This is the story of a successful Agile transformation, moving away from waterfall and onto modern development practices

1. Transforming the
impossible
Matteo Emili
Manager, Software Engineering @ Avanade UK & Ireland
Microsoft MVP – Azure DevOps
https://mattvsts.github.io || https://twitter.com/MattVSTS

2. This is a real story
All the examples are situations I was involved in personally

3. February 2019
I am called in to a client where a team (The Team) needed
new leadership
Timezones are not necessarily an issue, but we are not co-
located

4. Landscape
A mid-sized division within a large non-tech/IT enterprise
Large freedom of movement with a few constraints
Divisions operate powered by shared, foundational services
All the interactions happen via an ITSM-based process

5. Context
A successful cloud migration programme created a
completely new estate
Focus was fully on the migration effort, depleting The Team
of key people
After the migration it was time to clear the confusion and
get back to normality
The business was also accelerating, and The Team needed
to keep up

6. The Team
• The Team’s mission is to remove
friction and to enable a smooth and
simple interaction among
development teams, business users
and other areas of the organisation
• Size is small (8 to 12 people), but
The Team has got heterogeneous
skills – from service management to
technical SME ownership
• The Team owns the whole
operational lifecycle of the
division’s applications estate,
except for production support
6

7. It’s not a DevOps Team
It looks like one at first sight, but The Team does much
more
Close collaboration with the Development Teams, which are
focused on value delivery
Deep knowledge of both the applications (end-to-end) and
the organisational interaction patterns

8. Cons (problems)
• Total control over the technical
resources
• The Development Teams trickle
down deep knowledge of the
custom products so that The
Team can be most effective
• Removing frictions for the
Development Teams means the
division can get things done
better and quicker
• Lots of context switch between
activities
• The ITSM process causes too
much overhead
• Internally things tend to be
dealt with a mix of formal
process, informal chats, 1:1s,
…
Pros
8

9. Some more problems
Technology and process can be fixed, but there were other
issues

10. Command and control
Historically this team was used to heavy C&C
When things got difficult, survival instinct kicked in

11. Lack of load visibility
People were always busy, but what value comes out of it?

12. Plenty of confusion
from the landscape
change
Permanent fire-fighting on all sides

13. Little interest in new
value
Why change anything if things are working?

14. April 2019
Attempt #1 at fixing problems
14

15. Big bang, wholesale
changes
Lift-and-shift from command and control to Agile practices
15

16. What did I do?
• Moving to collective responsibility and independent
ownership
• Clean and complete break from existing processes and
tools, trying to funnel every unstructured activities into
structured ones
• Start a daily, first-thing-in-the-morning huddle
• Creation of a flat, clear inventory where all the resources
are clearly identified
• Big technology changes to support new way of working
• Boards
• Chatrooms
16

17. It was a total failure!
There was no buy-in from the team and possibly an
underlying trust issue
17

18. Too much, too soon
The extreme reliance on command and control made the
change to the operating model irrelevant and damaging
The huddle became a place where problems were piling up
rather than being discussed
18

19. You need trust
Change is inherently not welcome in the human nature –
promising a move to Agile is not enough to ensure success
without a shared commitment
Trust only becomes natural after the new team member
gets familiar
Don’t take willingness to change for granted, Conway’s Law
is always true
19

20. Understand your people
If you are not co-located, you are at a massive disadvantage
20

21. How do you build trust?
It doesn’t grow on trees and it does not develop overnight
21

22. Blameless postmortems
We are all in the same boat
22

23. All hands on deck if
needed
If you have technical skills, be involved
23

24. Issues and Escalations
The Client was not happy
24

25. Not all escalations are the
same
Know where to spend your energy
25

26. Upper management
trust?
Same concept, different context
26

27. A silver lining…
We got the inventory sorted, so we had a foundation for
attempt #2
27

28. May 2019
Attempt #2 at fixing problems
28

29. Culture
It was the only item on the list, and all my efforts went in
that direction
29

30. What did I do?
• Tried to move away from emails into shared
communication mediums and to break the dependency on
1:1 chats by connecting people together
• First attempt at a new tool-based process for handling
requests, based on Lean – a few cards based on Activity
type, to move across lanes
• Changed the daily huddle from an unstructured rant to a
quick discussion of the state of the day and the
forecasted day ahead, facilitating fully-owned decisions
30

31. You need Champions
Someone who really buys-in
31

32. Identikit of a Champion
Who am I looking for?
32

33. Partial success
The big win here is the culture shift starting up!
People were finally starting to network, The Team was
working as a unit
33

34. Why partial?
The safety net was the old habit, and going away for a short
break moved things back a fair bit
The tool experiment was weak – too much burden and too
many changes
34

35. July 2019
Attempt #3 at fixing problems
35

36. Targeted changes
After culture comes communication
36

37. Building on results
Keep facilitating conversations, and starting to surface the
real loads
37

38. What did I do?
• Third attempt at creating a new lightweight tool-aided
process to handle requests, removing all the possible
overhead
• Daily huddle twice a day to enable better information
sharing and re-aligning activities based on the priorities
shifting during the day
• SMEs are fully empowered to take decisions backed by the
common knowledge The Team has got – with final
approval during the huddles, if needed
38

39. Success!
This combination finally unlocked the full potential of The
Team
Two reasons: People and Process
39

40. Think outside the box
Twice a day huddle comes from politics
40

41. Trust in action
A chain of events
41

42. People are fully
empowered
They are trusted to take the decisions they are supposed to
take
Decisions come from their direct hands-on experience, and
they are backed by full visibility of the business side
42

43. Lean was the only way
A Lean tool and a Lean process fixed the issues and enabled
a smooth flow of delivery
43

44. How do you keep it up?
It’s not over, this was just the beginning
44

45. Getting it right, keeping it
as such!
Continuous Improvement is not a buzzword
45

46. What if someone leaves?
I lost the three most senior people – what did I do?
46

47. Fast forward to today
The Team has been on a continuous improvement path
since
47

48. From continuous
firefighting to
incremental delivery
Not only we managed to transform the way The Team
works, but now there is also bandwidth for internal
development initiatives
48

49. The Team can pick up
new work
Documentation, enhancements, automations…
49

50. Mistakes to avoid
Mine was a bumpy ride, yours can be smoother
50

51. Never take anything for
granted
How people approach change in particular
51

52. Culture is key
Conway’s Law always applies
52

53. Communication is your
lifeblood
Surfacing communications fosters transparency (hence
ownership) and enables complex contributions
53

54. Tools are a distraction
Adapt them to the process, don’t model a new process on a
tool
54

55. Feedback, feedback,
feedback…
Ask your team if they are happy with your work
55

56. Thanks!
Matteo Emili
Manager, Software Engineering @ Avanade UK&I
Microsoft MVP – Azure DevOps
https://mattvsts.github.io || https://twitter.com/MattVSTS