Winning the Agile Race

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1 Winning the Agile Race Stop watching the runner and pay attention to the baton! Jay Erik G. H.

2 Me Jay Packlick Traveler Guitar Player Nerd

4 The Agile Race

5 Change the context Goals and Priorities Structure Culture

6 Scrum! (1.21 gigawats) Page 6

8 Leadership Improvement Culture Improvement Structure Improvement Process Improvement Org, roles, jobs Language, rituals, values, assumptions Style, Vision, Strategy, priorities, budget, portfolio

9 What s The Question? What s the activity? Breakdown tasks Update product backlog (write stories) Plan the release Plan the iteration Write acceptance criteria Daily Standup Scrum of Scrums Create UI Wire-Frames Iteration Demo Retrospect Refactor Code What s the baton (decision)?

10 What is agility? Agility is the ability to quickly and effectively make, verify, and revise decisions to achieve a desired outcome

11 We are in the business of making decisions Should we pursue this line of business? Should we update, rewrite, or buy? How much should we offer to acquire our competitor AgileSoft? What s the ROI? When should we start the project? Which vendor will best satisfy our needs? What should we include in the first release? How do we determine done for this User Story? What stories should we include in this iteration? Should we implement this in Java or Ruby? How many servers are we going to need? Should we lift the hiring freeze to bring in a Grails expert? What s the best way to break this Epic down? What should we name this class?

12 Decisions are units of work Once we shift to considering decisions as the items being handed from person to person, gathered into larger and larger assemblies, then suddenly, there is a very real parallel between design and manufacturing. Alistair Cockburn, What engineering has in common with manufacturing and why it matters - Humans and Technology Technical Report HaT TR , Sept 6, 2006.

13 In the Agile race decisions are the batons

14 Ask a silly question get a lousy outcome

15 A problem well stated is a problem half solved (Charles Kettering) Bob, what change are we making (to scope, schedule, etc.) so that we can achieve our release goals? How far off schedule are we? Are we on schedule? Page 15

16 Ask A Smarter Question Get A Better Baton Smart (high leverage) questions clarify and foster: Bob, what changes are we making (to scope, schedule, etc.) so that we can achieve our release goals? " Ownership " Mindfulness " Action " Purpose Page 16

17 What are we most afraid of? 4 Page 17

18 Bad Decisions Page 18

19 Move The Baton! Scenario 1 " The CFO wants to know how much the project is going to cost and the CIO wants to know how long " The team working with the product owner has created a backlog of over 180 user stories " Nathan, the scrum master, gets the extended team together (all 12) to use planning poker to estimate the backlog " Nathan comes to you after the first day and warns that it will take at least 5 days to provide an estimate " What can Nathan and the rest of the team do to get the baton to the finish line sooner? Page 19

20 Pampered Decision Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbch Page 20

21 Decide how to decide High Consensus!!!!!!!! Cost / Delay Democratic!!!!!!!! Participative!!!!!! Ask: Which decision model will best enable us to get to a solution? Low Unilateral!!!!!!!! Page 21

22 What should I name that variable? foo or High bar? Consensus?!!!!!!!! Cost / Delay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Low Unilateral?!!!!!!!! Low Impact / Payoff High Page 22

23 Should we buy Instagram? High!!!!!!!! Participative? Cost / Delay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Low Unilateral?!!!!!!!! Low Impact / Payoff High Page 23

24 Move The Baton! Scenario 2 " Our team has finished less than half of the stories planned in the last 4 iterations " There are 5 iterations left planned in the project " Half the stories in the backlog lack estimates " Nobody has raised any flags about meeting the release goals " You re the director; what batons are being dropped? What smart questions might you ask to help the team win the game? 4:15 Page 24

25 Orphan and Neglected Decisions?!! Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan Page 25

26 RAPID A Role Refactoring Tool Recommend generates options Inform provides information Decide who has the D? Agree approves recommendations Perform acts on decisions Who Has the D?: How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance Paul Rogers and Marcia Blenko Harvard Business Review Jan 2006 Page 26

27 Adopt An Orphan! Decide 4 Things: 1. What s the question? 2. Who s going to answer it? 3. Who s going to ask it? 4. When (how often) are we going to ask? Page 27

