Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1WBFQLO. Steve McDonald and Mark Landeryou talk about the dangers of taking shortcuts when the going gets tough and the level of discipline required to get the most out of adopting Agile. They cover the good, the bad and the ugly from their experience at SagePay as well as the results they achieved and how they plan to evolve their Agile implementation in the future. Filmed at qconlondon.com. Steve McDonald currently leads E-commerce Development at Sage Pay pioneering the adoption of a microservice architecture. Mark Landeryou is an experienced software writer and researcher, currently working as a Java developer at Sagepay. Landeryou has previously worked at both large and small companies developing innovative web-based applications.

1. Techniques for a Successful Agile
Transformation
Steve McDonald & Mark Landeryou

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Watch the video with slide
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techniques-agile-transformation

3. Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide
Presented at QCon London
www.qconlondon.com

4. To keep an Agile transformation
on track...
• Remember change is hard. A
disciplined approach is needed to
avoid shortcuts that will otherwise
dilute what you set out to achieve.
• A theoretical framework and guiding
principles are crucial to underpin
decision making.

5. 99.998%
Uptime
Priority support:
UK based, 365 days
a year
Online, face to face,
phone and invoice
payments
We’re helping over
50,000 businesses
grow faster
We securely
process over 258m
payments worth
21bn
Sage Pay
Your complete payments solution

6. 4.
Mobile apps
2.
Contactless
1.
Debit/Credit
Cards
3.
PayPal
Cash
5.

7. Other Alternatives
More options for the customer

8. Fewer bugs then in 2012
Industry leading uptimeCustomer facing releases
Delivery time to customers
189
24
hrs
99.998
78%
2015
• £1B payments per month
• 100+ commits a week
• 30 developers

9. 2012 was tough…

10. 2012 was tough…

11. Stage One - Exploring
Freedom from command & control
John Seddon (2005, p101)
Discovery
Open mindedness

12. Definition of Success
Stop us being
scared of changing
our systems

13. 3/9/2016 12

14. Diagnosis
Developers:
“If only we could rewrite the system”
Testers:
“Stop the devs handing over a couple of days
before the delivery date. Give us more time to test it
properly”
Customer Service:
“Stop changing stuff”
Project Managers:
“Let’s start cracking the whip”

15. -
“…the complexity of the real world can best be
tamed by seeing things in the round, as a whole.
Only by taking a broad view can we avoid the twin
dangers of a silo mentality – in which a fix 'here'
simply shifts the problem to 'there' – and
organizational myopia – in which a fix 'now'
gives rise to a much bigger problem to fix 'later.'”
Dennis Sherwood – Seeing the forest for the trees a manager's
guide to applying systems thinking p1 (2002) emphasis added
Systems thinking

16. Plenty of fixes
Agile ScrumCrystal
TPS KanbanDAD
XPDSDM
How did we decide?

17. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
Follow every aspect of your chosen
practice, until you have the
experience to change it.

18. Our Field
Guide
Links systems thinking
to software practice
Approach

19. 3/9/2016 18
Getting buy-in from above

20. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
• Get buy-in from the top.
• Be a salesman.
• Be honest.

21. Getting buy-in from the teams

22. .
Quantify your goals
If you can’t put a number on something then
admit “your knowledge is of a meagre and
unsatisfactory kind.”
Quantification, even without subsequent
measurement is a useful aid to clear
thinking and good communication.
.
Lord Kelvin,1893 (paraphrased)
Gilb's Law of Quantification, Tom Gilb (www.gilb.com)

23. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
Set quantified goals
• to aid alignment and discussion
• to share understanding

24. Stage Two - Enacting
Freedom from command & control
John Seddon (2005, p101)
Activity
Change

25. How we got started
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=540725
• Education
• Sat teams together
• Shared knowledge
• Allowed exploration

26. Safety Directives
Mandated key practices:
• By the book Scrum
• Pairing (POs didn’t like)
• TDD (Devs didn’t like)
• Weekly Sprints (No-one liked)

27. “Some of the best systems
thinkers I know are bossy; they
are bossy about the right things.”
John Seddon. Systems thinking in the public sector p.47.
“It is better to do the right thing
wrong, than the wrong thing right”
Russell L. Ackoff, Transforming the systems movement (2004)

28. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
• Mandate key practices.
• Change the system to get
feedback.

