Embracing Agile Leadership - Don MacIntyre

1. 5/6/2017
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Embracing Agile Leadership
Don MacIntyre
Certified Enterprise Coach
Certified Agile Leader Educator
Don@ScrumEtc.com
www.ScrumEtc.com
Business
Performance
Organizational
Agility
Leadership Agility
These slides may not be reproduced without permission
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Speaker Profile
 Certified Agile Leadership Educator (CALe)
 Certified Enterprise Agile Coach (CEC/CSC, SPC)
 Certified Leadership Agility 360 Coach
 Former Software Executive
 Former Software Engineer
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Let’s Start With ‘Why’
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
– Simon Sinek
https://www.startwithwhy.com/
Why do some Agile projects fail?
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Leading Causes of Failed Agile Projects
http://stateofagile.versionone.com
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#1 Reported Problem
Company philosophy or culture at
odds with core agile values (46%)
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#2 Reported Problem
Lack of experience with agile
methods (41%)
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#3 Reported Problem
Lack of management support
(38%)
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#4 Reported Problem
Lack of support for cultural
transition (38%)
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#5 Reported Problem
Inconsistent agile practices and
processes (38%)
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#6 Reported Problem
External pressure to follow
waterfall process (36%)
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#7 Reported Problem
Ineffective management
collaboration (34%)
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#8 Reported Problem
A broader organizational or
communications problem (30%)
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#9 Reported Problem
Unwillingness of team to follow
agile (30%)
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#10 Reported Problem
Inability to continuously prioritize
work (28%)
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#11 Reported Problem
Insufficient Training(27%)
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#12 Reported Problem
Ineffective collaboration (25%)
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How many of these issues
can be mitigated by
Leadership?
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How Did We Get Here?
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Scientific Management from the 1800’s
 Synthesize workflow
 Productivity of Labor
 Labor from Craft to Mass Production
 Dumb down the work for the uneducated
 Micro-manage the uneducated
 Brought great efficiencies to manufacturing
Frederick Taylor (1856-1915)
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On track
(on paper)
early in the
developme
nt cycle
Off track
late in the
developm
ent cycle
Integration
We Wound Up With This…
The World Has Changed
 In 2017 knowledge workers are now
 Well educated
 Well paid
 Expected to solve complex problems
 Expected to make decisions that in are in the best interest of the
company
 Often have more domain expertise than their management
 Should we attempt to manage them the same way we
managed to control unskilled laborers 100 years ago?
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Advancement of Technology
 Moore’s Law
 Processing
 Storage
 Networking
 Systems
 Faster Build Times
 Faster Automation
 Virtualization
 Etc..
Wgsimon - Own work, CC BY-SA
3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=15193542
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Lifecycle of a Defect 1995
 Code is written
 Successful Local Compile
 Checked In
 Passes First Level Test
 Code is integrated
 Build is passed to Testers 1 week
later
 Tester Finds Bug 1 week later
 Bug Entered into Tracking system
 Sits in Queue for 2 weeks
 Assigned to available Developer
 Available developer takes days
to weeks to fix
 How long did this take?
 Days?
 Weeks?
 Months?
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Lifecycle of a Defect 2017
 Code & Unit Test written
 Successful Local Compile
 Checked In to CI system
 Unit Tests run on successful
build
 CI system kicks off automated
test
 Defect is found within minutes
 Same developer recognizes
and fixes problem immediately
 Checks in new code/unit test
 CI system runs Automated Tests
 Problem resolved
 Do we even bother tracking it
as a defect?
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Which situation more
closely describes your
environment?
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Ask Your Leadership Team

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Management Trends
 Scientific Management 
 Toyota Production System / Lean
 What’s Next?
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Toyota Production System
 Origins of Lean
 Eliminate Waste
 Build Quality In
 Create Knowledge
 Defer Commitment
 Deliver Fast
 Respect for People
 Optimize the Whole
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiichi_Ohno

