Agile transformation lessons from the trenches by Mark Lines

• DA Fellow, Co-creator of the Disciplined Agile framework
• Enterprise Agile Coach
• President, Disciplined Agile Consortium
• Managing Partner, Scott Ambler + Associates
• @Mark_Lines
Mark Lines
Agile Transformations
– Lessons from the Trenches
@mark_lines © Disciplined Agile Consortium 1
Based upon Chapter 7 – A Disciplined Approach to Agile Transformations

Disciplined Agile is Taking off Around the World

Transforming for
Business Agility
• The need for change
• Preparing for change
• How to change
• Examples of change

Disciplined
Agile Enterprise
Disciplined
Agile IT
Disciplined
DevOps
DAD
The Disciplined Agile Framework
http://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com/the-agile-tractor-engine-analogy/
4@mark_lines © Disciplined Agile Consortium

Most organizations focus on just Adoption using Agile or Lean

Invest in Coaching
© Disciplined Agile Consortium 7

Enterprise
Coaching
Team
Coaching

Transformation Timeline – It is a multi-year process

Agile
Transformation
Effort Over
Time
10
@mark_lines © Disciplined Agile Consortium

Agile
Champions/Sponsors
• Help to support and promote change
• Help to accelerate agile “transformation”
in the organization
• Without executive sponsors in it for the
long term it is very unlikely your adoption
will succeed
• Can think if them like a “Product Owner”
for your Transformation
11

Continuous Improvement Process Blade in DA

Continuous
Improvement
Process
Blade (DAIT)

Establish Centres of Excellence (CoE) & Communities of Practice/Guilds (CoP)
• Centres of Excellence
– Typically staffed full time by
“experts”
– Temporary
– Ensure consistency of approach
and messaging
– Provide leadership and
purposely disseminate
information
– Enterprise & Team Coaches
• Communities of Practice/Guilds
– Part-time responsibility staffed by
practitioners (could be guided by
CoE)
– Long-term
– Shared learnings and
experiences
– Improve their collective craft over
time
– Examples
• Agile Coaching, EA, Agile Modeling

1
5
A Disciplined Agile Centre of Excellence

Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
Increase
Urgency
1
Build the
Guiding Team
2
Get the Vision
Right
3
Communicate
for Buy In
4
Empower
Action
5
Create Short
Term Wins
6
Don’t Let Up
7
Make Change
Stick
8

Change Efforts have a Lousy
Track Record
• Average success rate of change initiatives 54%
– According to 2013 Strategy&/Katzenbach Center
survey
• Reasons
– Lack of a structured change management
process
– Irrational human behavior
– Treating change as linear process initiatives
• Managing change requires a feedback-driven
approach, not plan-driven
• We need to use an agile lean/approach to change
• Solution: Use both a structured AND feedback-
based agile approach
18

Lean Change
• We have found the ideas from Lean
Change to be effective (Jason Little, Jeff
Anderson and others)
• Leanchange.org
Lean Change
• We have found the ideas from Lean
Change to be effective (Jason Little, Jeff
Anderson and others)
• Leanchange.org

Executive
Workshops
- Education
- Vision
- Guiding
Principles

Several “Big
Visible Charts”
help to
communicate
the Vision &
progress
against it

Lean Change Cycle
23
Experimental based approach
similar to “The Lean Startup”

Minimal Viable Changes (MVC)
• A Minimal Viable Change is a change that you believe is small enough to be
successful that balances disruption and organizational value
• Experiments
• Steps to incorporate the change:
1. Agree on the reason for the change
2. Negotiate the change
3. Validate the Option (introduce the improvement)
4. Learn & verify Improvement

Example of an Minimal Viable Change (MVC)
• Hypothesis
• We believe that by replacing our current expensive and time consuming
start-up documentation with a 2-week Inception Phase we can a reduce
average time to delivery by 30%
• MVC (as an ’Option’)
• Replace our project startup-phase consisting of Business Cases, Plans,
and Detailed Requirements documents with a 2-week Inception Phase
to complete a lightweight vision for each project
• Change Recipients
• PMO, Business Stakeholders, Delivery Teams

Tool: Insights, Options, & Approved Backlog of options
26
Insights MVC Options Approved/Next
As a process decision
framework, DAD provides a rich
set of options to choose from
Example:
- Insight: QA requires more details to test from
- Options for MVC:
- More detail in Use Cases
- Supplement stories with screen mock-ups
- More detail in Acceptance Criteria
- QA participates in all conversations
Having selected an option
for an experiment, it is
moved to the
approved/next backlog

Pulling MVCs from the Backlog
27

Part of “Preparing” for the change is Negotiating with the change recipients.
Eg) Why should we redesign, collocate teams, and keep them together?
Questions Guiding Principle
How long will this
team be together?
Teams improve over time, striking/disbanding
teams is expensive, learnings lost
Do we have 100%
dedicated Developers
and QA?
Anything less that 100% is an excuse for non-
commitment, hurts team morale, very costly
due to task switching, reduced accountability
Who are the team
members’ managers?
Team makeup is often suboptimal if tied to
functional hierarchy
What is the team size? Ideal team size is 5-9 people
Is team collocated? Productivity and collaboration increases
dramatically with collocation
What is the team size? Ideal team size is 5-9 people
Is this a “whole team”? Reduced dependencies on resources external
to team is beneficial

Metrics
Design with
GQM
Goals trace back to
Vision canvas goals

From Transformation to
Continuous Improvement
• This is a journey, not a destination
• Once the key transformative work has been complete, the transformation changes more
to a continuous improvement approach

MVC example:
Redesign &
collocate teams
DA106: Disciplined Agile for Managers
https://www.disciplinedagileconsortium.org/da106
Functional Manager
- Equities Teams
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Team Lead
Architecture
Owner
Leopard Team
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Jaguar Team
Team Lead
Architecture
Owner
Functional Manager
- Fixed Income
Teams
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Team Lead
Architecture
Owner
Maserati Team
Team Member
Team Member
Team Member
Porsche Team
Team Lead
Architecture
Owner

Another example
Get plans out of MS
Project & make
them visible.
(no hidden work!)

Another example:
Replacing detailed project charters &
requirements docs with 3-day Inception phases

Another example: Workspace design…
No need for meeting rooms!!
Fosters continuous collaboration

Parting Thoughts... Critical Success Factors
• Communicate, communicate, communicate (town halls,
radiators, wikis, lean coffees) – radical transparency!
• Use External Coaches, & designate an Internal Enterprise Coach
(Product Owner for your Transformation MVC backlog)
• Executive sponsorship is critical
• Coach and mentor people over the long term
– Everyone and at all levels of the organization, not just IT
• Get some help from experienced Enterprise Coaches
• Certified Disciplined Agile Coaches (CDACs) have passed a
DAC Board Review and had references checked

mark [at]
disciplinedagileconsortium.com
@mark_lines
DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org
DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com
ScottAmbler.com
Disciplined Agile
Thank You!
Questions?

Agile transformation lessons from the trenches by Mark Lines

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