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Agile-Lean Organizational Model
Agile-Lean Productivity Improvement Framework
Xavier Albaladejo
CAS2013 - Agile Spain Conference - October 2013

2. CAS 2013 2 AGILE EXCELLENCE CENTER
Government IT - A Technology
Speaker Bio & Company Information
 Xavier Albaladejo is Agile-Lean Coach, IT Governance
expert and member of the everis Agile Excellence
Center. He helps large organizations in being faster
and effective under the principles of Agile and Lean, as
well as to train teams in Scrum and Kanban.
 Xavier Albaladejo is coordinator of La Salle Postgraduate
on Agile methods, Certified Scrum Practitioner, founder
of proyectosagiles.org, Agile Barcelona and member of
Agile Spain Board.

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 Concepts
 What is "productivity"?
 Types of activities vs outputs.
 Factors with greater impact on productivity
 Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
 P.I.F. - Agile-Lean Productivity Improvement Framework
 Principles - Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Key Factors
 Soft & Hard Axis
 Balanced indicators
Index

4. CAS 2013 4
 Concepts
 What is "productivity"?
 Types of activities vs outputs.
 Factors with greater impact on productivity
 Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
 P.I.F. - Agile-Lean Productivity Improvement Framework
 Principles - Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Key Factors
 Soft & Hard Axis
 Balanced indicators
Index

5. CAS 2013 5
What is "productivity"?
Productivity =
Outputs, generated value
Inputs, resources
product
Time
Useful
=
Lean optic
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently
that which should not be done at all"
Peter Drucker

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Types of activities vs outputs
Activities that are
Necessary
Activities that are not necessary
Waste
Activities that generate
Value (*)
(*) Value: product which
the end user pays for.
Output1
Product
SW
StreamlineRemove
Sub-products
E.g.. Documentation
Output2
Learning
Capabilities,
knowledge
Output3
25%
 We have to generate useful learning within
projects so as to be more productive.

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Factors with greater impact on productivity
"Soft "factors and software
productivity - which ones matter?
Understanding and Improving
Software Productivity
Measuring productivity of
Software development teams
A Systematic Review of
Productivity Factors in
Software Development
Understanding productivity software
Software productivity
metrics: who needs them?
Studies on hundreds of projects

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What factors do you think that have
been identified as more relevant
Factors with greater impact on productivity

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Factors with greater impact on success and productivity
1 Person capability
2 Team cohesion
3 Technical / product simplicity
4
Experience and knowledge in
similar projects
5 Middle management style
6 Motivation of people
7 Product size
8 Stability of requirements
9 Methodology and tools
People
Team / Organization
Product / project
Process / tools
Legend
Main factors Next factors

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Factors with greater impact on productivity
1 Person capability
2 Team cohesion
3 Technical / product simplicity
4
Experience and knowledge in
similar projects
5 Middle management style
6 Motivation of people
7 Product size
8 Requirements stability
9 Methodology and tools
Main factors Next factors
Very Agile and Lean!
 Focus in learning, improvement, growth.
 Motivated people and good interactions.
 Stable teams by product line or client type
 Small batches of work, iterations.
 Technical excellence and internal design.
 Servant managers-teachers, facilitating teams to flow.

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Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
Main factors
1 Person capability
Increase the competence of the person.
Hiring and keeping good, talented and collaborative
people. Continuous improvement and learning mindset.
Coaching, Mentoring, Training, Labs.
Agile: Open Spaces, Communities of Practice (CoP).
3 Technical / product simplicity
Continuously ensuring the simplicity of the
solution, not over-engineering.
KISS, YAGNI, Peer reviews of product internal
complexity.
Agile: Refactoring (simplification), Pair
Programming.
2 Team cohesion
Teams design (skills and relationships), hiring and
firing, Team Knowledge matrix. Company values,
teamwork principles.
Agile: Cross-functional team including the client
(agile values). Team identity, team working
agreements.
Create teams that maximize: collaboration,
value flow, information sharing and mutual
help. A team is an asset in the organization!

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Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
Next factors
4
Experience and knowledge in
similar projects
Teams are specialized in products
Agile: Projects are assigned to stable teams.
5 Middle management style
Middle management that serves teams
and promotes collaboration and
eagerness for improving what is not
working and that teaches how to have a
systemic vision.
Encourage transparency, knowledge
sharing, asking for help, etc..
Lean: Holistic view, Go see to the
Gemba, Respect for people, Manager
teacher.
6 Motivation of people
Take care of the intrinsic motivation of
individuals and recognize a well done work.
O2O focused on knowing personal
motivations (autonomy, mastery, purpose),
challenges, gamification, career plans.