28 Move the baton: Scenario 3 Aruna s boss wants her to cut the company s site deployment cycle time (UAT, regression, approvals, production load, etc.) by at least half The process has evolved over years and is highly reliable although highly cumbersome Naturally, the process depends on many groups and stakeholders: security, QA, etc. It s taking forever to get everyone to agree on a strategy Aruna can only get critical contributors to meet for an hour every few weeks Contributors cancel at the last minute The conversations aren t terribly productive as old ground is covered and pet interests are discussed As Aruna s leader, what can you do to help get the baton to the finish line sooner? What can Aruna do? Page 28

29 Fragmented Decision Effort Delay 2 weeks 1 week 2 weeks 1 hr 1 hr 1 hr 1 hr Page 29

30 This never happens.. Right?

31 "Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing" --Lao Tzu

32 Defragment Decisions Page 32

33 Stop Trying To Hit Me And Hit Me Stop wasting time in meetings: Decide how to decide 1. Ask: What question are we trying to answer? 2. Ask: How are we going to decide? (participative, democratic, consensus) 3. Ask: Who has the D? Page 33

34 Learning To See the Baton Visualizing Agility Page 34

35 Perfect World! 6 days effort 6 days duration = 100% Agility % Time Effort Delay Effort = Duration Page 35

36 Not so perfect. % Time Effort Delay 6 days effort 19 days duration = 30% Agility Effort = 6 days Duration = 19 days Page 36

37 Parasitic Delay Agile is the art of eliminating delay Alan Shalloway Observe Effort Duration = Decision Agility* Act / Test Decide Orient * a.k.a. PCE Process Cycle Time Page 37

38 Reduced Delay = Increased Agility % Time Effort Delay 6 days effort 14 days duration = 43% Agility Effort = 6 days Duration = 14 days Page 38

39 Watching The The Batons 60% 50% 40% Agility 30% 20% Agility 10% 0% Page 39

promote: " Ownership " Mindfulness " Action " Purpose Decide how to decide "

40 Strategies To Win The Agile Race Refactor problem decisions " Orphans " Fragmented " Delayed Frame decisions with smart questions that clarify and promote: " Ownership " Mindfulness " Action " Purpose Decide how to decide " Decide who using R.A.P.I.D. " Decide how: unilateral, participative, democratic, consensus Page 40

41 Paving the road to Agility includes.. Leaders Culture Structure Process Org, roles, jobs Language, rituals, values, assumptions Vision, Goals, priorities, budget, support

42 Some Missing Batons STRUCTURE: What changes to our organizational structure are we making to reduce delays in getting decisions made? Page 42

43 Some Missing Batons CULTURE (values) What are we doing to focus on throughput rather than utilization? Page 43

44 Some Missing Batons LEADERSHIP: What are we doing to make decision flow a priority in our organization? Page 44

45 What Else? What critical decisions aren t we making? What questions should we be asking that we re not? " Our Leaders? " Our Teams? " Ourselves?

46 Leaders: What you ask matters (and what you don t ask matters too) Page 46

47 Awareness is the greatest agent for change Eckhart Tolle Agility is the ability to quickly and effectively make, verify, and revise decisions to achieve a desired outcome

48 Suggested Reading " Decide and Deliver: Five Steps to Breakthrough Performance in Your Organization - Marcia Blenko, Michael C. Mankins " Smart Questions: Learn to Ask The Right Questions For Powerful Results - Gerald Nadler, William Chandon " Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin Of Error Kathryn Schultz " Product Development FLOW Second Generation Lean Product Development Donald Reinertsen " Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency Tom Demarco " Managing The Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity - Karl Weick, Kathleen Sutcliffe " Individuals and Interactions An Agile Guide Ken Howard, Barry Rogers Page 48

49 Winning the Agile Race Stop watching the runner and pay attention to the baton! Jay Erik G. H.

Agile Program Development. Agile Manifesto 9/3/2013. What is Agile Development? 12 Principles of Agile Development 1 of 4

Agile Program Development. Agile Manifesto 9/3/2013. What is Agile Development? 12 Principles of Agile Development 1 of 4 What is Agile Development? Agile Program Development CSCI 479: Computer Science Design Project Fall 2013 Xiannong Meng Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative