aspe - agile project management · leading teams through large scale agile transformations....
TRANSCRIPT
Agile Scaling
MARY [email protected]
Mary is the Agile Practice Lead at Vaco - Agile in Raleigh, NC.
During her more than 20 years of experience with financial, healthcare, and SaaS-based products, Mary has held VP, Director, and Manager level positions in various software development organizations.
A seasoned Leader and Coach in agile and testing methodologies, Mary has direct experience building and leading teams through large scale agile transformations. Mary’s expertise is a combination of agile scaling, agile testing, and DevOps that her clients find incredibly valuable.
She is also Chief storyteller of the book The Three Pillars of Agile Testing and Quality, and avid keynote and conference speaker on all things agile and agile testing.
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MARY THORN
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Principle Agile Coach at Vaco Agile in Raleigh, NC
Agile Trainer & Coach atRGalen CG
• Somewhere “north” of 30 years experience• Wide variety of technical stacks and
business domains• Roots of a software developer• Senior/Executive software development
leadership for 20+ years• Agile “Coach of Coaches” and Leaders• Deep XP, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban
experience since late 1990’s• From Cary, North Carolina; husband,
father, grandfather, and dog lover3
BOB GALEN
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Inspiration for this talk/workshop?
◼ This talk is inspired by this
blog post—
◼ A Different Take on Agile
Scaling
◼ And perhaps a “wee bit”
inspired by this one—
◼ Confessions of a De-Scaler
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Trends
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Trends
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Trends
Beyond Scrum of Scrums
Esther Derby
◼ Three main challenges in scaling teams
❑ Coordinating work across teams
❑ Integrating work across teams
❑ Maintaining technical integrity of the system (Architecture, DevOps, UX)
◼ Notion of “Context”
❑ Feature group, Component team, Product area
❑ Form teams within contexts
http://www.slideshare.net/estherderby/agile-teams-at-scale-beyond-scrum-of-scrums
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Beyond Scrum of Scrums
Esther Derby
◼ Technical Councils
❑ Component Stewards
❑ Integrating Linkers
❑ Test Experts
Guide the integrity of the WHOLE system
◼ Establish communication & decision boundaries
◼ Team/Organizational structure alignment is important
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Scaling Patterns
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Center on the Agile Manifesto
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#1) Solid Foundations
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Solid Foundations
Kanban
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Solid Foundations
Extreme Programming
#2) Scrum of Scrums
Scrum Community
◼ Simple method for cross-
team collaboration
❑ Central aspect of many
of the other scaling
frameworks
◼ Scrum “up a level”
❑ Simplicity
◼ Personally seen it scale
for
❑ Around 2007, ~120
teams
❑ ~20 teams
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#2) Scrum of Scrums
Scrum Community
Struggle with?
◼ Lack of a consistent definition of what it is AND what it isn’t
❑ Implementation details
◼ Confusion: is it for the teams? For Project Managers/Manager? Or
something else?
◼ It’s not clear how Product or DevOps fits in?
◼ If/how release dynamics are handled
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#3) SAFe
Leffingwell
◼ Release Trains
❑ Various release tempos and/or
Continuous release
◼ PI Planning
❑ Old-fashioned Agile Release Planning
◼ Architectural look-ahead
◼ Essential SAFe looks a bit leaner as a starting point
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#3) SAFe
Leffingwell
Struggle with?
◼ Silver Bullet thinking (mostly on the part of leadership)
❑ Purchasing / Installing SAFe
◼ Too many new roles; role confusion
◼ RTE’s behavior
❑ It’s really a Scrum Master / coaching role
◼ Focusing too much on Leadership/Management and leaving the
teams behind
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#4) Spotify
Kniberg
◼ Cross-cutting Concerns
❑ Guilds & Chapters
◼ Cyclical, Release-level
Retrospectives
◼ Release Reviews
◼ Team-orientation (Happiness)
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#4) Spotify
Kniberg
Struggle with?
◼ Thinking that Spotify is a “Scaling Framework…it’s NOT!
❑ Silver Bullet thinking
❑ Cult-ish
◼ Tribes vs. Teams
◼ Getting to the “essence” of Spotify
❑ It’s an organic, bottom-up, iterative continuous improvement / learnings
model
◼ Self-selection
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#5) LeSS & Nexus
Larman & Vodde/Schwaber
◼ LeSS – Feature Teams
◼ Emphasis on (singular) Product
Owner
❑ PO ”team”, up to ~9 teams
◼ Keep it simple and small
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17x11 in
#5) LeSS
Larman & Vodde
Struggle with?
