2. Caveat:
ā¢ These slides are prompts for multi-lateral discussion.
They do not contain the whole story (which is conveyed
via voice and body language). They might be read as
overly-simplistic. Reading them in isolation can be
misleading.
3. Goals for this discussion
ā¢ This is a ļ¬rst (second) introduction to Agile. We want you
to start to get a ļ¬avor for it. It is simple, and yet also
complex.
ā¢ This is from an Executive perspective. So, for example, it
will not enable you to start to be a Scrum team member.
ā¢ To really be effective as a manager of Agile teams, you
will need more. This is just an introduction.
ā¢ This is a 1-hour brieļ¬ng. We WANT you to ask questions.
5. What is āAgileā?
ā¢ It is hard to deļ¬ne and some people disagree.
ā¢ First try: āAgile is a more successful way of innovating
new products so that customers are happier. Scrum is a
disciplined approach to doing knowledge work in Teams.
An approach that has proven to be much more
successful than the traditional āwaterfallā [Royce deļ¬ned it
in 1970].ā
ā¢ It is meant to meet business needs to be adaptive to
change, and iterative and incremental in delivery.
6. Scrum
ā¢ Scrum is a āļ¬avorā of Agile.
ā¢ Scrum is the most widely used. (Others include: Extreme
Programming, Lean Software Development, Kanban,
DSDM, etc, etc, etc.)
ā¢ Scrum was āinventedā in the early 1990ās. It has been
used by all types of organizations around the world.
7. Top Top Goals
ā¢ Become the most admired credit union in the country*
ā¢ Provide an amazing experience for our members and
staff*
ā¢ Firm more successful (by usual metrics)
8. Keys Goals for ādeliveryā
ā¢ More adaptive to change
ā¢ Deliver faster*
ā¢ More delivered in a given quarter (eg, more Business
Value)
ā¢ Employees are more motivated (eg, retention)
9. Related Goals
ā¢ Deliver better quality*
ā¢ More visibility or transparency
ā¢ More accountability
ā¢ Easier to manage
ā¢ We need to learn faster.
ā¢ Make decisions based on analytics*
10. What are your goals?
ā¢ How do you articulate your goals for Scrum?
!
ā¢ Key point: Always connect Scrum to helping you achieve
some of your top goals. We are not ādoing Scrumā just to
say āwe are doing Scrumā.
11. What is Scrum?
ā¢ I want to level-set some of you. And remind all of you.
ā¢ And this section, for most of you, makes Scrum
something practical instead of just a vague abstraction.
14. Agile Release Planning
Including:
Vision
Develop Product Backlog
Identify Business Value
Identify Eļ¬ort
Consider beneļ¬ts-costs
Risks, Dependencies, Learning, MMFS, other
Then āļ¬nishā the Day Zero plan
!
*****
Then ā release plan refactoring every Sprint.
15. Key Issues
ā¢ Letās discuss some key issues for management.
ā¢ These are:
ā¢ Things you need to know
ā¢ How it works
ā¢ Things you must take action on
ā¢ Typical problem areas
16. 8 Key Issues or Ideas
1. We have knowledge workers
2. Minimize WIP
3. A Team learns
4. Self-organization
5. āRandom carbon unitsā
6. Subtle control
7. āFailure is goodā
8. āThe bad news does not get better with ageā
17. 1. We have āknowledge workersā
ā¢ We have to enable āmotivationā to happen differently
ā¢ Daniel Pink (Drive): Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.
ā¢ We have to help them learn.
ā¢ It is all about knowledge creation, and, almost surely, in
a Team.
18. 2. Minimize WIP
ā¢ Minimize work-in-process. Related: Single-piece ļ¬ow.
ā¢ Why?
ā¢ Makes people more productive
ā¢ Faster delivery
ā¢ Less ātask-switchingā
ā¢ FEWER āprojectsā IN-FLIGHT, but more delivered and
quicker.
21. 3. A Team Learns
ā¢ Scrum is a Team sport. BIG IDEA!
ā¢ A strong, dedicated, multi-capable, real Team.
ā¢ Problems: People don't understand the value of a Team,
Silos, lack of dedication, not fully capable, etc, etc.
