Many issues are surfacing after starting to implement Agile (we talk about kanban and scrum) - many of them are warm memories of how we used to work in Waterfall. In this presentation Michal Epstein, My colleague from AgileSparks, and I are reviewing the various issues and how to handle them. Presented at Agile Israel 2017 by Michal and me.

1. Handling Waterfall Nostalgia
when Moving to Agile
Presented at Agile Israel 2017
michal@agilesparks.com – Michal Epstein
yaki@agilesparks.com – Yaki Koren

2. Congratulations!
You’ve decided to
go agile. Hmmm…
did you read all the
small letters?

3.  Improve quality
 Reduce time to market
 Increase team motivation
 Improve team productivity
 Ability to manage priority changes
 Improve visibility
 … … …
We’re not talking
about these! You
see…

4. Abashel.co.il
Implementing agile is not easy
Implementing Agile
is not easy. Many
issues arise. There
is that issue of…

5. Nostalgia is associated with a wistful
yearning for the past, its personalities,
and events, especially the "good old
days" or a "warm childhood"
Wikipedia …Nostalgia. Some
people really miss
the good old
Waterfall days!

6. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be a king

7. Fi-fi.mostphotos.com
Back in the good old days,
we used to have time for real,
in depth design “We used to think
things over, discuss,
re-design, discuss
again…”

8. crafthubs.com
No time to think!
“Now with agile,
there’s no time!
We’re preparing
stuff for Sunday on
Wednesday!”

9. Many people think
the right side
should be dropped.
No plan! No
Designs! That’s
incorrect.

10. wikimedia
The backlog grooming
process is key to your
success
2 Weeks

11. Our favorite solution:
Program Kanban Board SCRUM
Use a Kanban
board (with the
Kanban system) to
see the entire E2E
process and
manage it

12. wikipedia
People used to see the big picture
You should still be
able to see the big
picture. Do just
enough high level
design before
continuing to the
details.

13. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

14. We used to do all the changes
in one place at one time.
“We used to get
into a model and
do all the
necessary changes
at once! It is very
inefficient to do it
on several
occasions”

15. Shifting from local optimum
Correct! But we are
now moving away
from local
optimum, local
utilization, to…

16. To global effectiveness
Global
effectiveness. So
from one person’s
perspective it may
seem inefficient
and wasteful.

17. Risk
Time
Waterfall
Agile
We are also
doing this to
reduce risks as
fast as possible.
We prefer getting
into a modul and
do only the stuff
that reduces risk
and move the
next module and
get back to the
low risk, low
value items, later.

18. The big winners from working in horizontal slicing:
The Scrum Team!
The team
members enjoy
this shift in
dynamics as they
see stuff getting
done very fast. And
that’s a great
feeling.

19. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

20. “We don’t have
time to work for the
meetings!”

21. A scrum team moaning about
scrum events is a red flag for the
implementation

22. Londonsparks.club
The scrum events
are there to help
the team work as a
team.

23. The Scrum Events – Making a Team Tick!
•Planning
•Daily
•Demo
•Retro
Planning –
agreeing what will
we do. Daily –
what will we do
today? Demo –
let’s show
everyone our
accomplishments
as a team. Retro –
how can we
improve?

24. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

25. Everyone used to know their place
http://ppcwins.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/11163030/factory-workers.jpg

26. Working in an agile
team is about team
work. It blurs the
lines between the
various roles.

27. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

28. http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com
The fantasy: sailing on a calm sea
“At least with agile
everything will be
smooth” Sigh.

29. The storm arrived earlier than we thought
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/be/c6/f6/bec6f6cb5e6a772418b667e0a2f11013.jpg
No it won’t!
actually once you
move to agile
things are mostly
rocky at the
beginning!

30. Time
Stress
Waterfall
Agile
Start of
testing
At the beginning of an
agile process we try to
make everything work
together, which is
difficult. But later it
stabilizes. If it doesn’t,
you need to understand
why.

31. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

32. PRD Design Development QA
Quality
DeadlineIn waterfall we
finished things on
time. But we
sacrificed quality.

33. Worst case we will fix one or two bugs later

34. Or maybe few more..

35. Quality has it’s price
The agile process is
about fixed quality.
There is a price for
that. The overall
cost is lower than
the overall cost of
the waterfall
process

36. •We used to do good designs
•We used to invest ourselves in a
module
•We didn’t have all these meetings
•We used to be experts at one thing
•It used to be calm at the beginning
•We used to meet our commitments
•I used to be king

37. What’s this crap
Self Managed Team

38. The manager used to be the center

39. She had the perfect plan in her mind

40. Very convenient

41. So what’s the problem?
•Sustainability
•Scalability
•Potential to become better – Fast decision
and knowledge flow
•Team motivation

42. What about me?
What is the role of
the manager in
Agile?

43. Just like parenting
The manager,
among other roles
she plays, is
nurturing the team,
helping it to grow

44. Self Managed Team
http://rosiepowell2000.typepad.com
so that the team
will become self
organized,
motivated and
accountable

45. We’re
almost
done!

46. There are many obstacles on the way
to Agile
 Always recall why you decided to
move to Agile
 Remember the whole – don’t
compare any single factor alone

47. Thanks!
michal@agilesparks.com
yaki@agilesparks.com