
50
10
20
CreateCompete
CollaborateControl
This is a create cultural signature
of a very agile company. They have
been agile for over 6 years.

McKinsey IT - Organizational Glue
CreateCompete
CollaborateControl
Commitment to
innovation and
development.
There is an
emphasis on being
on the cutting edge.
Loyalty and mutual
trust.
Commitment to this
organization runs
high.
Formal rules and
policies.
Maintaining a
smooth-running
organization is
important.
Emphasis on
achievement & goal
accomplishment.
Aggressiveness and
winning are
common themes.
One of the
dimensions in
the model
looks at what
ties the
organization
together - you
can see here
that they are
very forward
thinking.

McKinsey IT Results
In addition to being agile, they are
succeeding across many business metrics.

McKinsey IT Results
Years
ReleaseDuration
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
12+ months
1 month
3 months
A key metric they measure is how quickly
they can productize functionality for their
business - before they began their agile
journey, it took over 1 year to deliver
functionality - now they average 1 month.

McKinsey IT Transformation
Years
Organizational
Agility
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
IT -> Service
Global
Integration
Working
Software
Small
Teams
No Scrum
Master
Role/Title
Changes
Removed
QA
Support
2.0 3 months
12+ months
1 month
Release Duration
To accomplish this, they have had many
significant transformational organizational
changes to their roles, responsibilities,
team structures, and global alignment.
These are signatures of a create culture.

Be Agile
McKinsey IT is
not “DOING” Scrum
they are “being”agile
and they are evolvingand growing

Salesforce.com Compete Culture
Competitive
Never Satisﬁed
Be the “Best”
COMPETE
Do things fast

Salesforce.com Compete Culture
10
20
30
40
50
20
30
40
50
10
20
30
40
50
10
30
40
50
10
20
CreateCompete
CollaborateControl
This is a compete cultural
signature of another very
agile company. They have
been agile for over 7 years.

Salesforce R&D - Strategic Emphasis
CreateCompete
CollaborateControl
Acquiring new
resources & creating
new challenges.
Trying new things
and prospecting for
opportunities are
valued.
Human
development.
High trust,
openness, and
participation
persist.
Permanence and
stability.
Efficiency, control
and smooth
operations are
important.
Competitive actions
and achievement.
Hitting stretch
targets and winning
in the marketplace
are dominant.
Another
dimension in
the CVF model
looks at what
strategic
emphasis - you
can see that
competition is
critical to their
external and
internal world.

Salesforce.com
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Features Delivered
per Team
Days between
Major Releases
2008 Scrum Gathering - Steve Greene
Prior to their agile transition in 2006,
they struggled with delivery as their
organization and clients grew.

Salesforce.com Impact
Features Delivered
per Team
Days between
Major Releases
2008 Scrum Gathering - Steve Greene
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Since that time, they have turned
around and have been one of the top
performing companies in the world.

Their own approach
“All-in” fast
Be the “Best” @ agile
Salesforce.com Approach
As a compete culture, they took the
initiative to be the “best” at agile.
They developed their own approach,
R&D went “all-in” through a rapid
transition (like pulling off a bandaid),
and they have never looked back.

Balanced Team Power
Redefined Roles
Everything thru a team
Salesforce.com Approach
Focus on
“What”
Focus on
“How”
Balanced Matrix
In addition, they made a subtle, but
significant shift in the balance of
power/responsibilities in their
leadership - their engineering
managers focused on coaching over
directing - allowing the teams to
better self-organize on the work.

Salesforce.com Results
2006 2008 2010 2012
R&D
Agility
IT
Agility
Tech Ops
Agility
Marketing
Agility
Every release -
3 per year Has
been delivered
on time!
300 people
1,800 ppl
$21.90 stock price
$163 sp
Their compete culture drives them to
be the best in the world, not only at
delivering solutions, but in how they
do it - and their growth has shown it.

