Rethinking Agile – Klaus Leopold

This presentation was given by Klaus Leopold from LEANability at the DevOps Meetup Zürich.

Why agile teams have nothing to do with business agility

In this talk I tell you about an Agile Transition in which about 600 people were involved. The declared goal was to shorten the time-to-market of initiatives so that we could respond more quickly to customer needs and thus increase business agility. To achieve this, a reorganisation was carried out. All teams were set up cross-functional so that the necessary knowledge for development is fully available in the team. In addition, the teams were set up by product to remove dependencies. Visualization of the work, stand-up meetings and retrospectives completed the Agile Transition - only the expected improvement failed to materialize. In this session I show what we have done to improve the situation and achieve the goal of "more business agility". I also show how to approach an agile transition of this magnitude so that you don't get into the awkward situation of not seeing improvements. Let me mention this much in advance: don't start at team level - that not only saves nerves but also a lot of money!

Transcript

1. Why Agile Teams Have Nothing rethinking AGILE To Do With Business Agility 20 June 2019, DevOps Meetup, Zürich, CH Dr. Klaus Leopold twitter: @klausleopold web: www.LEANability.com mail: klaus.leopold@LEANability.com
2. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com The Problem
3. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com INITIAL SITUATION a company wants to improve time to market of projects — be proactive on the market — — exploit opportunities in the market — — be prepared for continuous change—
4. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
5. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com •minimum requirements for teams: -visualization (board) -standup meetings -retrospectives -measurements: lead time, throughput www.LEANability.com AWESOME •cross functional teams •product teams •teams can chose their Agile method OVERVIEW OF THE AGILE TRANSITION
6. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com HOW WAS THE TRANSFORMATION DONE? 1.5 year transformation project was set up •600 people received basic agile training “Agile Mindset” • reorganization was carried out • AGILE was implemented team by team • support of 16 external coaches • 11 internal Agile Coaches were established
7. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com RESULTS AFTER ~12 MONTH ~80% teams were “fully transformed”
8. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com EVERYTHING IS GREAT, ISN’t IT ✓ boards ✓ standups ✓ retrospectives ✓ communication ✓ collaboration ✓ metrics www.LEANability.com
9. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com time expected actual velocity Scrum Sprint Velocity (throughput) trend, team level
10. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
11. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com time actual expected lead time Kanban Lead Time trend, team level
12. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
13. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com time expected actual lead time Time-to-Market Initiatives trend W T * ? ! ?
14. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com What do you think is the problem? quick reflection Have a short discussion with your neighbor(s). Present some ideas in the plenary.
15. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com the search for the causes
16. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com About dependencies and agile interactions
17. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG a typical (simplified) team board EXTERNAL WAITING
18. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG team 1 team 2 EXTERNAL WAITING NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG EXTERNAL WAITING
19. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com team dependency graph why are there still so many dependencies? —> multiple teams work on one product —> products are not completely independent —> we are talking about 600 people
20. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
21. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com team 1 team 2 team 3 team 4 customer wish: write a love letter
22. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com customer wish: write a love letter
23. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
24. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Agility of an organization is not about having many agile teams. Organizational agility is about having agile interactions between teams. Klaus Leopold
25. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
26. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Great to see the teams working so well. But does team 3 know what team 2 is doing?
27. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com no agile interactions between the teams
28. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com About the workflow
29. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG another typical team board EXTERNAL WAITING
30. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION EXTERNAL WAITING
31. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE EXTERNAL WAITING
32. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE WAITING 4 RELEASE quarterly monthly EXTERNAL WAITING
33. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE WAITING 4 RELEASE quarterly monthly EXTERNAL WAITING
34. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DON DEVELOP WAITING BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE WAITING 4 RELEASE ANALYZE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT BACKLOG WAITING
35. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT BACKLOG ANALYZE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT BACKLOG WAITING DETAIL CONCEPT ROUGH CONCEPT WAITING 4 APPROVAL WAITING 4 STEERING
 COMMITTEE WAITING WAITING IDEA TRIAGE POOL OF NEW IDEAS
36. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE WAITING 4 RELEASE ANALYZE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT BACKLOG DETAIL CONCEPT ROUGH CONCEPT WAITING 4 APPROVAL WAITING 4 STEERING
 COMMITTEE WAITING IDEA TRIAGE POOL OF NEW IDEAS WAITING WAITING WAITING we are so fucking AGILE, yay!! monthly quarterly yearly quarterly monthly
37. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT DONE DEVELOP BACKLOG WAITING 4 INTEGRATION WAITING 4 ACCEPTANCE WAITING 4 RELEASE ANALYZE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT BACKLOG DETAIL CONCEPT ROUGH CONCEPT WAITING 4 APPROVAL WAITING 4 STEERING
 COMMITTEE WAITING IDEA TRIAGE POOL OF NEW IDEAS WAITING WAITING WAITING we are so fucking AGILE, yay!! maybe this is Agile software development but this has NOTHING to do with
 business agility!! this company is as lame on the market as before
38. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com no end-2-end management of the value STREAM
39. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com About the strategic portfolio
40. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NEXT REALIZE BACKLOG EXTERNAL WAITING and another typical team board REVIEW DONE (2) (8) (4) Work In Process limits - AWESOME!!
41. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Work In Process limits are AWESOME!! - reduce delivery risk - increase predictability - increase system stability - … - reduce switching overhead - reduce cycle time & time to market - reduce cost of delay
42. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Work In Progress limits are AWESOME!! - reduce delivery risk - increase predictability - increase system stability - … - reduce switching overhead - reduce cycle time & time to market - reduce cost of delay You need to limit work items where you want to achieve the benefits!
43. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com epic story task initiative (project) area of influence at team level don’t be surprised when you don’t see any improvement in TTM if you don’t manage TTM elements
44. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com no agile strategic portfolio management
45. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com THE PROBLEMS no agile strategic portfolio management no end-2-end management of the value STREAM no agile interactions between the teams
46. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Which of these problems sound familiar to you? What are the biggest challenges in your context? Have a short discussion with your neighbor(s). quick reflection
47. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com First Solutions Awesome!
48. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com NO agile interactions between teams
49. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com product 1 product 2 product 3 do NOT optimize organizational structures (=teams)! optimize value delivery (=products/services)! we built product boards to manage intra-product dependencies
50. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com We've found a dependency to you guys. Maria is an expert on it. She is currently working on X. What do we do?
51. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com —> product standups —> product retrospectives —> product replenishments FEEDBACK LOOPS
52. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com product 1 product 2 product 3 only inter-product dependencies remain we established operational portfolio management to manage inter-product dependencies
53. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com The Operational Portfolio Board Analyze Realize Accept Delivery DONE External waiting Product 1 Product 2 Product 3
54. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com —> portfolio standups —> portfolio retrospectives —> portfolio replenishments FEEDBACK LOOPS
55. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com no end-2-end management of the value stream
56. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com we simplified the upstream DEV 
 READY ANALYZE BACKLOG DONE PRODUCT 1 PRODUCT 2 PRODUCT 3 DEVELOP UA SHIP WAITING 4 APPROVAL ROUGH CONCEPT biweekly we brought business on board WIP LIMITS APPLY HERE!!
57. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com —> standup + business —> retrospectives + business —> replenishment + business FEEDBACK LOOPS
58. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com no agile strategic portfolio management
59. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com MAKE MONEY INVESTMENTS BIZ
 METRICS COMPANY STRATEGY POOL OF EVALUATED IDEAS NEXT TOP 5 EVALUATED IDEAS IN DEVELOPMENT MEASURE
 SUCCESS & TWEAK ADAPT
 &
 TWEAK IMPACT (NOT) ACHIEVED REALIZATION DONE REVIEW IIP IDEAS information radiator ideation & prioritization development & measurement The Strategic Portfolio Board
60. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com —> standup —> retrospectives —> strategy review FEEDBACK LOOPS
61. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com THE PROBLEMS no agile strategic portfolio management no end-2-end management of the value STREAM no agile interactions between the teams
62. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com business agility is no team sport! it’s company sport!! @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
63. @klausleopold www.LEANability.com Level 1: operational … B C DONE A team 1 B C DONE A team 2 B C DONE A team N @klausleopold www.LEANability.com FLIGHt levels
64. Level 1: operational Level 2: end-2-end coordination … B C DONE A team 1 B C DONE A team 2 B C DONE A team N @klausleopold www.LEANability.com C DONE B A C DONE B A C DONE B A FLIGHt levels @klausleopold www.LEANability.com @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
65. coord 1 coord 2 coord N Level 1: operational Level 2: end-2-end coordination … B C DONE A team 1 B C DONE A team 2 B C DONE A team N @klausleopold www.LEANability.com deliver DONE realize concept deliver DONE realize concept C DONE B A FLIGHt levels @klausleopold www.LEANability.com @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
66. coord 1 coord 2 coord N Level 1: operational … B C DONE A team 1 B C DONE A team 2 B C DONE A team N @klausleopold deliver DONE realize concept deliver DONE realize concept C DONE B A B C D A Level 3: strategy Level 2: end-2-end coordination www.LEANability.com FLIGHt levels @klausleopold www.LEANability.com @klausleopold www.LEANability.com
67. B C D A B C DONE A B C DONE A B C DONE A coord 1 coord 2 coord N Level 1: operational Level 3: strategy … team 1 team 2 team N @klausleopold DELIVER COORDINATE B C D A PRIORITIZE deliver DONE realize concept deliver DONE realize concept C DONE B A Level 2: end-2-end coordination www.LEANability.com @klausleopold www.LEANability.com FLIGHt levels
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