1. Organizational CultureCase Studies
Communitech Agile/Lean P2P
20 April 2010
Kareem Shehata
Aeryon Labs

2. Agenda
What is Organizational Culture (10 min)
Case study groups (45min)
Presentation back to group (15 min)
Closing thoughts (5 min)
Retrospective and wrap-up (10 min)

3. What is Organizational Culture?
Values, ideals, practices
is what is
Set of assumptions made by all participants
Difficult to study from within
Need to step out to see in

4. Case Study Format
Visitor and host from local area
Visitor visits host for at least half a day, observes as much of the culture as possible
Not interested in technology
Debrief at the end of the session
Discuss it here!

5. Tips
Culture is what is
Can be very sensitive
Avoid value judgements
There is no good and bad, since those require values!

6. Case Study Groups
Question 1: Describe and summarize the culture of theorganization visited by values. Compare and contrast with other cultures as needed.

7. Case Study Groups
Question 2: How do the values compare with the agile manifesto? How have the values and definition of the agile process been adapted to the culture of the organization?

8. Agile Manifesto
Individuals and interactions
over processes and tools
Working software
over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration
over contract negotiation
Responding to change
over following a plan

9. Case Study Groups
Question 3: What cultural aspects of the organization would you guide to change and how?

10. Presentations
Pick one person to present a summary of the most salient findings back to the larger group
You have 5 minutes, in whatever format you like.

11. Closing Thoughts
"for an agile project its the culture that matters and culture by its very nature cant be planned; you can merely guide it."

12. Retrospective
Thoughts from visitors and hosts what did you get out of it?
What did you appreciate from this session?
What could be done better?

13. Thank you!
A special thank you to our host organizations and visitors:
McAfee, Ann-Marie Kong
PostRank, Ryan Caught
Creative Options, Rob Kurtz
Extra special thank you to Ann-Marie!