Agile 2012 inside out leading change from the middle

Inside-Out
Leading change from the middle using lean tools and
principles

Monday, August 20, 12

About Me


Ed Kraay
Agile Coach at Yahoo!


My Story
• 2003: new development manager, team of 5
• My boss:
• Expert in craft of development (did ﬁle
system and kernel work in MS OS/2)
• Believed in not telling people how they
should work - mentor, facilitator
• 2004: Let me try out Agile in 2004

# of reports

enthusiasm.com
Inﬂuence

About you


How many of you are
going through an agile
adoption at the
moment?


How many of you are in
organizations larger than
500 people?


How many direct of you
have one or more direct
reports?


How many of you are
more than three levels
from the CEO?


Middle Management:
Anyone two levels
below the CEO and
one level above line
workers and
professionals

Outline
• Introductions
• Some Data
• What is Middle Management’s Role Anyway
• Key Point and Actions
• Lean Management Principles
• Apply the model

Some data


25% of companies
surveyed have greater
than 500 employees
up from 5% in 2006

*State of Agile Development
Survey Version One 2011

67% of initial
champions in
management layer


27% “lack of
management support”
as barrier to change


26% “general resistance
to change” as a barrier
to adopting


What’s going on here?


Either:


Told to go agile “Top
Down” and resists?


Middle management are
champions but lacks
support from upper
management?


We will focus on the top
ﬁrst case.


Typical Agile Adoption Change Strategy
Top Down
All In
Level of Change Sponsorship

Public
Display of
Agility

Pilot

Stealth
Mode

Bottom Up Types of Agile Adoption - Mike Cohn: http://
www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-
articles/734-


Typical Agile Adoption Change Strategy
Top Down
All In
Level of Change Sponsorship

Public
Display of
Agility

what happens to middle management?
Pilot

Stealth
Mode

Bottom Up Types of Agile Adoption - Mike Cohn: http://
www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-
articles/734-


Creative Commons http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/
artotemsco/4805582233/


What is middle
management’s role in
an agile organization?


Really?


Recommendation

Do Don’t Do

Track tasks
Remove Work across
Decide and and what
roadblocks teams
Assign Tasks people are
doing

Stay abreast of industry Make
and technology commitments to
developments mgmt on what
team can do

Coaching Training and
and skills Weekly
development Weekly status
Mentoring staff
reports
meetings?
Performance Recruit, hire,
evaluations and build teams
career
development Input/advice on
features and
technical
difficulties

Derby on Middle Managers
• Want to do a good job, may not know how

• Little training in management

• Peers perceive them differently now

• They are responsible for results over which they
have no direct control

• They are pulled from demands from above and
below

• They receive little support from above and below

• They have little training in system thinking


Key Point


Middle management is
essential to succeed
with agile adoption in
large companies


Your role must shift
from ﬁre-ﬁghter to
mentor and guide.


Problems present
opportunities for you to
mentor, serve and lead.


Lean management and
social science can help
encourage these
behaviors


What you need to do
1. Use the six sources of inﬂuence to
encourage management to change your
behaviors.
2. Pick a problem solving tool (A3, Current
Reality Tree and use it to teach system
thinking)
3. Find a mentor and mentee


Benefits if you do this
• Less firefighting
• Build up your organizational immune
system
• You will frustrate the teams less - more
engagement, lower attrition.
• You will impress your boss - making it
possible to increase your influence across
the organization.

Lean Management


Taylor

"In almost all the mechanic
arts the science which
underlies each act of each
workman is so great and
amounts to so much that
the workman who is best
suited to actually doing the
work is incapable of fully
understanding this science.."


Deming

“The greatest waste …
is failure to use the
abilities of people…to
learn about their
frustrations and about
the contributions that
they are eager to
make.”

“Out of the Crisis” 1982 – Ch.2 -Principles for Transformation-, page 53


Lean Management

• Workers have a head as well as hands
• Leaders role is to mentor and coach
through problem solving
• Team / Management create the standard


Managers at Toyota
True North
High
Yes, but
Facilitator Coach how?
Autonomy

Bureaucrat Autocrat

Low High
Mastery Adapted from Jeffrey Liker: Toyota Way

http://techblog.netﬂix.com/search/label/chaos%20monkey

Through Problem
Solving

• Fireﬁghting?
• 6 month Six Sigma Analysis Projects?


Lean “Tools”

• Root Cause Analysis
• Ishikawa Diagrams Tools can be of value, but
the point is not the lean

• Cause and Effect Diagrams
tool, the point is to train
problem solving

• A3 Problem Solving Reports
• Value Stream Mapping
• Kaizen Workshops

one
Fishb s 5W
Di agram hy’s

A3 Reports


Cause and Effect Diagrams


Value Stream Maps


And yet, there is a
problem -- how to
sustain these changes?


