ADAPTing to Agile

© 2009 Mountain Goat Software
© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®
ADAPTing
to Agile
Mike Cohn
[email protected]
June 7, 2010
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Mike Cohn
Founding member and
director of Agile Alliance
and Scrum Alliance
Founder of Mountain
Goat Software
Doing Scrum since 1995
Started my career as a
programmer
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Agenda
Why transitioning to agile is hard
ADAPTing to agile development
Iterating toward agility
The role of leadership
Overcoming resistance
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Two simplistic views of change:
Top down: Powerful leader shares a vision
Bottom-up: A team starts and everyone else sees the
.1:1P@?;2@41:1C-<<>;-/4
But, transitioning to agile is neither top-down nor
bottom-up
It’s both at the same time
Change is not top-down or bottom-up;
it’s both
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It is tempting to codify things that work in a given
context into best practices
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Once we know what’s “best” we stop adapting
Or even thinking about what we’re doing
Once we’ve stopped inspecting and adapting we’re
not agile, or won’t be for long
Best practices are tempting
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†Anderson, P. “Seven Layers for Guiding the Evolving Enterprise”
in The Biology of Business.
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The transition process must be congruent
with the development process
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Self-organize
Write feature 1
Write feature 2
Part of the move to agile is a
move to self-organizing teams
Moving to self-organization
requires self-organization!
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Traditional view of the organization is as a machine
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Organizations are unpredictable, living systems
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Assessment Gap Analysis Plan
Current
State
Desired
State
Vision
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We need a different mental model
The organization as a Complex Adaptive System
(CAS)
John Holland in Complexity: The Emerging Science at the
Edge of Order and Chaos.E 5@/4188*-80>;<
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agents
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Local agents (individuals, project teams, discipline
coworkers) identify local gaps based on their goals
Vision
Current
State
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Desired
State
Current
State
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Desired
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Current
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Closing the gap with
the desired state
Newtonian View
of Success
Achieving a good ﬁt
with the environment
CAS View
of Success
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Traditional
view
CAS view
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Traditional
view
CAS view
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Relationships are empowering
Responsiveness to the environment is the
measure of value
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value
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tensions
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Agenda
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Awareness that there is room for
improvement
A
Desire@;/4-:31
D
Ability to work in an agile manner
A
Promote1->8E?A//1??1?@;.A580
momentum and get others to follow
P
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T
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We also have the issue with at least one other developer as
well.”
1. Is this a problem of Awareness, Desire or Ability?
A Why?
2. Thinking about ADAPT, what might you try?
?
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All individuals will need to move through the
Awareness, Desire, and Ability stage
But will do so at different rates
Early adapters and leaders:
Use the Promote stage to build Awareness
and Desire in later adopters
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fail
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Tools for building...
Awareness
HCommunicate that there’s a problem
HUse metrics
HProvide exposure to new people and experiences
HFocus attention on the most important reason or
two for changing
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On the following slides, identify
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create ability, promote the
transition, and transfer its
implications.
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Desire Ability
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Transfer
Promote
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Stop!
My thoughts on desire,
ability, transfer and promote
are on the following pages.
You don’t want to see them
before you think about your
own.
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Tools for building...
Desire
HCommunicate that there’s a better way
HCreate a sense of urgency
HBuild momentum
HGet the team to take agile for a test drive
HAlign incentives (or, at least, remove disincentives)
HFocus on addressing any fears
HHelp people let go
HDon’t discredit the past
HEngage everyone in the transition
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Ability
HProvide coaching and training
HHold individuals accountable
HShare information
HSet reasonable targets
HJust do it
Promote
HPublicize success stories
HHost an agile safari
HAttract attention
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Transfer
HTransfer the effects of agile beyond the current group
AA team transfers to its department
AA department transfers to its division
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HIf you don’t transfer, the transition will eventually and
inevitably fail
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status quo
HExample:
AIf you don’t align promotions, raises, annual reviews, those
will work against you
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Agenda
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Enterprise Transition Community
(ETC)
Improvement
backlog
Improvement Communities
Improvement
backlog
Improvement
backlog
Improvement
backlog
Impediments
Energy, suppport, resources,
guidance, & direction (occasionally)
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Enterprise Transition Community (ETC)
Creates a culture in which passion and
desire to improve thrive
Does not direct the transition effort
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Removes organizational impediments to agility
Encourages Improvement Communities to
form
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ETC members
Sponsor
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supported
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Others
From any level but driven by desire to
improve
Disbands when the “transition” part of
adopting agile is over
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ETC responsibilities
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Engage everyone
Set appropriate aspirations
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impediments
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Item Who Note
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Jim (CTO) to talk this up at
monthly development meeting.
Let’s see if there’s any interest.
Establish an internal program
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How do we identify good
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develop them?
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in this.
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Get more teams to do
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Form around the passion of a small number
of people
Expand from there
Do the real work of improving how the
organization implements agile
Focus on goals with practical relevance
Examples:
ScrumMaster, Testing, Product Owner,
Continuous Integration
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Working with an IC
An IC works with a project team
Work is not done in an ivory tower
Most ICs work in 2–4-week iterations
Disband or refocus when goal has been
achieved
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ETC Improvement
Backlog
…
Establish an internal
program for developing
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Not everything on an
IC’s improvement
backlog needs to tie
back to the ETC’s
backlog
An IC Improvement Backlog
Figure out how to identify good
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in this program).
Establish an internal mentoring program.
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Improvement backlogs
1.Write some items that you would like an on
your organization’s initial improvement backlogs.
2.What improvement communities would you like
to see form that could help with some of these
improvements?
3.What obstacles are in the way of making these
improvements?
4.What obstacles are in the way of forming an
ETC or improvement community to get started?
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Agenda
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Transition team and other formal leaders
must lead the transition
but cannot do so in the usual ways
Self-organizing groups still require leadership
Lead through example, questions, and focus
“Nudge” the organization; Poke and prod;
See how the organization responds
Leading an agile transition
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Container
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Glenda Eoyang: Conditions for Self-Organizing in Human Systems
Differences
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system
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Transforming Exchanges
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H Information, money, energy (vision)
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Using the CDE model
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by altering the:
Containers
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tools
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Containers
Enlarge or shrink teams
Enlarge or shrink the responsibility
boundary of teams
Change team membership
Create new teams or groups
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Don’t require consensus
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Ask hard questions
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Encourage communication between teams
and groups
Who isn’t talking who should?
Add or remove people from exchanges
Change reporting relationships
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Encourage learning
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than one.)
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database engineer and you. The developers and
testers are not working well together. Developers
work in isolation until two days are left in the
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the testers.
1
2
The team is failing to deliver potentially shippable
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will soon.
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Jeff, a senior developer, is very domineering. During
iteration planning the team defers to him on every
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when he suggest very low estimates on some tasks.
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You are responsible for two teams. Team members on
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The self-organizing path
Self-organization is not something that
happens one time
A team is never done doing it
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and-respond manner to its environment
As you see the team self-organize you can
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We can view this as the evolution of a team
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~Philip Anderson
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divisions of labor and routines not only emerge but
also self-adjust in response to environmental
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mastered the art of planning and monitoring
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†Anderson, P. “Seven Layers for Guiding the
Evolving Enterprise” in The Biology of Business.
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Evolution is the result of three elements:
Variation, selection and retention
Consider a giraffe:
Variation:

