Explaining Agile through the Agile Animal Farm

1. Agile Animal Farm
understanding Agile through our behavior
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2. who am I?
Senior Lean Agile Coach
Senior Scrum Coach & Trainer
Agile Management Catalyst
father, brother & son
ORES, SAP UK, Kingfisher, Euroclear Group, GDF Suez Europe, AXA Group, Invivo, CTIE, atHome,
Accenture, Touring Assurances, Cloudwatt, Swingmobility, Lumension Security, Wemanity…

3. my house
my office
Pierre E. Neis
my offices
Pierre E. Neis

4. Starting with a metaphor
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based
on Mario Moreira’s
work

5. … adapted for the Middle East…
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6. Purpose of this game
๏ understanding the basic principles of the Agile Culture and understanding behavior
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7. ๏
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I don’t know.
What would we
call it?
Hey Lamb, I was thinkin’ we
should open a Restaurant.
Lamb
Awarma
How about Lamb Awarma?
the main story

8. ๏
No Thanks, I’d be
committed, but you’d only
be involved!
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9. briefly
๏ the chicken only gives their eggs
๏ Lambs have to put their flesh on the table
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10. Lambs
๏ They are involved, enganged to the project. In Scrum, it’s the purpose
of the Scrum Team (Delivery Team, Scrum Master and Product Owner).
๏ They are committed to the work. They are working in a sheepfold with
other lambs who love their work.
๏ When Agility is well set, they are all willing to put they « flesh-on-the-set
» each day because they feel ownership of the work.
๏ They are assertive and accountable for the success of the project and
have a majority (if not all) of their performance goals linked directly to
the success of the project and their specific Agile team.
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credits M.Moreira

11. Chicken
๏ They come and go on the project.
๏ While chickens are mostly helpful, because
they are contributing their eggs, they don’t
always understand the full context because
they are not a dedicated team member.
๏ So occasionally they may accidently
contribute a rotten egg.
๏ They are not accountable for the success
of the project, although they may have a
small portion of their performance goals
linked to the success of the project.
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credits M.Moreira

12. Foxes
๏ They like to stealthily move into and through
the team seeing who has certain skills and
ideas.
๏ Then they like to steal not only resources
(Agile team members) for their own teams,
but they also steal ideas.
๏ They are not necessarily negative, because
they are often so quiet in their manipulative
work.
๏ They are dedicated to their own success.
credits M.Moreira

13. ๏ They like to fly around the project and not really contribute in any manner.
๏ They enjoy “talking” (mostly hearing themselves speak) and pretend they are adding value,
but they are only annoying the lambs (Agile team members).
๏ Often, they like to swoop in so it can look like they are involved (and they’ll tell others this).
๏ They are often quite negative, squawk a lot in a “know it all” manner, and often poop on
people and their ideas. ¶R
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Seagulls
credits M.Moreira

14. ๏ They are deceiver types who will use the trust of the team to gain insight
into topics so they can then “rat” on what is going on to others.
๏ Often on Agile teams, they are really deceivers because they are really
anti-Agile or just plain negative people.
๏ They often know the decisions that are made based on certain contexts
that the team is in, but will twist the truth in order to bring the project
down.
๏ It is important to identify these deceivers as quickly as possible and get
them off the team. ¶R
credits M.Moreira
Rats
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15. Cats
๏ They are a lazy type on an Agile team
that really do not pitch in but instead like
to sleep instead.
๏ They are almost purposefully not
assertive, have been used to just
“getting by” on projects for years, and
are not really interested in feeling
ownership of the work.
๏ They typically neither positive nor
negative and simply like to be left alone.
๏ The other team members will begin to
notice this behavior and realize they are
not really interested in becoming part of
the team.
credits M.Moreira

16. ๏ They are command-and-control types who think
they can continue to tell their folks what to do
even though they are dedicated to their Agile
teams.
๏ Sometimes referred to as bullies, they charge
right into the team and attempt to direct them to
their own work and often deviate the team from
building product functionality.
๏ Typically, they are not interested in the Agile
mindset because they see it as a challenge to
their authority (technical or managerial) or don’t
really understand or care about the business
benefits of Agile, but instead want to maintain
their own status. ¶R
credits M.Moreira
Bulls
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17. Shepherd Dog
๏ And finally no farm is complete without the Shepherd Dog.
๏ However, on an Agile farm, it cannot be just any Shepherd Dog but instead a
benevolent Shepherd Dog who is good to his animals and ensure the animals have
what they need to grow and prosper.
๏ The Agile Animal Shepherd Dog encourages, inspires, and allows for team autonomy
and self organization.
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18. Let’s try a game?
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19. Rules of the game
1. we are 16, let’s make 3 teams
2. each team seats around a table
3. I came to with « animals » cards and assign a « role » to each of them
4. we got a team of lambs, a team of lambs and seagulls, a team of cats and seagull
5. during 15 minutes, each team has to draw or make a prairie with 5 flowers in different colors
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20. … what happened after 15 minutes ?
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21. after 15 minutes
๏ 2 teams delivered the work
๏ one team did nothing
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22. all together…
๏ we tried to identify who played what animal
๏ and debriefed the pros and cons
๏ to be honest… people playing the cats where stressed because they couldn’t make anything
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23. If I had time
๏ all the teams should worked on a single backlog during 15 minutes
๏ objective: understand dependencies and Team « Animal » behaviors
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24. … for what is it good for ?
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25. using posters in
Retrospective for
fun to understand
how we were
together and with
others
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26. More questions?
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27. Thank you
We & Co
Agile by Nature
Luxembourg | Paris | Bruxelles | Amsterdam | Beirut
Pierre E. Neis | @elpedromajor | pierre@wecompany.me
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28. Credits
๏ based on Mario Moreira’s Agile Animal Farm
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