Let's follow the 1910 race to the South Pole, as well as modern and personal expeditions to discover how the polar world can inspire agility in software development Agiletour lausanne-2016

1. Polar Expeditions and Agility:
The 1910 Race to the South Pole
and Modern Tales
Alexandre Masselot
Agile Tour, Lausanne
November 2016

2. Alexandre Masselot
Agile Tour, Lausanne
November 2016
Polar Expeditions and Agility:
The 1910 Race to the South Pole
and Modern Tales

4. Polar Expeditions and IT projects
a goal, a team, constraints, risks
and a methodology

5. Polar world 101
1. South & Greenland: an icecap
2. North: a frozen sea and polar bears
3. It’s cold, but it’s cool

6. Polar world in 1900
The last unconquered lands

7. Robert F. Scott
- British
- Captain in the Royal Navy
- Average evaluations, but
eager to climb the ladder
At the South Pole

8. Roald Amundsen
- Norwegian, skier
- North West Passage
1903-1906
- South Pole
1910-1912
At the South Pole

11. Today, still in Norway

12. Børge Ousland
- Norwegian
- North Pole
- North Pole solo
- Antarctica crossing solo
- Arctic crossing solo
- North Pole Winter crossing
Solo or small parties,
Unsupported

13. “Børge Ousland is
arguably the most
accomplished polar
explorer alive!”
National Geographic

14. Børge, Sjur, Liv, Vegard
and the others:
The Oslo Gang

15. … and a personal perspective

16. Alex
- Ten years of polar
expeditions
- Two Greenland crossing
- Polar bear sightseeing in
western Svalbard
- Patagonia Northern Icecap
(a turn back)
- www.framexpeditions.com
Small parties or solo,
Unsupported

17. Introductions are over,
may the expeditions start!

18. And everything starts with

19. A Vision

20. The vision
Google’s:
“to organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Agile consulting 1st workshop:
Framing the vision
Never seen a team where folks
could not simply phrase their job goal?

21. The vision
“Going to the pole and back”
AMUNDSEN
2 goals, plus collecting stones…
SCOTT
“Scott was marshaling his forces
for a ponderous campaign,
while Amundsen was sailing on a raid”
Roland Huntford
A map is display in the chart room
for “everybody’s use”

22. The contemporary vision:
“from A to B, unsupported”

23. We have a vision,
let’s assemble a team!

24. “The wrong companion
is infinitely more dangerous
than the worst blizzard”
R. Amundsen

25. Building a team
That resonates like
IT project management
“There were many men,
shoved at random”
Wilson
SCOTT
“A small team of chosen specialists”
Huntford
AMUNDSEN

26. Amundsen interview patterns
Seeking for “I don’t know”
and “I cannot do that”

27. Team Organisation
-Applies the Royal Navy rules
-“Lt Ewans, Campbell and Wilson have formed
a sledging committee and I am nominally the
secretary […] with not much to do.”
Cherry Gallard
SCOTT
-Everybody takes turn, cleaning dog shit,
handling the rudder… including the Captain
-A pilot on Fram: “It was the most astonishing boat
I have ever seen. No order were given but everyone
seemed to know exactly what to do.”
AMUNDSEN

28. Team Organisation
-The boss did not show in the shop except if called.
AMUNDSEN

29. Team Organisation
AMUNDSEN SCOTT
All men share
the same
comfort level.
Officers have
separate quarters

30. The leader position
“Discipline was instinctive. […] He often used
to say that on board all were captains and all
crews […] But nevertheless nobody was in any
doubt who was the chief on board”
Helmer Hanssen
AMUNDSEN
SCOTT
“Myself, I dislike Scott intensely […] He is not
straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere.”
Lawrence Oates

31. We have a team,
Let’s hit the snow!

32. Problem #1: Moving on snow

33. Dogs or no dogs: the expert voice
-Nansen: “go find dogs in Siberia!”
-Inuit: “how can we move without dogs?”

34. Dogs or no dogs: Tradition rules
“No Ski. No dog”
Sir Clements Markham, 1888
Father of modern British Antarctic Exploration
Sticking to legacy Oracle for all problems
When NoSQL opens new horizons
“I use MongoDB for all my NoSQL challenge,
because it’s the only one I know.”

35. Dogs or no dogs?
AMUNDSEN SCOTT
Sails with 52 dogs Sailed with ponies,
cars, dogs and man hauling
Focused on ponies
A key to success They will die before start
Can be eaten “It’s not human to eat
these poor creatures”

36. Dogs or no dogs: learn the tool
AMUNDSEN SCOTT
Improve, optimize
sledge, ski…
Train, test
played football

37. Dogs or no dogs AMUNDSEN
SCOTT

38. Tradition is not always beaten
Amundsen shoes ruled
the polar world until early 2000
R for graphics
LaTeX for publication
A well crafted set of Perl scripts for infra tasks

39. Innovation: other ways to move
To cross a sea of ice,
why not using sails?
Nansen, 1888
Greenland 2002

40. Disruption: crossing arctic waters
© National Geographic

41. Process automation wherever possible
Camping by -39°C can be smooth:
-Learn from others
-Have a clear routine
-Improve each steps to make it as smooth as possible
Testing (unit, integration, system, perf…) -
Deployment -
Monitoring -
Incident handling -

42. Continuous improvement
The Gjøa went ashore twice,
⇒ a man was in the crow nest 24/7
Retrospective
Actually do it!
AMUNDSEN
Lessons learned:
-first thing in the plane home
-published on the net

43. Spitsbergen 1996

44. Decision Making
Hielo Sur, Patagonia 2000

45. Group decision making
- Phrase the topic at hand and a scope
- Encourage and listen everyone’s opinion
- Trigger alternatives if only one solution is foreseen
Setup a mindset where:
- the decision is built upon group contribution
- “the best solution is not my solution”
- “I’m not stupid because the group did not go for my idea”

46. A simple pattern: rank decides
SCOTT

47. Managing Risk

48. How to avoid being eaten by a polar bear?
-learn from past incidents
-don’t listen to “reasonable voices”
-get a clear process for crisis
-enjoy!
Spitsbergen, 2001

49. The main risk: starvation
-one depot every degree
-carefully packed
-depot were marked sideways
(to be found in the fog)
AMUNDSEN
-minimalist depots
SCOTT
The strategy is to lay food depot
along the route

51. Amundsen back
to base camp
Scott team
R.I.P.
{

52. SCOTTAMUNDSEN
A PLANNED VICTORY A PREDICTABLE DEFEAT

53. SCOTTAMUNDSEN
“Victory awaits him who has
everything in order
— luck, people call it.
Defeat is certain for him who
has neglected to take the
necessary precautions in time;
this is called bad luck.”
“Our luck in weather is
preposterous… How great may
be the element of luck”

54. Ice river crossing, Greenland 1998

55. Landing ashore

56. Oslo, the Silicon Valley
of polar expeditions

57. Agility is not about rituals
Agility is about
growing a group,
values and a mindset
to go after a project.

58. Every organization can change

59. En route vers de nouvelles aventures
Fram!
@alex_massamasselot@octo.com