1.
AGILE CULTURE
Company Culture as the Key
Agile Milestone
Zuzana Sochova zuzana@sochova.cz
http://agilniasociace.cz http://ccn.cz http://sochova.cz

2.
Prague is where I live…

3.
Historical city…

4.
“Hey, let’s start agile!”

5.
We are special, agile won’t work for us!

6.
SW development projects are failing
by IT Corex:
an IT project is more likely to be unsuccessful than successful
about 1 out of 5 IT projects is likely to bring full satisfaction
the larger the project the more likely the failure
1st step: change practices, skills, processes…
Try Agile ;)

7.
There is no cookbook
on how to adopt agile
http://www.eoiguada.info

8.
How difficult is to introduce given
practice?
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

9.
How useful are the following practices?
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

10.
What was the most challenging during
the agile adoption?
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Team Customer Team Change Management
Communication Communication Responsibility Resistance Support and
and and Understanding
Cooperation Involvement

11.
What would you do differently?
Hire a good full time coach
Involve both design and testing
Co-locate as much as possible
Adjust the length of sprints for every project
More customer focus
Involve more business stakeholders
Work more on responsibility, auto-organization
Be aware of the change, it’s hard

12.
What would you recommend ?
• Agile cannot be implemented top-down only nor bottom-up only. Agile
needs to be a grass roots effort that has executive level sponsorship.
• Don't cheat and never ever let a sprint go past its time.
• View coach and customer as KEY roles and ensure the right people
are in these roles.
• Don't sell Scrum as the dogma.
• Make sure everyone involved in an agile effort understands the Agile
Manifesto's Values and Principles
• Forget about "scrum tools". Use a real physical whiteboard and super-
sticky post-its.
• Don’t forget the communication is everything.
• Attend Agile conferences.

13.
No common practice to use…
ajpscs

14.
AGILE is Culture of Trust,
Communication and Support
http://shannonstanley.files.wordpress.com
http://gustavus.edu
http://www.bbc.co.uk

15.
Self-organization

16.
Collaboration
Orcas Attack Seal

17.
Company Culture as the
Key Agile Milestone
Collaborative Agile Culture
Quality
Flexibility
Be smart
Sharing
Self-Reliance
http://nextup.files.wordpress.com
Responsible
Sustainable
Successful

18.
Feels like chaos from the top…
http://www.stevey.com

19.
…but perfectly working in fact
http://4.bp.blogspot.com
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz
http://discussions.mnhs.org

20.
Starting agile…
Understand
where
you are
http://www.searchenginepeople.com

21.
Starting agile…
Understand
where you
want to go
http://crfranke.wordpress.com

22.
Agile is a change of
what you believe in
http://christianmenchristianwarrior.wordpress.com

23.
Evolution process
http://www.questcorp.com

24.
It’s a philosophy…
… so go deep inside
http://leadinganswers.typepad.com
http://photos3.flickr.com

25.
Change?
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com

26.
Kotter’s 8 steps of successful change
Create a Sense of Urgency
Pull Together the Guiding Team
Develop the Change Vision and Strategy
Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in
Empower Others to Act
Produce Short-Term Wins
Don’t Let Up
Make it Stick
http://www.ouricebergismelting.com

27.
Must the culture be here before Agile or
will it emerge from the adoption
process?
http://www.devcomments.com

28.
Do You Believe In Agile Culture?
Agile needs culture…
Any method to be adopted must be essentially compatible with the
culture.
If the culture doesn't support or embrace Agile, it will never work as a
process.
Agile changes culture…
At the same time certain cultures will be very difficult to change – i.e.
heavy, authoritarian, top-down cultures. Maybe not impossible, but it
could be close.

29.
Empower people
http://jamiejacksonxp.com/

30.
Adoption Manifesto
Do believe in agile company culture
Be able to embrace a change and overcome
resistance
Believe in people
Have willingness to take risks
Have DESIRE for Agile methods

31.
Thank you for your attention
Zuzana Šochová
AGILE & SCRUM TRAINER, CONSULTANT AND COACH
zuzana@sochova.cz
http://agilniasociace.cz http://ccn.cz http://sochova.cz