myths, legends and monsters of enterprise agility

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Myths, Legends & Monsters The Quest for the Grail of Enterprise Agility François Bachmann, SPRiNT iT

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Page 1: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Myths, Legends & Monsters

The Quest for the Grail of Enterprise Agility

François Bachmann, SPRiNT iT

Page 2: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Who’s talking

François Bachmann • « The Urban Traffic Parable »

• « The Art of the Retrospective » (Agile-Alchemist.com)

• Organisational Development Coach since 2004

• Interests: Systemic Thinking, Complex Adaptive Systems (like a Jam Session @AgileEE )

Page 3: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

What You Should Get

Page 4: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Your initial situation

• Pilot project « success »

• Request/need to scale this success

• Existing company

]Out of Scope[ • Introduction to Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, …

• Growing an agile company

Page 5: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Warnings(1) Scaling is always complex

Page 6: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Warnings (2)

Agile is a mindset, an attitude plan lots of time for full-fledged adoption

Page 7: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Starter: A customer myth

« Normal Change » at a Swiss bank

Source: http://itsm.certification.info/normalchg.html

Page 8: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Myth

A traditional or legendary story that can contain a moral lesson

Built on Archetypes Gods, animals, angels, demons, other worlds

Used to justify a social institution and its way of viewing the world

Told at ceremonies (start, transformation, end)

Principal purpose: federate

Source: dictionary.reference.com

Page 9: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Myths: project choice / dimension

« Let’s do Agile within a fixed-price contract »

« We apply Agile but only to Development »

« We do ALL our projects with Agile»

Page 10: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Myths: Roles

ScrumMaster: Thor / Superman /

James Bond / Chuck Norris

« Three Roles is enough for any company » Scrumdamentalism (H.Kniberg)

« In our company, we’re all like a big family»

Page 11: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Myths: transition

« Just use Scrum of Scrums and everything will be fine»

« Trust me, in this company we know what change management is! »

« To really become Agile, you have to destroy & rebuild from scratch»

Page 12: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Summary: Myths

• Main purpose: federate

• Used for justification of status quo

• Usually involve superhumans

• Reveal values of the company

Page 13: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Legend (lat. legenda = to be read)

• Official shape of the rumour spread during coffee breaks

• « I know someone who… »

• Urban Legend

• Can end both ways

• Finishes with a lesson to learn

Principal purpose: education

Page 14: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Legend: Company Culture

« My cousin tried to introduce Agile in his company: it didn’t work at all!

Now I agree that they have a very special company culture….»

« Actually, our company culture has always been agile; let’s just change the terminology and we’ll be fine»

Page 15: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Customer Legends: Company Culture

• Mediterranean: mix of nationalities

• Web company: resource allocation > flow

Page 16: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Legends: Organisation

« It seems that this won’t work in an outsourcing context… »

« Another team in our division used it during a few months, their productivity dropped…

and they switched back afterwards»

« What about my career plan? »

Page 17: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Legends: Transition

« A well-planned transition is the cornerstone of success: plan the work, work the plan»

« Let’s just establish a matrix between the old and the new roles»

Page 18: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Legend: Tool

« Company X bought tool Y when they moved to Agile and the whole enterprise is now using it. But how can I convince my management? »

Page 19: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Summary: Legends

Purpose: Institutionalized Learning « What hasn’t worked in the past and what were the consequences »

Advice: are a very efficient communication tool: « Worst Practices » or NotHow-Transfer©

Page 20: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Monster (lat. monstrum:

wild beast)

• Impersonates resistance

• Gatekeeper

• Requires the hero to go beyond the normal plan

Page 21: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Monsters: Middle Management « I’ll be the Scrum Master for all teams » « I can replace the Product Owner, if needed » « Well, someone has to assign the developers to

projects, no?! »

Strengths: network, relationships Weaknesses: conflicting priorities, overestimates his potential influence Fights for: his position and his « power » Approach: give him a catalyst role, actively include in information exchange

Page 22: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Monster: Project/Process Office

Distinguishing marks: once they understand Agile is not going away, they will try to govern it and create rules

Strength: power to standardize Weakness: mechanistic world view Fights for: being the process master

and force their rules on developers

Approach: 1) produce their artefacts and 2) when the right time comes: question the value of these artefacts (not of the Project Office!)

Page 23: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Monster: Saboteur

Definition: Person who is involved but has a hidden agenda (subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction)

Strength: internal knowledge Weakness: bottleneck Fights for: « unofficial » priorities Approach: make responsibilities explicit,

confront one-on-one if necessary

Page 24: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Monster: AgileGuru Pretends to sell the One And Only Agile Distinguishing marks:

elitist, likes to fight (he/she usually wins)

Strength: *very* convinced by his Agile flavor Weakness: exclusive, tends to work alone Fights for: his Truth (destroying others) Approach: recall Agile values, let him show

how his flavor brings them forward

Page 25: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Summary: Monsters

• Strongholds, Gatekeepers

• Have power & reputation

• Often easier to « turn around » than to overpower

• Advice: don’t play on their territory!

Page 26: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Summary Properties How it’s helpful Suggested approach

Myth Historical, heroes, « Best Practices »

federates and illustrates common values (world view)

passive-implicit communication, strategy and long term follow-up

Legend « Worst Practice »

Lessons learnt, NotHow-Transfer©

active-explicit communication, use & recall in major retrospectives

Monster Personalized objection , Gatekeeper

Strong, potential ally, when aligned with your cause

negotiate, convince, align on values

Page 27: Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility

Enjoy the Quest, brave knights!