exploring enterprise agile transformation strategies mike cottmeyer, enterprise agile coach...

Exploring Enterprise Agile Transformation StrategiesMike Cottmeyer, Enterprise Agile CoachLeadingAgile, LLC

Mike [email protected]

www.leadingagile.comtwitter.com/mcottmeyerfacebook.com/leadingagilelinkedin.com/in/cottmeyer

http://www.leadingagile.com/

The Problem...

The Problem...• Having lots of agile teams in an

enterprise isn’t enterprise agility

• Sometimes organizations fall into the trap of thinking that having agile teams means they have an agile organization

• Enterprise agility is when all the parts of the organization work together to create Agile outcomes

• The entire delivery capability of the enterprise has to be focused on agile principles and execution

The Problem...• Focusing only at the team level can

result in local optima within your organization

• Sometimes a team can perform well at Scrum, but the business doesn’t see any incremental value from their investment

• Sometimes a high-performance team can disrupt other functions in the organization if the upstream and downstream processes are not able to work at the same pace

The Problem...• Team level Agile practices are

different from Agile practices at scale

• The practices we put in place at the team level often don’t work when we apply them in larger organizations

• Practices have to adapted at scale to accommodate more diverse groups of stakeholders and more complicated value streams

The Problem...• Agile at scale requires a broader set

of tools and techniques

• Scrum and XP at the team level• Kanban and Lean at the program and

portfolio level• RUP and Traditional Project

Management at the Enterprise

We are just now starting to put all the

pieces together...

The Solution...

The Solution... Part One• First... we do have to get team level agile

right. We are going to talk about some of the things you can do that will lead to successful team-level Agile transformations.

• The fundamentals behind why Agile works

• Common challenges that cause Agile to fail

• What does it look like when things are really going well?

• What is different about an enterprise-level Agile transformation?

The Solution... Part Two• Next we will explore a safe, pragmatic,

iterative and incremental framework for transforming any sized organization...

• Define the organizational competencies required at all levels of the enterprise

• How to adapt agile competencies for scale

• How to adapt agile competencies for cadence

The Solution... Part Three• We’ll discuss the three major areas you

need to pay attention to in order to execute a safe and pragmatic enterprise Agile transformation...

• Establishing an agile org structure

• Introducing disciplined Agile practices

• Intentionally addressing people and culture

The Solution... Part Four• Finally, as we begin to wrap-up the talk,

we’ll explore a few things that will help you put all of this together...

• Overview of the model end-to-end

• If we have time... case studies

The Solution... Part OneHow Does Agile Work and Why Does it Fail?

What Makes Agile Work?

What Makes Agile Work?• Teams stay together and are highly

engaged

• Agile practices are built around cross-functional teams that have everything necessary to deliver an increment of value to the organization

• Teams that stay together over time tend to be more productive than teams that are constantly forming and reforming

• Empowered self-directed teams are able to own the solution and creatively solve problems

What Makes Agile Work?• Teams are focused on a queue of

projects or product enhancements

• Rather than forming teams to deliver projects, agile methods leave teams together and funnel project through teams

• The project list is basically a prioritized backlog of work that a team is responsible for delivering

What Makes Agile Work?• Minimize dependencies and strive for

loose coupling between teams

• The more coupling we have between teams, the more difficult it is to change direction when we learn something new about the emerging product

• Teams that have external dependencies are not able to make and meet commitments because they don’t have everything necessary to own the commitment

What Makes Agile Work?• Fully engaged business partners

• Many organizations are guilty of throwing ill-defined requirements over to the delivery teams, constantly changing direction through the life of the project, and holding teams accountable for on-time delivery

• Agile is geared for change, but requires close collaboration between stakeholders and teams to make real-time tradeoffs as the product is in development

What Makes Agile Work?• Attention to getting done and

completing work before new work is started

• Delivering an increment of working, tested, potentially shippable software on regular time intervals assures that we can measure progress against real, measurable product outcomes

What Makes Agile Work?• Technical excellence and continuous

attention to product quality

• The underlying health of the system is a critical success factor for running successful agile projects

• Defects and technical debt impact product delivery in unpredictable ways making it nearly impossible to reliably make and meet commitments

What Makes Agile Fail?

