Pure Agile: Building a Culture Without Scrum, Kanban and XP

PURE
BUILDING A CULTURE without SCRUM, KANBAN AND XP
AGILE
CRAFTED BY LEMI ORHAN ERGIN CO-FOUNDER OF CRAFTGATE

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LEMi ORHAN ERGiN Co-Founder, Cra
ft
gate
active programmer, since 2001 with love

alumni, Sony Europe, eBay Turkey

scrum and xp practitioner, since 2007

community founder, Software Craftsmanship Turkey

unforgettable memories, apple root bug, 2017

co-founder, Craftgate: “One-Stop Shop” Payment Gateway
@lemiorhan
lemiorhanergin.com craftgate.io/en

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one day while we were in the room

for hours doing poker planning...

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Customers cannot pay their baskets.
 
What the heck are you doing?
 
I don’t care whatever you do Scrum or not.
 
I care if the system operating properly.

Leave the darn room and fix it!
the manager slammed the door

with full of hate and anger

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that made me think
what agile was and
what agile was really for

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Splitting big tasks into small pieces

Writing each small task down on post-its

Running sprints (1-3 weeks)

Doing regular plannings

Doing estimations (poker planning)

Measuring lots of metrics (velocity, burndown chart)

Having small teams (4-6 members)

Doing Daily Scrums to align

Having a Scrum Master in your team

Obeying the rules of Scrum written in the book
BEING AGILE IS ABOUT FOLLOWING
 
THE WELL-KNOWN FORMULA
I THOUGHT,
I’ve been working
in Scrum teams
since 2007

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Which real problems are we trying to resolve?

Do we focus fake problems that we created?

How do we define success in our product?

Are we able to deliver high quality output fast?

Are customers happy with the product?

Do we care about customer satisfaction?
I COULD NOT SEE WHAT ARE
 
THE REAL PROBLEMS OF
 
PRODUCT, CUSTOMER & TEAM
BUT,
we have answers, but
what are the questions ?
where is the context ?

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ELIMINATING WASTE AND
 
MANAGING THE FLOW
 
EVOLVE US GRADUALLY
THEN I THOUGHT,
Limit work-in-progress

Visualize the flow of work

Manage flow

Make process policies explicit

Implement feedback loops

Evolve experimentally

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Simple concepts, impressive purposes, reasonable
explanations but hard to get benefit in short term, even in
long term. Why?

If something is difficult to master, how can it be helpful to
an organization having tons of important problems to
resolve.

Do you really think shortening daily Scrum to 15 minutes is
more important than the problems your product has?
SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND BUT
DIFFICULT TO MASTER, WHY?
do we have to hire a coach or
get consultancy from others ?

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Test Driven Development

Pair & Mob Programming

Refactoring

Automated Testing

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Code Review

Evolutionary Architecture

Static Code Analysis
WITHOUT TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
 
IT’S NOT POSSIBLE TO BE AGILE
Monoliths / Microservices

Trunk Based Development

Design Principles

Feature Toggling

Consumer Driver Contract Testing

Acceptance Driven Development

Behavior Driven Development

Unit Testing

Continuous Deployment
THEN I THOUGHT,

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Pair & Mob Programming

Refactoring

Automated Testing

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Code Review

Evolutionary Architecture

Static Code Analysis
Monoliths / Microservices


Design Principles

Feature Toggling

Consumer Driver Contract Testing

Acceptance Driven Development

Behavior Driven Development

Unit Testing

Continuous Deployment
I CANNOT ACHIEVE WITH INDIVIDUAL EFFORT
 
CONVINCING WHOLE TEAM SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE
technical excellence
needs a lot of technical
knowledge and
a different mindset

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AGILE = DOING THE RIGHT THINGS RIGHT ?
is agile “the correct way”
to do things ?
AGILE = THE BEST ?

