A talk by Skip Angel Talk given at Mile High 2012 in Denver

1. Journey To Agility
Coaching a Transformation
Agile Mile High 2012
@skipangel
sangel@bigvisible.com

2. What we will cover
Preparation to accepting organizational change
Best places to start successfully
Coaching differently to achieve greater agility
Major transformational activities and events
How transformation impacts the organization

3. What this talk is not about
Agile Maturity Models
Unproven Theories
Just a Case Study
“It won’t work for us”

4. Why did your organization
or client look at Agile?
Was it for the right reasons?

5. Good Reasons For Agile
Let’s talk about
Agile
Sense of Urgency
Need for Change
Focused on Results

6. Pitfalls
Agile as Silver Bullet
Lack of Shared
Understanding
“Just need to go faster”

7. What is Agile to you?
Software Development Life Cycle?
SCRUM*?
El se?
Different Mindset? ething Way of Life?
O rS om
Manifesto?
Project Management Framework?

8. Defining Agility
The capacity of an organization to sense and respond
holistically to rapidly changing events, situations and
circumstances in ways that allow it to continue to thrive
and to innovate as an organization

9. Understanding their world
Organizational Challenges/
Pains
Past attempts at Agile?
How are you organized?
Describe your culture
What is your FUD about Agile?
Credibility and Trust

10. What did you do to get
started?

11. Establishing the coaching role
Pitfall: Client telling what coach should do and not do
Coaching role is new to most people
What do you expect and need from a coach?

12. Transformational Coaching Model
Leadership Agility
Complexity
Management/Executive Coaching
Organiza(onal+Coaching+
Leadership mentoring
ToC
Systems Thinking
Organizational structures
“Changing the Rules” (Process, etc.)
Org Change
Product Management/Strategy
PPM
Product Development/Delivery
Multiple Team/Programs
Typical Focus
Team%Coaching%
Kanban
Scrum
of
XP
Technical mentoring
Agile
Team Dynamics/Collaboration
Team coaching
Initiatives

13. Coaching Styles
Training Embedded Situational
Directive Coaching Socratic Coaching Mentoring
Shu Ha Ri
Person follows rules until Person reflects on the rules, looks Rules are forgotten as person has
they sink in for exceptions, and ‘breaks” the developed mastery, and grasped
rules the essence and underlying forces
Student Apprentice Master

14. Coaching Cycle
Start%Anywhere,%
Go%Everywhere%
What%to%Do% Where%to%Go%
Next% Next%

15. Choosing a pilot
More management support
Higher business priority
Higher business and technical risk
Agile buy-in
Product, technical and soft skills
Location: less dispersed
Minimal shared team members

16. Principles First
Agile Manifesto + 12 Principles
Lean Principles - Load, Flow, Waste
Scrum Values - Focus, Commitment,
Openness, Courage, Respect
Attributes of Agile - Iterative,
Incremental, Collaboration,
Communication, Transparency,
Prioritization

17. Typical Team Rollout

18. Establish an enablement team
Cross Company, Highest Level Possible
Define Identity
Purpose: Create environments in which organizational agility
emerges
Vision: Dramatically improve the quality and quantity of the
software products we build for our customers and suppliers
Responsibilities: Evangelism around Agile, Communication of
Progress, Escalation of Issues, Guidance and Support

19. Enablement Planning
Do your people believe
that they can change
things? Will you hold true to
vision or let
distractions seep in?
WIll you champion
change as leaders?
Change via Environment
Design

20. Strategy Mapping
Strategic Objective: Desired
Outcome or Vision
Possible Success Factors: Skills,
Capabilities, Constraints or Targets
Necessary Conditions: Minimum
actions or deliverables needed to
deliver just enough of a PSF

21. Creating the Backlog

22. Enablement Execution Map

23. Coaching Map

24. How are people handling the change?

25. Changing Organizational
Policies, Structures, Tools
The organizational
structures, rules and
policies which facilitate
How leaders and
how work gets done
managers lead,
Leadership+ Organiza(onal+ and how results get
inspire, direct and Styles+ Structures+ produced.
motivate others
Organiza(onal+Culture+
Collectively held beliefs, values and assumptions which
determine how people think and how they behave

26. Changing Leadership Styles
Directing Catalyzing
Telling and directing Envisioning and facilitating
Defining and enforcing rules and policies Establishing clear objectives, allowing rules to evolve
Making major project/product decisions Pushing decision making down to lowest level possible
Formal meetings for coordination Collaboration and relationship building
Top down establishment of bureaucratic, Allow emergence of organic and minimally necessary
process heavy control structures structure and processes
Quick fix solutions Look at root cause for longer term solutions
Telling teams to get better Creating environments for the team to thrive

