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Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
6801 185th Ave NE, Suite 200Redmond, WA 98052solutionsiq.com1.800.235.4091
Scaling Agile: A Tale of TwoTransformations
Steve MartinEnterprise Lead Agile [email protected]
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
AGENDA
Background
• Profiles of two companies
• Issues/Goals of transformation
Approach
The Experiences & Results
• Successful Company
• Not-so-successful Company
Questions to ponder both before and when scaling up a transformation
Parting Thoughts
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
BACKGROUND:
COMPANY PROFILES
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
TABLE 1: COMPARISON OF COMPANIES
FINANCE COMPANY INSURANCE COMPANY
Product &
Customers
Software used by
financial institutions
Software used by medical
professionals to review
patients’ healthcare
information
Internal/External
Customers?
External customers only Both internal and external
customers
Technology Mainframe based, heavy
back-end
Primarily web based
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Common Issues
Severely dissatisfied customers
Solutions not addressing customers’ needs
Long lists of enhancement requests, from a few months to several years old
Low quality (in the form of high defects)
Long development and testing cycles
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Common Culture
Regulated Industries
Mature Products, Mature Industry
Management Promoted Within
What do you think the culture was like?
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
USE
AGILE
to
ROLL OUT
AGILE
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
TABLE 2: THREE-TIER MODEL OF ROLES NEEDED FOR TRANSFORMATION
ROLE TYPICAL TITLES FOCUS AREAS
Executives Leaders of the organization, such as:• C-levels• Executive Vice
Presidents• Managing Directors
• Set vision, guideposts, and culture for Agile transformationo Is consistent and transparent on why they are
doing what they are doingo Empower Management and Agile Teams, then
get out of the way • Renegotiate contracts and relationships with their
customers’ Executives
Management Typically directly manages staff on teams• Associate Vice
Presidents• Directors• Senior Managers
• Paves road for smoother Team execution by removing organization-wide blockerso Empower Teams, then get out of the way o Regularly shows up to reviews and are
“present” to give valued feedback
Agile Teams Individual contributors • Deliver high valued, high quality working product• Alter direction as needed based upon feedback
from stakeholders
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Delivery Teams Deliver high quality, high
value product
Scrum used to reduce risk associated product, uncertainty, build trust, increase quality, etc.
5 to 9 members
Cross functional
2 week cadence
Co-located
Dedicated “100%”
Backlogs focused on product…
Enablement Team Guide and enable Agile rollout
company-wide
Also followed Scrum-like approach, to help Management understand change
Up to 15 members
Cross functional
2 week cadence
Multiple locations
Available ~20%
Backlogs focused on transformation
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Setting foundation essential for scaling Pilot in a vertical, focusing on enabling Teams to deliver high
value, high quality work product incrementally and iteratively
Incorporating feedback loop with actual customers
o User Advisory Groups (Appendix)
Inculcate culture
Of Quality
Of cross-team collaboration and transparency
Shifting roles of teams, management, executives
To pivot or persevere
Resist temptation to solve enterprise problems just yet
o Be wary / mindful of them
o Have roadmap, but take incremental approach
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
High Capability, Low Willingness
Have high degree of awareness when coaching; be ready to jump in and actively facilitate. Provide “personal” coaching, usually 1:1. If no change in a reasonable amount of time, then switch out/remove team member.
High Capability, High Willingness
This is your “sweet spot” where you ideally would like to have everyone on your team operate. This gives much greater chance for operating successfully under Agile.
Low Capability, Low Willingness
Consider immediate switch-out. Poor attitude combined in inability to deliver can be a toxic combination to the team. Ask why this person was put on team to begin with to gain perspective and understanding.
Low Capability, High Willingness
This is your second choice of team members. A good attitude with willingness to learn and embrace Agile values and principles greatly contributes to a high performing team. Over time, technical skills can be learned. Lo
w
Hig
h
Low HighWillingness
Cap
abili
ty All 3 levels with high capability, high willingness (Appendix)
Setting foundation essential for scaling
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
THE ROAD TO AGILE: THE FINANCE COMPANY
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Six months in… “Vertical” pilots yielding
positive results
o Site A: 2 Scrum teams
o Site B: 2 Scrum teams + 1 unofficial Kanban
Significant increase in quality
Partnerships, greater trust established with clients
o Strong feedback loop
Comfortable with incremental, iterative development
…yet we stalled Enablement Team fizzling,
interest felt waning
o Management stopped attending sprint reviews
o Weekly Enablement Team meetings were risk reviews
o Not spending 20% time
o Behaviors starting to ripple into Dev Teams
But wanted to launch up to 5 new Scrum teams
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Reset Enablement Team to enable scaling
Go from “Governance” to “Working Team”
Held to same standards as Scrum Teams
Teams & Process
Technical(CI, QA)
Executives
Product
2 ScrumMasters (SMs) (Primary – Site B, Secondary – Site A)
2 Product Owners (POs) (Primary – Site A,
Secondary – Site B)
Split ~15 members into 4 areas, 3 to 5 people per area:
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Reset, continued…
Held Agile educational workshops at the clients’ customers
o Focused on product (visioning, prioritization, etc.)
