How to be an evil scientist workshop

Have you ever fancied turning your co-workers into laboratory rats and have them scurry around a maze searching for food whilst you ring a bell and the office cat slavers at the mouth?

No? Okay, well we weren't going to tell you how to do that anyway!

What we will share is how to embed a culture of ongoing experimentation that enables your team to learn and adopt new technologies, techniques, and processes - whilst also achieving current objectives.

No animals were harmed in the creation of this workshop.

Transcript

1. armakuni.com
   Agile Scotland
   Edinburgh - December 2019
   Zenon Hannick & Craig Fotheringham
   How to be an
   Evil Scientist
   

   View Slide

2. Welcome to Cat Paws Inc.
   

   View Slide

3. View Slide

4. Why are we evil enough to be standing in front of you?
   

   View Slide

5. How to be an Evil Scientist
   1. Choose an evil name
   

   View Slide

6. Your first name
   A The Evil N The Crazy
   B The Terrifying O The Iron
   C The Big P The Poison
   D The Dangerous Q The Bloody
   E Captain R The Annoying
   F The Ghostly S The Dangerous
   G Professor T The Rancid
   H Doctor U The Invisible
   I Phantom V The Dastardly
   J The Brutal W The Atomic
   K The Unstoppable X The Mega
   L The Vile Y The Grand
   M The Dark Z The Vicious
   

   View Slide

7. Your last name
   A Shadow N Child
   B Wizard/Witch O Corpse
   C Tarantula P Slayer
   D Skull Q Spider
   E Mastermind R Creature
   F Wizard S Werewolf
   G Ninja T Monster
   H Devil U Vampire
   I Freak V Mutant
   J Beast W Robot
   K Criminal X Claw
   L Master Y Machine
   M Lord/Lady Z Clown
   

   View Slide

8. How to be an Evil Scientist
   1. Choose an evil name ✔
   2. Share the most evil thing you’ve ever done
   

   View Slide

9. This is Billie
   ● Consulting Engineer for Armakuni
   ● Quite tall
   ● Helps people use best practices
   ● Favourite animal is the capybara
   ● Evil Name - The Terrifying Monster
   ● We stole this talk from her, turned it into
   a workshop and didn’t even say
   “thank-you”!
   

   View Slide

10. Not evil enough for you?
    

    View Slide

11. How to be an Evil Scientist
    1. Choose an evil name ✔
    2. Share the most evil thing you’ve ever done ✔
    3. Learn the rules every evil scientist must follow
    

    View Slide

12. Evil Scientist Rules
    Always have lots of
    evil schemes - you
    never know if there’s
    going to be a sequel
    Always start small
    Always have an
    arch-enemy
    Always have an escape
    plan
    Always boast, there’s
    no point in being evil if
    you don’t boast about
    it
    Never wear
    capes
    Never get caught
    monologuing
    Always measure
    everything
    Always splice
    things together
    

    View Slide

13. How to be an Evil Scientist
    1. Choose an evil name ✔
    2. Share the most evil thing you’ve ever done ✔
    3. Learn the rules every evil scientist must follow ✔
    4. Discover our arch enemies
    

    View Slide

14. Our Arch Enemies
    Waiting
    Around Kid
    Captain
    Defect
    General
    Heroics
    The Crimson
    Handoff
    Gold Plated
    Features Girl
    Mr Unneeded
    Process
    El Manual
    Work
    Awful
    Comms
    Boy
    Knowledge
    Drain Man
    Constance
    “Task”
    Switching
    The
    Relearner
    Rework
    

    View Slide

15. Our Arch Enemies
    Partially
    Completed
    Work
    Woman
    Dr Overly
    Complex
    Solutions
    The Siloed
    Worker
    Poor
    Visibility
    Man
    

    View Slide

16. Refuses to
    collaborate
    or attend
    meetings
    Works
    unsociable
    hours
    Code
    structure is
    in their
    head
    Believe
    they don’t
    need
    training
    Poor
    mentors
    The go-to
    person for
    QAs and
    support
    

    View Slide

17. How to be an Evil Scientist
    1. Choose an evil name ✔
    2. Share the most evil thing you’ve ever done ✔
    3. Learn the rules every evil scientist must follow ✔
    4. Discover our arch enemies ✔
    

    View Slide

18. armakuni.com
    Arrrrgh Scotland
    Edinburgh - December 2019
    The Vicious Devil & The Big Wizard
    How to be an
    Evil Scientist
    

    View Slide

19. View Slide

20. View Slide

21. Ladies and gentlemen: the story you
    are about to hear is true.
    Only the names have been changed
    to protect the innocent.
    

