Beginnings
• Who is this guy? He talks funny…
– Robert Annis
• Director, Agile Training Services with Eliassen Group
• CSM, CSP, SPC4, ICP, ICP-TST, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF
• Lead Agile SME and Instructor for Villanova University
• Instructor in Agile for Xavier Leadership Center
• www.linkedin.com/in/robannis
• @TheAgileShark
Eliassen Group’s Agile Practice “Snapshot”
Vital Statistics• Eliassen Group began in 1989
• $235MM in Revenue in 2016
➢ Agile $45+MM in 2016
➢ Agile $32M in 2015
• 13 offices across the US
• 1,200 consultants
• Agile “whole Teams in every Region!
Agile Experts• Agile Practice established in 2009
• Scalable Agile transformation approach
• Core team (FTE) of Industry experts
• Vast coaching network
• Enterprise wide Agile Training curriculum
• 100% referenceable clients!
Agile Offerings• Advisory – Industry benchmarking & Consulting support
• Coaching – Executive, Program, Team, Technical, DevOps
• Training – Leadership, Technical, Scrum, Role Based, SAFe …
• Staffing – Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Dev and Test Automation!
Eliassen Group Agile Offerings
True Agile practice - Built, managed, and staffed with seasoned Agile experts /thought leaders
Deep experience helping clients adapt, transform, scale and succeed with Agile
200+ Agile Clients
Introductory Excerpt
• For years now our work life has focused on project delivery and the associated dates and deliverables to please internal customers, Agile allows us to focus on something more important; product delivery. Remember - the customer doesn’t know or care about our internal projects, they care about product and its arrival at their door.
• The ability to change our entire delivery focus and ability is a game changer and an opportunity; it should be seen as such. The chance to re-invent the wheel, if you will. In this talk, we’ll be discussing the options of the changes you need to make and how you can help your organization through this incredible change.
What are Projects?
• Time-boxed
• Resource-defined
• Defined scope or body of work
• Communicable
Defin
ed
How successful are projects?
• Recent conversation with client:
– “Less than 5% projects are successful”
• Why are development projects so hard?
– IT project success rate for 1994 : 15%
– IT project success rate for 2004 : 34%• The Standish Group has studied over 40,000 projects over
10 years to reach these findings (http://www.softwaremag.com/L.cfm?Doc=newsletter/2004-01-15/Standish)
Where are they used?
• Ship-building
• Aircraft-building
• Software-building
• Building-building
• Clothing design
• Car design
• Prescription drug creation
• So…projects are used everywhere, right?
These guys don’t know projects
None of these guys know projects
Where are Projects less used?
• Agriculture
• Relationships– Raising children
– International Relations i.e. US to United Nations or Russia
– Partnerships i.e. marriage
• Education– Ongoing classes for years i.e. age 4-17 years old
• Nature
• Astronomy
• Manufacturing
• Science, in general
• Geography
• Lots of process, no projects
Thoughtful Slide
• Modern humans utilize boundaries to aid communication and understanding
• So projects are a human construct to aid with communication and understanding
• This is not necessarily bad, but then again, not necessarily good
• There is a difficult slide coming up…prepare yourself
Give into the Force, Luke
Projects – The Light Side
• Time-boxed
• Resource-defined
• Defined scope or body of work
• Communicable.
Projects – The Dark Side
• Force silo-ing of work
• Creates people’s roles
• Encourages last-minute work
• Focus on quantity not quality
• Relies hugely on planning
• Focus on delivery rather than customer
• Timelines stifle innovation.
So, this is how we work
• Force silo-ing of work
• Creates people roles
• Encourages last-minute work
• Focus on quantity not quality
• Relies hugely on planning
• Focus on delivery rather than customer.
• Timelines stifle innovation
Doesn’t this sound familiar?It’s what Agile is meant to fix. Right?
• As Agilists, we talk about Culture being the hardest thing to change and that this is the blocker for Agile
– “You need a cultural transformation and we can help with that, we can coach you through it”
• But let’s go back to an earlier slide…
• What can this tell us?