What Makes Agile Fail?• Agile team is a local optimization and out

of alignment with the rest of the business

• Pilot teams are formed and given everything they need to be successful at the expense of the rest of the delivery organization

• Teams can deliver product faster than the organization can consume it

• Teams starve the requirements queue because Strategy and Product Management can’t keep up

What Makes Agile Fail?• Project driven organizations or

uneven investment across product lines

• Very difficult to keep cross-functional teams together over time because the investment mix is constantly changing

• Organizations tend to want to matrix people across multiple teams at the same time

What Makes Agile Fail?• Value is either too broadly defined

or too narrowly defined

• Overly vague requirements lead the development team to fill in the gaps based in their own knowledge and experience

• Overly specified requirements lead to an activity based mentality rather than a value based mentality

What Makes Agile Fail?• Organizational structures and

product architectures work against establishing cross functional teams

• Matrix organizations and functional silos make it very challenging to create high-performing agile teams

• Tightly coupled legacy architectures make it difficult to organize teams around feature groups or components within the solution framework

What Makes Agile Fail?• Overly political cultures and lack of

trust

• Command and control leadership• Micromanagement• Disempowering language

What Makes Agile Fail?• Inability to balance capacity and

demand

• Invalid and inaccurate estimates• Inability to make and meet

commitments• More work than the teams can

possibly deliver in the timeframes expected

What Makes Agile Fail?• Looking at agile as a process

overlay rather than a transformative event in your organization

• Agile is just something that the developers do

• Not recognizing the broad organizational change necessary to make an agile transformation sustainable

A Well Formed Agile Organization

A Well Formed Agile Organization• Cross functional teams aligned

directly to solve business problems

• Products• Features • Programs• Components• Services• Business Capabilities

A Well Formed Agile Organization• Clear voice of the business and a

willingness to make tradeoffs to meet time and cost constraints

• Highly engaged product ownership• Willingness to deal with reality• Focus on maximizing value and

reducing risk

A Well Formed Agile Organization• Individual empowerment and shared

accountability for outcomes

• Establish boundaries and ownership but empower within those boundaries

• Teams own outcomes not activities

A Well Formed Agile Organization• Disciplined attention to technical

excellence and product quality

• Technical excellence stabilizes the requirements delivery function

A Well Formed Agile Organization• Predictable, accountable, able to

consistently make and meet commitments

• Teams have the ability to consistently do what they say they are going to do

• Predictable agile teams are the foundational element of a predictable agile enterprise

Reinventing Agile• Situationally specific strategies at scale

to solve these problems and maintain business agility

• How do team level competencies need to be adapted to take into consideration issues of scale and the different planning horizons required in larger enterprises

• How do you build the necessary organization, introduce new practices, and start shifting the culture in a way that leads to sustainable organizational change

The Solution... Part TwoCompetencies, Frequency, and Scale

Agile Competencies• Product Definition

• Planning & Coordination

• Delivery Practices

• Continuous Improvement

• Organizational Enablement

Product Definition• Establish the product vision

• Define the product roadmap

• Decompose features

• Estimate size and effort

• Define acceptance criteria

Delivery Practices• Define the solution

• Build the solution

• Test the solution

• Establish product quality

• Deploy the solution

Planning & Coordination• Establish a planning cadence

• Perform activity breakdown

• Establish a delivery cadence

• Limit work in process

• Make and meet commitments

Continuous Improvement• Metrics and reporting

• Establish stable velocity

• Conduct retrospectives

• Update the backlog

• Enable process improvement

Organizational Enablement• Establish teams

• Effective communication

• Effective collaboration

• Empowerment

• Trust

Visualizing Improvement

Competencies at Scale• Team

• Multi-Team

• Program

• Portfolio

• Enterprise

Team Agility

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Multi-Team Agility

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Multi-Team Agility

Scrum Scrum TeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Multi-Team Agility


ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Program Agility


ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ProductProductTeamTeam

Program Agility



ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Portfolio Agility


PortfolioPortfolioTeamTeam


ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Enterprise Agility




ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


StrategyStrategyTeamTeam

Enterprise Agility




ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam



SupportSupportTeamTeam

Competencies in Time• Continuous

• Daily

• Iteration

• Release

• Strategic

Continuous

Strategic

Release

Iteration

Daily

Competencies in Time

Continuous

Strategic

Release

Iteration

Daily

• Continuous

• Daily

• Iteration

• Release

• Strategic

The Solution... Part ThreeThe Agile Adoption and Transformation Lifecycle

Adoption vs. Transformation• First... we want to untangle two words that

sometimes can be used interchangeably

• Agile Adoption is about what you do... practices, tools, techniques, ceremonies, and habits

• Agile Transformation is about who you are... reflected in both the structure of the organization and who you are as people

• Long term results require both adoption and transformation to be successful

Adoption vs. Transformation• Second... we want clearly articulate the three

major focus areas that must be addressed interdependently

• Organizational Structure is about how you create teams and how you organize them

• Agile Practice is about the methods and tools you choose to introduce

• People and Culture is about changing hearts and minds of the individuals in the organization

• All three aspects are essential to sustain agility

Incremental vs. Iterative• Third... we want introduce the notion that

introducing Agile is an iterative and incremental process for you organization

• Iterative is when parts of the system are developed at different times and integrated as they are completed

