System thinking talk for project managers of product/software companies.

1. Complexity of organizations
and its effect on scaling agility
krivitsky.com
@alexeykri

2. flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06

4. Inherent complexity

7. 2012-2013

8. Spaghetti code and tech debt

9. flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06

10. flickr.com/photos/varunshiv
Added complexity

11. the classical answer

12. BACK-END
FRONT-END teams

13. BACK-END
FRONT-END teams
???

16. What’s happening to Complexity?
• More roles
• More meetings
• More indirection
• More documentation

17. Uneven flow

18. Workload and RESOURCE management

19. Resource management

20. Resource management
$ $

21. And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More indirection
• More documentation
• More managers
• More coordination
• More people

22. Resource management
$ $

23. Cost optimization

24. No Cost optimization

25. Out-of-sync development

26. ?
Out-of-sync development
?

27. We can always make up work

29. … And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More indirection
• More documentation
• More managers
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers (instead of work)
• More complex solutions (more code)
• More complex engineering processes

30. Indirection

31. But WHY?

34. Optimization goals

35. Spaghetti code and tech debt

36. Spaghetti ORG and org debt

37. Technical ORG
OMFG...

39. (1) Form groups of the same card color
Put your color card up and make groups.
Guidelines:
– 4-6 people in a group
– you have something to write with
(pens and pencils are OK, sharing is fine too)
When done put your cards down :)

40. (2) Write one word matching criteria
Each group member needs to write one word on
his/her card based on these rules:
Color coding of your cards:
Yellow – adjectives describing the nature
Green – verbs from sport, dancing, walking, love
Blue – nouns from the agile terminology
All words written by one group ideally have to be:
unique
in Russian
have 2+ syllables

41. (3) Form new group of mixed colors
Put your color cards up
Guidelines:
– 4-6 people in a group
– all 3 colors in each group
– duplicate colors are OK
When done put your cards down :)

42. now, Compose a haiku!

43. WTF IS HAIKU?
(a very quick guide)

44. 俳句
[ high-koo ]
Haiku are short poems that use
sensory language to capture a feeling
or an image.
They are often inspired by an element
of nature, a moment of beauty, or
another internalized experience.

45. THE STRUCTURE
17 ons (syllables) in 3 phrases: 5, 7 and 5
Example:
line#1: blah blah blah blah blah
line#2: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
line#3: blah blah blah blah blah

46. A Haiku
Shoelaces untied
become a tripping hazard.
Hope she falls for me.

47. Debugging the haiku
Shoelaces untied
become a tripping hazard
Hope she falls for me

48. A Monday morning haiku
Oh! no no no no
No no no no no no no
No no no and no

49. A bot haiku
Seven hundred ten
Seven hundred eleven
Seven hundred twelve

50. 404 haiku
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist

51. Internal server error
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred

52. (4) Compose a haiku!
Guidelines:
1. Use as many words from the cards as you
can.
2. Use the topic of this conference:
organizations, complexity, management,
agility, TDD, scaling…
3. Don’t forget to add emotional experience,
nature, love and sadness of being.

53. Haiku at scale

54. Creativity vs. consistency

56. SO How to get agile?

57. the modern answer …

58. manager’s task #1

59. Organizing self-organization
1. High Alignment
our goal is …
2. Clear Constraints
Here are some guidelines to help you …
3. High Autonomy
now go and figure out how!

60. structure optimized for value delivery
product managers
managers
users
product teams
collocated, multi-site

61. multiple product organizations
managers
product
managers
product
managers
product
managers
users
product
teams
users
product
teams
users
product
teams

62. manager’s task #2

64. Looks a little
over-complicated
to be able to help you
reduce complexity

65. we are too <foo>*,
Let’s introduce <BLAH>** !
* Replace it with a negative adjective of your choice.
** Replace it with your favorite scaling approach.

66. How (NOT)to choose a scaling method
Is it reducing complexity or just sugar-coating it?
Is it adding new system elements (roles, functions,
departments, silos) or removing them?
Is it centralizing or decentralizing decision-making?
Is it redefining system elements or simply renaming them?
Is it changing system dynamics (how people think, work,
collaborate) or it will remain the same despite of the “new
process” in place?

67. #2: understanding system dynamics

68. bonus
More examples and thought food

69. Products on a shared platform
TECHNICAL PLATFORM / ENGINE
CONSUMER PRODUCTS

70. consumer-facing teams doing platform work
TECHNICAL PLATFORM / ENGINE
CONSUMER PRODUCTS

71. Satellite products
BACK-END
REST API
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

72. All teams working on back-end
BACK-END
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

73. h)p://bit.ly/xing-mobile

74. Many small sub-products

75. Many small sub-products

76. Organize by customer value

77. Agile Coach
developer, scrum master,
scrum trainer, free-rider
Alexey KRIVITSKY
www.agiletrainings.eu
www.krivitsky.com
Lego4scrum.com – scrum simulation with lego
retrospective-cheat-sheet.com – mini-book on retros
Agilecoachingcanvas.org – toolkit for agile coaches