News Flash: Agile Requires Culture Change (mLearnCon 2015)
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Megan Torrance's presentation at mLearnCon 2015, Austin, TX. In this presentation, Megan discusses the cultures most likely to adopt Agile project management successfully (and LLAMA in particular), as well as the key cultural differences that an Agile approach to project management imply.
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News Flash: Agile Requires Culture Change (mLearnCon 2015)
- 1. Adopting Agile Requires a Culture Change Are You Ready For It? Session 508
- 2. Megan Torrance CEO, TorranceLearning Connect with me mtorrance@torrancelearning.com @MMTorrance linkedin.com/in/megantorrance
- 3. “I’ve got to get my team/clients/boss/SMEs on board with this…or it will fail miserably.” Yes you do.
- 5. THE AGILE MANIFESTO We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it...
- 6. source: www.agilemanifesto.org Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- 7. source: www.agilemanifesto.org Through this work we have come to value: Working software over comprehensive documentation
- 8. source: www.agilemanifesto.org Through this work we have come to value: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation source: www.agilemanifesto.org
- 9. source: www.agilemanifesto.org Through this work we have come to value: Responding to change over following a plan source: www.agilemanifesto.org
- 10. A FEW OF THE AGILE PRINCIPLES • Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. • Deliver working product early & often. • Build projects around motivated individuals. • Give them the environment and support they need, & trust them to get the job done.
- 11. A FEW OF THE AGILE PRINCIPLES • Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential. • The best work emerges from self-organizing teams. • At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
- 12. Define scope with stories Estimate in small portions Work in sprints & iterations Expect & accept change
- 16. What about Agile would make the biggest improvement in your worklife if you (could) implement it?
- 17. “I’ve got to get my team/clients/boss/SMEs on board with this…or it will fail miserably.” Yes you do.
- 18. Agile is as much a culture as it is a project management method.
- 19. Culture is explicit & implicit Culture in the book (the stuff that’s spelled out for new hires) Values Policies Dress code Work environment Workday schedules Explicit rewards Culture in the air (the stuff that new hires have to pick up on) Communication methods Management styles Degree of collaboration Definitions of success
- 20. Schneider Culture Model Collaboration Control Cultivation Competence “We succeed by working together.” “We succeed by getting and keeping control.” “We succeed by growing people who fulfil our vision.” “We succeed by being the best.”
- 21. Where is your organization on the Schneider model?
- 22. Schneider & Agile Collaboration Control Cultivation Competence “We succeed by working together.” “We succeed by getting and keeping control.” “We succeed by growing people who fulfil our vision.” “We succeed by being the best.” Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery. Welcome changing requirements. Deliver working software frequently…shorter timescale. Business people & developers work together daily. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment; trust they’ll get the job done. The most efficient/effective way to communicate is face-to-face. Working software is the primary measure of progress. Sustainable development: all should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. Continuous attention to technical excellence & good design enhances agility. Simplicity (maximizing work not done) is essential. The best designs emerge from self- organizing teams. Team reflects regularly, tunes & adjusts its behavior accordingly.
- 23. If culture is in the air, what does an Agile culture look like? Communication Management Collaboration Success
- 24. Communication • Face to face when possible • Stand-ups & Scrums • Articulating tasks & goals to be understood by all • Visual &/or tactile planning and status • Reporting issues early • Problems failure • Frequent communication with project stakeholders
- 25. Management • Self-organizing teams • Give motivated people the environment & support they need • Continuous attention to technical excellence & good design • Maximize the work not done • Team reflects then adjusts accordingly • Reflect on projects • Estimate tasks • Work only on approved tasks • Whole team has easy access to project boards • Seek assistance from team members with expertise
- 26. Collaboration • Business & developers work together daily • Articulating tasks to be understood by all • Open workspaces • Whole team has easy access to project boards
- 27. Success Definitions • Satisfy the customer through early & continuous delivery • Welcome client requests for changes • Deliver working products frequently • Working software is primary measure of progress • Maintain constant pace • Problem failure • Working product = minimally viable
- 28. Dollarphotoclu
- 29. Picking a first project for Agile • Eager business sponsor • Eager team members • Iterations ok and “mistakes” ok • Observe, adjust, share … learn • Learn with intention: Resist the temptation to make generalizations about things that are not likely repeat themselves Experiment!
- 30. Pick a first project. Who will need to be onboard? How will you do it?
- 31. Adopting Agile Requires a Culture Change Are You Ready For It?
Editor's Notes
- Yes. You do need to get your team, your clients (internal and external), your boss and your SMEs on board with this. Because if you don’t, yes, it is likely to fail miserably. Ok, so maybe not miserably, but you’re on to something here. Agile is more than a project management method. It’s a culture. The good news is that it solves many of the sticking points with the old waterfall-based approaches to projects. It’s a matter of communication, communication, getting results and communication.
- OBJECTIVE 1: Describe Agile project management methods to your clients, teammates, and stakeholders When you get right down to it, Agile, like any other project management approach, seeks to manage SQERTS.
- Now, 4 vague statements and 12 principles are hardly a sufficient project management system … but they set the stage for the several variants of agile that have evolved over the last decade or so. They all share a few things in common …
- Now, 4 vague statements and 12 principles are hardly a sufficient project management system … but they set the stage for the several variants of agile that have evolved over the last decade or so. They all share a few things in common …
- You know that you’re using Agile when you recognize these hallmarks.
- OBJECTIVE 2: how do Agile methods resolve inherent shortcomings of traditional methods (ADDIE) that project sponsors are used to?
- OBJECTIVE 4: Build the culture that supports an Agile project team This gets us back to this statement. You do need to get your team, your clients (internal and external), your boss and your SMEs on board with this. Because if you don’t, yes, it is likely to fail miserably. This is all about culture. Let’s take a pragmatic interlude here and review what culture means.
- Implementing Agile is often viewed as implementing a new tool & maybe one that will change the culture Agile can start to change the culture, but the culture also has to change for Agile to work effectively Agile processes provide guidance for its own adoption (implement, evaluate, iterate) Agile is going to impact your culture in terms of all that “culture in the air”: Communication methods Management styles Degree of collaboration Definitions of success
- In his work as a consultant for organizations undergoing change – William Schneider worked had plenty of opportunity to observe the culture in the air of many organizations. Throughout his work with these organizations, he and his colleagues realized that organizational cultures fall into one of four models. In The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan for Making Your Current Culture Work, he describes each model and suggests how to work within that model to make improvements that align with the cultural tendency of the organization. Schneider is the first to point out that this is a simplistic overview and that no organization displays characteristics of only one quadrant. However, it can be a useful framework to explore an organization’s culture and make decisions about the best ways to implement change. This approach to assessing organizational culture came out of Schneider’s work in the 70s and 80s. Schneider’s book implies that organizations with any of these cultural models can be successful as long as everyone within the organization is aligned (in the main) with the overriding cultural model. More recently, some have begun to argue that control culture organizations have a more difficult time adjusting to the knowledge and skill expansion that rapid technology changes require. Regardless of broad concerns about the value of various cultures, in the world of Agile, particularly Scrum, there is a growing consensus that some models support an Agile approach more than others. More about that later.
- So how does Agile fare in each of these different cultures? We can analyze by distributing Agile principles to the quadrants they most reflect. Agile skews to the left and lower quadrants. Theoretically it plays well in any quadrant but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that Kanban does OK in control but Scrum really only works in left side organizations.
- So, assuming that Agile is something new and different for your organization, how do you go about introducing it? Choose a skunkworks or a fishbowl model – either way you shelter the team from some of the “rules”