◼ De-scaling implications to organizational structure and management
/ leadership
❑ Seems to be attractive at large companies (JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity)
❑ Not very “respectful” to some roles
◼ Cult-ish
◼ Singular Product Owners
❑ Conceptually a nice idea…
❑ But in the real-world, I don’t see it working very well
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#5) Nexus
Schwaber
Struggle with?
◼ Singular Product Owners
❑ Conceptually a nice idea…
❑ But in the real-world, I don’t see it
working very well
◼ Not very well known outside of
Scrum.org
❑ Low adoption
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17x11 in
#6) Disciplined Agile Delivery
Ambler
◼ Regulatory
Guidance
◼ Technical scaling
❑ Architecture,
hardware,
enterprise-level,
data management,
etc.
◼ Broad-level, lean
thinking
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#6) Disciplined Agile Delivery
Ambler
Struggle with?
◼ Too complex
❑ If it takes three books to cover the ideas…
◼ Too large, not that helpful in simpler
contexts
◼ Connection to Ambler’s traditional work
◼ Less a framework and more a collection
of ideas, patterns
❑ Much like Spotify
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#7) Scrum@Scale
Sutherland
◼ Executive Action Team
◼ Executive Meta Scrum
❑ Formal executive team
engagement!
◼ Scrum of Scrums
❑ Product cycle
❑ SM / Execution cycle
◼ Keep it simple and
small
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#7) Scrum@Scale
Sutherland
Struggle with?
◼ Low adoption; it’s potentially Bob’s ”favorite” framework
◼ Two loops aren’t that intuitive
◼ Needs coaching guidance for…
❑ Thoughtful implementation details & execution dynamics
❑ Tailoring
❑ Leadership engagement
❑ Metrics
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Tooling
◼ Minimal tooling
❑ Distributed collaboration
❑ Simple tools for a singular
purpose; aggregate
❑ Post-it Notes & Walls – low
fidelity
◼ Be as Visual as possible!
◼ Leaders – don’t micromanage
◼ Teams – don’t allow tools to
replace face-to-face
collaboration
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Portfolio
◼ Big Wall Planning
◼ Kanban for Portfolio level
planning (flowing work
towards the teams)
◼ Portfolio-level planning
❑ Managing team, group, and
organizational capacity
❑ Limiting WIP
◼ ALL stakeholders involved
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Distributed Teams
◼ Proximity matters
❑ Team cohesion
❑ Groupings
◼ Tooling matters
❑ Development AND Collaboration
◼ Charter teams together
❑ First few sprints
◼ Collaboration “protocol’s” matter
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Product
◼ Notion of a Chief Product
Owner
❑ And a Product Management
organization
❑ Include Project Management,
UX, Business Analysis
◼ Moving from managing
“Projects” & “Resources” to
“Products” & “Teams”
◼ Product Owner – Community
of Practice
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Centers of Excellence & Communities of Practice
◼ CoE is typically a bit more prescriptive
◼ CoP more organic
◼ Chapters & Guilds
◼ Multiple roles:
❑ Coaching
❑ Scrum Masters
❑ Product Owners
❑ Leaders
◼ Pairing
◼ Lean Coffee
◼ Mentoring
◼ Group-based learning
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Power of Invitation
◼ Instead of making folks “go Agile”
❑ Invite them to change
❑ Engage their ideas
❑ Shared future state; what’s in it for…
◼ Open Space Agility
❑ Leveraging Open Space to co-Create
agile instances
◼ Leadership shifting
◼ Self-selection
❑ Organization & team structure
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#8) Other Useful Ideas
Don’t be shy/cheap about getting HELP!
◼ Get agnostic scaling
framework coaching help
◼ Leadership coaching
◼ Leverage patterns across
frameworks
❑ Don’t be afraid to “roll your
own”!
◼ Everyone is NOT an
experienced or effective agile
coach
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Parting advice…
1. Grow/scale from the
bottom…up
2. Only install what you need
right now
3. Experiment, iterate, learn;
inspect & adapt
4. Keep things simple
5. The teams are THE most
important aspect of
scaling
Review & contribute to -
http://www.agilescaling.org/
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Contact Info Bob GalenPresident, RGCG
Experience-driven agile focused training, coaching & consulting
Cell: (919) 272-0719
[email protected] www.rgalen.com
@bobgalen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobgalen
Podcast on all things ‘agile’ -
http://www.meta-cast.com/
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