Seven Ways Business Owners Inspire Agile Teams

Software leaders led a quest to discover alternatives to heavy documentation, top down control, and excessive process software development method. They founded agilemanifesto.org.

“A set of values based on trust and respect for each other and promoting organizational models based on people, collaboration, and building the types of organizational communities in which we would want to work”

- Jim Highsmith

Business Owner’s WILL influence your agile transition…

Make them transition partners!

“Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.” agilemanifesto.org.

An Agile Transition Story…. Escape from waterfall!

Spent a week with business owners and technology leads

Goals: 1. Begin with a rank order epic backlog 2. Engagement agreement:

Trust each other to do their best work Developers commit to show working

software every 2 weeks and improve process to release every 1-2 months

Business commits to respect Team’s internal processes, respond to clarifications in 24 hours, and give constructive feedback

Held offsite with business and technology managers

Goals: 1. Understand teams will work different from

waterfall SDLC teams 2. Convince technology and business managers

to think different to work different Embrace values, principles of

agilemanifesto.org Change manager role to servant leader Commit to improve org processes Be agility advocates across enterprise

Results - High Engagement, Happier People

Happier Business Partners • Business Owners saw progress far in advance of

releasing to Operations for the first time • Business Owners gave constructive feedback and

ideas to add to the future backlog

Happier Support and Management Teams • Everyone was invited, no matter their location • Help Desk, release support teams learned what was

coming in next release • Cross-functional Managers witnessed happier teams Happier Agile Teams • Earned a reputation for making working software

transparent • Released more frequently to align with customer

facing Business Operations Teams • Open, direct communication with Business Owners,

not only customer proxy resolved potential impediments early and often

• Regular retrospectives gave members insight to improvement needs, and whether they could resolve or to escalate to management

Benefits • Team members need transparency with Business Owners

to sustain trusting relationships between business and technology, and a sense of team pride

• A customer proxy cannot keep up with the pace of an Agile team, and becomes a bottleneck slowing developers

• Developers are inspired to do more when appreciated honestly, first hand, by their Business partners

• Developers love to see their work go into production and know exactly how business and customers benefited

Everyone Shares Credit for Failure or Success • Business Owners set goals and outcomes to grow business

and delight customers • A business proxy role is a team member, shares future end

state, owns the backlog, priorities, and calculates return on investment

• The Development Team solves the problems, builds working products, and delivers as promised, often under the strain of organization impediments left over by waterfall legacy processes

Business Owner Collaboration with Agile Teams

Organization Challenges • Functional, or General Manager coaching

required • Annual performance plans change to include

teamwork goals • Annual funding models change to quarterly • Annual roadmap planning change to quarterly • Portfolio change management at epic level

assuring investments, team capacity, and teams have everything needed to deliver

• Team’s direct communication with a business owner can be scary to a traditional business proxy

• Egos feel threatened as a need to control, turns into a sense of lost control

• A need to feel exalted as a knowledge tower gets knocked down as learning to share credit for making thing happen changes

• A need to appear as “the one lone ranger,” “the hero,” the “greatest Product Manager in the world” who makes everything happen disappears

With time, negative feelings will go away as members grow into their new role. Coaching likely required.

Challenges to Traditional Proxy Roles (Product Manager, Business Analyst, Project Manager)

With Business Agile Training • Able to keep up with feedback demands • Accelerates decision turn around • Enables frequent delivery • Enjoy quicker investment returns • Higher quality products, less technical debt • Higher engagement, happier employees Without Business Agile Training • Impedes rate of delivery • Full benefits of agility unrealized • Slower investment returns • Poor quality due to last minute decisions • Higher technical debt from taking shortcuts • Missed window of opportunities

Benefits of Engaging Business Partners in an Agile Transition

Seven Ways Business Owners Inspire Agile Teams

Business Owners

1. Are flexible, willing to experiment, take risk, and learn

from mistakes, never blaming others for failure.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistrydemonstrations/a/sodium-in-water-demonstration.htm

Business Owners

2. Form and sustain trusting

relationships easily

They have a high emotional

quotient (EQ), are self aware, are

able to self regulate emotions, have

empathy, motivate people, and

have passion for their business

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistrydemonstrations/a/sodium-in-water-demonstration.htm

Business Owners 3. Negotiate and compromise with a focus on

• What’s important today?

• Understanding near term goals, while aligning with strategic business vision.

• Killing pet projects with low or no value.

• Setting clear priorities that free the team to focus on how to deliver value rapidly!

http://www.thefirstaidsurvivalshop.com/images/products/Triage%20Ribbon.jpg

Waterfall verses Agile Waterfall SDLC • Predictive model • Problem / Solution Known • Fixed budget, scope, and time • Delivery not value based • Learn late, large changes late

Agile SDLC • Empirical model • Problem known / solution unknown • Fixed budget, scope changes with time/

capacity • Delivery based on value • Learn early, small changes just in time

A good Business Owner knows their business needs A great Business Owner evaluates what is most valuable to business, and does not waste capital on features customers will not use!

Business Owners 4. Support their team’s internal processes.

Great Business Owners have patience, give team time to discover solutions to complex problems that produce the best outcomes,

now and for the future

Great Business Owners

• Know team’s rhythm moves faster than

waterfall, and quick incremental decisions

• Commits to respond to questions quickly

• Shows interest, fosters understanding

• Understands ‘just enough’ requirements need to be ready for next software review

• Respects change limits within an iteration

• Openly negotiates tradeoffs

• Does not push team to do more than reasonable or abuse team’s enthusiasm to please, because TRUST is the foundation of their relationship

• Coaches stakeholders when greed or lack of reason imposes threats to the team’s capacity

Business Owners understand… Team’s speed comes as flow happens down stream, team normalizes working together, and rate of delivery fluctuates as various factors impact them.

Speed, or velocity, picks up after a few iterations, and optimizes if factors remain stable.

Great Business Owners

Are advocates for the team – they ask how can I help?

A great Business Owner collaborates with other stakeholders to help remove large organization barriers.

Great Business Owners…

5. Model courage and integrity in service to others

• Business Owners do what’s right

• Face conflict in service to others

• Strive to change fixed minds

Great Business Owners… 6. Engage in software reviews, give helpful feedback, and express appreciation for the Team’s accomplishments.

• Even when reviews do not go as expected

• Hold other stakeholders accountable to deliver

• While displaying compassion and empathy

7. Know business operations

• Are confident about their domain.

• Trust the team to know how and when to deliver

• Set business goals with outcomes for realistic delivery.

Great Business Owners Know How to Inspire Agile Teams!

1. Are flexible, willing to experiment, take risk, and learn

from mistakes – do not blame others

2. Forms and sustains trust easily, has high EQ

3. Negotiates tradeoffs when requirements change

4. Supports team’s internal processes and advocates

removal of organization impediments

5. Models courage and integrity in service to others

6. Engages in software reviews, gives helpful feedback, and

shows appreciation

7. Know their business, and trusts their Team to know how

and when to deliver based on realistic business goals

Do you know a great Business Owner inspiring Agile Teams?

Express appreciation, because he or she is awesome!

a successful agile transition story

Maryann Snider Principle Project Manager, CSM, CSPO, Agile Coach