Dealing With Outside Pressure

Transcript

1. Dealing With
   Outside
   Pressure -
   Staying
   Scrum
   !
   Heather L. Rainey, PMP, PSM
   Craig Stuntz, just some guy
   Improving Enterprises
   Want this to be interactive.
   

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2. Slides
   https://speakerdeck.com/craigstuntz
   2
   

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3. 3
   We’re adopting agile. Going scrum. It works great and spreads. Software projects run more smoothly,
   morale is higher, more projects are kicked off, clients are confident. Didn’t it work this way for you?
   Why aren’t we getting these results?
   

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4. • Agile software development framework
   • Iterative & incremental
   • Roles: Team Member, Product Owner,
   ScrumMaster
   • Specific artifacts: Product increment, product
   backlog, sprint backlog, burndown
   • Activities: Backlog refinement, sprint
   planning, daily scrum, sprint retrospective
   • Emphasizes self-organization, collaboration,
   and communication
   What is Scrum?
   4
   https://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/core-scrum-values-roles
   I’m going to talk about Scrum because that’s what I know best. However, the need to deal with
   outside interference is common to all processes. Not just software!
   

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5. 5
   These are the core scrum principles. In your agile implementations, have you implemented all of
   these? Are all of these principles important or are some less important than others?
   

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6. 6
   Does agile manifesto talk about how to do things? Does it say we should do without documentation or
   a plan? Remember, especially, the first point. Important!
   

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7. What is “Outside Pressure?”
   7
   The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
   (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
   (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
   

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8. What is “Outside Pressure?”
   • “He’s interrupting my flow!”
   7
   The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
   (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
   (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
   

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9. What is “Outside Pressure?”
   • “He’s interrupting my flow!”
   • “She is not doing her part!”
   7
   The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
   (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
   (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
   

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10. What is “Outside Pressure?”
    • “He’s interrupting my flow!”
    • “She is not doing her part!”
    7
    What is “Inside Pressure?”
    The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
    (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
    (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
    

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11. What is “Outside Pressure?”
    • “He’s interrupting my flow!”
    • “She is not doing her part!”
    7
    What is “Inside Pressure?”
    • “I’ve committed to something I don’t
    understand. I need help!”
    The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
    (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
    (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
    

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12. What is “Outside Pressure?”
    • “He’s interrupting my flow!”
    • “She is not doing her part!”
    7
    What is “Inside Pressure?”
    • “I’ve committed to something I don’t
    understand. I need help!”
    • “Am I delivering value for the business?”
    The interesting thing about “outside pressure” is that it can mean (click) two entirely opposite things.
    (click) Also, we can better understand this by asking ourselves how other people might view our team.
    (click) What does your understanding of outside pressure say about your team and environment?
    

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13. Software Teams: Still Not Special
    Snowflakes
    8
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/14486460@N00/3727474586/
    Won’t win friends here, but… I’m first and foremost a developer. Proud. But question anyone who tries
    to tell you that software development is uniquely difficult work. Software pros are in demand, but
    other jobs are hard, too. Other jobs need flow.
    

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14. 9
    Why Scrum?
    Why do we change to Scrum? Something’s broken; Scrum seems to be helping other people. But real
    change harder than mere practices. Change is hard! People are complex and difficult!
    

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15. 10
    Process change often brings good results. However, it does not guarantee success.
    

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16. What’s Holding Your Team Back?
    • ScrumBut
    • “Doing” Scrum without heart
    • Company culture
    11
    What is holding us back? ScrumBut (defined next slide).
    Doing scrum without heart? The big one is company culture. Organizations develop a culture, and it is
    very difficult to change. When an organization has been around for a long time, it is more difficult to
    change.
    