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AGILE = DOING THE RIGHT THINGS RIGHT ?
agile product management

agile project management

agile management

agile development

agile remote development

agile talent management

agile sales

agile teams

agile tools

agile boards

agile titles

agile transformation

agile methodologies

agile frameworks
agile business

agile testing

agile retrospectives

agile meetings

agile delivery

agile coaches

agile certifications

agile companies

agile metrics

agile mindset

agile delivery

agile organization

agile executives

agile leadership
world loved it

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Agile
AT TRAININGS & BOOKS
 
WHAT WE’RE TAUGHT
 
ABOUT AGILE AND
 
AGILITY IS USUALLY
 
HOW TO IMPLEMENT
 
SCRUM, KANBAN, XP
Scrum Values

Sprints

Scrum Roles Overview

Scrum Master

Product Owner

Development Team

Daily Stand-Up
Meeting

Sprint Planning
Meeting

Sprint Review Meeting

Sprint Retrospective

Backlog Refinement

User Stories

Acceptance Criteria

Release Planning

Story Points

Product Backlog

Sprint Backlog

Working Agreements

Definition of Ready

Definition of Done

Poker Planning

Product Increment

Task Estimating

Team Velocity

Burn-down Chart

Burn Up Chart

Spikes, Epics, Tasks
typical agenda of
an agile training

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product management

project management

management

development

remote development

talent management

sales

teams

tools

boards

titles

transformation

methodologies

frameworks
business

testing

retrospectives

meetings

delivery

coaches

certifications

companies

metrics

mindset

delivery

organization

executives

leadership
agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile
agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile

agile
WHAT THEY CARE
IS NOT AGILE

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WHAT THEY CARE
IS PRODUCT, TEAM
 
AND CUSTOMERS
 
AT ANY SCALE
product management

project management

management

development

remote development

talent management

sales

teams

tools

boards

titles

transformation

methodologies

frameworks
business

testing

retrospectives

meetings

delivery

coaches

certifications

companies

metrics

mindset

delivery

organization

executives

leadership

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Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility)
https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile.html
Reference:
Dave Thomas
The author of Agile Manifesto

Co-Author of The Pragmatic Programmer
Instead, let’s use a word that
describes what we do
Let’s abandon the word agile
 
to the people who don’t do things

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I trained people about Scrum, Kanban and XP

but I am not a follower of Scrum, Kanban or XP

I am not against Scrum, Kanban or XP

I won’t say Scrum, Kanban or XP doesn’t work

I say following them doesn’t mean being agile
execution is a
totally different world
 

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2001 Agile Manifesto
1992 Crystal Family of Methodologies

1994 Dynamic System Development Method

1995 Scrum

1996 Rational Unified Process

1997 Feature Driven Development

1999 Extreme Programming

1999 Adaptive Development
2003 Lean Software Development

2005 Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)

2007 Kanban Method

2007 Disciplined Agile
2011 Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

2011 Continuous Delivery

2012 Spotify Model

2015 Nexus

2018 Scrum@Scale
1960s Iterative&Incremental Development

1970s Waterfall Model

1970s Prototyping

1980s Spiral Model

1980s Evolutionary Delivery

1980s Rapid Application Development
AGILE
NOT INVENTED
BY AGILE MANIFESTO
It’s been already there for tens of years
 
with different names and styles
 
describing new ways of working
The authors of Agile Manifesto
 
were the ones who were experienced in
 
building successful projects/products
They extracted the winning mindset
 
and coined the term agile for describing them

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ALL WORK
PERFECTLY
UNDER SPECIFIC CONDITIONS
Scrum without XP is fine

Scrum with XP is also fine

SAFe is not evil and fits perfectly

Half Scrum, half Kanban are all fine

Doing Scrum by the book is fine

Kanban, ScrumBan, ScrumBanXP are all fine
WORKS FOR YOU

DOES NOT MEAN

WORKS FOR EVERYONE
AND VICE VERSA


1995 Scrum






2007 Kanban Method



2012 Spotify Model

2015 Nexus

2018 Scrum@Scale


1970s Prototyping

1980s Spiral Model



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BEING AGILE

WITHOUT

TALKING ABOUT AGILE
2020s
PURE AGILE
MOVEMENT


1995 Scrum






2007 Kanban Method



2012 Spotify Model

2015 Nexus

2018 Scrum@Scale


1970s Prototyping

1980s Spiral Model


to the basics
it’s time to go back

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NO PRESCRIBED RULES

NO FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

KEEP FOCUS ON CUSTOMER, TEAM & PRODUCT

REGULARLY EVALUATE YOUR NEEDS & PROBLEMS

SHAPE WHAT YOU DO BASED ON YOUR NEEDS

DO IF RESOLVES A REAL PROBLEM

STOP GENERATING FAKE PROBLEMS

GET BENEFIT FROM ALL EXISTING FRAMEWORKS

NOW IT’S TIME TO CREATE YOUR OWN MODEL
PURE AGILE
MOVEMENT


1995 Scrum






2007 Kanban Method



2012 Spotify Model

2015 Nexus

2018 Scrum@Scale


1970s Prototyping

1980s Spiral Model


2020s

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CULTURAL MODEL
PRACTICES
the behaviors
PRINCIPLES
the guidelines

