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'Leadership, Complexity, LeSS' by Ran Nyman

'Leadership, Complexity, LeSS' by Ran Nyman

This session focuses on common root causes that create unintended and unseen complexity in organizations. This complexity is disguised in the form of good management practices, and good intentions and local optimizations. We use one case to describe the rise of complexity and the death of a company Nokia Mobile Phones. Then we show that this pattern can be generalized to any growing company that does not pay attention how to grow. Next, we take a look at Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) framework and how it avoids building complexity in an organization by being minimalistic and starting the change by real change instead of change theater. Then we look at forces in LeSS that create ownership of change in the organization. We use real life case examples to describe how this is achieved and what key leadership actions are needed to happen, so the change is sustainable. Learning objectives: Insight how LeSS and new leadership thinking is used to simplify the organization.

Agile Latvia

July 07, 2017
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  1. Leadership
    Complexity
    Adaptability with LeSS
    Ran Nyman
    Riga Agile Day July. 7, 2017

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  2. Ran Nyman
    Founding partner at
    Worked with LeSS since 2005
    MSc in Computer Science 1999
    Since 1995 in professional SW development
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 2

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  3. Leadership

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  4. Taylorism

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  5. Frederic Winslow Taylor
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 5

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  6. Extreme Taylorism Fordism1900
    Context
    Huge market and demand
    Winning product
    Lack of skilled workforce
    Solution
    Manual Automation
    Detailed standardization
    Proper wages
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 6

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  7. Modern Taylorism
    Split responsibilities
    Others promise, others deliver
    Others plan, others execute
    Others decide, others follow
    Others know, others decide
    Others implement, others test
    Task / role specialization
    Project/program managers
    Resource manager
    Quality manager
    Sustainability Manager
    HR manager
    Line manager
    Specifier
    Architect
    UI designer
    Quality manager
    Fault manager
    Feature owner
    Feature Owner Team
    Release Manager
    Systems Engineer
    Portfolio manager
    Customer Experience
    Manager
    Process development
    manager
    Integration manager
    Release train engineer
    Enterprise architect
    Chief specialist
    Security manager
    Gosei Oy - Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) 7

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  8. Manage 

    problems
    Everyday experience
    “Pressure with Fear”
    “Must Should”
    “No time for real change”
    “Power and wisdom are always
    elsewhere.”
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 8
    Fragmented

    organization
    Narrow

    learning
    Batch

    Queue

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  9. Actionable Fearless Leadership

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  10. © 2016 Pivotal Software, Inc. All rights reserved. 10
    Without Intervention, Work Rolls Down Hill
    From XP2016 keynote by

    Elisabeth Hendrickson

    @testobsessed

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  11. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 11
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?

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  12. Fear
    Individual
    Exclusion from the tribe
    Personal conflict
    Collective
    Death of the tribe
    Loss of cohesion
    External conflict
    Avoid conflict
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 12

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  13. From

    Conflict Avoidance

    To
    ????????????

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  14. From

    Conflict Avoidance

    To
    Greed to Learn

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  15. From
    Conflict Avoidance
    To
    Radical Curiosity

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  16. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 16
    Trust in
    Learning
    Connect
    conflicting realities -
    letting curiosity 

    overcome fear
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?

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  17. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 17
    Trust in
    Learning
    Connect
    conflicting realities -
    letting curiosity 

    overcome fear
    Understand the system
    Coordination Chaos
    Tayloristic leadership
    Feature Teams
    Factory floor reality…
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?

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  18. Organise for customer oriented learning
    Find your Product
    Cross-functional teams interact with Customers
    Full product focus
    Build System with Feedback Reality
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 18
    Study system and your self
    Reflection
    Systems Thinking
    Immediate feedback from
    technology
    Continuous integration
    Test Automation
    Feature Teams

    working with

    Full Product
    Continuous

    Integration
    Continuous

    Experimentation

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  19. LeSS Case 1

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  20. Browsing Gateway in 2004
    Working with incremental sequential development
    3 months increments with 3 project managers coordinating
    Weekly manual build (no CI)
    Individual component responsibilities
    Testing and development separated in different wings of building
    No meaningful automated e2e testing
    Manual testing using scripts
    -> Releases constantly late with quality problems
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 20