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17. ScrumBut
    • ScrumButs are reasons why teams can’t take full
    advantage of Scrum to solve their problems and
    realize the full benefits of product development using
    Scrum
    • Syntax: (ScrumBut) (Reason) (Workaround)
    • Example: “(We use Scrum, but) (sometimes our
    managers give us special tasks,) (so we don’t always
    have time to meet our definition of done)”
    !
    Source: Ken Schwaber, Scrum.org
    !
    What “ScrumButs” do you have?
    12
    What is the problem with ScrumBut? Is it OK to compromise and when? What are the effects of
    ScrumBut? No special snowflakes. There is even a formal syntax!
    What are some of your ScrumButs?
    

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18. Cherry Picking Practices
    “Scrum is like chess. You either play it as
    its rules state, or you don’t.” – Ken Schwaber
    !
    • Scrum is easy to learn but difficult to master
    13
    Can’t change the way the bishop moves.
    Can add a timer without changing how the bishop moves. Can add but not take away.
    Scrum is very good at finding problems!
    

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19. ScrumAnds
    14
    http://hingchanscrum.blogspot.com/2011/12/mes-deux-cents-planning-poker-et.html
    I invented this word.
    Scrum is small. Keep it that way. Compromise on non-Scrum practices. You probably can live without
    planning poker. Choose your battles.
    

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20. 15
    Shu Ha Ri (Hairy Shoe) comes from martial arts and pertains to software development as well. Going
    from novice learner to expert.
    

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21. 16
    In Karate Kid a boy is told to wax the car although he just wants to learn karate.
    Shu follows rules. Ha understands rules, starts to modify. Ri (master) fully incorporates and transcends
    rules. In order to “resist” outside pressure, you need to understand when you can compromise and
    what’s a healthy compromise.
    

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22. Shu
    • Learning the process basics &
    team members
    • Growing rapport socially &
    professionally
    • Mimicking the practices
    • Learning to work together
    • Following the rules
    • Learning the process
    • A collection of skilled
    individuals learning their roles
    Ha
    • Starting to question practices
    • Understanding the practices and
    the importance of the principles
    & values
    • Coming to a deeper
    understanding of the art than
    pure repetitive practice will
    allow
    • Beginning to move beyond a
    collection of skilled individuals
    • Developing their own
    personalities
    • Beginning to change the rules
    17
    Shu: When a team starts Scrum, follow the rulebook!
    Ha: Start to question the practices. “Do we need a daily standup? What are you replacing it with?”
    People over processes.
    

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23. Ri
    • Creating output greater than
    the sum of the work of the
    individuals
    • Breaking the rules to gain an
    advantage
    • Progressing more through self-
    discovery than instruction
    • Consistently thinking and
    acting as a unit
    • Adjusting with little friction
    Becoming Ri
    • Fewer than 5% of teams achieve Ri
    and there is no average timeline
    • Stable in terms of staffing over
    time
    • Team is small; less than 10 people
    • Empowered to change its process
    • Incorporates the core values in
    their work
    • Bonding via a difficult challenge
    • Committed to shared success
    • Hungry to learn
    • Willing to accept change
    • Eager to experiment with new
    ideas
    18
    Ri: Fewer than 5%. Not an average timeline. Need small team. “2 pizza team.” Scrum promises but
    doesn’t always deliver.
    

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24. Benefits of Ri Teams
    • Provably Better – We don’t just think we are outperforming
    waterfall, we have metrics to prove it
    • Hyper-productivity – The team will be able to produce quality
    software at an amazing rate enabling a faster time to market
    and lower costs
    • Extremely Efficient – The team will efficiently estimate, plan
    execute and report progress & impediments
    • Higher Quality – Fewer defects will result from their work
    • Predictable & Consistent – Their velocity is well known,
    consistent & range bound allowing for greater confidence in
    future delivery estimates
    • Improved Morale – Members want to work together more for the
    betterment of the team
    • Improved Stakeholder Satisfaction – Business sponsors will enjoy
    working with the team
    19
    Great teams are great!
    Beware! Working well with your team doesn’t make you Ri. Might not be open to change!
    

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25. 20
    What’s the chance any of these people are ever going to get to Ri? How are they going to implement
    any of these principles? Are they going to be successful, or will there be a lot of ScramButs there?
    