    View Slide

22. Department for Feline Empowerment
    

    View Slide

23. This Dastardly Ashley
    

    View Slide

24. Pair
    Programming
    

    View Slide

25. Pipelines
    

    View Slide

26. Test-Driven
    Development
    

    View Slide

27. ?
    

    View Slide

28. It worked!
    

    View Slide

29. Superheros were being defeated
    

    View Slide

30. She was asked to help Sam and Alex do it too
    

    View Slide

31. So she did
    

    View Slide

32. ...but she had demands!
    

    View Slide

33. They did exactly the same thing, but it didn’t work
    

    View Slide

34. They were thwarted by super heroes at every turn
    

    View Slide

35. And they all went to jail
    

    View Slide

36. Thankfully Ashley always has an escape plan
    

    View Slide

37. The future is already here - it’s
    just not evenly distributed
    — William Gibson
    

    View Slide

38. Every team is different
    

    View Slide

39. The Department for Feline Empowerment needed to go
    back to the drawing board
    

    View Slide

40. Ashley’s first few weeks
    

    View Slide

41. Ashley didn’t monologue - she listened and observed
    

    View Slide

42. Found the pain points and the gaps between vision and
    reality
    

    View Slide

43. Worked out what the problems were and what potential
    fixes could be
    

    View Slide

44. Tried them out one by one in real world villainous situations
    

    View Slide

45. She then looked back to see if they worked
    

    View Slide

46. What if Alex and Sam took the same approach
    and experimented with their teams?
    

    View Slide

47. What does Ashley
    know about teams?
    

    View Slide

48. View Slide

49. View Slide

50. TEAM
    Tools
    Process
    People
    

    View Slide

51. View Slide

52. Empathise
    Design Thinking
    Evil Scientist Rules
    Always have lots of
    evil schemes - you
    never know if there’s
    going to be a sequel
    Always start
    small
    Never get caught
    monologuing
    Always measure
    everything
    Always splice
    things together
    Ideate
    Prototype
    Test
    Synthesise
    

    View Slide

53. Design thinking is a human-centered
    approach to innovation that draws from
    the designer's toolkit to integrate the
    needs of people, the possibilities of
    technology, and the requirements for
    business success.
    — Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO
    

    View Slide

54. Stakeholder Mapping Team Metrics
    Empathise
    

    View Slide

55. Defining the stakeholders
    ● Who will be impacted by the project?
    ● Who will be responsible or accountable for the
    project?
    ● Who will have decision authority on the
    project?
    ● Who can support the project?
    ● Who can obstruct the project?
    ● Who has been involved in this type of project
    in the past?
    Keep informed Manage closely
    Monitor
    Anticipate and
    meet needs
    PMO
    CEO
    SA
    Ops
    Data
    PO
    BA
    UX
    EA
    Dev
    QA
    

    View Slide

56. A pattern of shared tacit assumptions that was
    learned by a group as it solved its problems of
    external adaptation and internal integration, that
    has worked well enough to be considered valid
    and, therefore, to be taught to new members as
    the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in
    relation to those problems.
    — Edgar Schein
    

    View Slide

57. Westrum typology to define
    culture
    Statement Your Score
    On my team, information is actively sought.
    On my team, failures are learning opportunities, and messengers of them are
    not punished.
    On my team, responsibilities are shared.
    On my team, cross-functional collaboration is encouraged and rewarded.
    On my team, failure causes enquiry.
    On my team, new ideas are welcomed.
    Likert Scale
    Strongly Disagree - 1
    Disagree - 2
    Somewhat disagree -3
    Neither agree nor
    disagree - 4
    Somewhat agree - 5
    Agree - 6
    Strongly agree - 7
    

    View Slide

58. Westrum typology to measure culture
    Pathological (power-oriented)
    Score 6-18
    Bureaucratic (rule-oriented)
    Score 19 - 30
    Generative
    (performance-oriented)
    Score 31-42
    Low co-operation Modest co-operation High co-operation
    Messengers shot Messengers neglected Messengers trained
    Responsibilities shirked Narrow responsibilities Risks are shared
    Bridging discouraged Bridging tolerated Bridging encouraged
    Failure leads to scapegoating Failure leads to justice Failure leads to enquiry
    Novelty crushed Novelty leads to problems Novelty implemented
    

    View Slide

59. Team Cohesion
    Trust
    Conflict
    Commitment
    Accountability
    Results
    Building trust requires
    vulnerability
    Healthy conflict implies
    candid debate
    Commitment
    follows healthy conflict
    To take
    accountability takes prior
    commitment
    Focus on delivering measurable
    results. Collective and individual
    accountability, and feedback
    

