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Beginnings

• Who is this guy? He talks funny…

– Robert Annis

• Director, Agile Training Services with Eliassen Group

• CSM, CSP, SPC4, ICP, ICP-TST, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF

• Lead Agile SME and Instructor for Villanova University

• Instructor in Agile for Xavier Leadership Center

• www.linkedin.com/in/robannis

• @TheAgileShark

Eliassen Group’s Agile Practice “Snapshot”

Vital Statistics• Eliassen Group began in 1989

• $235MM in Revenue in 2016

➢ Agile $45+MM in 2016

➢ Agile $32M in 2015

• 13 offices across the US

• 1,200 consultants

• Agile “whole Teams in every Region!

Agile Experts• Agile Practice established in 2009

• Scalable Agile transformation approach

• Core team (FTE) of Industry experts

• Vast coaching network

• Enterprise wide Agile Training curriculum

• 100% referenceable clients!

Agile Offerings• Advisory – Industry benchmarking & Consulting support

• Coaching – Executive, Program, Team, Technical, DevOps

• Training – Leadership, Technical, Scrum, Role Based, SAFe …

• Staffing – Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Dev and Test Automation!

Eliassen Group Agile Offerings

True Agile practice - Built, managed, and staffed with seasoned Agile experts /thought leaders

Deep experience helping clients adapt, transform, scale and succeed with Agile

200+ Agile Clients

Our Agile Community

PARTNERSHIPS ASSOCIATIONS

Introductory Excerpt

• For years now our work life has focused on project delivery and the associated dates and deliverables to please internal customers, Agile allows us to focus on something more important; product delivery. Remember - the customer doesn’t know or care about our internal projects, they care about product and its arrival at their door.

• The ability to change our entire delivery focus and ability is a game changer and an opportunity; it should be seen as such. The chance to re-invent the wheel, if you will. In this talk, we’ll be discussing the options of the changes you need to make and how you can help your organization through this incredible change.

What are Projects?

• Time-boxed

• Resource-defined

• Defined scope or body of work

• Communicable

Defin

ed

How successful are projects?

• Recent conversation with client:

– “Less than 5% projects are successful”

• Why are development projects so hard?

– IT project success rate for 1994 : 15%

– IT project success rate for 2004 : 34%• The Standish Group has studied over 40,000 projects over

10 years to reach these findings (http://www.softwaremag.com/L.cfm?Doc=newsletter/2004-01-15/Standish)

Where are they used?

• Ship-building

• Aircraft-building

• Software-building

• Building-building

• Clothing design

• Car design

• Prescription drug creation

• So…projects are used everywhere, right?

These guys don’t know projects

None of these guys know projects

Where are Projects less used?

• Agriculture

• Relationships– Raising children

– International Relations i.e. US to United Nations or Russia

– Partnerships i.e. marriage

• Education– Ongoing classes for years i.e. age 4-17 years old

• Nature

• Astronomy

• Manufacturing

• Science, in general

• Geography

• Lots of process, no projects

Thoughtful Slide

• Modern humans utilize boundaries to aid communication and understanding

• So projects are a human construct to aid with communication and understanding

• This is not necessarily bad, but then again, not necessarily good

• There is a difficult slide coming up…prepare yourself

Give into the Force, Luke

Projects – The Light Side

• Time-boxed

• Resource-defined

• Defined scope or body of work

• Communicable.

Projects – The Dark Side

• Force silo-ing of work

• Creates people’s roles

• Encourages last-minute work

• Focus on quantity not quality

• Relies hugely on planning

• Focus on delivery rather than customer

• Timelines stifle innovation.

So, this is how we work

• Force silo-ing of work

• Creates people roles

• Encourages last-minute work

• Focus on quantity not quality

• Relies hugely on planning

• Focus on delivery rather than customer.

• Timelines stifle innovation

Doesn’t this sound familiar?It’s what Agile is meant to fix. Right?

• As Agilists, we talk about Culture being the hardest thing to change and that this is the blocker for Agile

– “You need a cultural transformation and we can help with that, we can coach you through it”

• But let’s go back to an earlier slide…

• What can this tell us?

