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UNDERSTANDING AGILITY: WHEN AND HOW TO
LEVERAGE AGILE TO MAXIMIZE RESULTS
Dave Moran, Agile Coach
PMI PDD Day
October 6, 2017
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What happens next?
Some Projects Are Difficult to Manage
Yesterday’s Status
Today’s Status
“Our project is in the red!”
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The Reaction
“Let’s get back on track!”
You are failing as a project managerThe team gave me
poor estimates
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What is Agile?
And how can agile help?
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Some Misconceptions
Something magical that teams use to “increase efficiency”
Agile in undisciplined
No planning No target dates
No budgets
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Don’t View Agile as “Change”
Think of it as radical improvement
Disciplined thought
Disciplined action
Done well, agile exhibits these qualities:
Driven by a deep desire to improve the status quo
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A Very Brief History
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development
http://agilemanifesto.org
These thought leaders were “… sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes…”
The result of 17 thought leaders meeting in 2001 to find common ground
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A Very Brief History
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development
http://agilemanifesto.org
These thought leaders were “… sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes…”
The result of 17 thought leaders meeting in 2001 to find common ground
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Time
Desire: Produce a result in a planned, repeatable manner, with an orderly progression of work
The Traditional Approach
Requirements Plan Design Build Test Review Deploy
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A Common Scenario
Time
“The Squeeze Play”Pressure to deliver
Requirements Plan Design Build Review Deploy
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The Need for an Alternative
• 62% of projects overrun on time
• 49% of projects overrun on budget
• 47% of projects suffer from higher than expected maintenance costs
• 28% of organizations have experienced projects that do not fit requirements
• 13% of organizations say projects have not delivered expected ROI
August 2007, Dynamic Markets survey of 800 IT managers from eight countries
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The Standish Group Findings
2014 2004 1994
Successful 28% 29% 16%
Challenged 55% 53% 53%
Failed 17% 18% 31%
Standish Group Chaos Surveys on Software Project Success Rates
Software Success Rates
Successful = On time, on budget, with the expected features
Challenged = Late delivery and/or budget overrun and/or less than the expected features
Failed = Cancelled projects or software that was never actually used
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Additional Insights
Small projects are overwhelmingly more successful
For all projects regardless of size, agile success rates were over 3x greater
https://www.infoq.com/articles/standish-chaos-2015
(http://www.erikweberconsulting.com/blog/chaos2015)
The Standish Group acknowledged that the “On Target” measure lacked a customer-facing perspective on the outcome
In 2015 they discontinued “On Target” and measured customer perceived value
This resulted in a 7% decrease in the number of successful projects
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Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnell
The Cone of Uncertainty
Estimates cannot be meaningfully improved until actual work is performed
Planning is difficult because you are striving to predict an uncertain future
The Two Enemies of Predictability
Uncertainty & Variability
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Key Insight
The approach that you take can either hinder or enhance your ability to understand and deliver what customers truly value
Deliver value as quickly as possible
Use the least amount of effort
Delivering to plan and “maximizing resource utilization” does not maximize value delivery
With most software efforts, radical improvement comes from emphasizing product management over project management
Value-driven over plan-driven
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The Agile Approach
Time
Requirements Plan Design Build Test Review Deploy
Deploy on Demand
JIT
Ela
bora
tion
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Iterating in an Agile Context
Iterating should NOT be because…
…we didn’t think things through
…we aren’t disciplined
We should be iterating for value by:
• Planning for value
• Learning what customers truly value & how to best deliver that value
• Adapting & improving
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Determining When to Use Agile
Wh
at
is T
ruly
Va
lua
ble
How to Deliver that Value
Predictive
Emergent
Chaotic
Uncertainty
Va
ria
bili
ty
Low
High
High
The Nature of Work
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Categorizing Approaches
Predictive
Emergent
Chaotic
Va
ria
bili
ty
Low
High
High
Ordered
Adaptive
Triage
up-front, detailed planning & tactical execution
short feedback loops, adjustments & divergence
Immediate assessment & response
Wh
at
is T
ruly
Va
lua
ble
How to Deliver that Value
Uncertainty
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Aligning Approaches to a Purpose
Predictive
Emergent
Chaotic
Uncertainty
Va
ria
bili
ty
Low
High
High
Adaptive
Triage
Ordered
Wh
at
is T
ruly
Va
lua
ble
How to Deliver that Value
Achieving optimal results is a function of each approach being fit for the purpose
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Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work
Predictive
Emergent
Chaotic
Uncertainty
Va
ria
bili
ty
Low
High
High
Adaptive
Triage
Ordered
The goal is to understand what is truly valuable and how to best go about delivering that value, adapting to feedback and responding to changing conditions
Wh
at
is T
ruly
Va
lua
ble
How to Deliver that Value
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Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work
Predictive
Emergent
Chaotic
Uncertainty
Va
ria
bili
ty
Low
High
High
Adaptive
Triage
Ordered
When might you use an ordered approach?
