Struggling with Agile at scale? Thinking about scaling Agile beyond the team? Want to learn from others’ mistakes? Well don’t panic, and carry a towel. After all, “any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.” There is a lot to be learnt from those who have successfully hitchhiked their way to the galaxy of Scaled Agile, but there is also much to learn from those who have gotten a little lost upon the way. This session celebrates the scaled Agile hitchhiker, the people who tried and failed, with ideas that were occasionally brilliant but often plain stupid. You will laugh, you will cry but you will also walk away will a nice long list of ideas not to try when scaling Agile!

1. Em Campbell-Pretty
Partner, Context Matters
@PrettyAgile
prettyagile.com
em@contextmatters.com.au
Mark Richards
Partner, Context Matters
@MarkAtScale
agilenotanarchy.com
mark@contextmatters.com.au
Failing @ Scaling:
DON’T PANIC!
& carry a towel

3. MEET SCALED AGILE HITCHHIKERS EM & MARK

4. Anti-Pattern 1:
Huge Teams Rather Than
Teams of Teams

5. INTRODUCING THE TOTAL PERSPECTIVE VORTEX
https://flic.kr/p/gLTAN6
“To Trin Tragula’s horror, … he realised that he
had proved conclusively that if life is going to
exist in a universe of this size, then the one
thing it cannot have is a sense of proportion”

6. Need tag line and image
SURELY LIFE WOULD BE SIMPLER WITH ONE BIG TEAM...
https://flic.kr/p/fuB8SQ

7. Project
Manager
Product Owner
Business
Analyst Change Lead Technical Lead
Logical Data
Modeller
Physical Data
Modeller
Physical Data
Modeller
Vender Project
Manger
On Site ETL On Site ETL
On Site ETL Off shore ETL
Off shore ETL Off shore ETL
DBA
Business
Intelligence Test Lead
Test Analyst
Enterprise
Architect Data SME
Scrum Master
A 22 PERSON AGILE TEAM???

8. Team
Size
Throughput

9. Scrum Master
Technical Lead Test Lead Developer Developer Developer Developer Developer
SMALL CROSS FUNCTION TEAMS

10. 9 WOMEN CAN’T MAKE A BABY IN ONE MONTH

11. WHY LARGE TEAMS DON’T WORK

12. START WHERE YOU ARE AND EVOLVE TO FEATURE TEAMS
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T
PO
SM
D
D
D
D
T
T

13. HUGE TEAMS: FROOD INSIGHTS
“After 8, people don’t collaborate”
Adding people to a team wont necessarily
make it deliver faster.
Be pragmatic. A small component team may
be better than a large feature team.

14. Anti-Pattern 2:
Out of the Box
or
Out of the Box

15. INTRODUCING THE BABELFISH
The Babelfish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication
between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars
than anything else in the history of creation!

16. ALL-TOO-COMMON APPROACH TO SCALING AGILE
Requirements
(Waterfall)
Design
(Waterfall)
System of
Record Build
(Waterfall)
Agile Build
Integration Test
(Waterfall)
Deploy
(ITIL)
Pick a Scaling Framework
Apply language/labels
Announce Success

17. PICK A BOX
SAFe LESS Spotify
DAD NEXUS ESP
Scrum @
Scale
Integral
Agile
Roll Your
Own

18. DON’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND

19. DOES A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING MAKE A TASTY CAKE?

20. The fanatical proponents of baseball tell us that it
is a very exciting game, fun to play and fun to
watch. They are clearly either stupid or evil or both,
because we tried baseball and it didn’t work …
WE TRIED BASEBALL
We tried baseball and it didn’t work
http://ronjeffries.com/xprog/articles/jatbaseball

21. OUT OF THE BOX: FROOD INSIGHTS
Learn by doing
Pick the Scaling Approach that’s right for
your context
Inspect and Adapt
Implement it “out of the box”

22. Anti-Pattern 3:
Too many coaches in the kitchen
(with too many recipes)

23. MEET EDDIE, THE SHIPBOARD COMPUTER
Eddie:
I am pleased to inform you that two nuclear
missiles are now headed this way. If you don’t
mind, I am going to take action.
Zaphod:
COMPUTER DO SOMETHING!
Eddie:
Ok, switching to manual mode. Good luck!

