201510 - The Story of LeSS (ACE)

The Story of LeSS
(Large-Scale Scrum)
@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Karim Harbott - Agile Coaching Exchange (ACE) - Oct 2015

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
The History of LeSS
The Principles
The Framework(s)
Case Study
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#LeSSWorks
The History of LeSS

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Nokia 2005…

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
How does this scale to
multiple teams?

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Analysts / UX team Manager
Architecture team Manager
DBA team Manager
Component A team Manager
Component B team Manager
Component C team Manager
Testing team Manager
Typical pre-Scrum
organisational structure

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
• Dependencies
• Delays feedback loops
• Lower priority features being worked on
• More hand-offs and documentation
• More planning, and re-planning

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
A cross-functional
feature team spans
all functions and
components
DBA team Manager

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
DBA team Manager
Feature team A
Feature team B
Feature team C

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
600 Experiments

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#LeSSWorks
Follow the rules
Shu
Ha
Ri
Understand the rules and how to
apply them in different contexts
Make your own rules

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
600 Experiments
Guides
3 Pages of Rules
10 Principles

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#LeSSWorks
The Principles

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Build your method
up
Don’t tailor it down

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
- David Snowden
“Leaders who try to impose order in a complex context will fail, but those who set
the stage, step back a bit, allow patterns to emerge, and determine which ones are
desirable will succeed.”
SCALED AGILE
Vs

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
“Simple, clear purpose and principles
give rise to complex, intelligent
behaviour. Complex rules and
regulations give rise to simple and
stupid behaviour.”
- Dee Hock

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Transparency*
Inspec,on*
Adap,on*

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
The Framework(s)

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
A few of the LeSS
rules
• One Product Owner for the product (not one per team)
• One Product Backlog for the product (not one per team)
• All prioritisation goes through the Product Owner
• One Definition of Done for the product
• A majority of teams are co-located, self-managing, cross-
functional feature teams
• One synchronised sprint cadence
• Aim for an integrated, shippable product each sprint

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#LeSSWorks
Potentially Shippable
Product Increment

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• No project management.
• No support groups such as configuration management, CI support, or “quality and process”.
• Prefer to expand the responsibilities of the teams.
• Head of Product Group - hierarchical manager of all teams
• Feature Teams - long lived, cross-functional team where development is done.
• Product Owner (team) - PO (+ SMEs). Team of peers, no hierarchy.
• Undone Department - Ideally does not exist, but may do; at least initially.

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
• Product Owner (team) - PO + APOs (+ SMEs). Team of peers, no hierarchy.
• Support - Environment support for teams. Support, not prevent. Should be small and helpful
• Undone Department - More likely to exist and be bigger in LeSS Huge.
• Competence and Coaching - Practitioner experts, Go-See, training and coaching.

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Case Study - Financial
Services / eCommerce

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Release cycle was typically 15-18 weeks
Lack of trust between ‘the business’ and ‘technology’
‘Commitments’ were frequently missed
Product quality / stability was low
Morale was low
Teams were removed from the customer
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5
6

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Area%1%UI%Team%
Project,%Programme%&%
Func6onal%Management%
PO% PO% PO%
Backlog% Backlog% Backlog%
Backlog% Backlog% Backlog%
PO% PO% PO%
Area%2%UI%Team% Area%3%UI%Team%
Area%1%API%Team% Area%2%API%Team% Area%3%API%Team%
Backlog%
Area%3%API%Team%
PO%
Backlog%
Area%3%backend%
Team%
PO%

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Feature'Team'
Backlog'
Feature'Team' Feature'Team' Feature'Team' Feature'Team' Feature'Team'
PO'+'SMEs'

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Release cycle down to 4 weeks
Collaboration between all areas of the product group
Frequent delivery of value with full automation
Learning culture
96% decrease in major incidents
Customer satisfaction and conversion trending up
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4
5
6

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
“The most valuable thing we can offer each other is
the framework in which to think for ourselves”
– Nancy Kline

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#LeSSWorks
In Summary

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Organise by customer value
Use a non-prescriptive framework + empiricism
Invest in top-quartile developers
Provide leadership support for continuous improvement
Hire strong coaches to build an internal capability
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3
4
5

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
Craig Larman / Bass Vodde
http://less.works
Coming
soon

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
karim@guidingagile.com
@KarimHarbott
• Born and live in London, UK
• Enterprise Agile Coach and Trainer
• Former developer and ScrumMaster
• Executive coach
• Years of experience in scaling Scrum in
large product groups
• Arsenal fan!!
Karim Harbott

@KarimHarbott
#LeSSWorks
“There is no path. The path is made by walking”
- Antonio Machado

201510 - The Story of LeSS (ACE)

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