The next level of agile will take you through how agile at scale is different then the team level agile. Strong agile basics are always key to a successful business and why connecting delivery to strategy is essential in realizing the promise of agile. This will help you understand where you are in your agile journey, how to identify trouble spots, and how to fix them.

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Next Level Agile
Ryan Polk

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©2015 Rally Software Development Corp. All rights reserved.
What Was Rally’s Original Name?
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The Companies
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Overview:
• 10,000+ engineers
• 10+ years of Agile
• Hundreds if not thousands of teams
• Long history of very team-focused Agile
practices
• Strong resistance to Agile at scale and
product management practices
Results:
• Almost complete lack of ability to
manage work across the organization
• Almost no visibility into work, even at the
team level
• Regressed Agile practices to the degree
of Agile anarchy
• Agile dogma wars
• Team-level Agile practices that are
barely recognizable as Agile
• Strong organizational resistance to any
new practices
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Large Internet Property

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Overview:
• 160+ engineers
• 14+ years of Agile
• 15 teams
• Long history of experimental Agile
practices
• 5+ product lines
• Considerable loss in organizational
velocity and value delivery year over
year
Results:
• Resistance to any management of work
across the product lines
• Evolution to the easy
• Agile is for an engineer’s mindset
• Team-level Agile practices that are
barely recognizable as Agile
• Strong organizational resistance to Agile
coaching
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Midsize SaaS Company – Early 2014

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Overview:
• 200+ engineers
• 2+ years of Agile
• 18 teams
• Launched their Agile rollout with a focus
on total transformation
• Open and honest retrospection on their
practices / processes and a willingness
to commit to organizational change
• CIO / head of the business completely
aligned on mission to improve how they
deliver products
Results:
• Total organizational buy-in into Agile
principles and practices
• 2+ years of Agile development with
considerable improvements in quality,
velocity, and customer satisfaction year
over year
• Consistent team-level Agile practices
• Consistent organizational practices that
align delivery work to the highest-value
business priorities
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Midsize 120+ Year Old Insurance Company

7. How Does This
Happen?
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The Problem
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Evolution To the Easy

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Developer-only Agile

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Who Needs Management?
Software developers:
Unemployment < 3.5%

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Eschewing Commitment

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Managing the Matrix
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Moving Resources

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• Hidden work
• High Work In Progress (WiP)
• Lack of focus
• Or purposeful focus away from vision
• Learned helplessness
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The Tyranny of the Now

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The Solutions
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First Things First – Back To Basics

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SAFe, Scaled Agile, and Scaled Agile Framework are trademarks or registered trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc.
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Transform at Scale

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Manage – Program / Product Manage

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Limit WiP
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Manage – Program / Product Manage

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Big Room Planning

23. Organize for the Work

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Intelligent Design?
Agile Center of
Excellence
(CoE)
Organizational
change
Platform

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Continually Measure and Transform

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The Next Level of Agile
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Starts at Scale
SAFe, Scaled Agile, and Scaled Agile Framework are trademarks or registered trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc.

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Organized for the Work
Agile
team
Agile
team
Agile
team
Agile
team
Product
manager
Delivery
director
SM
SM
PO
PO
PO
PO
Delivery
manager
Delivery
manager
Communities
Of Practice
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Makes and Meets Commitments

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Always Transforming

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Lead
Agile Center of
Excellence
(CoE)
Organizational
change
Platform

32. - 32 -
Delivers the Original
Promise of Agile

33. Remember Company 2?
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34. www.rallydev.com
Confidential Do not copy or distribute without express permission of Rally.
©2015 Rally Software Development Corp. All rights reserved.
Overview:
• 160+ engineers
• 14+ years of Agile
• 15 teams
• Re-baselined Scrum Agile practices
• Big Room Planning
• 1 Agile Release Train
• 1 product (feature-based) roadmap
Results:
• X2 feature output
• Average 95% commitment /
acceptance ratio
• 100% delivery of roadmap
commitments
• Considerable Productivity and
Predictability gains
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Midsize SaaS Company – Early 2015

35. Thank you
www.rallydev.com
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©2015 Rally Software Development Corp. All rights reserved.