The document discusses how to make an organization's culture work for adopting agile practices. It recommends using Schneider's culture model to assess the existing culture and identify whether it is collaboration, control, competence, or cultivation oriented. Based on the dominant culture, certain agile practices like Kanban or software craftsmanship may be better fits than others to work with the existing culture rather than try to change it. The key is to adopt practices that are aligned with the organizational culture in order to facilitate a successful agile transition.

1. Making the organization culture work
for you!
Ebin John.

2. Agenda
• Impact of Organization culture on Agile
Adoption
– Understanding Schneider model
• Understanding your Organization culture
– Understanding you company culture
• How to decide the model
– How to identify the model that works!
• How to make the culture work for you

3. All models are wrong, but some
are useful! :George Box
All models are useful, but some fail
faster than others :Jurgen Appelo

4. • Learning how to make a decent cofee is
adoption ; Becoming a barista is a
transformation.
• Adoption changes only what you do.
Transformation changes what you are.

5. • The Agile community suffers a significant
confusion between adoption and
transformation.
• Sadly, majority of the change agents talk of
adopting Agile and not about transforming the
culture of a company to support the Agile
mindset.

6. • It requires understanding the current culture
• Applying different models
• Adapting new ideas to fit in traditional contexts
• Shortening feedback cycles
• Addressing both the people and their environment
• Alternating between continuous change and radical
change
• Experimenting in safe-to-fail ways
• Lots of coffee 
What it takes?

8. The Schneider Culture Model defines
four distinct cultures:
1. Collaboration culture is about working
together
2. Control culture is about getting and keeping
control
3. Competence culture is about being the best
4. Cultivation culture is about learning and
growing with a sense of purpose.

9. Culture Model Lets Us Ask Useful
Questions
• What is the culture in my company now?
• How well is the culture aligned with Agile?
• What problems can I expect due to
misalignment?

10. • The first step in mitigating a problem is to
acknowledge that you have one.
• If you do not manage culture, it manages you.

13. Source: An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide By Michael Sahota

14. Software Craftsmanship is about
Competence
• We as a community of software professionals
do need to pay attention to Competence and
technical excellence for long term
sustainability.
• The main sentiment is about working together
with customers to produce valuable software
that solves real problems.
• Not just code monkeys!

15. Working with Your Culture
Source: An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide By Michael Sahota

16. Making the culture work!
• Control Culture –> Lead with Kanban
• Competence Culture –> Lead with Software
Craftsmanship
• Collaboration or Cultivation Culture –> Lead
with aspects of Agile that align with the
organizations culture. e.g. Vision and
Retrospectives for Cultivation Culture.

17. Understanding Culture
• The implication here is that it is not possible
to just switch over from a Control culture to
an Agile one.
• A central premise of Schneider’s book is that it
is essential to work with the existing culture
rather than oppose it.

18. suggestions for using cultural
information to guide decision-making:
• Evaluate key problems in the context of culture.
Sometimes changes are needed to bring the culture
into alignment with the core culture.
• Sometimes the culture is too extreme (e.g. too much
Cultivation without any controls – or vice versa!),
and elements from other cultures are needed to
bring it back into balance.
• Consider the possibility of creating
interfaces/adapters/facades to support mismatches
between departments or groups.

19. Working with Other Cultures

20. • Option #1 illustrates that the easiest option is
to work with the existing dominant culture (in
this case Control).
• Option #2 is to carefully explore adjacent
cultures in ways that support the core culture
of the group.
• The idea here is to work with the culture, and
not to fight against it.

21. Source: An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide By Michael Sahota

22. Adoption of Agile Practices in
Mismatched Culture
• The guidance provided by Schneider is to
identify practices that support the dominant
culture of the company or group rather than
to try and change it.
• It is all about making your culture work.

23. Summary
• Schneider Culture Model – an easy-to-use tool
for assessing culture in your company.
• You can use the cultural fit model to decide
what approach - Agile, Kanban, or Software
Craftsmanship - will best fit with your
organization if you want to work with the
existing culture.

24. Questions

25. Thank You

26. References
• William Schneider’s book [Schneider - The Reengineering Alternative: A plan for
making your current culture work

27. References
• William Schneider’s book [Schneider - The Reengineering
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