what not to do when adopting agile
TRANSCRIPT
Neil Killick, Program Delivery Manager at neilkillick.com [email protected] @neil_killick
Copyright Neil Killick, 2015
What to do when adopting Agile
NOT
Most Agile adoptions “fail”...
❏ Doesn’t stick❏ Doesn’t scale❏ Different measures of success❏ No improvement in results❏ Isn’t universally welcomed
WHY?
❏ Ignore Systems Thinking and Theory of Constraints
❏ Expect teams to improve but not ourselves
Focus on “the team”❏ Don’t seek executive
support / understanding
❏ Ignore organisational cognitive dissonance
❏ “Adopt” rather than transition
❏ Think Agile == Scrum events
❏ Underestimate significance of mindset
Practices over principles
One tool to rule them all
❏ Stifle teams
❏ Try to control vs allow self organisation
❏ One-way transparency
❏ Train only developers and some managers, or nobody
❏ Provide coaching for developers only, or nobody
❏ Think CSM is enough
Not enough coaching & training
Remain predictive,not empirical
❏ Break teams up❏ Estimate too far into the future❏ Increment without iterating
❏ Agile the destination, not the journey❏ Too busy to improve❏ Think we’re as good as we can be❏ Think we can’t influence change
Stop learning & discovering better ways
So what SHOULD we do?
❏ Seek to understand cognitive dissonance & influence with empathy
❏ Optimise the whole, not the parts
Focus on the system❏ Seek executive
support / understanding
❏ Be clear on the goal of Agile in your organisation
❏ Use principles to guide incremental improvement
❏ Don’t blindly adopt practices
❏ Seek out those of a similar mindset and work together
Principles over practices
Focus on culture, not tools
❏ Enable teams to pick the right tools for the job
❏ Use constraints rather than control mechanisms
❏ Allow teams to self organise and astound you
❏ Senior managers, middle managers, developers, designers, everyone!
❏ Lean/Agile leadership, CSM, CSC, CSD, Kanban, BDD, XP
❏ Hire dedicated Agile coaches
Train everyone
Be empirical,not predictive
❏ Inspection, Adaptation, Transparency
❏ Keep teams together
❏ Iterate thinking, building, funding
❏ Proactively manage risk
❏ Continuous improvement, e.g. Toyota Kata, kaizen, retrospectives at all levels, etc.
❏ No “best practice” in complex environments - Experiment!
❏ Push boundaries to discover where they are
Keep questioning the status quo
Neil Killick, Program Delivery Manager at neilkillick.com [email protected] @neil_killick
Copyright Neil Killick, 2015