    View Slide

60. Deployment
    frequency
    Four Key Metrics
    Lead Time for
    change
    Mean time
    to recovery
    Change failure
    percentage
    Stability
    Speed
    

    View Slide

61. Empathise
    Service Health
    Check
    

    View Slide

62. The intent of maturity models is usually
    benign… because “maturity” sounds a bit…
    well…. patronizing. Plus, most of our
    models don’t involve progressing through
    different levels, and the primary audience
    is the team itself rather than management.
    — https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/16/squad-health-check-model/
    

    View Slide

63. “Deployment is all automatic”
    “We security test git on push”
    “Commit to VCS and the customers
    have it in seconds”
    “Anyone can do a deploy!”
    Continuous Delivery Continuous Delivery
    “Deployment Joe is the only one who
    can do that”
    “That’s the security team’s job”
    “The customers get it a quarter later”
    “Only some people can deploy”
    “We find out direct from our users by...
    “Our kanban board shows all the work,
    and where it is”
    “Our stories usually last no than half a
    sprint”
    "We weren’t sure so we ran an
    experiment”
    Product & Process
    Product & Process
    “I don’t really know what our users
    think”
    “Sometimes work comes from the
    backlog except...”
    “Sometimes stories last multiple sprints”
    “That’s the way we’ve always done it”
    Insert here....
    “Good statement”
    “Another good statement”
    “Good thing number three”
    “Fourth good thing”
    “Number five in the list of things that
    are good...”
    Insert here....
    “Bad statement”
    “This thing is bad too”
    “Terrible, terrible, bad thing”
    “Bad thing which is the norm, everyone does
    it but really shouldn’t”
    “Bad thing that we didn’t even know was
    bad”
    “Rather than a sign off process we pair
    program”
    “The app gathers metrics and decide
    what’s next”
    “Our checks spotted the problem before
    our customers DID”
    “We only take on one thing at a time”
    Lean Management &
    Monitoring
    Lean Management &
    Monitoring
    “Oh we need to wait for CAB before we
    release”
    “No idea how the business decides what
    to do next”
    “The customer reported it”
    “We’re constantly doing 7 or 8 things”
    “It was a week before we even noticed”
    Code Quality
    “Absolutely everything is in source
    control”
    “We automatically test on every
    commit”
    “There’s only really the master branch”
    “I can add as many or as few examples
    as I need”
    Code Quality
    “It’s in source control except...”
    “We manually have a look”
    “Our branches are around forever and
    there are loads of them”
    “...but the data wasn’t like that on prod”
    

    View Slide

64. Value Stream Mapping
    Service Blueprint
    Empathise
    

    View Slide

65. Value Stream Mapping
    CUSTOMER
    CREATE
    STORY
    ---------
    ANALYST
    DEVELOP
    FEATURE
    ---------
    ENGINEER
    DEPLOY
    TO PRE
    ---------
    DEL MGR
    TEST
    FEATURE
    ---------
    LCO
    AUTO.
    DEPLOY
    LT: 1D
    PT: 1H
    C&A: 90%
    AR: 14%
    LT: 15D
    PT: 1D
    C&A: 20%
    AR: 7%
    LT: 2D
    PT: 30 M
    C&A: 80%
    AR: 3.5%
    LT: 14D
    PT: 10D
    C&A: 60%
    AR: 71%
    TLT: 32D
    TPT: 11D 1H 30M
    AC&A: 60%
    TAR: 35%
    

    View Slide

66. Synthesise
    

    View Slide

67. View Slide

68. Ideate
    1-2-4-All
    

    View Slide

69. Ideate
    Hypothesis Generation
    

    View Slide

70. We believe
    Will result in
    We will know we have succeeded
    when
    
    

    View Slide

71. What is our
    one priority?
    What do we
    need to learn?
    What is our
    riskiest
    assumption?
    

    View Slide

72. Time Box
    Is the experiment
    timely?
    Can we get data faster?
    Would less data be
    sufficient?
    Metrics
    Qualitative or
    quantitative?
    Is it actionable?
    Is it Measurable?
    Fail Condition
    (If this happens, our
    hypothesis is clearly
    false!)
    Early Stop
    (If this happens, stop!
    Experiment is broken,
    retro!)
    Plan
    How will you collect the
    data?
    Is it Specific?
    Is it Achievable?
    Link to any supporting
    documents.
    