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What’s Next?
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Radical Management
From To
Focusing only on making money
for shareholders
Focusing on delighting customers
through continuous innovation
Managers focused on controlling
individuals
Managers empowering and
supporting self-organizing teams
Controlling work with bureaucracy Guiding innovation with priorities
Predominantly valuing efficiency Valuing continuous innovation
Top-down command structures Horizontal communication and
collaboration
http://www.stevedenning.com/radical-management/default.aspx
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Agile Overview for Leaders
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Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and
helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on
the left more.
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Agile Principles 1-4
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable PRODUCT.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile
processes harness change for the customer's competitive
advantage.
3. Deliver working PRODUCT frequently, from a couple of weeks to a
couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
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Agile Principles 5-8
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the
job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying
information to and within a development team is face-to-face
conversation.
7. Working PRODUCT is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors,
developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant
pace indefinitely.
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Agile Principles 9-12
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good
design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not
done — is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge
from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become
more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior
accordingly.
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Ask Your Leadership Team
Which agile values or principles
might conflict with your current
organizational culture?
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Scrum Book for Leadership
 Opens with $426M FBI Sentinel Project
 Late and way over budget
 Small FBI team convinced the FBI Director to take
it back from vendor and let them do Agile
 They were successful
 Federal CIO told vendor it was time to get serious
about Agile
 Great agile book for leaders that focuses on
the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’
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Scrum Patterns for Success
 Stable Teams – Allow people to be dedicated to one team
 Yesterday’s Weather – Team’s pull work into sprint based on last few sprints
 Daily Clean Code – Code is 100% done and tested at end of sprint
 Swarming – Everyone is focused on sprint goal, top story, and helping team
 Interrupt Pattern – Measure interrupts and use an interrupt buffer
 Stop the Line – If interrupts overflow buffer – abort
 Scrumming the Scrum – top improvement from retro is top story for next sprint
 Happiness Metric – Measure Happiness during Retrospective
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http://www.scrumplop.org/

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Kanban
• Start with what you know
• Visualize the workflow
• Limit WIP (work in progress)
• Manage the flow
• Make process policies explicit
• Improve collaboratively
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Agile Technical Practices
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Scaling (and De-Scaling) Patterns
Communication, Trust, and Collaboration
 How will these teams
know what the other
teams are working on?
 Do teams trust one
another to deliver?
 Are teams willing to
work together toward a
common goal?
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Quarterly Release Planning
If you utilize the ‘Everyone in the Same Room’
Quarterly Release Planning pattern, this is a
Quarterly Opportunity for Senior Leadership
to Motivate the Organization
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As we look ahead into the
next century, leaders will be
those who empower others.
- @BillGates

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Empowering Teams
http://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Building-Breaking/dp/0241250943/
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Employee Engagement
http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805
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Shawn Achor: The Happiness Advantage
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High Performing Teams and Physiological Safety
 A sense of confidence that the
team will not embarrass, reject or
punish someone for speaking up
 Google considers this the most
critical trait of successful teams
https://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Organizations-Innovate-Compete-Knowledge/dp/078797093X
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Harvard Business School Professor
Amy Edmondson

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Benefits of Agile Leadership
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Leadership Agility
 In order to be successful in complex
and rapidly changing environments,
leaders need to advance their
personal leadership agility
 The agility of the organization will not
exceed the agility of leadership
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http://www.changewise.biz/?page_id=1554

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Agile Leadership Mindset
 From Directing to Coaching
 From Hiding Failure to Learning from Failure
 From Telling to Collaborating
 From Avoiding Blame to Seeking Feedback
 Listening
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Leadership Agility 360
 360 degree feedback tool designed to help you assess your
Leadership Agility level
 Self-assessment compared to input from Manager, Director
Reports and Stakeholders
 Provides insight into how you can develop your personal
Leadership Agility levels
 May be done with a management team, but designed for
personal leadership development, not evaluation and/or ranking
like some other 360 tools http://www.changewise.biz/?page_id=1554
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© Scrum, Etc.
I came to see at my time
at IBM that culture isn’t
just one aspect of the
game, it is the game. -
Lou Gerstner
LaLoux Culture Model
Red Amber Orange Green Teal
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Fear > Stability > Competition > Shared Values > Self Management
Mafi > Government > Traditional Corp > Modern Corp > Future Corp

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CAL 1: Leading Organizational Agility NOT Managing Agile Practices
CAL 2: Being an Agile Leader and Practicing Agile Leadership
Questions and Comments
Don MacIntyre
Don@ScrumEtc.com
www.ScrumEtc.com
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Some artwork provided by:
Artwork licensed to Don MacIntyre / Scrum, Etc.
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