System thinker's guide to (de)scaling complexity.

1. Studying Complexity of organizations
and its effects on scaling agility
Alexey Krivitsky
agiletrainings.eu/blog
@alexeykri

2. Alexey krivitsky
Mediocre developer
Bulldozing scrum master
Kicking ass agile coach
Certified scrum trainer
Fat ski rider
Lame bass guitarist
Mostly known in agile community for #lego4scrum.

3. flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06

5. Inherent complexity

9. Spaghetti code and tech debt

10. flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06

11. flickr.com/photos/varunshiv
Added complexity

12. BACK-END
FRONT-END teams
1. Consistent design
2. Code reuse
3. Easier to manage
4. Personal growth

13. BACK-END
FRONT-END
???

16. what is happening to
complexity of this org?

17. Complexity entropy
• Few more roles
• Some more meetings
• A bit of indirection
• Some documentation

18. Studying dynamics
#
meetings
Levels
of coordination
Need for
coordinationTeam
specialization
Indirect
communication
Need for
documentation

19. Uneven flow

20. Workload and RESOURCE management

21. Resource management

22. Resource management
$ $

23. Studying dynamics
#
meetings
Levels
of
coordination
Need for
coordinationTeam
specialization
Indirect
communication
Need for
documentation
Uneven
flow
Need for
resource mgmt
# managers
for resource
mgmt

24. A common pattern
1. You have a “blah”-problem?
2. Assign a “blah”-manager!
Delivery manager, integration manager,
release manager, engineering manager,
quality manager, resource allocation
manager, site manager, scrum managers,
scrum master managers.

26. Studying dynamics
#
meetings
Levels
of
coordination
Need for
coordinationTeam
specialization
Indirect
communication
Need for
documentation
Uneven
flow
Need for
resource mgmt
# managers
for resource
mgmt
Higher
complexity

27. Resource management
$ $

28. Cost optimization

29. Out-of-sync development

30. ?
Out-of-sync development
?

31. We can always make up work

33. … And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More indirection
• More documentation
• More managers
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers (instead of work)
• More complex solutions (more code)
• More complex engineering processes

34. Indirection

35. But WHY?

37. 1. Consistent design
2. Code reuse
3. Easier to manage
4. Personal growth
Optimization goals

38. Technical ORG
OMFG...

39. Spaghetti code and tech debt

40. Spaghetti ORG and org debt

41. BACK-END
FRONT-END teams
Functional teams

42. … And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More indirection
• More documentation
• More managers
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers (instead of work)
• More complex solutions (more code)
• More complex engineering processes
• More technical managers (to deal with the complexity)

43. (1) Form groups of the same card color
Put your color card up and make groups.
Guidelines:
– 4-6 people in a group
– you have something to write with
(pens and pencils are OK, sharing is fine too)
When you’re group is set, put your cards
down.

44. (2) Write one word matching criteria
Each group member needs to write one word on
his/her card based on these rules:
Color coding of your cards:
Yellow – adjectives describing the nature
Red– verbs from sport, dancing, walking, love
Blue – nouns from the agile terminology
All words written by one group ideally have to be:
unique
in English (“le croque monsieur” is not OK)
have 2+ syllables (“good” and “scrum” are not OK)

45. (3) Form new group of mixed colors
Put your color cards up
Guidelines:
– 4-6 people in a group
– all 3 colors in each group
– duplicate colors are OK
When you’re group is set, put your cards down.

46. now, Compose a haiku!

47. WTF IS HAIKU?
(a very quick guide)

48. 俳句
[ high-koo ]
Haiku are short poems that use
sensory language to capture a feeling
or an image.
They are often inspired by an element
of nature, a moment of beauty, or
another internalized experience.

49. THE STRUCTURE
17 ons (syllables) in 3 phrases: 5, 7 and 5
Example:
line#1: blah blah blah blah blah
line#2: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
line#3: blah blah blah blah blah

50. A Haiku
Shoelaces untied
become a tripping hazard.
Hope she falls for me.

51. Debugging the haiku
Shoelaces untied
become a tripping hazard
Hope she falls for me

52. A Monday morning haiku
Oh! no no no no
No no no no no no no
No no no and no

53. A bot haiku
Seven hundred ten
Seven hundred eleven
Seven hundred twelve

54. 404 haiku
The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist

55. Internal server error
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred

56. (4) Compose a haiku!
Guidelines:
1. Use as many words from the cards as you can.
2. Think of topics from this conference:
flow, kanban, transformation, organizations,
people, complexity, management, agility,
continuous delivery…
3. Don’t forget to add a touch of an emotional
experience: nature, love, sadness of being.

57. Haiku at scale

58. creative teams
Horizontal
connecAons
(weaker)
Vercal connecons
(stronger)

59. Make us agile!

60. OMFG...
Make us agile…

62. Looks a little
over-complicated
to be able to help you
reduce complexity

63. How (NOT)to choose a scaling method
sugar-coating complexity
adding new system elements
(roles, functions, departments, silos)
centralizing decision-making
just renaming system elements
protecting the existing system
despite of the “new process” in place
reducing complexity
removing existing elements
decentralizing decision-making
redefining system elements
changing system and its dynamics
EVIL METHOD USEFUL METHOD

64. How will you know if a certain
framework will be evil or useful?
• Know your system’s dynamics
• Know the optimization goal of the method
(faster delivery? more transparency? easier reporting?)
• Know dynamics the method will be creating
(more roles, less roles, more dependencies, less dependencies)

66. A multi-product platform
TECHNICAL PLATFORM / ENGINE
CONSUMER PRODUCTS

67. Customer-facing teams doing platform work
TECHNICAL PLATFORM / ENGINE
CONSUMER PRODUCTS

68. Satellite products
BACK-END
REST API
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

69. All teams working on back-end
BACK-END
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

70. hEp://bit.ly/xing-mobile

71. Many small sub-products

72. Many small sub-products

73. Organize by customer value

74. #1: Products on a shared platform
TECHNICAL PLATFORM / ENGINE
CONSUMER PRODUCTS

75. #2: Satellite products
BACK-END
REST API
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

76. #3: Many small sub-products

77. Study system dynamics at play
you may explore some of with these variables
Cycle
time
#
defects
Costs of
maintenance
#
people
Motivation
Code
quality
#
managers
Tech
debt

78. VARIABLES
Cycle
time
Quality
WIP

79. Cause-effect relationships
Quality
Cycle
time
WIPRework

80. reinforcing vs. balancing loops
B
A
D
C
B
A
D
C
Reinforcing
« UNSTABLE »
Balancing
« STABILIZING »

81. Delayed effects
Quality
Cycle
time
WIP
Rework
Motivation

82. Quick fixes
Quality
Cycle
time
WIPRework
Motivation
Salary

84. Thank you!
And visit my blog
Alexey Krivitsky
agiletrainings.eu/blog