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26. 21
    The roots of the tree are our values. Must be able to connect those values to what you do as a team.
    Have to have strong roots or you cannot grow. Software team interacts with a lot of other groups;
    they must understand the same values.
    

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27. 22
    “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” You can’t just go through a
    checklist and continue following a checklist sprint after sprint. You’ve got to be committed to the
    project you're working on and to the team. We work with people, they are are co-workers, managers
    and customers. To withstand external pressures to dilute or move away from Scrum, which may come
    with all the best intentions to help bring improvements, we need to be able to connect the practices
    and principles to the fruits they bear with respect to customer relationships, creativity, innovation,
    teamwork and quality. Even harder when dealing with people outside the team.
    

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28. Have Heart
    • Build trust
    • Focus on relationships
    • Internalize the values
    • Expect high performance
    • Link values to outcomes
    • Identify areas for improvement and
    connect to values
    23
    How do we establish trust outside of the team? By building good products. By sticking to your
    commitments. By being transparent. Focus on Relationships. What is the value for “them?” Can you
    help with their pain? Hard for developers! Link values to outcomes.
    

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29. 24
    Adopting just some of the Agile practices can improve productivity. Doing agile does not mean being
    agile. Scrum is meant to be disruptive and bring problems to the surface. Cargo cult agile does not.
    

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30. 25
    And the elephant in the room… The organization’s culture is the biggest impact on agile adoption.
    

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31. Conway’s Law
    26
    “…organizations which design systems …
    are constrained to produce designs which
    are copies of the communication
    structures of these organizations…”
    !
    —Melvin Conway
    “How Do Committees Invent?”
    Deal with it, or change the structure, and then deal with it.
    

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32. 27
    Let’s talk about culture in more detail. Culture is so difficult to change because if you are not even
    aware of it, how are you going to go about changing it? Confusing for newcomers.
    

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33. 28
    What is “Organizational Culture?”
    • The values and behaviors that
    contribute to the unique social &
    psychological of an organization.
    • Includes an organization’s
    expectations, experiences,
    philosophy and values that hold it
    together
    • Expressed in its self-image, inner
    workings, interactions with the
    outside world and future
    expectations
    • Based on shared attitudes, beliefs,
    customs and written & unwritten
    rules that have been developed over
    time
    AKA “The Mirrortocracy.”
    

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34. 29
    Edgar Schein – culture is the most difficult organizational attribute to change, outlasting
    organizational products, services, founders, leadership and all other physical attributes of the
    organization.
    

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35. 30
    Schneider Culture Model
    1.Collaboration is about working together
    2.Control is about getting & keeping control
    3.Competence is about being the best
    4.Cultivation is about learning and growing with a sense of purpose
    !
    Depending on the type of work, one type of culture may be a better fit
    Most companies have a dominant culture with elements from the other 3 quadrants
    !
    Most companies are in the Control and Competence areas. Can you figure out what your company’s
    culture is from the descriptions? And what does this mean to a change in how software is built?
    

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36. 31
    Agile Culture
    Collaboration Control
    Cultivation Competence
    Individuals &
    Interactions
    Business people & developers
    must work together daily
    throughout the project
    The best architectures, requirements
    and designs emerge from
    self-organizing teams
    The most efficient &
    effective method of
    conveying information…
    is face to face conversation
    Agile processes
    promote
    sustainable
    development…
    Welcome changing
    requirements, even
    late in development
    Build projects around motivated
    individuals. Give them the
    environment & support they
    need & trust them to get the job done
    At regular intervals, the team
    reflects on how to become more
    effective, then tunes & adjusts
    its behavior accordingly
    Continuous attention to technical
    excellence & good design
    enhances agility
    Agile lives in the Collaboration and and Cultivation quadrants. It’s about people. Check out how the
    Agile Manifesto lines up with Schenider’s model.
    