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WELL-CRAFTED, UNIQUE
CORE PRINCIPLES TO DESIGN
“YOUR OWN”
CULTURAL MODEL

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AGILE
DON’T
TALK ABOUT
The very first rule of being agile:
Never talk about it!
The term agile is too abstract to describe concrete
practices and guidelines, like the words "winning"
or "the best". In reality, it is a reaction agains
traditional methods and mindsets.

Teams should aim for the values and principles by
focusing on the product, customer and the team,
not the term agile in any sense.
PRINCIPLE

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AGILE
DON’T
TALK ABOUT
The very first rule of being agile:
Never talk about it!
Stop sharing wise quotes having "agile" in it

Stop creating fake problems and reasons to realize rituals

Start learning how others succeed and compare with yours

Start referencing your values, your principles, your goals

Start talking about the needs of product, team & customer
PRINCIPLE

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Improvement starts with good observations and
pragmatic analysis. That can only be achieved when
 
you know your team, your team’s competence and
capabilities, weaknesses, exceptional situations,
 
personal preferences, knowledge level & priorities well.
 
Your own model should be suited for your team.
Know your team well

and trust!
Every team is special and unique
KNOW
YOUR TEAM
WELL
PRINCIPLE

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KNOW
YOUR TEAM
WELL Know your team well

and trust!
Every team is special and unique
PRINCIPLE
Earn trust by supporting them even in harsh conditions

Work/chat with everyone in your team almost in daily basis

Be with the team while doing the execution with them

Ask feedback from team about strengths and weaknesses

You can never succeed if you don’t know your team well

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Get management’s support

and direct facilitation
It’s one for all, all for one
The management should be the main supporter and
sponsorship of your model due to its power. Individual
teams or people can trigger the change but can never
cultivate an overall cultural evolution without the help of
management. If management does not want to change,
bottom-up initiative has little chance to win.
GET
MANAGEMENT’S
SUPPORT
AND SPONSORSHIP
PRINCIPLE

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GET
MANAGEMENT’S
SUPPORT
AND SPONSORSHIP
Get management’s support

and direct facilitation
It’s one for all, all for one
PRINCIPLE
Managers should know the pain of being in the kitchen

Managers should be accessible at any time, in any condition

Managers should be the role model for spreading wisdom

Managers should be a team member getting the things done

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Direct team’s focus to
 
an inspiring purpose
Motivation starts with a purpose
Loyalty, motivation, accountability, collaboration,
ownership, etc. all start with an inspiring purpose, the
purpose that directs the whole team’s focus on.

If what you build is only projects, stop hoping to be
agile. Completing projects on time is a goal, not a
purpose.
HAVE AN
INSPIRING
PURPOSE
PRINCIPLE

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SAMPLE PURPOSE
As the gateway on top of banks, virtual pos providers and
alternative payment methods,

we aim to deliver solutions to businesses getting online
payments by
• providing high quality features from domain experts

• providing fast support from the creators of the product

• providing developer-friendly, easy & single integration

• maximizing success rates to a level of above-expectancy
the strengths of
the team and product
what we really do
who we target
having it should make
you feed proud of

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Direct team’s focus to
 
an inspiring purpose
Motivation starts with a purpose
HAVE AN
INSPIRING
PURPOSE
PRINCIPLE
Stop setting purposes like agile/microservice transformation

Stop aiming to finish all the tasks you get in a sprint

Stop aiming “be the winner” and “dominate market”

Purpose should contain business vision and team’s strengths

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Define the base line
of your culture
Culture cannot be built. It changes all the time by a
newcomer or leaver. But it can be guided and shaped.
You should draw a baseline for your product and
your team that they can use as a reference point.
DEFINE
CORE
VALUES
AND
PRINCIPLES
PRINCIPLE

