When two tectonic plates meet there will always be friction, so how do we address this continental divide and make work seamless?
Standing up an Agile team is hard. Not just in the sense of delivering value to the business, but in the sense of challenging existing pre-conceptions. Moreover most large enterprises have processes focused on the Waterfall methodology.
Changing the entire org structure to facilitate one agile team, would not make sense, but if agile is one of the “ways of the future”, then there has to be a path for the two to co-exist. This path should not involve extensive conflict internally, or create two warring factions. This is all about how to utilise existing structures and introduce change, more around the zombie apocalypse model and less around ITIL. This is about what works in the real world, how real people have implemented this interface, how it is working out, and what issues have been
addressed in two real world use cases. Finally a recap on actual
steps to help implement this in your own organisation.
3. -Elon Musk.
“The worst thing an engineer can
do is optimise a process that
should not exist”
4. What exactly is the Zombie apocalypse?
1. Problem Statement
2. Background information around agile
3. Examples from the real world
4. Customer Use Case 1
5. Customer Use Case 2
6. 3 steps to success
Agenda
4
5. “Waterfalls tend to have large
flow rates depending on the
time of year. But Agile has
constant flow.
Do we need a reservoir and lots
of locks on the canals to join the
two together?”
6. Fundamentally it is all about budget
€€€
Controls the budget
PMO office
dictate the budget call off
Milestones
Not designed for short sprints(impractical
budget window)
Waterfall
Budget sign off is good corporate hygiene
Process
6
8. How to focus on the “North star”.
Budget
Assign a team to an
umbrella budget
buy/finance the team
Build and maintain
the team
“from the budget”
Bring the work to
the team
not the team to the
work
PM owns
“soft budget”
Is accountable for
team
PM verifies the soft
budget per sprint
by validating the
value delivered to
the business
Avoids micro
budgets
for ROI or TCO of
individual
requirements
8
9. Alignment
Agile
2
+
Per Sprint(2 week ) cycles, but
aligns to waterfall budget as call
off
Budget
● Bonus + incentive align to
product
● Product/Team Alignment
People
Scope limited Fixed + Variable
but more frequent
Milestones
9
Waterfall
2
+
FIxed budget over 3, 5, 7 or 10
years
Budget
● Bonus plus incentive
Milestones
● Departmental alignment
People
Fixed
Milestones
+ Only realised at project
completion(occasionally
milestone completion)
Business value
+ Realised at many points along
the journey
Business Value
10. When is a product a project?(or when is a PM a PO?)
Terminology Matters
10
11. Chief Product Owner - “Role”
Spend time with customers
Set out the product(s)
vision
Know their market/product
fit
Ensures the teams are
empowered
Roles not Job Titles
11
Ensure the PO/PM’s are
aligned to the Strategy
Is accountable for the
products
12. Year
s
MISSION + VISION
STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
Pulling in the same direction
STRATEGIC INTENT / BUSINESS GOALS
PLATFORM INITIATIVE
PRODUCT INITIATIVE
TACTICAL OPTIONS TACTICAL OPTIONS
Product Owner/PM
Lead Product Owner
Senior Leadership
C-Level
Expert Teams
PRODUCT LEVEL INITIATIVE ATTRIBUTES
• Translates business goals into future reality
• Looks into the future for 0-3 months
• Delivers agreed/required value to Business
• Product Owner is accountable
• Can be one or more in a given 3 month period
• Should be agreed and communicated with Business
• Arises from a brainstorming session with Business
• Uses the IOTA model and the crucible as appropriate
• Generates feedback measures to Business and squad to
measure success
• Is reviewed quarterly to gain insights with Business
14
3-5+
Years
1-3
Years
3-12
Months
0-12
Weeks
16. “Waterfall to agile is like
on-prem to cloud, financial to
finops”
-Samuel Nord -PM
17. How we plan to interact with Customer
DELIVERY MODEL - Transitions
Scrum
board 1
Scrum
board 2
Scrum
board 3
NC
CORE
Customer Cloud
Ops. Team
NC ORG
NC MCE
PM PO
Dev 1
Lead
Update Backlogs
Verify User Stories
Execute Work
Capture Requests
Consolidate Backlog
Sync on Priorities
Discuss new requests
24*7 Operations
We own the master
backlog, which is visible to
the Customer Cloud Ops.
team. It’s made up of the
requests from Customer
teams captured by NC CORE
team.
We keep track of our own
work and priorities in our own
Backlog. We agree priorities of
work with Customer Cloud
Ops. Team.
Onboarding Schedule
Inventory / CMDB
Dev 2
Dev 3
NC MIG
Lead
Dev 4.
Dev 5
22. Step 1
Zombie Infection
● Product Owners/PM’s
specify the “What”(talkers)
● Think timelines
● Ensure everyone understands where they fit
Align strategy
22
Run a “Ways Of Working” Workshop
● Identify all the stakeholders
● Bring everyone together
● Agree and document in a “wiki”
● Use “third party first” tooling and comms
approach
● Developers decide and implement - the “How”(Doers)
“What”/ “How”
“WoW”
24. Step 2
Zombie Infection
● PMO Budget discussions are a
one time, start of project
discussion
24
● Embrace the Team of Teams concept.
● Chief Product Officer role is both
necessary and Critical to organisational
success
● Focus each sprint on delivering Value and Outcomes
● Keep an eye on budget, are you burning it too fast?
● Are you reaching your North star?
● Iterate, “trust but verify”
Value+Outcome
Affects Scaling
● Use one time, “call off” budgets
● Ensure responsibility for “soft budget”
● Avoid micro budgets
Budget
25. Step 3
Zombie Infection
● Delegate and Empower
● Without Empowerment, delegation, is delayed Micromanagement
● Practice servant leadership
25
Run a “Ways Of Working” Workshop
● Identify all the stakeholders
● Bring everyone together
● Agree and document in a “wiki”
● Use “third party first” tooling and comms
approach
● Empowerment is a one way street. Overriding
empowered teams decisions, only results in
disaster
Empower
Speed+Direction