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  21. Actionable Fearless Leadership
    BL management decided to move to Scrum (LeSS as term was not
    know then)
    Supported the adoption:
    But did not micromanage
    Created proper structure
    System that supports team work
    System that enable technical feedback
    Continuous experimentation
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 21

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  22. Focus from Internal Structure to Customer
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 22
    Customer

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  23. LeSS Structure
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 23
    Product
    Backlog
    Product
    Owner
    Team a
    Team b
    Team c
    ScrumMaster
    ScrumMaster
    One
    Sprint
    Backlog
    per Team

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  24. From Physical Silos to Collaboration
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 24

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  25. From Manual Build to CI
    No other way of keeping SW in shape
    Branching did not work
    Do not use ClearCase
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 25

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  26. From Manual Testing to A-TDD
    Getting rid of scripted manual tests
    -> Automate them
    But do not offshore automation!
    But do not create your own framework!
    Performance testing?
    We ran it continuously
    Stability testing?
    We ran it continuously
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 26

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  27. From Project Managers to One Product Owner
    One single real PO that prioritises
    Teams clarify directly with stakeholders
    Project Managers:
    Kept them away from teams
    -> Not much work
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 27

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  28. Results
    Great working spirit
    100% test automation
    Product version 2.1 launched before scheduled date
    PSPI
    Strong Definition of Done
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 28
    Feature Teams

    working with

    Full Product
    Continuous

    Integration
    Continuous

    Experimentation
    LeSS
    Is NOT a
    New Thing

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  29. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 29
    Trust in
    Learning
    Connect
    conflicting realities -
    letting curiosity 

    overcome fear
    Understand the system
    Coordination Chaos
    Tayloristic leadership
    Feature Teams
    Factory floor reality…
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?
    Build feedback
    mechanism from
    Work, Customer
    and System

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  30. Psychological Safety
    Employees who feel psychologically safe:
    Stay with the company
    Embrace new ideas from their colleagues
    Generate more revenue
    Rated as ‘effective’ twice as often by their
    managers.
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 30

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  31. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 31
    Trust in
    Learning
    Create safety
    by demonstrating 

    Secure Base
    Connect
    conflicting realities -
    letting curiosity 

    overcome fear
    Understand the system
    Coordination Chaos
    Tayloristic leadership
    Feature Teams
    Factory floor reality…
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?
    Build feedback
    mechanism from
    Work, Customer
    and System

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  32. Fragmented

    organization
    Fearless

    Leadership
    Flow of work
    and feedback
    Wide 

    learning
    Integrated

    organization
    Batch

    Queue
    Manage 

    problems
    AFL and LeSS
    Narrow

    learning
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 32
    1. Change

    thinking
    2. Organize for 

    customer-centric learning
    3. Start working
    4. Learn forever
    http://LeSS.works/principles

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  33. Fearless Leaders
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 33
    Trust in
    Learning
    Create safety
    by demonstrating 

    Secure Base
    Drive change
    skilfully
    Connect
    conflicting realities -
    letting curiosity 

    overcome fear
    Understand the system
    Coordination Chaos
    Tayloristic leadership
    Feature Teams
    Factory floor reality…
    Intervene
    How much time, cash and
    owners’ trust do we have?
    Build feedback
    mechanism from
    Work, Customer
    and System

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  34. Complexity

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  35. Collapse of

    Complex Societies

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  36. Joseph A. Tainter
    Collapse of Complex societies:
    Mayas
    Chacoan
    West Roman Empire
    Western Chou
    Mesopotamia
    Egypt

    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 36

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  37. Tainter’s story in brief
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 37
    Abundant resources
    and innovation enable the
    growth of the Society.
    Innovation
    increases local efficiency
    and complexity.
    Complexity grows
    Elite creates wasteful rituals 

    to maintain their status
    Rent instead of value creation
    The complex society can no
    more adapt and collapses.
    The population drops dramatically.

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  38. The root cause of the collapse
    is 

    the internal complexity
    not

    the depletion of resources.

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  39. In Corportate world: Complexity Kills Profits
    and companies!
    Forbes Global 500 are losing, on average, 10.2 percent of their
    annual profits or $1.2 billion per year each due to value-
    destructive complexity. This adds up $237billion each year.

