How to empower engineering teams to improve, at scale

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How to empower engineering teams to improve, at scale Matthew Skelton and Benedict Steele 1

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Photo goes here Benedict Steele Chief Delivery Oﬃcer, Armakuni 20 years in technology, product, and engineering

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Photo goes here Matthew Skelton Founder, Conﬂux Co-author of Team Topologies

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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

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Diﬀerent practices and techniques across diﬀerent teams and streams 6

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How do teams know what good looks like? 7

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Assess these practices across tens or hundreds of teams … 8

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… on a regular basis? 9

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Empower the teams to improve 10

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11 Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment (MSDA)

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12 Holistic exploration of the team - covering people, process, and tools

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13 Testing and Testability Team Health Deployment Flow Operability Continuous Delivery Reliability and SRE On-call Security Team Topologies

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14 Discover Delivery Blockers Establish Team Metrics Accelerate Change Initiatives

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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

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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

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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?

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Case Study GOV.UK - 2018 18

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Case Study 19 700+ people in total 70+ engineering teams, 7 locations Time-critical delivery (#Brexit) Most of 2018

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Engineering Assessments 20 6 dimensions [in 2018]: Team Health, Deployment, Continuous Delivery, Flow, Operability, Testing “Viral” facilitation model

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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

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Case Study 25 Media Company 2020 - 2022

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26 Over 250 people 35+ engineering teams 7 depts Globally distributed Over 250 applications Diverse mix of technology

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27 👍 👎

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● 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?

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31 MSDA + Westrum Organisational Culture + Employee Advocacy (eNPS) + Psychological Safety + DORA 4 Key Metrics + Stakeholder mapping

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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

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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

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MSDA can make you rich 🤓 35

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36 What Ak & Conﬂux have learnt Success patterns for MSDA from Armakuni & Conﬂux

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Aim to help the teams gain a shared understanding and shared mental models 39

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Look for the delta - explore the diﬀerence between high and low scores 40

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Move the team from ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘concious incomptence’ and beyond 41

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Make time for improvements 42

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Never use MSDA to make direct comparisons between teams ⚠ 43

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Start small: work with 1 or 2 teams initially 44

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The purpose is team empowerment, not “judgement” 45

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Viral facilitation works best in a Generative culture 46

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Beware of “parroting” - facilitators need to understand the value of the practices in the assessment 47

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Facilitators need genuine curiosity 48

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49 agilestationery.com

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51 SoftwareDeliveryAssessment.com

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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