24. HOW MANY COACHES DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB?

25. IGNORE IT AND IT WILL GO AWAY

26. PICK A HORSE

27. WHO’S ON FIRST?

28. MAINTAINING ALIGNMENT WITH CHAPTERS & GUILDS

29. TOO MANY COACHES: FROOD INSIGHTS
Create communities of practice to maintain
alignment across coaches.
Pick a scaling approach and a strategic
advisor. Inform your coaches of your
decision.
Hold your coaches accountably for alignment
to your strategy

30. Anti-Pattern 4:
Agile is only a Process

31. INTRODUCING LUNKWILL AND FOOK
Programmers of Deep Thought

32. Individuals and Interactions
OVER
Processes and Tools
HOW DID AGILE BECOME A PROCESS THING?

33. NO DEVELOPER BUY-IN, NO SUCCESS

34. ITERATIVE AND INCREMENTAL …

35. ENVIRONMENT PROBLEMS CAN BE VERY EXPENSIVE

36. AGILE IS ONLY A PROCESS: FROOD INSIGHTS
Don’t ignore your developers in your
training plan
Invest early and aggressively in achieving
full-stack Continuous Integration
Embed agile technical practices through
coding kata, mob programming and …

37. Anti-Pattern 5:
Agile is only for developers.
Not the PMO.

38. MEET THE GALACTIC HYPERSPACE PLANNING COUNCIL
“People of Earth, your attention please.
This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace
Planning Council. As you will not doubt be aware, the plans for
development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the
building of a hyerspatial express route through your start
system, and regretteably your planet is one of those scheduled
for demolition.
The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth
minutes. Thank you.”

39. WATERFALL GOVERNANCE APPLIED TO AGILE DELIVERY?!
Executive Governance
Business
Steering
Program Committee
OCM BPR
Assurance
Committee
IT Control
Program Board
Project
Control
Board
Project
Control
Board
Project
Control
Board
Program Board
Project
Control
Board
Project
Control
Board
Project
Control
Board
Compliance
Service
Operations
Agile Team

40. THERE IS GOING TO BE A COLLISION

41. Embrace
Agile &
Lean
ENCOURAGE THE PMO TO EMBRACE AGILE & LEAN

42. AN AGILE PMO
https://voice.adobe.com/a/mNvq5/

43. LEAN PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

44. AGILE IS ONLY FOR DEVELOPERS: FROOD INSIGHTS
The best way to learn about agile and lean is
by doing it! How can you manage or govern
what you don’t understand?
Agile is for the PMO (and lots of other
non-software people) too
Lean portfolio management enables agile at
scale

45. Anti-Pattern 6:
Forget you’re standing
in a Waterfall

46. INTRODUCING LINTILLA
One particular cloning machine was asked to
produce 6 copies of a wonderfully talented and
attractive girl called Lintilla …
The machine got badly out of synch, however,
and it malfunctioned in such a way that it got
halfway through creating each new Lintilla
before the previous one was completed, which
meant that it was impossible to ever turn it off
without committing murder.

47. AT SCALE, BI-MODAL WILL LAST 5-8 YEARS

48. FORGETTING THOSE YOU RELY ON MAY NOT BE AGILE

49. PRETENDING THERE’S NO DEADLINE

50. PLANNING IN IGNORANCE OF PRODUCTION RULES
Code
Freeze
Integration
Test
Perf Test Pen Test
Pre-prod
Deploy
Go/No Go
Prod
Deploy
More
stories
More
stories
More
stories
More
stories
More
stories
More
stories
Go
live
The Harsh Reality (planned or otherwise)
The “Agile” Plan

51. STANDING IN A WATERFALL: FROOD INSIGHTS
Your agile plan should cover the whole
lifecycle, even the waterfall bits
Invite your waterfall friends to your agile
planning events
Understand the lead times of those around
you

52. Anti-Pattern 7:
The fish rots from the head.

53. MEET ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX, PRESIDENT
Trillian:
You idiot, you signed the order to destroy
Earth!
Zaphod:
I did?
Arthur:
He did?
Trillian:
Love and kisses, Zaphod? You didn’t even read
it, did you?
Zaphod:
Well, I’m president, I don’t have a lot of time for
reading.

54. A CHEQUE BOOK COMMITMENT
https://flic.kr/p/b2JSuk

55. THE INVISIBLE WALL

56. IT IS A TWO WAY STREET
https://flic.kr/p/nNgsnx

57. THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD: FROOD INSIGHTS
Teams need to be inclusive of leadership.
A cheque book commitment is not a
commitment.
Executives need to model the behaviours
they expect from their management teams.
Leaders need to be actively involved.

58. CLOSING THOUGHTS
The true secret to scaling is learning
to learn together.
Prepare to be wrong –
Learn to set tripwires

59. So long and thanks
for all the fish!
Em Campbell-Pretty
Partner, Context Matters
@PrettyAgile
prettyagile.com
em@contextmatters.com.au
Mark Richards
Partner, Context Matters
@MarkAtScale
agilenotanarchy.com
mark@contextmatters.com.au