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37. 32
    Changing culture is very difficult. To protect the team from outside pressure, we need to actually
    change the culture to be more accepting of this way of doing work.
    

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38. Starting Questions
    • What is the current culture?
    • How well is the culture aligned with
    Scrum?
    • What problems may I expect (or have) due
    to misalignment?
    33
    ?s we must ask at first. Start w/ understanding the culture. Think about the problems with either
    organization (turf), change (scary), requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley and what that means. Those
    are obstacles that need to b considered. Who are the potential allies?
    

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39. Patterns of Adoption
    • Supportive Organization
    – Enterprise Transition Team
    – ADAPT
    • Mismatched Culture
    – Identify practices that match the dominant
    culture
    – Pain-driven adoption of practices
    – Become as Agile as possible
    34
    Different approaches needed. However, level of “support” might be different locally versus entire
    company. Will cover ADAPT later.
    

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40. 35
    In a supportive culture, enterprise transition team. What is not working in the current process, why do
    we want to consider a change? A minimal framework is developed.
    

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41. 36
    Apply for pilot projects; inspect and adapt.
    

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42. 37
    Transfer ownership to communities of practice. It is no longer owned by the transition team. It is
    owned by the people who are actually doing the work.
    

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43. 38
    ADAPT
    1. Awareness: the current
    process is not delivering
    acceptable results
    2. Desire: adopt Scrum as a
    way to address current
    problems
    3. Ability: succeed with Scrum
    4. Promotion: sharing
    experiences to remember
    and demonstrate successes
    5. Transfer: Scrum throughout
    the organization
    Source: Mike Cohn, Succeeding With Agile
    This presumes a supportive environment. Not possible without executive buy-in. Do not fight
    executives based on supposed merits of process. Do your homework and be prepared to show value in
    dollars and cents. Don’t just repeat what you heard at Agile.Next!
    

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44. 39
    Mismatched Culture
    • Identify practices that support the culture
    • Focus on practices rather than discussing
    mindsets and “big ideas”
    • Adopt practices to address specific
    problems
    • Many companies not ready
    • Tools
    • Culture
    • Project Management
    • Software Process
    • Physical Environment
    In a mismatched culture support may come from leadership, with words but the supporting actions
    may not be present or degrade over time. If the organization is not ready for Scrum, the individual
    practices may be slowly implemented. Control culture? How about empirical data and time-boxing as
    a start. Visibility!
    

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45. Containers, Differences & Exchanges
    • Approach for effecting change
    in organizations
    • Method to understand the
    context of a group &
    highlights ways of effecting
    change
    • Supportive tool about how to
    influence a system
    • Connect agents together
    within the container and
    across differences
    40
    Containers are boundaries within which self-organization occurs
    Differences among the agents in our system (technical knowledge, domain knowledge, education,
    experience, power)
    Exchanges in the system interact & exchange resources (information, money, energy)
    Can influence how a team self-organizes by altering these (CDE)
    !
    Used as a tool to understand the culture
    

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46. 41
    Good fences make good neighbors! However, you must remove these barriers over time, or you will
    not be able to continue with your agile practice. All it will take is a protective manager disappearing
    and… Barriers are temporary.
    

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47. Scrum Enterprise Implementations
    • Consequences of focusing on implementing
    Scrum techniques and neglecting the
    people in the social system:
    – Although they use Scrum techniques, some
    projects are successful and others are not
    – Projects fail because the change in values is
    not explicitly managed or because the
    management does not support the Scrum values
    42
    Important part: Projects fail because the change in values is not explicitly managed or because the
    management does not support the Scrum values
    

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48. Staying Scrum
    1. Understand the motivation
    2. Identify barriers to adoption
    3. Develop expertise
    4. Make a plan
    5. Play by the rules
    6. Develop adaptations
    7. Identify champions
    8. Focus on the people
    9. Demonstrate success
    10.Have heart
    11.Be patient!
    43
    Be Patient
    No magic formula to a successful outcome. But this is a reasonable way to start.
    

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