The document outlines the author's journey in transforming a software engineering team towards agile practices at Company X, highlighting key principles such as the importance of executive support, communication, and celebrating progress. It emphasizes a flexible approach to change, understanding team dynamics, and the need for patience and observational learning to identify promoters and detractors within the organization. Over an 18-month period, the author successfully increased team size, reduced release cycles, and transitioned from Scrum to Scrumban.

1. Making Change Stick
Tze ChinTang

2. “The hard stuff is easy, the
soft stuff is hard.”

3. About me
Developer
Agile Manager
People-first Software Engineering
Community Organizer
manufacturing
broadcasting
e-Commerce
hospitality
business automation
BSe, MBA, CSPO, CSM
2001-2005:Waterfall / No formal process
2005-2007: RUP / No formal process
2007-2010: Scrum / XP
2010-2013:WaterScrumFall /Theory of
Constraints
2013-2014: Scrum / Scrumban / Agile Leadership
/ Continuous Delivery

4. My story at
Company X
• Company X was bought under duress from a SF-basedVC.
• It had five engineering centers, all in a high cost country
except for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• I joined as an Agile Guy to work on the flagship product,
Atlas, and mature the KL engineering center.
• Atlas had 3 sites working on it.
• Release cycles were between 8 to 14 months,
unpredictable. Highly rigid roadmaps and customer
commitments.
• A big part of engineering was in KL but product
management was in the US.
• KL had 20 developers and testers on site.
• KL was hiring, everywhere else firing.
• KL/German code to build took anywhere from 1 day to 1
week.

5. Caveat:
No two journeys are the
same.
This was my journey, yours
will be different.

6. Have a
shared
vision
• Executive support is important, if not explicit
then minimally tacit support.
• Use this opportunity to find an internal
mentor.
• Get an executive sponsor if you don’t have
one already, you’re just the hands the get it
done / change agent.
• Err on the side of over communication, much
gets lost.
• Ask your subordinates / peers / superiors
what that vision means to them, help them
understand and shape it to be personally
meaningful.John Kotter

7. Make
Progress
Meaningful
and Visible
How to make it visible:
• Go physical when possible. Physical task
boards, co-location.
• Celebrate progress! Release parties, demo
ice cream, team lunches.
How to make it meaningful:
• Celebrate progress. Have release parties,
demo ice cream, team lunches, drinks.
• Have execs praise the team (if deserved).
• Address team failures within the group
but personal failures in private.

8. Don’t act
first, study
the
landscape
Be patient:
• Maximize learning and understanding in the
beginning.
• Minimize appearance of threat or disruption.
• Identify the promoters and detractors.
How to study the landscape:
• Have regular one-to-ones with subordinates,
superiors and peers.
• Lunches work too.
• Try lean coffee sessions.
Superiors
Subordinates
Peers

9. Warning:
Don't use the word "change"
or "Agile", unless they bring
it up first.

10. Identify the
promoters
and the
detractors
What to do with promoters:
– Nurture and educate.
– Strengthen buy in. Listen to them, include their ideas.
– Let them spread promote change on your behalf.
– Delegate.
What to do with detractors:
- Have open dialogs, hear them out.
- Find common ground. Get buy-in.
- Compromise, don’t have have to win every battle.
- When, all else fails: neutralize, reduce or remove but
never ignore!

11. Source: https://www.hellocustomer.com/en-US/Community/News/2015-05/NPS-or-Net-Promotor-Score-unraveled!

13. Warning:
Beware of and identify passive
aggressive behavior.

14. Warning:
Avoid ideological differences, focus
on common ground and objectives.

15. Be
consistent
and be
prepared to
repeat
yourself
(often!)
How to be consistent:
– Use single set of vocabulary.
– Create shared meaning.
– Have a set of slide decks ready on various topics ready to be
presented to whomever.
– Find quiet time to think and reflect.

16. Go as short
as possible,
maximize
learning
Iteration length:
• Start with what feels comfortable for the team with
buy in from management.
• Work to reduce iteration lengths.
• Example: Start with 4 week iterations, then reduce to
three OR have mini sprints within the sprint.
How to maximize learning:
• Don’t skip retrospectives.
• When they go stale, try different methods.
• Do something with retrospective findings.

17. Lots of
small wins
> one big
victory
• Sense of progress is a strong motivator, for the team
and yourself.
• Find what’s preventing you from moving forward –
bottlenecks.
• How to address bottlenecks:
– Identify constraint
– Exploit constraint
– Subordinate constraint
– Elevate constraint
– Prevent inertia
– Read The Goal

18. Tip for change agents:
Be flexible & open.

19. Tip for leaders:
Address problems as soon as they
appear.

20. Tip to managers:
Step out of the room
(once in a while).

21. My story at
Company X:
18 months
later
• KL grew from 20 to 50 devs + testers.
• US lost 1/3 of its engineers.
• Became a development manager of 14 devs + testers /
2 teams.
• Release cycle reduced to 4 months +- 2 weeks.
• Code to build reduced to 45 minutes.
• Flexible roadmaps.
• Transitioned from Scrum to Scrumban.
• Release candidate process.

22. What’s Next?
Developer
Agile Manager
People-first Software Engineering
Community Organizer
manufacturing
broadcasting
e-Commerce
hospitality
business automation
BSe, MBA, CSPO, CSM
ICF, LKU
2001-2005:Waterfall / No formal process
2005-2007: RUP / No formal process
2007-2010: Scrum / XP
2010-2013:WaterScrumFall /Theory of
Constraints
2013-2014: Scrum / Scrum-ban / Agile
Leadership / Continuous Delivery
2014-2015+: Kanban / Flow / Lean / Lean
Startup / DevOps