Fortunately, much work
on this in the last 7
years
David Mann Mike Rother


Lean Management
Visual Control

Daily Accountability
Leader Standard Work
Process go see


Leader Standard Work

David Mann, Creating a Lean Culture, Lean
Aerospace Initiative Plenary Conference 2005

David Mann, Creating a Lean Culture, Lean
Aerospace Initiative Plenary Conference 2005

Visual Controls

David Mann, Creating a Lean Culture, Lean Aerospace
Initiative Plenary Conference 2005

Coaching Kata
mentor target

mentee

Fog
currrent

plan do check
Establish plan do check
target
Go See condition plan do check

Everyone at Toyota has
a mentor


The Five Questions*

1. What is the target condition? (The challenge)
2. What is the actual condition now?
3. What obstacles are now preventing you from
reaching the target condition? Which one are you
addressing now?
4. What is your next step? (Start of next PDCA
cycle)
5. When can we go and see what we have learned
from taking that step?
*Rother, Mike (2009-08-11). Toyota Kata : Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and
Superior Results (Kindle Locations 2260-2265). McGraw-Hill. Kindle Edition.

How does this ﬁt with
software teams
• Tiered Daily Standups
• 9:30 - 10:00 Teams Meet, 10-10:15
Portfolio Management Meets
• Purpose - Blockers escalated
• Beneﬁt - Solve problem when they are
easy to solve


software teams

• Visual Controls
• Kanban Boards
• Burn up Charts
• Build Monitors


software teams
• Leader Standard Work
• Team Lead Leader Standard Work - Note
standups they go to, impediments that
were raised
• Daily Accountability Process
• Impediments with Owners
• Backlog of A3 Improvement Proposals
• Go and See

How to make change stick.


Marshmallow Test

http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/09/psychological-experiments-in-self-control-the-marshmallow-test/


identify key behaviors ->
get results you want,
sustain the change


Step 1
• Identify a vital behavior
• Think of “positive deviance”
• A scenario where you or a manager you
coached exhibited positive behavior
• Usually in an environment where you
typically exhibited a negative behavior


Identify Vital Behavior

• Think of a behavior for management that,
more than anything else, will help you
succeed.
• They are usually challenging or outside
your comfort zone.


Six Sources of Inﬂuence
Will Skill

Individual Visit your Default Surpass your
Future limits

Harness peer Find strength in
Team pressure numbers

Invert the Change the
Structural Economy environment


What will make the
behavior motivating?

• Visit your default future. What happens if
you don’t change?
• Really visit it.


What do you need to
learn?

• Do a skill scan.
• Brainstorm at least 3 skills with your
neighbor that would help you achieve your
vital behavior.


Six Sources of Inﬂuence
Will Skill

Individual Visit your Default Surpass your
Future limits

Harness peer Find a coach,
Team pressure social network

Invert the Change the
Structural Economy environment


Who can you ask to
motivate or coach you?
• Identify “enemies” or people who keep you
from exhibiting the behavior you want to
see
• Brainstorm ways to turn these enemies
into friends.


Who can you turn to
to improve your skills
and hold you
accountable?
• Identify a peer, mentor or a coach
• Make the commitment to talk with them
about supporting you


What incentives can
you offer?
• Be careful. As Dan Pink’s work shows,
incentives can reduce our desire to
complete complex work
• Think of non-monetary incentives
• What about donating to a non-charity in 30
days if you don’t keep up with your
behavior?


How can you make you
environment conducive
to excercising your vital
behavior?
• Identify 3 things with your neighbor that
you can do to make the physical
environment more conducive to lean
leadership.


Under the creative
commons license
• Man getting squeezed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
pyhooya/2326244567/

• Chicken: http://www.flickr.com/photos/locomotion/
3556879530/

• Expert: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/
3380860520/

• Eye: http://www.flickr.com/photos/capsicina/
138910801/


References
• Mann, David. "Creating a Lean Culture Process Focus and Leader Standard
Work." Lecture. Lean Aerospace Initiative Plenary Conference. 23 Mar.
2005. LAI MIT. Lean Advancement Initiative, 28 Mar. 2005. Web. 15 Aug. 2012.
<http://lean.mit.edu/downloads/doc_download/591-creating-a-lean-culture-
process-focus-and-leader-standard-work>.

• Mann, David. Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions.
New York: Productivity, 2005. Print.

• Patterson, Kerry. Inﬂuencer: The Power to Change Anything. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print.

• Rother, Mike. Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness, and
Superior Results. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.


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