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  40. Collapse of Productivity in
    NOKIA Mobile Phones

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  41. NOKIA mobile phone business
    2004-2012 in (million euros)
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 41
    Graph by Christian Sandström, http://disruptiveinnovation.se

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  42. Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 42
    Nokia Mobile Phones Nokia Networks

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  43. Aggressively grab the opportunities
    Great success in the beginning
    “Just make it work” - engineers
    Trust and autonomy
    Success during the growth phase
    NOKIA opportunity 1990
    Business opportunities
    Crumbling Telecom monopolies
    Detailed GSM standard
    Talented workforce in Finland
    Ambitious leader Jorma Ollila
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 43

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  44. Stage 1
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 44
    Abundant resources
    and innovation enable the
    growth of the Society.

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  45. “Just make it work” - engineers
    Ever increasing complexity
    NOKIA Challenges Beginning of 2000
    Organizational background
    100 years of heavy industry
    Lack of experience in leading

    SW product development
    Technology over design
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 45

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  46. Stage 2
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 46
    Abundant resources
    and innovation enable the
    growth of the Society.
    Innovation
    increases local efficiency
    and complexity.

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  47. Growth of Complexity
    20% growth for 5 years in a row
    Codify competence into process
    Narrow task specialisation
    Others decide others do
    SW development challenge
    underestimated
    Attention in Radio, Hardware,
    Business, Coordination,
    Manufacturing, Supply chain
    Want to educate the recruits, but
    “Just make it work” 

    -> Self-organising for short-term
    Learn the emergent local habits
    Best became elite
    Elite educated, others survive
    Plenty of coordinators
    Some only hang around 

    - OK until layoffs
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 47

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  48. Stage 3
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 48
    Abundant resources
    and innovation enable the
    growth of the Society.
    Innovation
    increases local efficiency
    and complexity.
    Complexity grows
    Elite creates wasteful rituals 

    to maintain their status
    Rent instead of value creation

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  49. “Just make it work” - engineers
    Pressured by
    “Just make it happen” - management
    Fear disconnected the organization
    Superficial decision making
    Failed to respond to competition
    NOKIA Mobile Phones
    Situation 2007-2011
    New competitors, new game
    Technology constrains design
    Coordination chaos
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 49

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  50. Stage 4
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 50
    Abundant resources
    and innovation enable the
    growth of the Society.
    Innovation
    increases local efficiency
    and complexity.
    Complexity grows
    Elite creates wasteful rituals 

    to maintain their status
    Rent instead of value creation
    The complex society can no
    more adapt and collapses.
    The population drops dramatically.

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  51. NOKIA/MS Mobile Phones 2016
    Microsoft announcing on May 23 the "streamlining" of the business. It
    would lay off "up to 1,850 jobs worldwide", with up to 1,350 of those in
    Finland
    The company also wrote off USD$900 million from the Nokia
    acquisition.
    In Dec, it was announced that the sales of all Lumia phones were
    discontinued.
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 51

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  52. Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 52

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  53. Descale Complexity
    To Gain Adaptability
    Using LeSS

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  54. Insurance Company at End of 2016 in Germany
    Traditional organisation with functional departments
    3 months releases with 2 week Sprints
    Component teams Rich Client, Web, Database,…
    Testing done in stabilisation Sprints
    Manual testing using scripts
    -> Releases constantly late and not with promised features. Several
    weeks defect fixing after each releases
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 54

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  55. LeSS Structure
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 55
    Product
    Backlog
    Product
    Owner
    Team a
    Team b
    Team c
    ScrumMaster
    ScrumMaster
    One Sprint
    Backlog
    per Team

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  56. LeSS Huge
    56

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  57. Focus from Internal Structure to Customer
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 57
    Customer

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  58. Next Challenge
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 58
    Releases constantly late and not with
    promised features. Several weeks defect
    fixing after each releases

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  59. Results Early 2017
    Visibility to progress and realistic release plan
    Customer representatives in reviews
    Teams learning to deliver e2e features
    Working directly with stakeholders
    Test automation ramp up started
    First release with new teams delivered what was planned with much
    better quality
    Journey to monthly releases and Continuous Deployment started
    Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 59
    Feature Teams

    working with

    Customers

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  60. Complexity
    Leadership
    LeSS

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  61. Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 61
    Complexity Grows

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  62. Gosei Oy all rights reserved. 62
    Customer
    Organizational redesign

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  63. Gosei Oy all rights reserved.
    Adaptability
    with LeSS
    63

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  64. Q&A
    More LeSS
    September 6, Tallinn
    September 26, Riga
    http://gosei.fi
    http://less.works

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