• Incremental is when you go back over parts of the system making improvements

• The strategy is to increment the organization by building teams and iterate the teams over time

Incremental vs. Iterative

Courtesy of Jeff Patton

Incremental

Iterative

•Incrementing and Iterating the Agile Enterprise

•Change physical structures and introduce teams

•Teach people new practices and ways of working

•Help people internalize the value system

Adoption/Transformation Cycle

•Organizational Transformation

•Establish top to bottom structure and roadmap

•Incrementally make changes and establish teams

•Define policies and working agreements between teams


•Adopting Practices

•Sprint planning, daily stand-ups, product reviews, and retrospectives

•Identify and train a Product Owner and ScrumMaster

•Teach TDD, CI, Story Maps, and MMF


•Personal Transformation

•Develop an ability to deal with uncertainty and adaptation

•Help people work toward common organizational goals

•Help foster empathy, trust, and teamwork


Common Anti-Patterns• Establishing teams without

breaking down the strict functional silos and rigid role definitions

• Running daily standup meetings that devolve into status updates for the project manager

• Coming back from CSM training only to find that there is no way to form agile teams and no interest in agile

The Solution... Part FourExploring the Integrated Framework

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Phase I - Structure

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

Phase I - Structure

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Phase I - Structure


ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Phase 2 - Structure Agility


ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Phase 2 - Structure




ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


Phase 3 - Structure




ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam



Phase 3 - Structure




ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam

ScrumScrumTeamTeam


StrategyStrategyTeamTeam SupportSupport

Phase 3 - Structure

116

Organizational TransformationOrganizational Transformation

Adopt PracticesAdopt PracticesPersonal Transformation

Personal Transformation

Product DefinitionProduct DefinitionPlanning Planning

CoordinationCoordinationContinuous Continuous

ImprovementImprovementDelivery PracticesDelivery Practices

Cultural FactorsCultural FactorsOrganizational EnablementOrganizational Enablement

Phase I

Value Delivery

Organizational EnablementOrganizational Enablement

117






ImprovementImprovementDelivery PracticesDelivery PracticesProduct DefinitionProduct DefinitionPlanning Planning





Phase I

Value Delivery

118











Phase I

Value Delivery

119











Phase I

Value Delivery

120












Phase 2

Value Delivery

121











Phase 2

Value Delivery

122











Phase 2

Value Delivery

123












Phase 3

Value Delivery

124










Phase 3

Value Delivery

125











Phase 3

Value Delivery

126




Value Delivery








Phase 3

Phase I - Cadence

Continuous

Strategic

Release

Iteration

Daily

Phase 2 - Cadence

Continuous

Strategic

Release

Iteration

Daily

Phase 3 - Cadence

Continuous

Strategic

Release

Iteration

Daily

A Few Scenarios

Single Team/Single Product• Sub 25 person product company and

a start-up

• Started with team level practices

• Lots of attention early to team culture

• Began engaging senior leaders on strategy and portfolio management

• Currently integrating marketing, sales, and support

Multi-Team/Single Product• Sub-100 person product company. 10

years old and privately owned.

• Program level first.. established a PO team• 3 tightly integrated Scrum teams• Defined the portfolio governance layer• Established the relationship between

strategy and support• Modeled the overall value stream and

wrapped the Scrum process in a two-tiered Kanban

Multi-Team/Multi-Product• Sub-300 person organization. 100 person

development organization. 8 Scrum teams.

• Big-bang team-level adoption• Teams aligned by products• Product ownership by product• Program and portfolio level views established• Limiting projects in progress• Solid release planning• Integration with upstream and downstream

planning processes

Multi-Team/Multi-Product• Large multi-national organization. Scope is

a 500 person development organization with 55 Scrum teams.

• Started with a basic view of the portfolio layer• Portfolio level value stream mapping, RACI• Built out the program management layer with

PO teams to develop a requirements management capability

• Program level value stream mapping, RACI, introduced agile tooling

• Introduced Scrum at the team level

Products of Products

• Large multi-national company. Geographically dispersed. Products of products.

• Scrum teams by product/component• Product Owner teams established• Portfolio level governance model• Lean/TOC planning model• Integration with a traditional PMO for

metrics and reporting

Source: http://www2.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/219-gibson-custom.aspx

Guitar Mummies

Agile Program and Portfolio Management9:00 AM | Thursday | Austin 1-3 | Mike Cottmeyer

Mike [email protected]

www.leadingagile.comtwitter.com/mcottmeyerfacebook.com/leadingagilelinkedin.com/in/cottmeyer

Slides at www.leadingagile.com

http://www.leadingagile.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/mcottmeyer

exploring enterprise agile transformation strategies mike cottmeyer, enterprise agile coach...

Documents

agile competencies

agile outcomes

lots of agile teams

agile methods

agile principles

enterprise slide

team level agile practices

engaged agile practices