Many consider agile a process to implement within an existing organization. A set of rules to follow that will produce some useful outcomes. This approach can provide improvements in many different structures of organizations. As agile maturity improves, however, the benefits can become limited by the structure and culture of the organization itself. Agile is more than a framework for organizing tasks for a team. Agile is a culture, a mindset and a structure for improving the velocity of innovation and providing real business value to customers. To gain the most benefit from Agile it must be considered as part of a more extensive system that incorporates organizational structure, software architecture, and company culture. This talk considers the interactions between how the work, the software, and the people are organized in high performing agile organizations. Using my own experiences at companies large and small, I will share what I have learned and some best practices I use. These lessons will help you as you improve and scale your Agile teams. I will discuss: * How to structure your organization to remove the bottlenecks in coordination and decision-making that can slow velocity to a crawl * How to take advantage of modern systems architectures to allow teams to move faster * Using data to provide accountability for autonomous teams without creating more process By the end, you will have concrete examples and ideas that you can bring back to your team to help you improve and scale agile within your organization.

1. ORGANIZATION, ARCHITECTURE,
AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
KEVIN GOLDSMITH

2. @KevinGoldsmith
SOME PRINCIPLES

3. @KevinGoldsmith
DATA BEATS OPINION

4. @KevinGoldsmith
“I never guess. It is a capital mistake to
theorize before one has data. Insensibly one
begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of
theories to suit facts.”
Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal In Bohemia (1891)

5. @KevinGoldsmith
SPEED OF ITERATION BEATS
QUALITY OF ITERATION

6. @KevinGoldsmith
SPEED WITHOUT DATA MEANS
YOU AREN’T LEARNING

7. @KevinGoldsmith
DATA WITHOUT SPEED MEANS YOU
AREN’T LEARNING FAST ENOUGH

8. @KevinGoldsmith
DATA
VISION
EXPERIM
ENTS
LEARNING
PRODUCT
INFORMS
GUIDES
GENERATES
DRIVES
PROVIDES

9. @KevinGoldsmith
ACHIEVING SPEED OF LEARNING
THROUGH ORGANIZATION

10. @KevinGoldsmith
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS GO
FASTER

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AUTONOMOUS TEAMS LEARN
FASTER

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AUTONOMOUS
adjective
au·ton·o·mous - ȯ-ˈtä-nə-məs
• (of a country or region) having the freedom to govern itself or control
its own affairs.
• having the freedom to act independently.
synonyms: self-governing, independent, sovereign, free, self-ruling, self-
determining, autarchic; self-sufficient

13. @KevinGoldsmith
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS
Fully empowered and resourced to fulfill their mission and their
commitments.

14. @KevinGoldsmith
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS
Fully empowered and resourced to fulfill their mission and their
commitments.
UX Prod Mgr Dev Lead Back End Front End Test Mobile Data Eng

15. @KevinGoldsmith
DATA
VISION
EXPERIMENTSLEARNING
PRODUCT
INFORMS
GUIDES
GENERATES
DRIVES
PROVIDES
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS
Generate their own experiments.

16. @KevinGoldsmith
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS NOT
AUTONOMOUS INDIVIDUALS

17. @KevinGoldsmith
INDIVIDUALS ON AUTONOMOUS
TEAMS ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO
EACH OTHER

18. @KevinGoldsmith
REQUIREMENTS OF AUTONOMY

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AUTONOMY NEEDS
COMMUNICATION

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AUTONOMY NEEDS
CONTEXT

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AUTONOMY NEEDS
TRANSPARENCY

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AUTONOMY NEEDS
TRUST

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IF YOU CAN’T TRUST THE
PEOPLE YOU HIRE, YOU ARE
BAD AT HIRING PEOPLE.

24. @KevinGoldsmith
BY GIVING TEAMS CONTEXT AND TRUST
AND REDUCING DEPENDENCIES ON
OTHER TEAMS
THEY CAN MAKE DECISIONS ON
THEIR OWN
THEY BECOME AUTONOMOUS!
AND THEY CAN EXECUTE ON THEIR DECISIONS

25. @KevinGoldsmith
AUTONOMY ANARCHY=

26. @KevinGoldsmith

27. @KevinGoldsmith

28. @KevinGoldsmith
‣ PRODUCT VISION
‣ COMPANY GOALS
WHERE ARE WE GOING?

29. @KevinGoldsmith
WHAT/WHY
HOW

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GROW IN MARKET <X>
GET ALL DOCUMENTS FOR THE MARKET

31. @KevinGoldsmith
‣ PRODUCT VISION
‣ COMPANY GOALS
WHERE ARE WE GOING?

32. @KevinGoldsmith
‣ KPIS
‣ BEST PRACTICES
‣ LEADERSHIP
HOW DO WE GET THERE TOGETHER?

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ACCOUNTABILITY FOR AUTONOMY

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35. @KevinGoldsmith

36. @KevinGoldsmith

37. @KevinGoldsmith

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GOALS
GOALS
GOALS

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KPIS
KPIS
KPIS

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KPIS SHOULD BE ALIGNED TO
BUSINESS METRICS*

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KPIS SHOULD BE ALIGNED TO
BUSINESS METRICS*
(* IF POSSIBLE)

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LEADERSHIP IN AN AUTONOMOUS
ORGANIZATION

43. @KevinGoldsmith
HOW DO YOU LEAD A TEAM THAT
MAKES IT’S OWN DECISIONS?

44. @KevinGoldsmithU.S. NAVY PHOTO BY TOM WATANABE

45. @KevinGoldsmithU.S. ARMY PHOTO BY STAFF SGT. JENNIFER BUNN

46. @KevinGoldsmith

47. @KevinGoldsmith
SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FOR
AUTONOMOUS TEAMS

48. @KevinGoldsmith
“ORGANIZATIONS WHICH
DESIGN SYSTEMS... ARE
CONSTRAINED TO PRODUCE
DESIGNS WHICH ARE COPIES
OF THE COMMUNICATION
STRUCTURES OF THESE
ORGANIZATIONS.”

49. @KevinGoldsmith
“WE FIND STRONG EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE MIRRORING
HYPOTHESIS. IN ALL OF THE PAIRS WE EXAMINE, THE
PRODUCT DEVELOPED BY THE LOOSELY-COUPLED
ORGANIZATION IS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE MODULAR THAN THE
PRODUCT FROM THE TIGHTLY-COUPLED ORGANIZATION.”Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the “Mirroring” Hypothesis MacCormack,
Baldwin, Rusnak - Harvard Business School, 2008

50. @KevinGoldsmith
MICROSERVICES!!!!!
Four Blair Services Pvt. Ltd. [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

51. @KevinGoldsmith
HOW MICROSERVICES ENABLE AUTONOMY
DECOUPLE DELIVERY SCHEDULES
TEAMS COORDINATION ON
ARCHITECTURE

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HOW MICROSERVICES ENABLE AUTONOMY
SUPPORT OWNERSHIP OF DELIVERABLES
FAST DELIVERY OF VALUE
ABILITY TO EXPERIMENT
OPERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

53. @KevinGoldsmith
ORGANIZATION, ARCHITECTURE,
AUTONOMY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

54. @KevinGoldsmith
DATA > OPINION

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SPEED OF ITERATION >
QUALITY OF ITERATION

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AUTONOMOUS TEAMS CAN
ITERATE FASTER

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FOR TEAMS TO BE AUTONOMOUS,
THEY NEED CONTEXT, DIRECTION
AND GUARDRAILS

58. @KevinGoldsmith
FOR AUTONOMOUS TEAMS TO BE
ACCOUNTABLE, THEY NEED MUTUALLY AGREED
UPON KPIS TO MEASURE THEIR PERFORMANCE.

59. @KevinGoldsmith
MICROSERVICE ARCHITECTURES
SUPPORT AUTONOMOUS TEAMS, BY
REDUCING DEPENDENCIES

60. @KevinGoldsmith
THANK YOU