o Laid foundation for Executives to renegotiate contracts
Hosted Release Planning workshops with multiple customers present in same room
o Shifted from enhancement requests to valued features
Created SM Community of Practice (CoP)
o Share experiences, common “templates”, metrics, etc.
Attempted Scrum of Scrums
o Found redundant with SM CoP and Enablement Team
Established and executed organization-wide communications plan
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Sprint 1 Sprint 3Sprint 2
The Product Owner Forum
Theme T1S1 Theme T1S2 Theme T1S3
Theme T2S1 Theme T2S2 Theme T2S3
Theme T3S1 Theme T3S2 Theme T3S3
PO Team 1
Chief Product Owner(CPO)
PO Team 2
PO Team 3
Day 9: Next Sprint Look Ahead
Day 4: 3 to 5 Sprint Look Ahead
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Sprint 1 Sprint 3Sprint 2
The Product Owner Forum
Theme T1S1 Theme T1S2 Theme T1S3
Theme T2S1 Theme T2S2 Theme T2S3
Theme T3S1 Theme T3S2 Theme T3S3
PO Team 1
Chief Product Owner(CPO)
PO Team 2
PO Team 3
Day 9: Next Sprint Look Ahead
Sprint 4
Theme T1S4
Theme T2S4
Theme T3S4
D4:3-5 D9:
Next
Day 4: 3 to 5 Sprint Look Ahead
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Sprint 1 Sprint 3Sprint 2
The Product Owner Forum
Theme T1S1 Theme T1S2 Theme T1S3
Theme T2S1 Theme T2S2 Theme T2S3
Theme T3S1 Theme T3S2 Theme T3S3
PO Team 1
Chief Product Owner(CPO)
PO Team 2
PO Team 3
Day 9: Next Sprint Look Ahead
Sprint 4
Theme T1S4
Theme T2S4
Theme T3S4
D4:3-5
D4:3-5
D4:3-5D9:
Next
D9:Next
D9:Next
Day 4: 3 to 5 Sprint Look Ahead
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
The Product Owner Forum
Seeing the forest and the trees at the same time.
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Outcomes
CHARACTERISTIC OUTCOME(S)Scrum Team Performance Generally good to excellent –
90% fewer bugs Delivered double the scope (2X) than expected Collaboration within Team greatly increased; teams
functioning as teamsManagement Capabilities Transitioned from managers to “Servant Leaders”Executive Team Activities Adopted mindset of Minimum Marketable Features
(MMF) for customers Excellent engagement with their Customers
Customer Satisfaction Generally quite higher at the Scrum team level via continuous delivery of working software and making adjustments due to feedback
Moderate improvement at the Customer’s Executive levels (still some uneasiness, but happier than before)
Did Scaling happen? Yes – at least eight Agile teams, with more planned upon leaving
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Not always rainbows and puppies…
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
THE (ROCKY) ROAD TO AGILE: THE INSURANCE COMPANY
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
There’s a “model”
that worked at the
last company. Let’s
try that approach
here with some
tweaks.
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Keep the same Use Agile to rollout Agile
3 levels of involvement (Teams, Mgmt, Execs)
Pilot small number of teams
o Co-locate
o Cross-functional
o 5 to 9 members
o “100%” time
Est. Enablement Team (Mgmt as team members, Execs as “customers”)
Introduce PO Forum
ModificationsOut of the gate:
Have the Enablement Team split into 3 sub-teams (Tech, Process, Product)
Set expectations that an Enablement Team is a “working team” not “governance” or status meeting
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Some foreshadowing…
Sounds great in theory. Will never
work here.
We’re fantastic fire fighters!
Agile is the process we need to ensure
we’re all doing it the same way.
I’m overbooked already. I’m free 3
weeks from now for 30 mins.
I guess I’ll just add this to the
8 other projects I’m working on.
I need for all features committed for next 2
years
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
The story unfolds… An extreme example with the first team…
o Series of medical leaves – 4 PO switches in 3 months
o 5 Dev changes. 3 QA changes. 3 BA changes.