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what you do in reality

what you don’t do

toxic behaviors you allow

the crisis you handle
REAL

COMPANY

CULTURE
FAKE
 
COMPANY

CULTURE
values and practices
written on walls,
 
company culture books
 
and twitter PR posts
 
that nobody cares
WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL

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DEFINE
CORE
VALUES
AND
PRINCIPLES

PRINCIPLE
Hire the people increasing the social cohesion of the team

Never lose focus from increasing diversity and ethics

Be transparent about organization’s expectations and goals

Culture is shaped by the behaviors you don’t do

Base line is drawn harder with every crisis you face
Define the base line
of your culture

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Do you have a real need to run sprints or you just
follow what the books say? Evaluate what problems
or need you really have regularly with the team and
don’t do anything if any read problem is solved or any
real need shows itself.
DOING
IF NOT
REALLY
NEEDED
STOP
PRINCIPLE
Take action in case of

a real need
Stop proposing fake problems for rituals
and evaluate regularly

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DOING
IF NOT
REALLY
NEEDED
STOP
PRINCIPLE
Evaluate the real need before practicing a methodology

Start from a blank paper and add one by one gradually

Rituals and methodologies are tools, not the goals/purposes

Know what actions you can take in case of a need

Evaluate your current needs and change model accordingly
Take action in case of

a real need
Stop proposing fake problems for rituals
and evaluate regularly

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6 CORE PRINCIPLES

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WELL-CRAFTED, UNIQUE
CORE PRACTICES
“YOUR OWN”
CULTURAL MODEL
TO SHAPE
hundreds of practices,
rituals and methods
you can use in your model
including the ones in
Scrum, Kanban and XP

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with the whole team
continuously responding to change TO satisfy customers
FAST
FOR CORE PRACTICES
THE ULTIMATE GOAL
wait a minute !
isn’t it the meaning of agility ?

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with the whole team
continuously
responding
to change
TO satisfy customers
FAST
Each part of the goal has different
meanings from different perspectives
and contains set of concrete practices.

You should have a real reason, need,
problem to start doing any practice.
 
If not, never touch it.
FOR CORE PRACTICES
THE ULTIMATE GOAL

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responding FAST
Deliver FAST
LEARN FAST
PROVIDE SUPPORT FAST
decisions should be taken fast
develop FAST
MAKE IT LIVE FAST
ORGANIZATION LEVEL
TEAM LEVEL
TASK LEVEL
FROM TEAM MEMBERS
FROM CUSTOMERS
FROM PRODUCT
COMMUNICATE Fast
UNDERSTAND FAST
RESOLVE FAST

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responding FAST
LEARN FAST FROM TEAM MEMBERS
work closely together
retrospectives (grand, regular, ad-hoc), brainstorming
sessions, review meetings, open space
internal seminars/panels, code katas, book clubs, workshops
pair/mob prog, collaboration with product team during
BDD, collaboration with Test/QA experts during kickoffs
office chit-chats, 1-1 meetings, off-site gatherings
spend time together
discuss together
share together

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responding FAST
Deliver FAST Develop FAST
always BE READY TO DEPLOY
be domain expert, have test suite, spread knowledge
via pair/mob programming
be master at your tools and techs, refactor continuously
automated acceptance tests, have test suite, feature
toggles, microservices, micro-frontend, git branching
models, infra-as-code
4 rules of simple design, SOLID principles, coupling-cohesion,
boy-scout rules, bug-fixing procedures, refactoring techniques
KEEP EASY TO BE CHANGED
know where to change
produce/develop fast

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SUSTAINABLE FOCUS
continuously
SUSTAINABLE PACE
SUSTAINABLE QUALITY
SUSTAINABLE HEALTHY COMMUNICATION
SUSTAINABLE IMPROVEMENT
SUSTAINABLE THROUGHPUT
SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTIVITY
PEOPLE & TEAM QUALıTY
DECISION QUALITY
PRODUCT QUALITY
FOCUS TO PROCESS
FOCUS TO PRODUCT
FOCUS TO GOALS & PURPOSE

