Agile Engine: How to be Agile

@AsadSafari

#IranAgile2014

Asad Safari CSM – PSM – PSPO – Management 3.0

• Training, coaching and adopting Agile mindset and practices over +4 years

• Scrum And XP from trenches, Agile Product Management, Kanban VS Scrum [Books, Translates]

• Courses With Jeff Sutherland, Henrik Kniberg, Jurgen Appleo

• Agile world blog ;)

Contents

• What was the goal? – Let’s go to do Agile?

• What is the reality? – What’s going on now?

– Problems of agile adoptions

– Theory of broken windows

• What could you do? – Start your Agile engine

• What should I do? – Appreciative Inquiry act as an engine for you

Let’s start with a story!

In February 2001 a group of seventeen software pundits got together in Snowbird UT to discuss the growing field of what used to be called lightweight methods. […] What emerged was the Agile Software Development� Manifesto.

http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html Martin fowler – Agile story

And Agile umbrella

Why we need Agile?

1 Standish Group Report: There’s Less Development Chaos Today, by David Rubinstein SD Times March 1, 2007, 2 “Agile Has Crossed the Chasm,” Dr. Dobb’s Journal, July 2, 2007. 3QSMA and Cutter Consortium ROI case study on BMC Software, 2008. 4 Gartner, Inc. 2005 3 Why agile - Rally software development corp

• 93% increased productivity

• 88% increased quality

• 83% improved stakeholder satisfaction

• 49% reduced costs

• 66% three-year, risk-adjusted return on investment

1 “Agile Methodologies: Survey Results,” by Shine Technologies, 2003; 2 Forrester Research, 2004;

Everybody else is doing Agile so why can't we

And let’s go Agile

A great start but after several sprints

• Command and control by scrum master

• Daily standup for report

• We’re going to have a lot more meetings

• No respect and commitment

• Working software plus lots of bugs

• No time for test

• […]

But…

Ken Schwaber(co-founder of Scrum):

I estimate that 75% of those organizations

using Scrum will not succeed in getting the benefits that they hope for from it.

http://www.agilecollab.com/interview-with-ken-schwaber

Tired to hear a lot of "Agile" hype.

49% challenged + 9% failed

Can you remember our goal?

But what we have now?

1 Version one - 7th-Annual-State-of-Agile-Development-Survey

But I want to say something new

A note

• Adoption is a term that applies to a product or process.

• Agile is a mindset and a culture, it cannot be adopted. – “we are adopting the Scrum process framework” or “we are adopting Agile practices”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory‎

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a pavement. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of refuse from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.

Broken windows on Agile transformation

Team members think every thing should be perfect from the very first day

When they see some broken windows (Dirty codes, Bad result of sprint, Problem on

communication,…) They start to break other windows.

If we did not test in some sprints So, we will not do it anymore

Maybe on next project

If we are writing dirty codes we will write clean code on next

project

I will do X next project

We should believe that

We don’t have next time

We can be better(a little) right now

Agile is world of Continues

Continues Delivery

Continues integration

Continues Deployment

Continues Improvement

Continues Improvement is an Engine

for Agile Transformation

When & How we do it on Agile teams?

Maybe Retrospective?

Retrospective can be a place for

• Find broken windows

• Blaming

• Shows that Agile not work for us

• We are a bad team

And decide to break more windows

We need to focus on the positives

(What did we do well? What worked ?)

Instead of the usual Detecting

broken windows (What went wrong?)

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

The AI method brings a fresh approach to improving systems and catalyzing change. Developed by David Cooperrider in the 1980′s.

AI begins with a series of interviews and questions — the inquiry.

Appreciative inquirers search for the best in people, their organizations and their environments. They ask questions to uncover stories of when their group felt most alive, contributed most effectively, and found itself most capable of adding value—or appreciating.

Appreciative Inquiry attempts to use ways of asking questions and

envisioning the future in-order to foster positive relationships and build on the present potential of a given person, organization or situation.

Diana Larsen, FutureWorks Consulting - An Appreciative Retrospective

Problem Solving Appreciative inquiry

Felt need, identification of problem(s) Appreciating, valuing the Best of What Is

Analysis of Causes Envisioning what might be

Analysis of possible solutions Engaging in dialogue about what should be

Action Planning (treatment) Innovating, what will be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry process – 4Ds

• DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.

• DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.

• DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.

• DESTINY (or DEPLOY): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

Appreciative Retrospective

• Set the Stage:

State an affirmative goal for the session.

“During this retrospective, we’ll find ways to amplify our strengths in process and teamwork.”

Diana Larsen, FutureWorks Consulting - An Appreciative Retrospective

Appreciative Retrospective

• Gather Data:

Team members ask and answer a series of questions that focus awareness on individual and team strengths and successes.

“What did you value most about the work we’ve done together?”

Appreciative Retrospective

• Generate Insights:

Follow the data gathering questions with a question that creates a vision.

Appreciative Retrospective

• Decide What to Do:

Create a list of potential action steps.

Thanks