As more 2 team scrum teams rolled out, resource poaching becomes common by Management
o Allocations went from “100%” to as low as 25% to work on emergency issues.
Management wondering why work isn’t getting done
o Put more controls in place - up to 5 different weekly statuses, all with same information
o Weekly then bi-weekly “RYG” Dashboard
o Rarely attended Sprint Reviews
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Enablement Team disintegrating
o Focus on fire-fighting vs root cause resolution
o Disband Enablement Team and put a Release Management Team in its place
Executives took passive role – how was I going to fix their problem?
o Desire guarantees of what’s in the next release
o Took 90 days to create a 90 day release plan
o 13 MMFs to 21 MMFs
Customers getting angry (again)
o Customers start to bow out of sprint reviews, since feedback wasn’t incorporated
o Intermediary put between Teams and Customers
The story unfolds…
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Despite the drama, there were wins…
Several Teams were performing better.
Collaboration, willingness to help each other
In earlier sprints, initially gain trust of customers
Started to understand incremental builds
Quality improved
Brought in Continuous Integration
Roles started to blur (UX, Devs doing testing)
Brought some rigor to the Release Planning Process
Made Release Process more transparent, incorporating multiple departments along the way
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Outcomes
CHARACTERISTIC OUTCOME(S)Scrum Team Performance Generally fair to good-
Moderately better quality software than with waterfall Delivered on par to what was expected Collaboration based upon an individual’s personality;
some teams worked well together, some teams were just a collection of people
Management Capabilities Continued to “manage” and put more controls in placeExecutive Team Activities Little change in behavior observed
Was aware of concept of MMF, but deferred to big bang rollouts versus incremental delivery
Customer Satisfaction Less overall satisfaction in the end from their customers, especially from the Executive levels
Exception: Some “bright spots” sporadically from Scrum Teams
Did Scaling happen? No – stalled at four Agile teams
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
What factors enabled greater
success?
Why “successful” at finance company, yet
not so much at insurance company?
Image © Andres Rodriguez
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Finance Co
Tremendous work ethic
Belief in product
Demonstrating Agile Principles at 3 levels
Dedicated, Continuous Teams
Sprint Review Participation
Execs/Mgmt Curiosity
Work through pivots
Set foundation to scale
Actions
Insurance Co
Tremendous work ethic
Belief in product
Demonstrating Agile Principles at Team level
Non-dedicated, high turn-over teams
Sprint Review Absence
Execs/Mgmt Missing
Pivots are hard…
Difficult to set foundation
Words
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Agile Transformations are Multidimensional
Environment
Teams
Leadership
Values & Principles
Process
Business/Market Drivers
… just to show a few areas
for consideration
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Example Questions to Ponder(Complete list in Section 8 of paper)
#2 - Do your Executives:
• Believe there is a problem with the status quo?
• Buy into the concept they will likely need to alter theirbehavior in order for the organization to change?
• Understand they will likely need to reestablish relationships with their top customers, help their customers come along with the transformation journey as well?
• Have the fortitude to prioritize on a limited set of key strategic initiatives and let others go?
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Example Questions to Ponder(Complete list in Section 8 of paper)
#7 - When it comes to the act of releasing product incrementally:
• Is your organization willing to do incremental releases?
• Are your customers willing to accept incremental releases?
• Can you identify a set of early adopters willing to provide candid and valuable feedback on incremental releases?
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
My more successful
transformations and
scaling efforts had more
“yes” answers than “no”
answers to these
questions.
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
Small Groups Activity
As an Individual, scan through the list of
8 areas to Ponder.
- Select one area you’re experiencing challenges.
Get in group of 3ish folks
Each person share areas of challenge.
Rest of small group short brainstorm ideas to
address challenge (90 seconds/person)
- Think “Headlines”
- Rotate until all members have several ideas
Get contact info to continue conversation after
this session…
44
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
For more successful Transformations and Scaling outcomes…
Use Agile to roll out Agile
o Start small – Pilot. Learn. Adjust.
o Scale in verticals, then go vertical by vertical.
Set strong foundation before scaling
o Initial focus on team delivery
o Have 3 levels working together towards common goals
Move the needle on culture
o Transition to enterprise in waves later on
It’s OK to pivot – not only the product (Dev Teams), but also the transformation itself (Enablement Team)
Copyright © 2015 SolutionsIQ, Inc. and Steve Martin. All rights reserved.
6801 185th Ave NE, Suite 200Redmond, WA 98052solutionsiq.com1.800.235.4091
Scaling Agile: A Tale of TwoTransformations
Steve MartinEnterprise Lead Agile [email protected]