29. Leading by example

30. Stamping on problems

31. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
• Transformation should throw up
hundreds of problems.
• Seek out and remove
impediments relentlessly.

32. Stamp on problems…
…but not on people

33. .“Are we even allowed to say no?”
The Phoenix Project, G.Kim, K.Behr, G.Spafford (p 196)
“Drive out fear, so that everyone may
work effectively for the company.”
.
W. Edwards Demming,Out of the crisis (1982) p 23

34. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
Don’t compromise on technical
excellence or quality.
• Say no! Take less into a sprint.
• Fix the work to enforce
discipline.

35. Results
3/9/2016 34
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Jan-13 Q3 FY13 Q4 FY13 Q1 FY14 Q2 FY14 Q3 FY14
Release Success Reported Bugs
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350

36. Stage Three - Embedding
Freedom from command & control
John Seddon (2005, p101)
Improvement
Experimenting

39. “Developing people and the
system so that together they
are capable of achieving
successful results is the point.”
Mary and Tom Poppendieck, Leading Lean software
Development (p198)

40. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
Remove bottlenecks by:
• Everyone together early on.
• Skill up.

41. Open Architecture

42. “...the people who do the work
must be able to decide the
'best' way to handle any
particular customer demand.”
John Seddon, Freedom from Command & Control:
Rethinking management for Lean Service (pp64)

43. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
• Shared decisions.
• Anyone challenges anything.

44. Results from 2012-2015
99.8
99.85
99.9
99.95
100
Jul-12
Oct-12
Jan-13
Apr-13
Jul-13
Oct-13
Jan-14
Apr-14
Jul-14
Oct-14
Jan-15
Apr-15
Jul-15
Uptime
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
2012 2013 2014 2015
Number of Releases
Number of Releases
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Oct-12
Dec-12
Feb-13
Apr-13
Jun-13
Aug-13
Oct-13
Dec-13
Feb-14
Apr-14
Jun-14
Aug-14
Oct-14
Dec-14
Feb-15
Bugs

45. Stage Four - Evolving
Freedom from command & control
John Seddon (2005, p101)
Step change
Transformation

46. Change isn’t comfortable
Manager Effort Dev Team Effort

47. To keep on track...
Show tips at startup
Tip of the day
• Don’t expect what worked at the
beginning to continue working.
• Be ready to reverse earlier decisions.

48. 4 Take-Aways
• Take a holistic view.
• Everyone together early on.
• The system keeps you disciplined.
• Build for real, piece-by-piece.

49. Credits
References
Ackoff, R.L., Transforming the systems movement. Third International Conference on Systems Thinking in
Management (ICSTM '04) (2004).
Demming, W. E.,Out of the crisis. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts (1982).
Gilb, T., Gilb's Law of Quantification. http://www.gilb.com/blogpost71-Gilb-s-Law-of-Quantification-not-
done-well-enough-by-Agilistas.
Poppendieck, M. & Poppendieck, T., Leading Lean software Development.Addison-Wesley (2010).
Seddon, J., Freedom from command & control, Productivity Press New York (2005).
Seddon, J., Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, Triarchy Press (2008).
Kim, G., Behr, K. & Spafford, G.. The Phoenix Project, IT Revolution Press (2014).
Sherwood, D. Seeing the forest for the trees a manager's guide to applying systems thinking, Nicholas
Brealey Publishing (2002).
Images
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=540725

50. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/techniques-
agile-transformation