Eliminating barriers: No More Us vs. Them
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Agility is an organization’s ability to respond to change and take advantage of opportunities. Organizational agility is more about being able to inspect and adapt in the large. Introducing Agile frameworks into your IT department doesn’t magically make your organization more responsive to customers’ needs or the market competition–it makes problems visible. Join us as we explore the common barriers that become visible in organizations as development teams adopt Agile practices, including areas of your organization where problems may lie and indicators to recognize them. As a group, we will be discussing tips for overcoming barriers to making your organization more Agile and bringing your development teams closer to customers.
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Eliminating barriers: No More Us vs. Them
- 1. Eliminating Barriers No More Us vs. Them http://www.flickr.com/photos/sasanf/3495404463/
- 2. Allison Pollard Started as PM Wants to see teams build the right stuff Swing Dancer and Glasses Wearer
- 3. Ty Crockett Started as an IT dude, now is an Agile dude Loves to work with teams Comic book fan, convention geek
- 4. Agile Fluency: Where are you? How can your team move towards 4 stars (fluency) and build momentum for the organization to become more agile? martinfowler.com
- 5. We’ve seen… Product Backlogs filled with generic “as a user” stories, sometimes missing the “so that” Product Owner and UX constantly disagreeing on how features should be designed Teams unaware of the business results delivered from features they released We want to change the world!
- 6. Why do organizations exist? http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruce_mcadam/2674561685 by Hello, I am Bruce http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonannie/7678945614/in/set-72157630825959950 by London Annie
- 7. Organizations that become too large… http://www.flickr.com/photos/timothywildey/3929574205/
- 8. Agility “An organization’s ability to respond to change and take advantage of opportunities” -Scrum.org
- 9. How awesome do you want to be? “Get closer than ever to your customers. So “Right now we are selling millions and millions close, in fact, that you a year, Apple is selling and millions of phonestell them what they need well before a year. In six themselves.” zero phonesthey realize itmonths they'll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the market place, and lets see...” -Steve Jobs -Steve Ballmer after iPhone debut
- 11. Barriers What barriers are you seeing?
- 12. “Developers cannot possibly talk to customers” http://www.flickr.com/photos/mybluevan/3779552777 Barrier
- 13. Barrier “IAmA Dev!” “Is this valuable?” “I am way technical..” “IAmA builder not a problem solver” http://www.flickr.com/photos/gimpit/5799919824/
- 14. Barrier Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation “The team will give away features, and we still need to make money!” http://www.flickr.com/photos/nobmouse/4052848608/
- 15. Barrier “But that’s my job as Product Owner!” http://www.flickr.com/photos/james2k11/6051807031/
- 16. Well, I am IT and they are “The Business” http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianperezfoto/4617935602/ Barrier
- 17. We are all Business People We just have different skills Reference: Mary Poppendieck
- 19. Bringing the Customer to Us
- 20. Bringing the Customer to Us
- 21. Going to the customer http://www.flickr.com/photos/statefarm/8163895040/ by State Farm
- 22. Going to the customer
- 23. Empowerment is Needed “What’s the catch?” “Are you serious?” “Can I even do this?” http://www.flickr.com/photos/27807834@N02/2647200029/
- 24. Benefits/Value of Removing Barriers Increase Morale Happy Customers Profit! Cost Savings :-) $
- 25. What indicators do you have that your teams need to be closer to customers? What benefits will you reap by putting them together?
- 26. You know indicators, barriers, tools… Think of how you can increase trust http://www.flickr.com/photos/tvangoethem/6145621540/
- 27. Eliminating barriers can help increase a team’s fluency martinfowler.com
- 28. You are ready to take the next step toward… http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonlightbulb/3338852116/
- 29. Q/A
Editor's Notes
- Our purpose today:Is to get teams closer to their customers!
- where you workyour historywhy this topic...is a Senior Consultant for Improving Enterprises and has worked with Agile teams as a project manager, as a Scrum Master, and in coaching roles. A firm advocate of continuous improvement and the power of teams to affect change, she believes the world needs more strong teams in order to be Agile and meet the demands of today; her goal is to help others create them, shape them, and support them. Allison also volunteers locally as one of the organizers of the DFW Scrum user group and serves on the Dallas Agile Leadership Network board.
- where you workyour historywhy this topic...is a Principal Consultant for Improving Enterprises. He is an experienced Agile Coach, Scrum Master, and Project Manager and has spent his professional career in the field of Information Technologies. His strength is in getting newly formed groups to become cohesive, self managing, high performing teams. Ty has an intense interest in interpersonal interaction and personality dynamics.
- What is our journey?Focus on ValueDeliver ValueOptimize ValueOptimize your organizationGetting closer to our customers is one piece of this journey.
- Talk about indicators that change is needed-generic “as a user” stories, sometimes without the “so that”-UX and PO going back and forth because they cant agree-team unaware of business results from released softwareYou might feel overwhelmed with how much more there is to be done in creating a truly agile organization, but we want you to leave feeling more energized than depressed. Start by changing your organization
- One person with an idea, starts moving towards his vision. Over time, she recruits others so there is now a group of people driving toward it.To combine our strengths to gain a competitive edge
- Become big and rigidNot everyone understands the direction"creating an organization for efficiency vs effectiveness"
- Agility can make you awesome.
- Remember Microsoft’s dominance? They comfortable with their position in the marketThe question they didn’t ask is “Are your customers delighted with their products?”Steve Jobs believed [CLICK]Because Apple did such a great job in executing this, they were able to disrupt the marketSteve Jobs created a company that could execute this. Most organizations are not like that, they have…
- Barriers are things that are keeping us at the 2 star plateau. Barriers are things that are keeping us from optimizing value, 3 stars
- Barriers are things that are keeping us at the 2 star plateau. Barriers are things that are keeping us from optimizing value, 3 stars
- The team may not see the value in spending time with their customer We will get that from the requirements The PO/Business dude will tell us The customer is really hard to deal withI am way technical..IAMA Builder not a problem solver
- ContractsWill the delivery team we giving away too much if they get close to customers and kill future sales?
- Product owners get great value by removing themselves as a barrier between team and customer
- Teams need to realize that there is no us and them
- The very words “business” and “IT” indicate that people think of IT as somehow being separate from “the business”. This is wrong. IT should be a part of the business. There should be no such thing as an IT project – there should only be business initiatives which have IT aspects handled by the IT team member of the business team.POs alone are not enough.Our teams need to partner with our product owners so that they go to customers togetherSo what does that look like?
- Our ToolboxWe can bring our customers to usWe can go to our customers
- Many companies use UAT labs. Wesuggesting getting our customers involved a bit earlier in the process. War Story: Vision Planning – What if?
- War Story: CS center visits the Dev teamWar Story: Dev Team meets accounts receivable manager.
- War Story: Dev Team visits customer support centerWar Story: Dev Team member does training for customer support center
- War Story: the team takes a trip to the airportWhat do teams need do do this?
- Empowering team is not cut and dry.people believe that we are taking advantage of themThey believe that they will not actually be empoweredSome people believe that they simply are not capable
- Show what will be seen early and then laterIncreased Morale Purposeful work Better future ProductivityHappy Customers Customer/Employee Trust
- Do Presto Style Exercise2 groups
- Trust in the teamTrust from the product ownerTrust from the organizationMatt’s Trust Model
- Martin Fowler.com
- What can you do to get your teams closer to your customers? How will you find out if your customers are delighted with your products?