Wh
at
is T
ruly
Va
lua
ble
How to Deliver that Value
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Is This Radical Improvement?
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Detailed, long-range planning
Large batches of work Long cycle times
Avoid Approach Emergent Work Like This!
Begin Here
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No evidence of delivery
Frequent delivery & feedback
Begin Here
Small batches of workShort cycle times
Make Yourself Uncomfortable Early
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Applying Agile to Non-Software Efforts
Business Agility: Startups & Growth
Internal Functions:
Marketing
Finance
Audits
Human Resources
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Startups
Success is not about building the best possible plan up front
It’s about discovering a plan that works before we run out of resources
Responding to change over following a plan – The Agile Manifesto
Amplify Learning & Eliminate Waste – Principles of Lean Development
The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
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The Business Need for Agility
The Shift Index study by Deloitte's Center for the Edge
Adapt or Die!
The average life span of an S&P company has been steadily decreasing over the last 50+ years
Without the ability to adapt, corporations risk failure
Global, multi-market, multi-branded competitionPhysical and digital presenceGreater customer segmentation
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Business Growth & Remaining Relevant
Conduct a series of experiments designed to discover the truths about business prospects and make meaningful progress through uncertain territory
Low CostLow RiskLow Distraction
Leverage rapid, continuous feedback & data-driven insights
Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
Until we can actually test any concept in the marketplace, it’s wishful thinking
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Emerge with a Battle-Tested Plan
Typically, putting together a business plan and requirements for a significant initiative takes weeks or months in an enterprise context
In the same amount of time, by following the Lean Startup model, we could run multiple experiments, learn from real customers, and emerge with a superior, battle-tested plan based on evidence
Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, Barry O'Reilly
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Engaging with Marketing
Scenario #1
“We want to be agile!”
“That’s great! Tell me a little about your work.”
“No, you tell us about agile.”
“Well, there are various options, and it’s difficult to know what would be useful without a little background.”
“Just walk us through it, and we’ll figure out how to apply it.”
“I could talk about Scrum, it’s a way of practicing agile, but it may or may not fit your circumstances.”
“Great! We’ll schedule an hour with you next week.”
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We Walked Through the Scrum Framework…
“That won’t work for us!”“This doesn’t fit what we do.”
“OK, tell me about your work…”
“I don’t see how this will help us.”
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The Real Need
“We have multiple teams, and we need to coordinate our work.”
This was a marketing group, and they had abandoned key practices in an attempt to become more efficient
They were experiencing pain because teams were isolated so that they could focus
This led to a build-up of additional work to enable hand-offs, creating delays and reducing shared understanding of the work
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The Solution
We proceeded to talk about techniques to improve multi-team planning and coordination
“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.” – Principle of the Agile Manifesto
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Engaging with Marketing
Scenario #2
This was a single team that needed to deliver marketing campaigns under tight timeframes
They had a solid understanding of the lead time required to deliver various marketing assets
They were struggling with managing their work and determining how they could help each other
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The Solution
Explicitly categorized work types and lead times
Video Production
Audio Podcast
Animation
Web Site Update
Established WIP limits & managed flow
Visualized workflow & made all work visible
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Applying Agile to Non-Software Efforts
Don’t seek to apply agile to only to your specific team or work stream
Examine how your work contributes to the flow of customer-facing value from an organizational perspective
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Does This Indicate a Problem?
Does your organization engage in annual planning and budgeting?Are you on an annual performance review cycle?Does auditing help your organization reach its objectives?
Authority
Information
Annual Planning, Budgeting, Reviews
Value DeliveryAdapting and Responding
Directives & Conformance
Autonomy & Divergence
Organizational Friction
Monitoring, Controls, Approvals
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Information
Authority
Would This Work Better?
Strategic Direction & Budgeting
Value Delivery
Alignment & Enablement
Previews, Assessments, Fast-Track Approvals
Localized, real-time decision-making
Open, continuous, adaptive process
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Reflect and Feedback
Based on what was covered in this session, do you feel that your organization needs to make any adjustments?
Are there sources of – or the potential for – organizational friction in your organization?
In what ways can internal functions like human resources, finance and audits help lead organizational change?
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“Agility is a quality of the organization and its people to be adaptive, responsive, continually learning and evolving.“ --
Craig Larman and Bas Vodde in Scaling Lean & Agile Development
Closing Thought
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