How to empower engineering teams to improve, at scale

With fast flow approaches like Continuous Delivery and Team Topologies, there will be a range of different practices and techniques across different teams and streams. How can you find and emphasise the good practices? How do teams know what good looks like? And how can you assess these practices across tens or hundreds of teams on a regular basis? Join experts Benedict Steele (Armakuni) and Matthew Skelton (Conflux) as they discuss the Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment (MSDA), an open approach to assessing and empowering engineering teams.

- Armakuni: https://armakuni.com
- Conflux: https://confluxhq.com
- Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment: https://softwaredeliveryassessment.com

Transcript

1. How to empower engineering teams to improve, at scale Matthew Skelton and Benedict Steele 1
2. Photo goes here Benedict Steele Chief Delivery Officer, Armakuni 20 years in technology, product, and engineering
3. Photo goes here Matthew Skelton Founder, Conflux Co-author of Team Topologies
4. Empower engineering teams to improve, at scale: ➔ Use the Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment (MSDA) ➔ Accelerate effective adoption via a partner like Armakuni or Conflux 4
6. Different practices and techniques across different teams and streams 6
7. How do teams know what good looks like? 7
8. Assess these practices across tens or hundreds of teams … 8
9. … on a regular basis? 9
10. Empower the teams to improve 10
11. 11 Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment (MSDA)
12. 12 Holistic exploration of the team - covering people, process, and tools
13. 13 Testing and Testability Team Health Deployment Flow Operability Continuous Delivery Reliability and SRE On-call Security Team Topologies
14. 14 Discover Delivery Blockers Establish Team Metrics Accelerate Change Initiatives
15. 15 Engaged Teams Teams are engaged by the assessment process and show increased enthusiasm for change and improvements Clear Position Increased clarity on the current state of software delivery within the organisation and a clear picture of where to go next Energized for Change The organisation is ready to tackle improvements and new ways of working, including rolling out further assessments
16. 16 The core of the Assessment uses a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA), giving you the freedom to adapt and extend the material as your organisation grows and changes. SoftwareDeliveryAssessment.com
17. 17 • 200+ teams • Many different organisations • Multiple verticals incl. Finance, Media, Charity, Health, Government, Insurance, B2B, B2C • Organisations of all sizes from start-up/scale-ups to long lived institutions • Teams as diverse as AI/ML, CoTS, Infrastructure, Application Development, Mobile Apps Where have we deployed this?
18. Case Study GOV.UK - 2018 18
19. Case Study 19 700+ people in total 70+ engineering teams, 7 locations Time-critical delivery (#Brexit) Most of 2018
20. Engineering Assessments 20 6 dimensions [in 2018]: Team Health, Deployment, Continuous Delivery, Flow, Operability, Testing “Viral” facilitation model
21. Engineering Assessments 21 Criteria taken from existing sources: Spotify Team Health Check, DevOps for the Modern Enterprise, Continuous Delivery, Accelerate, Team Guide to Software Operability, Team Guide to Software Testability
25. Case Study 25 Media Company 2020 - 2022
26. 26 Over 250 people 35+ engineering teams 7 depts Globally distributed Over 250 applications Diverse mix of technology
27. 27 👍 👎
29. • Knowledge drain • Task switching • Relearning • Rework • Partially completed work • Overly complicated solutions • Siloed work • Unsupported legacy software • Waiting around • Defects • Single points of failure • Handoffs between teams • Unnecessary features • Unnecessary processes • Manual work • Poor communication What were we looking for? 29 How many of these problems seem familiar?
31. 31 MSDA + Westrum Organisational Culture + Employee Advocacy (eNPS) + Psychological Safety + DORA 4 Key Metrics + Stakeholder mapping
32. The Four States of Competence The Four States of Competence by Noel Burch, of Gordon Training International. 32 Concious Incompetence “I know what I don’t know” Conscious Competence “I can do what I know” Unconcious Incompetence “I don’t know what I don’t know” Unconscious Competence “What I know is second nature” Consciousness Competence
33. 33 “Armakuni have provided us with the evidence to present to the board to drive change. The views they have given us lead to clear, measurable action that we can communicate throughout the organisation.” Technology Platforms Director - Media Company
35. MSDA can make you rich 🤓 35
36. 36 What Ak & Conflux have learnt Success patterns for MSDA from Armakuni & Conflux
37. Aim to help the teams gain a shared understanding and shared mental models 39
38. Look for the delta - explore the difference between high and low scores 40
39. Move the team from ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘concious incomptence’ and beyond 41
40. Make time for improvements 42
41. Never use MSDA to make direct comparisons between teams ⚠ 43
42. Start small: work with 1 or 2 teams initially 44
43. The purpose is team empowerment, not “judgement” 45
44. Viral facilitation works best in a Generative culture 46
45. Beware of “parroting” - facilitators need to understand the value of the practices in the assessment 47
46. Facilitators need genuine curiosity 48
47. 49 agilestationery.com
48. 51 SoftwareDeliveryAssessment.com
49. empower engineering teams to improve, at scale: ➔ use the Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment (MSDA) ➔ accelerate effective adoption via a partner like Armakuni or Conflux 54
50. 55 thank you armakuni.com confluxhq.com SoftwareDeliveryAssessment.com Copyright © 2022 Conflux group of companies. All RIghts Reserved.