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Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
Nextfactors2
8 Requirements stability
Continuous Product Management in order
to stabilize short-term objectives.
Continuous rolling wave planning.
Agile: Iteration 0, Product Backlog Grooming, User
Story Mapping, Epics.
Lean:Just In Time (JIT), Lean Startup.
7 Product size
Smaller projects so as to gain more
control on them, that regularly deliver
end product.
Agile: Short iterations where
the primary measure of
progress is working SW.
Lean: Small batches of end
product, reducing the Work In
Progress (WIP).
9 Methodology and tools
Adapt methodology and tools (using
bottom-up feedback) so that the team
flows and only has to worry about
producing value, with a holistic view.
Best practices, Assets reuse.
Agile: Retrospectives, Impediment Backlog (IBL),
Continuous Integration with automated testing.
Lean: Lean Principles, Waste identification & analysis, Kaizen events,
five whys, A3, Value Stream Mapping, Stop the line, etc..

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 Concepts
 What is "productivity"?
 Types of activities vs outputs.
 Factors with greater impact on productivity
 Principles and techniques to improve the productivity factors
 P.I.F. - Agile Lean Productivity Improvement Framework
 Principles - Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Key Factors
 Soft & Hard Axis
 Balanced indicators
Index

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P.I.F. - Principles
 Design of organizational structure
 Oriented to get flow in the entire value chain, assuring that it is not broken,
in this way integrating the maximum of disciplines from end to end.
 Stable teams, specialized in product areas.
 Continuous planning and follow-up
 In product as well as in impediments.
 Learning and continuous improvement in short intervals
 Competencies and motivation growth.
 Improvement and simplification of internal product design, processes
and organization.

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Agile team
P.I.F. - Principles: Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Agile Team: Cross-functional team (including the client), stable, co-
localized, specialized in product areas, self-organized, able to
develop end product by itself.
Product AgileProgramming TestingAnalysis
Product
Owner
Development team
Scrum
Master

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P.I.F. - Principles: Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Squad: Extended Agile Team to minimize external dependencies.
Product AgileProgramming Testing UXAnalysis DevOps
Product
Owner
Extended team
Creating flow in the entire value chain, from the idea to the use of the product
Focus on deliver value Similar to a micro-company.
...
People of specialized groups are assigned part
time to specific Squads, to help them flow
Scrum
Master
Agile team
Product
line
squad
Autonomous team

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P.I.F. - Principles: Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Squads. A more
appropriate view: Generalizing specialists
• They know other technical
specialties, in order to better
engage and help them if
necessary, so as to get flow.
• They specialize / learn in the
product they are working on.
Product
Backlog
(PBL)
Product Owner (PO)
• Single point of work entry to
the team.
• Prioritizes the Product
Backlog and regularly
accepts the product,.
Product
Owner
Analyst
Dev
DevDev
Dev
Tester
Tester UX
DevOps
Scrum
Master
Scrum Master (SM)
• Remove impediments in the
value flow that the team can not
resolve by itself.
• Makes the team collaborate,
think together to create
synergies and continually
improve.
Impediment
Backlog
(IBL)
Direct
collaboration

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P.I.F. - Principles: Agile-Lean Organizational Model
 Competence Managers / Speciality Coaches: Improve the
capabilities and motivation, lead the Communities of Practice
(CoP) for the transversal diffusion of knowledge, the global
improvement and the homogenization of the working methods.
AgileProgramming Testing UXAnalysis DevOps
Squad N
Squad 1
Competence Mgrs
Speciality Coaches
Squad 2
CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL

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Analysis
 Product Management Team: Regular Demand Management in order
to split product projects and improvements into smaller, more
manageable and stable chunks of work, as their development is getting
closer and to ensure a balanced workload to the teams (reduce mura).
P.I.F. - Principles: Continuous product planning and follow-up
AgileProgramming Testing UX DevOps
Squad N
Squad 1
Squad 2
Area Product
Owner
PBL Area
(Roadmap)
Sub-Area
PBLs
Product
Owners
+ Lean Startup approaches to quickly validate product hypotheses in the market!
[Standish Group: ≈ 50% of the feautures are never used]

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P.I.F. - Principles: Continuous improvement planning and follow-up
 Enterprise Improvement Backlog: Corporate improvement strategy, based
on a Lean approach (end to end) and bottom-up feedback of improvements to
make (organizational redesign, processes).
Programming Testing UXAnalysis DevOps
Squad N
Squad 1
Competence Mgrs
Speciality Coaches
Squad 2
Enterprise
Improvement Backlog
(EIBL)
CoP BL
Improv.
Champion
CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL CoP BL
Agile
The Improvement Champion is the continuous improvement Product Owner in the company.
His product is an organization that must be focused in value creation and be efficient.
He is the responsible of enterprise end to end value flow.