27. Understand that chaos is normal
Source: Steve Smith
http://stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/

28. What challenges did you run into once
you started with a few teams?
How did you overcome those
challenges?

29. The Client
Travel Website
250 People
10 Years Old
Teams in San Francisco, Geneva,
and Kiev
2 Coaches
(Re)Introduced Agile Nov 2011

30. Leadership

31. Leadership
Where did we start? Where are we now? What comes next?
Some strong leadership Transition Team is “storming” Transition Team is the glue
Willingness to try Agile Finding their place in Agile Learning how to be catalysts
Agile is Engineering Process Agility (not Agile) is the Mindset Agility becomes second nature
Compelling need Not going back Sustaining change
Managers “finding themselves”
Managers have control Managers re-inventing their roles
given less control

32. Organization

33. Organization
Where did we start? Where are we now? What comes next?
Functional Teams pulled together for
Most product cross-functional teams Product Cross-Functional Feature Teams
projects
Organizational processes centered around Heavy processes leaned out across value
Critical Processes adapted for Agile
projects (compliance, capitalization) streams
Teams were relocated into same working Teams using common areas for Teams having collaborative areas instead
spaces of cubicles collaboration near cubicles of cubicles
Limited information sharing / learning Communities of Practice for Product
Other Communities of Practice
through intranet and company trainings Owners and Scrum Masters
Highly specialization of skills through Hiring of “Agile” skills with diversity, More (but not everyone) seeing value in
hiring and training some becoming more generalists becoming more generalists
Metrics focused primarily on financial/ Metrics being developed to focus on Metrics being used as feedback for
business results agility capabilities improvement

34. Product / Business Strategy

35. Product / Business Strategy
Where did we start? Where are we now? What comes next?
Product Discovery working with Product Team working in product discovery and
Product Discovery separate
Development development activities
Product Management - Product Owners with teams but telling Team members learning product and
Stakeholder and Strategic Role teams what is needed business to guide priorities and solutions
Teams using Business Model Canvases to
Little knowledge of Vision or Strategy Vision Statements created for Teams
understand business
Prioritized list of projects in “Product Prioritized list of features/stories in Include Innovative Ideas in Backlog
Queue” “Product Backlog”
Requirements captured as specs Stories defined with acceptance criteria Stories include customer tests (BDD)
Minimal Viable Product for Feature using
Scope of Projects Minimal Viable Product for Releases
Lean Startup (Build-Measure-Learn)
Customer Validation through Learning Customer Validation through Sprint Customer Validation through Cohort
Labs and Split Testing Reviews/Demos Testing in Production
Learning about the customer through Learning about the customer through Learning about the customer through
interviews persona development empathy mapping

36. Delivery

37. Delivery
Where did we start? Where are we now? What comes next?
8 - 10 Proposed Scrum Teams 15 Agile Teams (Kanban and Scrum) 20 Agile Teams using various practices
Monthly Release Targets Monthly Combined Release Deliveries Continuous Delivery (2 weeks or less)
Monthly Release Coordination, some More frequent release coordination and
Little coordination ahead of release
Forecasting forecasting
Offshore teams doing Internal Coaches hired/trained, went Offshore company going through their
their own form of Agile through same process as other teams own transformation with coaches
Branching and merging for releases Continuous Integration, some smoke tests Continuous Integration and Testing
Manual Builds every 2 - 3 Days Automated Builds 1-2 times daily Continuous Builds

38. Execution

39. Execution
Where did we start? Where are we now? What comes next?
Teams working as individuals Teams working together in Sprints Teams sharing roles delivering work
Regression Test Automation Only BDD Functional and Unit Tests after Code Test Driven Development
High Fidelity Prototypes ahead Right Fidelity working with team Ideation with team and customers
Code Shared/Owned Across Teams Some code shared, but owned by team Most code shared and owned by team
Technical Debt out of control No debt for new code in stories Addressing past debt within stories
Managers tasking/estimating work Team owning work, help from managers Team owning and understanding work

40. When to leave?
“There is something you
should understand about the
way I work. When you need
me but do not want me, then I
must stay. When you want me
but no longer need me, then I
have to go. It's rather sad, Nanny McPhee
really, but there it is.”

41. Summary
Delivering outcomes that will improve the capabilities needed for agility
Develop a culture that encourages and supports developmental learning
Evolve a theory of change that impacts everyone in the organization
Helping others go through the process of change
Evolve the capability for continuous discovery and improvement for
individuals, organization and team

42. Summary
Evolve the model (processes, structure, behaviors) of the organization
Foster organization design that supports emergence and self-
organization
Develop catalytic leadership that will foster, support and encourage
change
Foster shared vision across products and organization so that strategy
aligns to everyone’s work

43. Questions?