the big picture of agile: how to pitch the agile mindset to stakeholders

The Big Picture of Agile

Four Fallacies or: How to Pitch the ‘Agile Mindset’ProductCamp Berlin 2016

There’s Plenty of “Agile”

There’s Plenty of “Agile”

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Source: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

“Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception

of the situation or facts.”

Common Sense \ˈkä-mən-ˈsen(t)s\

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/common+sense

Doing “Agile” or Being Agile?Worldwide Scrum Alliance members:

• Certified Scrum Masters: 389.706• Certified Scrum Product Owners: 85.575 • Certified Scrum Professionals: 4.705• Certified Scrum Developers: 4.264• Certified Scrum Trainers: 215

Source: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/certificant-directory.aspx?

Processes & Tools

Practices

Principles

Values

Mindset

Agile Onion

Source: http://www.adventureswithagile.com/2016/08/10/what-is-agile/

This can be adoptedC&C style

This requires cultural & organizational change

Move to a learning organization

Less powerful,more visible

More powerful,less visible

How come then that “Agile”

is so hard to master in practice?

Fallacy #1: Everyone Loves “Agile”

What-is-in-for-me syndrome: • Autonomy, mastery & purpose kill

jobs…• …and applying Taylorism still pays

well:• Personal agendas• Career optimization• Politics

Source: https://memegenerator.net/instance/23491837

Fallacy #2: One C-Level Can Sponsor Change

Source: https://age-of-product.com/agile-micromanagement/

Change needs to be fundamental:• Traits of the ‘learning organization’:• Running experiments• Embracing failure• Abandoning the “heroic inventor”

mental model• Effectiveness over efficiency • Self-organizing teams leading to…• … a ‘Team of teams’ structure

Fallacy #3: We Scale Like Spotify

Henrik Kniberg:

“…wasn’t a big re-make, more like a continuous stream of small iterative improvements to our organization and process. We have been growing for three years, and the way we work today has evolved naturally over time.”

Source: https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/10/no-spotify-model

Fallacy #4: We’re all Software Companies Now

Marc Andreessen:

“In short, software is eating the world.”

Source: http://a16z.com/2016/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/

Source: https://age-of-product.com/big-picture-agile/

A Simplified Big Picture of “Agile”

Product discovery:

• Ideas and “requirements” long-list, competing for engineering resources• Application of the “valuable,

feasible, and usable” filter…• …thus identifying the short-list of

test-worthy hypotheses• Running (lean) experiments to…• …validate hypotheses.

A Simplified Big Picture of “Agile” (II)Product delivery:

• POs as the gatekeepers of the product backlog• The product backlog, representing at any given

time the most valuable set of tasks for a Scrum team• The continuous product backlog refinement

process…• …leading to the next set of user stories, tech

tasks, spikes, or bugs. Source: https://age-of-product.com/big-picture-agile/

Winning Hearts & Minds of Stakeholders

App building w/ newbies:

• Works for sales, marketing, customer care, finance, HR…• Workshop takes about 5-6 hours• Have them built a clickable

prototype• Example here: Team event

organization app

Source: https://age-of-product.com/app-prototyping-with-absolute-beginners-agile-experiments//

How to Get in Touch: Email: stefan@age-of-product.comBlog: https://age-of-product.comTwitter: @AgeofProductTwitter: @StefanWSlack: hands-onagile.slack.com