• These are massive processes

• Ancient and therefore proven processes

• They work even though we don’t fully understand them

• There is no known focus on any end product

• Could we model our processes on them?

• So, we’re still aiming for delivering work and transforming organizations for the

better

• We miss two critical areas of Cultural Agile Transformation (CAT)

1. Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or

behaviors

2. We focus more on the delivery than the product itself

Let’s take no.2, first – why not?

• We focus more on the delivery than the product itself

– We must change our thinking to be Product-led, rather than Delivery-led

– First-to-market often supplanted by better-to-market, but critically, better-to-market

companies survive and thrive over the long-term. First-to-market is short-term planning.

– The customers want Good Product, Often…they (and we) want Brand as this builds

relationships

SPORTS CAR - Jaguar F-Type as a Product

The F-Type - Product Lifecycle

Design

• Hood

• Body

• Wheels

Build

• Cylinders

• Propshaft

Test

• Brakes

Deliver

• Key $$$

Now…the full picture

Design

• Hood

• Body

• Wheels

Build

• Cylinders

• Propshaft

Test

• Brakes

Deliver

• Key$$$

Design Center

Market Research

Consumer Panels

Production Facility

Pre-Production Testing Shipping to dealers/customers

Ah! So, this is the full picture

Design

• Hood

• Body

• Wheels

Build

• Cylinders

• Propshaft

Test

• Brakes

Deliver

• Key$$$

Design Center

Market Research

Consumer Panels Production Facility

Pre-Production Testing

Shipping to dealers/customers

178 countriesArcticNurburgring

DesertGaydon, West Midlands

China England

Hmmmm…what about product history

Design

• Hood

• Body

• Wheels

Build

• Cylinders

• Propshaft

Test

• Brakes

Deliver

• Key $$$

Design Center

Market Research

Consumer PanelsProduction Facility

Pre-Production Testing

Shipping to dealers/customers

178 countriesArctic

NurburgringDesert

Gaydon, West Midlands

China England

Wait!

• That’s just the Jaguar story…there are other actors in the sports car history

Alright…what the heck is Product?

Agile Principles

• Working product is the primary measure of progress.

• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product.

• Deliver working product frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Product Management and the Agile Principles together

Product Planning in Agile

Product Vision

AnnualProduct Roadmap

Bi-annualProduct Release Plan

QuarterlyIteration Plan

Every few weeks

Daily Plan

Daily

Finished with no.2

• So…we need to lessen our project-thinking and increase our Product-thinking

• We can change…

• Reduce the silo-ing of work

• Reduce focus on people roles

• Move the focus away from last-minute work

• Focus on quality not quantity

• Reduce the focus on unreliable planning

• Prioritize the customer needs over a delivery

• Increase innovation

• Force silo-ing of work

• Creates people roles

• Encourages last-minute work

• Focus on quantity not quality

• Relies hugely on planning

• Focus on delivery rather than customer.

• Timelines stifle innovation

C

H

A

N

G

E

No.1

• Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or behaviors

• Human beings are so ‘advanced’ that we don’t take time to learn the basics

– Calculus

– Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs

– Life 7 miles down in the Marianas Trench

– Sending Voyager spacecraft outside our solar system

– But Listening? Communication? Facilitation? Managing?

– Psssh.

Agile Manifesto

• The principles and values in the Agile Manifesto don’t support Agile; they are Agile.

• Scrum, Kanban, SAFe are processes that support Agile

• Consider this, the principles and values of life are more valuable than the process which we use to go through it

• If you don’t like the Agile Manifesto, write your own, but recognize that the principles of communication and interaction are critically important

• The two critical areas of Cultural Agile Transformation (CAT)

1. Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or behaviors

2. We focus more on the delivery than the product itself

• So…what are you going to do about it?

Beginnings

• Who is this guy? He talks funny…

– Robert Annis

• Director, Agile Training Services with Eliassen Group

• CSM, CSP, SPC4, ICP, ICP-TST, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF

• Lead Agile SME and Instructor for Villanova University

• Instructor in Agile for Xavier Leadership Center

• www.linkedin.com/in/robannis

• @TheAgileShark