Learning at Scale - FlowCon France 2019 - Ben Linders

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Ben Linders Consulting
Learning at Scale
FlowCon France, Dec 12-13, 2019
Ben Linders

Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
BenLinders.com
Books: Valuable Agile Retrospectives Problem? What Problem?
What Drives Quality Self-assessments Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game Retrospectives Bingo Impediments
Quality Coaching Cards Agile Testing Cards

Team learning
 Retrospectives
 Self-assessments
 Coaching
 Pairing, mobbing
 Safety
 Proximity

Learn and improve at higher level
 Systemic, Complex Problems
 Projects / Products / Systems
 Stakeholders with Different Goals
 Cultural & Organizational Barriers

No time to learn
2019 Workplace Learning Report by LinkedIn
https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report

Organizational learning fails
What doesn’t work
 Best practice repositories
 Project evaluations
 Classroom training
 Implement a framework
 Tools

Systems Thinking
 Know the purpose
 Holistic view
 Visualize the system
 Understand behavior
 Probe-sense-respond

Case: Team autonomy & coaching
1 hr of work left to finish US
Should we intervene?
• Stand-up
• Product review
• Retrospective
• Grooming/planning
Give space for teams to learn
Be available as coach

Root cause analysis
Analyze a problem
to determine causes
that made it
happen, to define
actions to prevent
similar problems
from happening
 Real Problem
 Significant Damage
 Sponsor pays:
– investigation and
– preventive actions
Success Factors RCA
“We do not want such a problem to happen again!”

Finding Root Causes
 Multiple causes
 Relationships
 Safety (training)
Challenges
• Opinion or fact
• Uniqueness
• Prevent or mitigate

Impediments & Blockers
 Analyze to understand
 Solve first, learn later
 What, not who
 No blaming
Fail fast -> Learn fast
 Don’t shoot the messenger
 Ignoring doesn’t make
problems go away

Visualization
 Kanban board (JP book)
 Process charts
 Constellation (board meeting)
 Value Stream Map (customization)
Explore, discuss, share, learn, align Visualization

Agile Retrospectives Myths
 Invented by agile/Scrum
 Only for teams
 One format fits all
 Learn from mistakes
 Lead by Scrum master
 More actions is better

Large-scale retrospectives
Project Product Organization
Release Delivery Quarterly
Collaboration Arch, Tech Debt Structure/culture
Dev, Ops, & Teams & Departments &
Stakeholders Arch / POs & PMs Managers
Timeline Value Stream Map Open Space
Large Sailboat Mad Sad Glad Self-assessment

Case: Bus–Dev–Ops Retrospective
Distributed business, develop & operations –> Agile team
• Physical and social distance
• Distributed decisions
• Timeline retrospectives on release
– Reconstruct what happened
– How people felt about it
– Improve decision making

Retrospectives with Stakeholders
 Invite all involved
 Problems relevant for all
 Suitable exercise/format
 Shared understanding
 Ownership of actions
Meeting Atmosphere
 Everyone feels welcome
 Safe to speak up
 No blaming & complaining
 Guiding toward results

Prime Directive
“Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly
believe that everyone did the best job they could, given
what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the
resources available, and the situation at hand.”
Project Retrospectives – A handbook for Team Reviews
Create an Open Culture
where people Speak Up
with Respect for each other
to Learn and Improve

Independent Facilitator
 Process
 Effectiveness
 Atmosphere
 No personal agenda
 Not involved in topic

Engage and empower
Retrospectives Exercises Toolbox

Agility
shouldn’t be
your goal
It’s a means
to an end

Agile transformations fail
Transformation Project:
 We will be agile by xxx
 Plan the transformation, stick to the plan
 Everybody must do agile the same way
Agile Manifesto:
 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
 Responding to change over following a plan

Imposing doesn’t work

Agile journey of learning
 What hinders us to reach our goals?
 What helps us to take the next step?
 What are the risks & opportunities?
 What to pack for our agile journey?
 What shall we leave behind?
Backpacking Retrospective

Organizational-wide Collaboration

Case: Organizational-wide Quality & Process
Dev, Ops & PM departments @ government -> one Q team
• Office in every department
• Weekly story telling – scale up to MT
• Joint project audits & assessment
• One Quality & Process Report
• Align goals and way of working

Coaching Agile
 People coach each other
 Culture of coaching – all levels
 Exchange coaching experiences
 JIT & on-the-job coaching
 Coach by just being there
Agile needs coaching
Not about coaches; coaching and coachees matters!

Enable organization for learning
 Establish a culture of learning
 Drive out fear and blaming
 Do improvements at all levels

Questions?Questions?
Ben Linders
Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.cominfo@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinderswww.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvieswww.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies
www.benlinders.comwww.benlinders.com

Bonus: Effective Retrospectives
 Why over how
 Good facilitation
 Effective exercises
 Frequent, small steps
 Vital few actions

Vital Few Actions
 Small Actions
 Frequent Change
 Focus on Value
 Stop Starting,
Start Finishing
Vital Few Actions

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