Agile By Numbers: KPI-Optimized Software

Transformation for the Enterprise

August 6, 2013Elena Yatzeck

http://pagilista.blogspot.com

PrologueWhat is a High-Performing Team?

What Does A High Performance Team Do?

Image source: http://hunterburgan.buzznet.com/photos/happybirthday/?id=53349941

What We Need

What You Say Your Team Goals Are

• Short Term (Cash Flow)– Higher Income– Lower Costs (Protect Revenue)

• Long Term (Year on Year Growth)– Faster Time to Market– Higher Quality Product– Better Predictability/Transparency in

Process– Improved Team Morale– Improved Customer Relationship

What You Think Your Team Goals Are

• Short Term (Cash Flow)– Higher Income– Lower Costs (Protect Revenue)

• Long Term (Sustainability)– Faster Time to Market– Higher Quality Product– Better Predictability/Transparency in

Process– Improved Team Morale– Improved Customer Relationship

Your Actual Team Goals• Short Term– All Public Goals Met (On Paper)– Nobody (Important) Gets Fired– Nobody (Important) Quits– Everyone (Important) Gets a Good Raise

and Bonus

• Long Term– Everyone Keeps or Increases Their

Personal Power, Starting with You, The Leader

Crucial Point to Remember

Enterprise Agile is Different

It’s…ALIVE!

Disciplined Agile Delivery

Scrum … AND

Scaled Agile Framework

Enterprise Change is Usually

IncrementalIncremental innovation: Solution-driven creativity

Concrete practice

Extrinsic motivation

Needs an opportunity to contribute a solution

Radical innovation: Problem-driven creativity

Abstract theory-related ideas

Intrinsic motivation

Needs time to work the problem

Radical and Incremental Creativity: Antecedents and Processes, by Gilson and Madjar, in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2011, Vol 5, No 1., cited in “Innovation Management Best Practices,” Jackie Fenn , VP & Gartner Fellow, July 25, 2013

How do you direct the driver AND motivate the elephant?

Try a Dashboard!

Direct the Driver. Drivers Love Facts.

Motivate the Elephant. Elephants Love Gadgets.

Shrink the Task: Start With One Project and a

Spreadsheet that “Drills”

Initial Dashboard “Drill Down” Values

Expansion 1: More Projects!

Simplest Scaling: Opportunistically Identified

Reference Instances

Disperse the coached projects to get maximum impact. (1 per major vertical, per location, for example)

What you want for a reference instance:Friendly, relaxed, and trustworthy sponsorSmall, non-critical, likely to be successful.

What you may get:Desperate executive Huge, mission-critical program already going up in flames.

Further Out: Combination of New, Repeat, and Self-

Evangelizing BusinessPlan for staffing bump in coaches (FTE is cheaper and stickier than FTC)

Teams generally like it once they start. Keep counting them as they do new projects

Teams can help each other without you later.

Expansion 2: Value

Low Hanging Value: Software

CostsPresence/Absence of Measures

IT-sponsored transformationProject Planned/Actual Spend (Capital)BAU/Maintenance Planned/Actual Spend (Overhead)Project Planned/Actual StaffingStaff Absences and Turnover

Further Out: Measure Actual

Business ROIStart driving from the business!

Project Planned/Actual Market Impact (Protect or Expand)

Project Planned/Actual Operational SavingsMonetize “saved keystrokes”Monetize labor cost savings with increased internationalization

Planned/Actual Progress Towards Other GoalsCommunity supportSocial Justice

Advanced Practice:

Decreased Time to ValueMeasure cycle time

Measure realized value

Boom.

Expansion 3: Quality

Low Hanging Quality MeasuresFunctional Quality measured by defect trending

Performance and Security

Technical Debt Quantified: Total Cost of Ownership

Unit Test CoverageCode Complexity

Further Out: ISO 25010 (SQuARE)

Advanced Practice: Portfolio

ManagementCreate a weighted list of ISO SQuARE and company-specific value measures

Plan-do-check-act: tune estimates and practices

Expansion 4: Practices

Low Hanging Practices:

Everything is Scrum/XPCollocated teams of

dedicated, multi-skilled People

Cards, a pencil, a wall

Tape

Actual Low-Hanging Practices

Collaborative, collocated requirements workshops

Software environment virtualization

Refactored code base/attend to technical debt

Automated combinatorial-data-based testing, supported by a robust test data strategy

Continuous integration, automated deployment

Further Out: Seriously Gritty

ChangeCollocation; team rooms

Staffing patterns the norm, not the exception, where all team members are employed at the same time for the whole project

Planned, thoughtful and large-scale reduction of accumulated technical debt

Empowerment of teams

Budget, vendor, contract, and hiring reform

Different methodologies to handle different problems within a single company

EpilogueBuild a Change Portfolio Based on Real

Options

What Are My Choices?• Option 1: Keep Doing What You’re

Doing (Lowest Risk, Lowest Return)

• Option 2: Change Everything (Highest Risk, Highest Potential Return)

-OR-

Acknowledge and Balance Your Team Goals as a

Portfolio

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Net Present Value (NPV)

Size of bubble is proportional to total value generated over lifetime use of new team techniques.

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1 Minute Theory of Portfolio Tuning

Ensure long term return

Ensure short term team survival

Ensure steady flow of corporate recognition from “sure bets,” balanced by potentially huge returns on high-risk items.

Do you see a problem here?

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Low Risk,High Return

High Risk,High Return

High Risk,Low Return

Low Risk,Low Return

Net Present Value (NPV)

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Example Software Development

Transformation Goal PortfolioGoal Cost Payback Time to

Payback

Virtualize cross-impact environments in all projects

Buy solution, learn to use it (requires cash outlay and team time)

No need to buy actual servers; no down time for testers

Same year: self funding

Enforce code quality standards (unit test coverage, code branching, size of modules)

Slows development; some short term opportunity cost

Improves customer morale; Reduces total cost of ownership 17% over life of project

2-5 years

Launch all projects with collocated workshop

Travel costs 85% reduction in scope creep; 15% reduction in defects

6 months

Implement SAFe framework

Completely disrupt SDLC for all

All performance measures improve: business more competitive

Minimum 3 years

Is there a difference between stated and unstated goals on teams at sub-enterprise sized teams?

Agile By Numbers: KPI-Optimized Software

Transformation for the Enterprise

August 6, 2013Elena Yatzeck

http://pagilista.blogspot.com