Agile Transition Coaching

Coaching Agile Transitions

agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2011.

What am I going to talk about
• Short intro to myself and agile42

• Common problems

• Some things to keep in mind when thinking about a transition

• Strategy Map - A tool for planning a transition

• Example of a Strategy Map of a transition


Lasse Ziegler
• Agile Coach

• Joined agile42 in January 2011

• Over 10 years of experience in software development

• Have been a coder, architect, project manager, ScrumMaster


agile42
• HQ in Berlin, Germany

• Other “ofﬁces” in Vancouver,
Helsinki, Bologna

• We currently work mostly in
Europe

• Our focus is on doing transitions


Some of our customers


Agile Transitions

Common problems when doing transitions
• No compelling reason for change

• Lack of communication

• Focus on changing process, structure etc instead of behavior

• No room for failures

• Management and leadership not willing to change themselves

• Only training and no coaching

• Nothing changes if nothing changes

• Not making the process transparent and meaningful to the individual - WIIFM

• And many more...


Transition to Agility
• Team/People Empowerment

• Knowledge building, and
persisting

• Adaptivity to changes, ﬂexibility

• Focus on Value and Customer

• Cultural Change, paradigm shift


“At the University of California at Irvine, ...
they just planted grass... they waited a year
Adapting vs. Deﬁning and looked at where people had made paths
in the grass and built the side walks there.”

A “process” for transitions
• Establish a reason for the transition

• Create a transition team

• Develop a vision and strategy

• Communicate the vision

• Empower people to change

• Generate quickly some success

• Don’t let up

• Anchor new approach in the culture

Based on Leading Change by John Kotter


Strategy Map
How to deﬁne a Goal and setup a strategy to successfully transform your
organization?


Strategy Map

Strategic Objective(s)
Description of a desired outcome with
key differentiators

Strategic Objective


Strategy Map

Possible Success
Factor

key differentiators

Strategic Objective Possible Success Factors
Brainstorm as many possible factors
that will contribute to successfully
delivering the objective.
Factors may include:
Possible
‣ Skills or Capabilities
Success Factor
‣ Relationships or Interactions
‣ Constraints or Targets


Strategy Map
Necessary
Necessary Condition
Condition

Possible Success
Factor

key differentiators

Strategic Objective Possible Success Factors
Brainstorm as many possible factors
that will contribute to successfully
delivering the objective.
Factors may include:
Possible
‣ Skills or Capabilities
Success Factor
‣ Relationships or Interactions
‣ Constraints or Targets

Necessary Necessary Conditions
Necessary
Condition Minimum actions or deliverables
Condition
needed to deliver just enough of a PSF.
May contain nested NCs until an
actionable backlog items are identiﬁed.


An Example Strategy Map
What might be part of a transition


Strategy Map
Evidence of Pilot Projects
Success

Top Management
Sponsorship

Enterprise successfully
delivering with Scrum


Pilot Project
• Try the whole process end-to-end, not
just the development

• Start by training the Product Owners,
and through coaching identify and
develop a Product Backlog

• Train the Team when the Backlog is
READY and start sprinting

• Coach the whole Scrum Team
through 2-3 Sprints till the Team will
be independent, than start with
another team

• Learn from every experience and
consolidate the Backlog and the
approach

Strategy Map
Success

Transition Team

Top Management
Sponsorship Transition
Remove
Backlog
Impediments



Transition Backlog
• Contains all the tactical actions
stemming from the Transition
Strategy

• Contains all the impediment rose
by the Scrum Teams that need
systemic intervention outside of
their responsibility

• Get’s processed by the
Transition Team, in order of
priority


Transition Team
• Members representing the
disciplines and roles present in
the organization

• Contains the Sponsor of the
transition acting as Product
Owner

• Members may rotate over time
depending on the focus at that
time

• Also Team Member may join to
support Impediment removal


Strategy Map
Success

Transition Team

Top Management
Remove
Backlog
Impediments

Agile & Scrum
Awareness introduction


Lean, Agile or Scrum?
Openne Re
e nt s s Co urage sp
e ct
it m
m
om Focus
C Scrum Framework

Agile Values

Lean Principles


Strategy Map
Success

Transition Team

Top Management
Remove
Backlog
Impediments

Agile & Scrum
Success Stories
Marketing &
Communication
Paradigm shift:
bottom-up


Put your team into context, allow them to tell
the story... good and bad stories, they are all
Start to ask Questions! lessons learned :-)


Strategy Map
Success

Transition Team

Top Management
Remove
Backlog
Impediments

Agile & Scrum
Success Stories
Marketing &
Communication
Paradigm shift:
Effective bottom-up
Scrum Teams Agile Engineering
Technical Practices
Excellence

Training Coaching


Agile Engineering
Practices
Delivering fast requires new
methods... and new tools

People need to learn new
tools and new practices...

and have the courage to leave
behind the Old tools which are
not supportive anymore
There is no “perfect” tool and there is no tool
Agile Engineering forever...
Practices

Coaching
• Coaching mostly the Product
Owners and ScrumMasters

• Focus on changing behavior

• Guiding people to a solution
instead of giving one

• Asking powerful questions and
giving feedback

• Coaching coaches


Strategy Map
Success

Transition Team

Top Management
Remove
Backlog
Impediments

Agile & Scrum
Support growth of Cultural Change delivering with Scrum
Success Stories
new “Roles” Marketing &
Communication
Customer & Value Paradigm shift:
Effective bottom-up
orientation
Technical Practices
Excellence
System Thinking

Training Coaching


The constraints set into a system are
responsible for people behaviors into that
System Thinking system


Strategy Map
Community of Agile Leadership
Practice Success
Internal Coaches
Transition Team

Building Top Management
Knowledge Sponsorship Transition
Sustainability Remove
Backlog
Impediments
Training Program
& Career path Agile & Scrum
Support growth of Cultural Change delivering with Scrum
Success Stories
new “Roles” Marketing &
Communication
Customer & Value Paradigm shift:
Effective bottom-up
orientation
Technical Practices
Excellence
System Thinking

Training Coaching


Learning as Doing...
Learning as Belonging...
Community of Practice Learning as Becoming...
Learning as Experience

Conclusions
• Agile is mainstream, enterprises need
to adopt is growing

• Succeeding with one or two projects
is not the same as succeeding with
the whole enterprise

• Transitioning to agile requires a vision,
a strategy and constant and
inspection & adaptation

• Transition is a cultural change, it will
take time, and not everybody will like
it, but needs to happen :-)


Questions? & Answers!

For any further comment and or question, feel free to
contact us info@agile42.com

Further References:
Scrum Alliance: http://www.scrumalliance.org
Control Chaos: http://www.controlchaos.com
Implementing Scrum: http://www.implementingscrum.com
Jeff Sutherland Blog: http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum
Mike Cohn “User Stories”: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com
agile42 Website: http://www.agile42.com/


Agile Transition Coaching

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