• These are massive processes
• Ancient and therefore proven processes
• They work even though we don’t fully understand them
• There is no known focus on any end product
• Could we model our processes on them?
• So, we’re still aiming for delivering work and transforming organizations for the
better
• We miss two critical areas of Cultural Agile Transformation (CAT)
1. Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or
behaviors
2. We focus more on the delivery than the product itself
Let’s take no.2, first – why not?
• We focus more on the delivery than the product itself
– We must change our thinking to be Product-led, rather than Delivery-led
– First-to-market often supplanted by better-to-market, but critically, better-to-market
companies survive and thrive over the long-term. First-to-market is short-term planning.
– The customers want Good Product, Often…they (and we) want Brand as this builds
relationships
SPORTS CAR - Jaguar F-Type as a Product
The F-Type - Product Lifecycle
Design
• Hood
• Body
• Wheels
Build
• Cylinders
• Propshaft
Test
• Brakes
Deliver
• Key $$$
Now…the full picture
Design
• Hood
• Body
• Wheels
Build
• Cylinders
• Propshaft
Test
• Brakes
Deliver
• Key$$$
Design Center
Market Research
Consumer Panels
Production Facility
Pre-Production Testing Shipping to dealers/customers
Ah! So, this is the full picture
Design
• Hood
• Body
• Wheels
Build
• Cylinders
• Propshaft
Test
• Brakes
Deliver
• Key$$$
Design Center
Market Research
Consumer Panels Production Facility
Pre-Production Testing
Shipping to dealers/customers
178 countriesArcticNurburgring
DesertGaydon, West Midlands
China England
Hmmmm…what about product history
Design
• Hood
• Body
• Wheels
Build
• Cylinders
• Propshaft
Test
• Brakes
Deliver
• Key $$$
Design Center
Market Research
Consumer PanelsProduction Facility
Pre-Production Testing
Shipping to dealers/customers
178 countriesArctic
NurburgringDesert
Gaydon, West Midlands
China England
Wait!
• That’s just the Jaguar story…there are other actors in the sports car history
Alright…what the heck is Product?
Agile Principles
• Working product is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product.
• Deliver working product frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Product Management and the Agile Principles together
Product Planning in Agile
Product Vision
AnnualProduct Roadmap
Bi-annualProduct Release Plan
QuarterlyIteration Plan
Every few weeks
Daily Plan
Daily
Finished with no.2
• So…we need to lessen our project-thinking and increase our Product-thinking
• We can change…
• Reduce the silo-ing of work
• Reduce focus on people roles
• Move the focus away from last-minute work
• Focus on quality not quantity
• Reduce the focus on unreliable planning
• Prioritize the customer needs over a delivery
• Increase innovation
• Force silo-ing of work
• Creates people roles
• Encourages last-minute work
• Focus on quantity not quality
• Relies hugely on planning
• Focus on delivery rather than customer.
• Timelines stifle innovation
C
H
A
N
G
E
No.1
• Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or behaviors
• Human beings are so ‘advanced’ that we don’t take time to learn the basics
– Calculus
– Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
– Life 7 miles down in the Marianas Trench
– Sending Voyager spacecraft outside our solar system
– But Listening? Communication? Facilitation? Managing?
– Psssh.
Agile Manifesto
• The principles and values in the Agile Manifesto don’t support Agile; they are Agile.
• Scrum, Kanban, SAFe are processes that support Agile
• Consider this, the principles and values of life are more valuable than the process which we use to go through it
• If you don’t like the Agile Manifesto, write your own, but recognize that the principles of communication and interaction are critically important
• The two critical areas of Cultural Agile Transformation (CAT)
1. Projects, by their nature and design, do not encourage Agile practices, thinking or behaviors
2. We focus more on the delivery than the product itself
• So…what are you going to do about it?
Beginnings
• Who is this guy? He talks funny…
– Robert Annis
• Director, Agile Training Services with Eliassen Group
• CSM, CSP, SPC4, ICP, ICP-TST, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF
• Lead Agile SME and Instructor for Villanova University
• Instructor in Agile for Xavier Leadership Center
• www.linkedin.com/in/robannis
• @TheAgileShark