This document summarizes a presentation on managing the transition from traditional waterfall development to agile development. It discusses: 1) How agile development turns traditional roles and responsibilities upside down, with product owners defining goals and teams defining how to achieve them. 2) The journey of evolving teams and roles, including tensions that arise when new agile teams operate within a larger plan-driven organization. Key moments involved settling into scrum roles, prioritizing work, failing early, and dealing with dependencies. 3) Continuous improvements were made to agile methods and tools over time to better visualize work, reduce waste from dependencies, and improve productivity and outcomes.

1. ManageAgile Berlin 2012
Lean and agile transformation –
how do you survive the radical shift towards
Inversion of Responsibility and Control while
staying Accountable for Results?
Wolfgang Hilpert
Thoralf J. Klatt
AGT International
w/ contributions by Jürgen Habermeier, Mathias Held, Marek Meyer, Jonas Dageförde et al

2. Leadership Path to Agility
From explicit fine-grained control
… and “active” leadership …
… to “subtle control”*
* The new new product development game - Stop running the relay race and take up
rugby - Harvard Business Review 1986, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

3. Speaker Background:
Wolfgang Hilpert
VP Development, AGT International
whilpert@agtinternational.com
Professional Personal
• Led product development • Husband & father of 2 kids
teams
… @ startup, mid-size and industry
• Half-marathon runner,
leading ISVs incl. IBM, MSFT, SAP soccer player and cross-
… through product life cycle from country skier
idea on drawing board, design,
development, market introduction • Occasional hiker & biker
and adoption • Occasional photographer
… in plan-driven & agile product
development
• Initiated lean & agile
transformation @ SAP

4. Speaker Background:
Thoralf J. Klatt
Corporate Agile Coach, AGT International
tjklatt@agtinternational.com
Professional Personal
• Led and coached product • Husband & father of 3 kids
development teams • Swimming and running
… Siemens MED, Nokia Siemens
• Occasional hiker
Networks, Siemens USA
… as servant leader, system test • Street photographer
lead, senior developer • Likes Jazz
… traditional and agile 400+
• Initiated lean & agile
transformation @ NSN BSS

5. Storyline
1. Our „view of the universe“
– Turning traditional world and roles upside down
2. The journey
A) Evolving team and growing into scrum roles
B) Tension: existing org vs. Agile greenfield
• Critical exchange between two worlds
C) Cont. Improvement of agile methods & tools

6. Storyline
1. Our „view of the universe“
– Turning traditional world and roles upside down
2. The journey
A) Evolving team and growing into scrum roles
B) Tension: existing org vs. Agile greenfield
• Critical exchange between two worlds
C) Cont. Improvement of agile methods & tools

7. Agile Turns Tradition Upside-Down
Constrained Requirements Budget Schedule
Value/ Vision
Traditional
Driven
Waterfall
Agile /
Plan Scrum
Driven
Estimated Budget Schedule Features

8. Agile Turns Reality back on its Feet
Estimated Budget Schedule Features
Plan
Agile /
Traditional Driven Scrum
Waterfall
Value/
Vision
Driven
Constrained Requirements Budget Schedule

9. Leadership Impact
Command & Control LS style „Radical Management“ LS Style
• Manager defines the WHAT & the • Agile manager coaches PO to
HOW define the WHY and the WHAT
• Flow of information constrained • Agile team defines (and updates!)
by expertise level the HOW
• Outcome depends heavily on • Outcome leverages skills of
skills & foresight of manager entire team
Instructions
Instructions
Breadth of understanding Breadth of understanding

10. Loosen the Grip to Extend your Reach!

11. Storyline
1. Our „view of the universe“
– Turning traditional world and roles upside down
2. The journey
A) Evolving team and growing into scrum roles
B) Tension: existing org vs. Agile greenfield
• Critical exchange between two worlds
C) Cont. Improvement of agile methods & tools

12. Phased Approach
First small
experimental Scrum
team 1st Demo
Waterfall Projects, Top Down managed
I) Greenfield

13. Defining Moments (1/6):
Settling into Key Scrum Roles
Issue Product Owner (PO) & Scrum Master (SM) new
to their roles when Scrum teams where formed
Transition - Focus on respective responsibilities as
needed - PO ( drive and groom the backlog) and
SM( process stewart) and
- Let go of other responsibilities
Key - Scrum Training
take away - Share helpful practices

14. Separation of Concerns in Scrum
Product Owner - what
owns ROI & Vision
TRANSPARENCY
Scrum Master*
… Process
Team - how
… Quality
Mgmt
Container
Strategy, Environment, Budget

15. Defining Moments (2/6):
Priority setting during the sprint
Issue Pressure to complete user
stories by end of sprint;
Team requests delay of
test automation work as
mandated by Definition
of Done (DoD)
Transition Re-evaluation of what delivery of „Product Increment“
needed (per DoD) means
Key Do not compromise agreed quality standards for
take away misrepresenting the actual progress, learn from over-
committment etc.

