Agilising the OrganisationHow Hard Can it be ?

Embedding Agile Methods in Your OrganisationLondon 12 May 2009

Clive Trounson

20 Years of application delivery experience

6 years of agile

Both inhouse and as a supplier

Dedicated, contract, matrixed & offshore teams

Public and Private sector experiences:

Why does the organisation want agile ?

Happy clients through delivery – on time, on budget, on spec and working !!

A better way of doing things that:–has a partnership with customer

–is flexible

–is able to respond quickly

–doesn’t drown in administrative overhead

–keeps compliance and auditors happy

–uses the existing organisational model

–follows standards (set by architecture ?)

Agile is Easy….

1. Get a team…of multi disciplined employees

2. Put them together….in a room

3. Get a suitably empowered customer (aka Product Owner)

4. Decide what to build in next iteration

5. Built it, demo it, optionally release it

6. Repeat until done

Widget 2.0

Agile Organisation Framework

Organisation

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Organisation

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Organisation

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Organisation

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1. Self Organising vs Top down

2. What department owns this change ?

3. Build a vision with passion and celebrate

4. Communicate the programme and projects successes

5. Take the SCRUM approach: create a Backlog and Owner

6. Start Small or Big ?

7. What agile process ?

8. Training vs Coaching

9. What about space for agile teams

10.Disparate Geography / Offshore

Organisation

1. Don’t like change

2. May not be skilled enough/ don’t want to show it

3. Want to develop & grow

4. Need to see a reason (for change)

5. Want a life….but should be challenged

6. Motivate and reward

7. Activity Based Teams are not agile

8. Minimise the risk of Resource Utilisation

9. Can they form self organising teams ?

10.What to do with the Managers ?

People

Process

Good people are better then good processes and everyone wants light weight non-bureaucratic process but…

Organisational Process

1. Governance is needed

2. and so is Compliance

3. Publish and Support the ones to enforce

4. Train and support centrally

5. Adjust at end of each project

Project Process

6. Tailor process for each project

7. Get a Process Engineer to help

8. Adjust at end of each iteration

9. Feedback to the Change Manager at end of project

Customer Process

10. What does the customer require ?

1. Aim for fungibility

2. Standardise envirostructure

3. Centrally sponsored projects to standardise quickly

4. Make it friction free

5. Support it centrally

6. Use it wisely

7. Enforce it

8. But don’t make tool implementation a heavy waterfall project

9. Bring in the cool stuff one interation/sprint at a time

10.And control the target environment too if you can

Tools

Solutions (aka Architecture)

1. You need firm ground before you sprint…

2. Great Artists steal

3. Drive from requirements not all the future

4. Prove it early, spike if needed

5. Soln Architect is part of Team (owns the architecture)

6. EA maintains oversight, covers blindspots/ see’s bigger picture

7. Don’t confuse architecture with design

8. Reward contribution to architecture

9. Pack for the journey

10.Review as you go

Business Model&

Organisational Vision

Standards

Contribution

Collaborate

Customer

1. Understand their business (case)

2. Understand their purchasing options; T&M, Fixed, Re-quote, etc

3. Educate and explain it will be messy

4. Encourage top down approach to agile

5. Engage them

6. Or…appoint proxies

7. Give them options to understand and choose

8. Don’t let them dither…

9. Caution over gold plating

10.But it’s not just about technology…

Summary

Top Down

Empowered & Resourced Change Manager

Commitment & Effort

Customer preferences

Questions

Clive Trounson:

clive.trounson@talk21.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/clivetrounson

07811 193 026

Contact Details