polar expeditions and agility: the 1910 race to the south pole and modern tales

Polar Expeditions and Agility: The 1910 Race to the South Pole

and Modern Tales

Alexandre Masselot Agile Tour, Lausanne

November 2016

Alexandre Masselot Agile Tour, Lausanne

November 2016

Polar Expeditions and Agility: The 1910 Race to the South Pole

and Modern Tales

Polar Expeditions and IT projects

a goal, a team, constraints, risks and a methodology

Polar world 101

1. South & Greenland: an icecap 2. North: a frozen sea and polar bears 3. It’s cold, but it’s cool

Polar world in 1900

The last unconquered lands

Robert F. Scott- British - Captain in the Royal Navy - Average evaluations, but

eager to climb the ladder

At the South Pole

Roald Amundsen- Norwegian, skier - North West Passage

1903-1906 - South Pole

1910-1912

At the South Pole

Today, still in Norway

Børge Ousland

- Norwegian - North Pole - North Pole solo - Antarctica crossing solo - Arctic crossing solo - North Pole Winter crossing

Solo or small parties, Unsupported

“Børge Ousland is arguably the most

accomplished polar explorer alive!”

National Geographic

Børge, Sjur, Liv, Vegard and the others: The Oslo Gang

… and a personal perspective

Alex

- Ten years of polar expeditions

- Two Greenland crossing - Polar bear sightseeing in

western Svalbard - Patagonia Northern Icecap

(a turn back) - www.framexpeditions.com

Small parties or solo, Unsupported

Introductions are over, may the expeditions start!

And everything starts with

A Vision

The vision

Google’s: “to organize the world's information

and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Agile consulting 1st workshop: Framing the vision

Never seen a team where folks could not simply phrase their job goal?

The vision

“Going to the pole and back”AMUNDSEN

2 goals, plus collecting stones…SCOTT

“Scott was marshaling his forcesfor a ponderous campaign,while Amundsen was sailing on a raid”

Roland Huntford

A map is display in the chart roomfor “everybody’s use”

The contemporary vision: “from A to B, unsupported”

We have a vision, let’s assemble a team!

“The wrong companion is infinitely more dangerous

than the worst blizzard” R. Amundsen

Building a team

That resonates like IT project management

“There were many men, shoved at random”

Wilson

SCOTT

“A small team of chosen specialists” Huntford

AMUNDSEN

Amundsen interview patterns

Seeking for “I don’t know”

and “I cannot do that”

Team Organisation

- Applies the Royal Navy rules - “Lt Ewans, Campbell and Wilson have formed

a sledging committee and I am nominally the secretary […] with not much to do.”

Cherry Gallard

SCOTT

- Everybody takes turn, cleaning dog shit,handling the rudder… including the Captain

- A pilot on Fram: “It was the most astonishing boatI have ever seen. No order were given but everyone seemed to know exactly what to do.”

AMUNDSEN

Team Organisation

- The boss did not show in the shop except if called.AMUNDSEN

Team OrganisationAMUNDSEN SCOTT

All men share the same

comfort level.

Officers have separate quarters

The leader position

“Discipline was instinctive. […] He often used to say that on board all were captains and all crews […] But nevertheless nobody was in any doubt who was the chief on board”

Helmer Hanssen

AMUNDSEN

SCOTT

“Myself, I dislike Scott intensely […] He is not straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere.”

Lawrence Oates

We have a team, Let’s hit the snow!

Problem #1: Moving on snow

Dogs or no dogs: the expert voice

- Nansen: “go find dogs in Siberia!” - Inuit: “how can we move without dogs?”

Dogs or no dogs: Tradition rules

“No Ski. No dog” Sir Clements Markham, 1888 Father of modern British Antarctic Exploration

Sticking to legacy Oracle for all problems When NoSQL opens new horizons

“I use MongoDB for all my NoSQL challenge,because it’s the only one I know.”

Dogs or no dogs?

AMUNDSEN SCOTT

Sails with 52 dogs Sailed with ponies,cars, dogs and man hauling

Focused on ponies

A key to success They will die before start

Can be eaten “It’s not human to eatthese poor creatures”

Dogs or no dogs: learn the tool

AMUNDSEN SCOTTImprove, optimize

sledge, ski…

Train, test

played football

Dogs or no dogs AMUNDSEN

SCOTT

Tradition is not always beaten

Amundsen shoes ruled the polar world until early 2000

R for graphics

LaTeX for publication

A well crafted set of Perl scripts for infra tasks

Innovation: other ways to move

To cross a sea of ice,why not using sails?Nansen, 1888

Greenland 2002

Disruption: crossing arctic waters

© National Geographic

Process automation wherever possible

Camping by -39°C can be smooth: - Learn from others - Have a clear routine - Improve each steps to make it as smooth as possible

Testing (unit, integration, system, perf…) - Deployment - Monitoring -

Incident handling -

Continuous improvement

The Gjøa went ashore twice, ⇒ a man was in the crow nest 24/7

Retrospective Actually do it!

AMUNDSEN

Lessons learned: - first thing in the plane home - published on the net

Spitsbergen 1996

Decision Making

Hielo Sur, Patagonia 2000

Group decision making- Phrase the topic at hand and a scope - Encourage and listen everyone’s opinion - Trigger alternatives if only one solution is foreseen

Setup a mindset where: - the decision is built upon group contribution - “the best solution is not my solution” - “I’m not stupid because the group did not go for my idea”

A simple pattern: rank decidesSCOTT

Managing Risk

How to avoid being eaten by a polar bear?

- learn from past incidents - don’t listen to “reasonable voices” - get a clear process for crisis - enjoy!

Spitsbergen, 2001

The main risk: starvation

- one depot every degree - carefully packed - depot were marked sideways

(to be found in the fog)

AMUNDSEN

- minimalist depotsSCOTT

The strategy is to lay food depot along the route

Amundsen backto base camp

Scott teamR.I.P.

{

SCOTTAMUNDSEN

A PLANNED VICTORY A PREDICTABLE DEFEAT

SCOTTAMUNDSEN

“Victory awaits him who has everything in order

— luck, people call it.Defeat is certain for him who

has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time;

this is called bad luck.”

“Our luck in weather is preposterous… How great may

be the element of luck”

Ice river crossing, Greenland 1998

Landing ashore

Oslo, the Silicon Valley of polar expeditions

Agility is not about rituals

Agility is about growing a group,

values and a mindset to go after a project.

Every organization can change

En route vers de nouvelles aventures

Fram!@alex_massamasselot@octo.com