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continuously
SUSTAINABLE QUALITY PEOPLE & TEAM QUALITY
GROW LEADERS
improve hiring process, make job interviews a win-win,
hiring is too important not to leave it to human resources,
stop making mediocre programmers employable
mentorship sessions, pairing sessions, coaching sessions,
stop micro-management start listen-and-trust
stop giving seniority levels, focus on competence-not
working years, allow to experiment
HIRE A-PLAYERS
CLOSE MENTORSHIP

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continuously
SUSTAINABLE HEALTHY COMMUNICATION
aGREE ON TEAM STANDARDS
daily alignment, instant alignments, plannings, status
meetings, 1-1 meetings, company gatherings
small teams, modular architecture, microservices, do not
split without real need, keep cognitive load small
no seniority levels in titles, team defines the guidelines,
share both positive and negative feedback, retrospectives
align on a shared goal
ADAPT TO CONWAY’S LAW

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KEEP TRACK OF PROGRESS
keep the flow deterministic
be ready for the change
initiate and iterate the change
prioritize change
to change
CHANGE IN PRODUCT
CHANGE IN PROCESS
CHANGE IN PEOPLE & TEAM

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be ready for the change
to change
CHANGE IN PRODUCT
BE READY TO EXPERIMENT
low coupling-high cohesion, modular architecture,
separation of concerns, hexagonal architecture, solid
principles, continuous refactoring, tdd
feature toggles, trunk based development, continuous
delivery pipelines, continuous integration, automated testing
automatic provisioning, multi-environments, test
containers, git branches, feature toggles
BE READY FOR EXTENSION
Be READY FOR RELEASE

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meet expectations
surpass expectations
IDENTIFY EXPECTATIONS
For PROJECTS
FOR PRODUCTS

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surpass expectations
DELIGHT WITH COMMUNICATION
deliver high quality product fast, keep feature list as short
as possible, be the domain expert
release frequently, resolve bugs fast, low technical debt,
let the team initiate change
hear customers’ expectations, fast-honest-transparent
communication, answer with domain expertise
DELIGHT WITH PRODUCT
DELIGHT WITH DELIVERY
DELIGHT WITH COLLABORATION everyone in the team touches customers, sit together
with customers

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IMPROVE accountability & OWNERSHIP
improve competence
improve teamwork
with the whole team
cultivate professionalism
do not manage people manage the flow

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with the whole team
cultivate professionalism
OWN YOUR CAREER
keep calm under stress, be ethical, be storyteller, always
be kind, be passionate and disciplined, be eager to learn
and share, show respect
admit that always someone knows better than you, ask
for feedback, practice new techniques, focus on
fundamentals
never allow toxic behavior to spread, leave before you
lose your self-respect, invest in yourself
BE THE ROLE MODEL
BE AN APPRENTICE

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Event Storming

Impact Mapping

Prototyping

Pair Programming

Microservices

Daily Scrum

Mutation Testing

Architecture Brainstorming

Lightening Talks

Kanban Boards

Burn-up Charts

Happiness Index
Sprints

Product Backlog

Unit testing

Planning Game


Sustainable Pace

Mob Programming

OKRs and KPIs

Limit WIP

War Room

Replenishment meeting

Portfolio Management
Retrospective Meetings

Resilient Architecture

Clean Code

Poker Planning

Definition of Urgency

Spikes and Prototypes

Fast Lane

Community of Professionals

Weekly Rotating Support

Sit Together

Feature Toggling

with the whole team
continuously responding to change TO satisfy customers
FAST

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CREATE YOUR OWN MODEL
STOP CHASING SUCCESS FORMULAS
YOU ARE SPECIAL, YOU ARE UNIQUE
KNOW YOUR TEAM, FEEL YOUR PURPOSE,
 
IDENTIFY YOUR REAL NEEDS, SELECT PRACTICES
TOUCHING YOUR OWN NEEDS
START TODAY

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THANK YOU FOR

SHARING YOUR TIME

WITH ME
speakerdeck.com/lemiorhan

twitter.com/lemiorhan
lemi orhan ergin
co-founder, craftgate
mail: [email protected]

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Pure Agile: Building a Culture Without Scrum, Kanban and XP

Pure Agile: Building a Culture Without Scrum, Kanban and XP

Lemi Orhan Ergin

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