    View Slide

73. Prototype
    

    View Slide

74. Test (and share)
    

    View Slide

75. The future is already here - it’s
    just not evenly distributed
    — William Gibson
    

    View Slide

76. Journal
    

    View Slide

77. Many different ways
    Micro Journal
    Daily Journal
    Week Notes
    Blog
    Talks
    Ad-hoc
    

    View Slide

78. Measure
    

    View Slide

79. What is AWKSS?
    Awareness
    Willing
    Knowledge
    Skills
    Support
    

    View Slide

80. AWKSS
    Awareness
    Willing
    Knowledge
    Skills
    Support
    1 2 3 4 5
    

    View Slide

81. AWKSS
    Awareness
    Willing
    Knowledge
    Skills
    Support
    1 2 3 4 5
    

    View Slide

82. Copying Ashley’s first week they designed an
    experiment to run on with their teammates
    

    View Slide

83. x
    

    View Slide

84. x
    

    View Slide

85. View Slide

86. View Slide

87. Formulating it as an experiment made it easy get
    permission to fail (even with a terrifying boss)
    

    View Slide

88. Focus on value
    

    View Slide

89. Iterate and work out what works for that specific team
    

    View Slide

90. This allowed them to crush all opposition
    

    View Slide

91. And take over the world!
    

    View Slide

92. 92
    Today I learned hopefully something
    I will test that by doing something
    I will know it works for me
    when measure
    shows change in reading
    

    View Slide

93. Thank you!
    Come and say ‘Hi!’
    @armakunihq @zenonhannick
    

    View Slide

94. Thank you!
    

    View Slide

95. View Slide

96. View Slide

97. View Slide

98. View Slide

99. View Slide

100. View Slide

101. View Slide

102. View Slide

103. View Slide

104. View Slide

105. View Slide

106. View Slide

107. Learning Goal
     ● What do we need
     to learn?
     ● What is our riskiest
     assumption?
     ● What is our one
     priority?
     

     View Slide

108. Hypothesis/Assumptions
     ● Is it falsifiable?
     ● Is it specific?
     ● Is it causal? (eg. If X
     the Y?)
     ● Is it relevant to the
     learning goal?
     

     View Slide

109. Experiment Idea to Hypothesis
     We believe
     Will result in
     We will know we have succeeded when
     
     

     View Slide

110. Design Thinking
     Ideate
     Prototype
     Empathise
     Test
     Synthesise
     

     View Slide

111. Code Quality Code Quality
     “Absolutely everything is in source
     control”
     “We automatically test on every
     commit”
     “There’s only really the master
     branch”
     “I can add as many or as few
     examples as I need”
     “It’s in source control except...”
     “We manually have a look”
     “Our branches are around forever
     and there are loads of them”
     “...but the data wasn’t like that on
     prod”
     

     View Slide

112. Continuous Delivery Continuous Delivery
     “Deployment is all automatic”
     “We security test git on push”
     “Commit to VCS and the customers
     have it in seconds”
     “Anyone can do a deploy!”
     “Deployment Joe is the only one who
     can do that”
     “That’s the security team’s job”
     “The customers get it a quarter later”
     “Only some people can deploy”
     

     View Slide

113. Architecture Architecture
     “We can deploy any bit alone”
     “Just our team maintains this”
     “We never break backwards
     compatibility”
     "We chose our own tools”
     “We can’t deploy this alone”
     “Our team and Team X work on this”
     “Accidentally, we broke our clients
     code”
     “We had to use what they told us”
     

     View Slide

114. Product & Process Product & Process
     “We find out direct from our users
     by...
     “Our kanban board shows all the
     work, and where it is”
     “Our stories usually last no than
     half a sprint”
     "We weren’t sure so we ran an
     experiment”
     “I don’t really know what our users
     think”
     “Sometimes work comes from the
     backlog except...”
     “Sometimes stories last multiple
     sprints”
     “That’s the way we’ve always done
     it”
     

     View Slide

115. Lean Management
     & Monitoring
     Lean Management
     & Monitoring
     “Rather than a sign off process we
     pair program”
     “The app gathers metrics and
     decide what’s next”
     “Our checks spotted the problem
     before our customers DID”
     “We only take on one thing at a
     time”
     “Oh we need to wait for CAB before
     we release”
     “No idea how the business decides
     what to do next”
     “The customer reported it”
     “We’re constantly doing 7 or 8
     things”
     “It was a week before we even
     noticed”
     

     View Slide

116. Insert here.... Insert here....
     “Good statement”
     “Another good statement”
     “Good thing number three”
     “Fourth good thing”
     “Number five in the list of things that
     are good...”
     “Bad statement”
     “This thing is bad too”
     “Terrible, terrible, bad thing”
     “Bad thing which is the norm, everyone
     does it but really shouldn’t”
     “Bad thing that we didn’t even know
     was bad”
     

     View Slide