16. Defining Moments (3/6):
Priority setting for the next sprint
Issue Product owner could not rely on system to
perform demo on short notice
Transition • readiness to invest in quality measures at
needed an early stage
• Product owner initiated discussion &
created a sense of urgency within scrum
team
Key take away Best outcome requires full engagement of
the entire Scrum team („shares the pain“) in
finding the best possbile solution to
maximize customer value under given
circumstances

17. Defining Moments (4/6):
Fail Early on new Technology
Issue To optimize for cross platform mobile development we
analyzed and selected 3rd party framework.
Development progress stalled
Transition • Re-architect system to adopt 3rd party framework
• Slice user stories to showcase minimal functionality
needed in end-to-end manner early on
Key Targeting end-to-end user stories revealed erroneous
technology choice early on;
take away helped to contain loss of development capacity
(within 3 sprints)

18. Fail Early, Fail Fast, Fail Often

19. Phased Approach
1st Version
First small
experimental Scrum
team 1st Demo
CI ready
2nd Scrum Team ?
?
Waterfall Projects, Top Down managed
I) Greenfield II) Interest

20. Defining Moments (5/6):
Release Planning Visualized
Issue Even though teams did regular Agile release
planning the teams did not see the big
picture on a daily basis
Transition • Continuous and open planning
needed • Visualize Vision and Release Goals
• Regular interaction and reflection
• Utilize coherence
Key take away Create and maintain Release board

21. Release Board

22. Defining Moments (6/6):
Deal with External Dependencies
Issue Many external dependencies e.g. OEM,
remote platform team, global IT, … lead to
waste (e.g. in the form of „Waiting“)
Transition • Clarify responsibilites/ownership
needed • Minimize work in progress
• Reduce cycle time
• Decoupling as possible
Key take away Take IT into the boat (cf. DevOps), Strive for
end-to-end ownership/lean architecure,
Establish broader skill set and automomous
testing capabilities

23. Storyline
1. Our „view of the universe“
– Turning traditional world and roles upside down
2. The journey
A) Evolving team and growing into scrum roles
B) Tension: existing org vs. Agile greenfield
• Critical exchange between two worlds
C) Cont. Improvement of agile methods & tools

24. Tension:
Plan Driven vs. Agile Greenfield
Plan-Driven teams Agile, Scrum based teams
• Fixed time, budget & scope • Fixed budget & delivery
commitments schedule (sprint rhythm)
• Significant quality problems, • Early discovery of quality
schedule over-runs problems
• Many short term change of • Development priorities
priorties stable at minimum during
sprints

25. Organization Stereotypes
• Where is your QA team? (to throw the code
over the fence to ...?)
• Why are you only able to accept changes on a
bi-weekly basis?
• Who is your project manager? Fail and
learn fast,
reduce
waste,
tackle risk

26. Phased Approach
Test results
reflecting real Product maturity
1st Version
First small
experimental Scrum
team 1st Demo Mature
Velocity
CI ready
Agile Projects, Scrum, CI
2nd Scrum Team ? !
? !
Waterfall Projects, Top Down managed
I) Greenfield II) Interest III) Surprise

27. Pleasant Surprises w/ Scrum
• Test (code) coverage fully embraced by scrum
teams
• Full transparency of test results (CI radiator)
• Velocity track record sprint by sprint
– Minimal negative impact on quality by change
requests

28. Transparency CI Radiator
Big Screen in the coffee lounge
Where Teams meet and discuss …

29. Example:
Agile Release Tracking and Rebase
Consolidated
Release
Planning
Release
Candidate
Roadmap
update
VIP 1 Scope
added
Architecture Rebase
VIP 2 scope Decision
RC
added today

30. storyline
1. Our „view of the universe“
– Turning traditional world and roles upside down
2. The journey
A) Evolving team and growing into scrum roles
B) Tension: existing org vs. Agile greenfield
• Critical exchange between two worlds
C) Cont. Improvement of agile methods & tools

31. Phased Approach
Test results
reflecting real Product maturity
1st Version
First small
experimental Scrum
team 1st Demo Mature
Velocity
Test Automation
CI ready Coverage > 80%
Agile Projects, Scrum, CI
2nd Scrum Team ? !
? !
Waterfall Projects, Top Down managed
I) Greenfield II) Interest III) Surprise IV) Transformation

32. Metrics that worked for us
• Burndown of user stories, projected release
• Velocity
• Estimation accuracy
• Test automation coverage
… and ScrumBan
• Cycle Times for Stories
• Lead Times for Defects

33. Code Coverage by Test Automation

34. Estimation Accuracy
Split into 2
Teams
Sustainable Challenge
New Technology

35. Subtle Control
‘Although project teams are largely on their own, they
are not uncontrolled… the emphasis is on "self-
control," "control through peer pressure," and
"control by love,'' which collectively we call "subtle
control.“’
From: The new new product development game - Stop running the relay race and
take up rugby - Harvard Business Review 1986, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

36. Team Flow
Mental States

37. Leadership Path to Agility
Problem-solving Leader (Expert)
• tend to micro-manage
Strategic Leader (Achiever)
• leading actively
Visionary Leader (Catalyst)
• growing capabilities
Michael Sahota:
http://agilitrix.com/2012/08/leadership-agility-a-
model-for-understanding-managers/

38. whilpert@agtinternational.com
tjklatt@agtinternational.com