Be Agile
Salesforce.com is
not “DOING” Scrum
they are “being”agile
and they are evolvingand succeeding

10
20
30
40
50
20
30
40
50
10
20
30
40
50
10
30
40
50
10
20
Current
Desired
Dominant
Characteristics The organization is...
• A very controlled
and structured place
• Formal procedures
generally govern
what people do
• A very dynamic
entrepreneurial
place
• People are willing
to stick their necks
out and take risks
Most organizations find
a gap between their
current and desired
cultures. The CVF
model maps this and
provides leadership
tools to move forward
in a more agile fashion.

Cultural Gap Analysis
Here is an example leadership analysis of the gaps in the
create and control cultural dimensions - in this example,
looking at ways to increase create and decrease control.

Agile Leadership
Catalyst
Leadership
WORLD OF UNITY,
COLLABORATION,
INTERDEPENDENCY
WORLD OF DUALITY,
COMPETITION,
SEPARATION
Heroic
Leadership
OR AND
The key to CVF is the value created by holding both
competing values simultaneously - (e.g. we do not throw out
control values as we add create values - we balance them)

Competing: Collaborate & Compete
Compete
Collaborate
Let’s look at a couple of competing
leadership values - in this case
collaborate and compete.

Leadership: Intense Collaboration
The leader speed and urgency to the
exclusion of teamwork and
collaboration. The leader focuses
exclusively on immediate results and
ignores long-term outcomes.
The leader emphasizes teamwork and
collaboration to the exclusion of
speed and urgency. The leader
overemphasizes participation and
empowerment and is indecisive
Negative
Negative
The leader
emphasizes
teamwork and
collaboration
The leader
emphasizes
speed and
urgency
Positive
Positive
As competing values, both
collaborate and compete have
positive opposites - however, taken
too far, each one can become a
negative characteristic.

Competing Values Leadership:
Intense Collaboration
The leader emphasizes teamwork and
collaboration to the exclusion of
speed and urgency. The leader
overemphasizes participation and
empowerment and is indecisive
The leader speed and urgency to the
exclusion of teamwork and
collaboration. The leader focuses
exclusively on immediate results and
ignores long-term outcomes.
Intense Unity
Rapid Alliances
Intensity &
Rapidity
Unity &
Alliances
The leader
emphasizes
speed and
urgency
The leader
emphasizes
teamwork and
collaboration
NEGATIVE
POSITIVE
While many companies (or
leaders) prefer a single
focus, the most value is
generated from integrating
the opposites - in this case
intense collaboration.

Competing Values: Create & Control
Create
ControlLet’s look at a one other example
of competing leadership values - in
this case control and create.

Leadership: Responsible Risk-Taking
Positive
Positive
Negative
Negative
The leader
emphasizes
innovation and
risk-taking
The leader
emphasizes
predictability
and stability
The leader’s ungrounded
future-mindset overlooks
operationalizing
opportunities.
The leader’s over-
conformity stunts growth
and misses opportunities.
Again, each value has an opposite
positive - and negative if taken too far.

Value: Responsible Risk-Taking
The leader emphasizes predictability
and stability to the exclusion of
innovation and risk taking. The
leader’s over-conformity stunts
growth and misses opportunities.
The leader emphasizes innovation and
risk-taking to the exclusion of
predictability and stability. The leader’s
ungrounded future-mindset overlooks
operationalizing opportunities.
Sustainable Ingenuity
Reliable Courage
Ingenuity
& Courage
Sustainability
& Reliability
The leader
emphasizes
innovation and
risk-taking
The leader
emphasizes
predictability
and stability
NEGATIVE
POSITIVE
The key is in the
balance.

CulturalVisioning
Competence
Create
Control
Here are some cultural modeling samples from leadership
workshops - in this case looking at cultural change.

“Inside-Out” Agile Leadership
enables
Teams
A Leader’s focus on
Culture
to be
Successful

Adopting Agility
Why?
Years
Agility
0 1 2 3 4 5
Companies that start with an understanding of
culture, and build their organizational systems
to support agility will out perform, out
maneuver, and out last their competition.

Stop doing scrum - BE agile (a leadership guide)

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