A random mutation that leads to

a longer neck
Selection:

The long neck helps it reach food

others can’t; so it it more likely to

survive and breed
Retention:
The mutation is passed to its

descendants
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1. *F3*5*7+472&3(*
2. Manage meaning
3. Evolve vicarious selection systems
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help us survive will be the ones retained
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should survive
What message is your organization sending about the
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What messages are sent if the organization:
Provides training
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Manage meaning
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bees responding to a “danger” message
ants responding to a “food found over here” message
1-01>?/-:e.g., putting the the team in touch with customers
Or keep messages out
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are repeated
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“Our GM counts the cars in the lot every day at 5 PM”
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Can take a long time
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rather than eating it
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takes too long
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Agenda
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Why They Resist
Like status quo Dislike agile
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehards
Skeptics
Saboteurs
Followers
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-:085:3>1?5?@-:/1
HPick one type of resistor. (Or two if you have time.)
HIdentify some underlying reasons for the behavior
and some things you could try to overcome it.
Why They Resist
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
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Why They Resist
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Skeptics
H Let time run its course
H Provide training
H Solicit peer anecdotes
H Appoint a champion skeptic
H Push the issue
H Build awareness
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Why They Resist
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Saboteurs
H Success
H Reiterate and reinforce the
commitment
H Move them
H Fire them
H Encourage a thriving set of
communities
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Why They Resist
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Diehards
H Align incentives
H Create dissatisfaction with the
status quo
H Acknowledge and confront fear
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Why They Resist
Passive Active
How They Resist
Diehard
Skeptic
Saboteur
Follower
Followers
H Change team composition
H Praise the right behavior
H Model the right behavior
H Involve them
H Identify the true barrier
(awareness, desire, ability)
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Mike Cohn
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ADAPTing to Agile

ADAPTing to Agile

Mike Cohn

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