22. Why is a Team important?
ā¢ The Team does knowledge creation
ā¢ Only the output of the Team is meaningful
ā¢ āWe must all stand together, or assuredly we shall all
hang separately.ā B. Franklin
23. 4. Self-organization
ā¢ We establish some basic structures and constraints (few),
and then we let the Team self-organize, self-manage,
self-direct to achieve the mission.
ā¢ Wow!
ā¢ āWe expect them to act like adults. And, usually, they
rise to the occasion.ā
ā¢ We tell them: āFigure it out.ā
24. 5. āRandom Carbon Unitsā
ā¢ People: canāt live with āem, canāt live without them.
ā¢ Two sides to the same coin.
ā¢ We want innovation, creativity, learning, the unexpected,
inventiveness, clever solutions to hard problems, the magic of the
Mona Lisa smile.
ā¢ We have to accept their āindividualityā, their uniqueness. (Well, we
have to accept our own uniqueness too.)
ā¢ We have to accept that they can be ārandomā and āmake mistakesā.
ā¢ They are not āplug-replaceableā resources, and they are not āreliableā.
25. 6. Subtle control
āManagement establishes enough checkpoints to prevent
instability, ambiguity, and tension from turning into chaos.ā
āAt the same time, management avoids the kinds of rigid
control that impairs creativity and spontaneity.ā
āInstead, the emphasis is on āself-controlā, ācontrol through
peer pressureā, and ācontrol by loveā, which collectively we
call āsubtle control.āā
26. 7. āFailure is goodā
ā¢ As managers, we hear these words, and it makes us
uncomfortable. Some of us very uncomfortable. So, letās
discussā¦
ā¢ āDay Zero is the dumbest day of the project.ā
ā¢ āWe learn fastest by making small mistakes.ā
28. Failure
ā¢ āEverything changes, nothing remains the same.ā Buddha
ā¢ So, in innovation work, in knowledge creation, we have to
accept āfailureā or mistakes.
ā¢ And, if they learn faster, we can and will actually win āin
the endā.
ā¢ āFail fastā - a key Agile phrase.
ā¢ BUT: āWe made too many wrong mistakes.ā (Yogi Berra.)
So, donāt let them do that.
29. 8. āThe bad news doesnāt get better with age.ā
ā¢ While we āaccept failure as goodā yet we relentlessly and immediately
ļ¬x all problems (eg, defects). Seems paradoxical?
ā¢ Three reasons:
ā¢ It is much cheaper to ļ¬x it immediately (while the knowledge is
fresh).
ā¢ Motivation: He does not like to write good code on top of bad
code.
ā¢ To measure progress better, we need to know it is ādoneā.
ā¢ āYou have to slow down to go fastā is the saying.
30. Plus One: Better channel with Customer
āCustomerā
(business)
Builders
(scrum team)
The channel
Semi-permeable:
Keep the noise out, and
let the good stuff in
31. ACTION
ā¢ What should managers do?
!
ā¢ We will not cover everything, but only the most important
two thingsā¦
32. Help Fix Impediments
ā¢ Not hardā¦
1. Ask the Team what their biggest impediment is (now).
2. Help them ļ¬x it. Quickly. Give them $, people, āyesā
3. Repeat.
ā¢ Small āquick winsā, ļ¬xed quickly. With beneļ¬ts accruing
quickly.
ā¢ āLittle things are big.ā Yogi Berra.
33. What are your biggest impediments?
ā¢ For one or more teams, if you know.
ā¢ Or, take your best guess ā¦ for a Scrum team ā¦āØ
or the biggest impediment for adopting Scrum at [ļ¬rm].
ā¢ Anything (anything!) slowing the Team down is an
impediment. (Anything!) Imagine that everything could
change.
ā¢ 1 Minute.
35. The New New Product Development Game
1. Built-in instability
2. Self-organizing project teams
3. Over-lapping development phases
4. āMulti-learningā
5. Subtle control
6. Organizational transfer of learning
36. 6 Myths of Product Development
1. High utilization is good
2. Large batches are good
3. Just stick to the initial plan
4. People working on multiple projects is good
5. The more features per release, the better
6. No mistakes are allowed!