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P.I.F. - Principles: Servant leadership
 A more appropriate view: management that serves the teams, a team
that collaborates to help the teams flow.
Programming Testing UXAnalysis DevOps
Squad N
Squad 1
Competence Mgrs
Speciality Coaches
Squad 2
Improv.
Champion
Agile
The management is the team that creates
the context for teams to flow
Lean Foundation: Lean thinking manager-teachers

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P.I.F. - Principles. Two types of flows: product and improvements
Programming Testing UXAnalysis DevOps
Squad N
Squad 1
Squad 2
SM
 “Force fields" appear that complement one to another without losing the
objective of achieving greater flow, above efficiency in each speciality.
Product
Owners
Competence Mgrs
Speciality Coaches
Improv.
Champion
The Improvement Champion manages system
improvements and repositions focus again towards
achieving global product flow, end to end in the company
In this way we get a product oriented organization: from its flow creation to its operation
(good products, with fast innovation and a good service, are what make a company earn money)
Product flow
System
improvements
flow

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P.I.F. - Key factors
 Having a powerful reason to change!
 Middle management culture: collaborative.
 Responsibilities   leadership.
 Systematize, cadence, short cycles of learning and improvement.
 Wish to change:
 Explicit support from the Top Management.
 Middle Management willingness to learn and make the change real.
 Clear and shared improvement objectives.
Soft aspects are the "oil" of the Hard ones

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P.I.F. - Hard Axis
Organization, processes and techniques
Company Teams
1
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
Person capability
Team cohesion
Complexity
Similar experiences
Management style
Motivation
Product size
Requirements stability
Methods, tools3
Competence
Manager
• Tribal hiring and firing (with the
team), Teams design.
• Gamification.6
42
Team
KISS
YAGNI • Refactoring.
• Visual Management.
• Continuous Integration with Auto. test
• Iteration 0, Epics, JIT, Lean Startup.
• Retrospectives, waste identification,
best practices, Stop the line.
6
3
872 3
531 2
2
9
Scrum
Master
• Impediment Backlog (IBL).
• Team skill matrix, team design.1
3
Improvement
Champion
• Enterprise Improvement Backlog
(EIBL) -Strategy.
• Organizational redesign.
• Open Spaces.
• Waste identification & analysis.
• Kaizen events, A3.
• 5 whys, Ishikawa.
• Value Stream Mapping.
3
3
3
4
3
2
3 4
3

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P.I.F. - Soft Axis
Culture, competence and motivation
Company Teams
People
1
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
Person capability
Team cohesion
Complexity
Similar experiences
Managers Style
Motivation
Product size
Requirements stability
Methods, tools3
CEO
A,
B, C
• Noble purpose.
• Company values, storytelling.
• Agile values, Lean principles.
• Teamwork principles.
• Continuous improvement and
learning mindset, "test & learn".
2
2
2
1 3 5 6
62
Improvement
Champion
• Open Spaces.1
Scrum
Master
• Team cohesion, 360.
• Motivation, O2O, Niko-Niko.
• Team skill matrix.
2
6
1
Competence
Manager
/
Speciality
Coaches
• Dissemination of values, give example.
• CoP Backlog, Training, Labs, Demos,
Manager teacher.
• Best Practices,Assets reuse.
• Lean: Holistic view, Go see to the
Gemba.
• O2O, motivations, challenges, coaching.
• Career plans.
1 3 4
5 6
6
5
2
2
3 5
1
5
A, B,
C
• Team identity.
• Working agreements, Lessons Learned.
• Peer reviews, Pair Programming.Team
2
1 3
2

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P.I.F. - Balanced Scorecard - Indicators
 By team /
product lines.
 Trend analysis
in order to know
the effect of the
improvements.
External Quality
Corrective Hours vs Total
Experienced Quality
User satisfaction
Business results
Internal Quality
Product Complexity
Teamwork
Teamwork
Motivation
Learnt Knowledge
Cost
Unit cost
Production
Lead Time
Velocity

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P.I.F. - Conclusions
 Attract, hire "good" people, talented and collaborative; develop and motivate them.
Book time and have
discipline to do so.
 Create a context where teams can flow:
 Self-contained teams, value-chain oriented, specialized in product. A team is as asset in the
organization!
 Hard Axis: Practices for learning and regular improvement.
 Soft Axis: Values ​​to help to get alignment. Give example.
 Establish responsibilities and bottom-up scaling :
 In order to make improvements in the organization, processes and tools.
 In order to improve people skills and their motivation.
 Focus on simplicity, flexibility and quick feedback in product, technology
and working methods.
 KISS, YAGNI, refactoring, peer reviews, iterations, Lean Startup, ...

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One last important remark
We are very much focused on productivity ...
... but without good products / services we will not go very far

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Questions

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Claudia
Melo for her help on some
studies on productivity during
her PhD in Sao Paulo University
Thanks to Angel
Medinilla for its
inspiration ;)
Thanks to CDmon for their enthusiasm, determination, effort
and open-mindedness in order to make the model real.

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Technology U.S.