Why is it so hard? Agile adoption anti-patterns and how to avoid them

Milan Juza

National DevOps Conference 2016

Hi! My name is Milan Juza What I am passionate about:

• agile and lean

• building great teams

• awesome technology

• changing how businesses operate

@MilanJuza

Pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context.

Anti-pattern is just like pattern, except that instead of a solution it gives something that looks superficially like a solution, but isn't one.

− Andrew Koenig, Patterns and Antipatterns (1995)

‘ ‘

1 No. The perfect system The mysterious case of…

‘ ‘To successfully adopt agile we need to change our people.

The perfect system

Positive Patterns « Focus on the system and people’s interactions « Understand how you really work

« Challenge system dogmas

2 No. The frozen middle The mysterious case of…

‘ ‘Our exec management is really committed to agile. I am too, but we have so many other things to do first.

The frozen middle

Positive Patterns

« ‘The Why’ in team’s context

« Managers seek support & feedback

« Make agile work for you

The demanding spectators

The mysterious case of… 3 No.

‘ ‘OK, fine, do your agile thing. But you have to guarantee you will deliver the existing roadmap. And that I will not need to change anything on my side.

The demanding spectators

Positive Patterns

« Everyone on the same bus

« Business outcomes in focus

« Short feedback loops

The confused PMO The mysterious case of… 4 No.

‘ ‘We have to measure how we are doing – we need the numbers. We need to compare teams and their performance.

The confused PMO

Positive Patterns « Ask the right questions

« Trends over absolute numbers

« Review and adapt

The single road to success

The mysterious case of… 5 No.

‘ ‘ Having one approach across the whole organisation is vital. Differences will only lead to confusion.

The single road to success

Positive Patterns

« ‘Best practice’ does not exist

« Team autonomy and ownership

« Space and safety to experiment

The maximised productivity

The mysterious case of… 6 No.

‘ ‘We always optimise for productivity. Idle time means waste we can’t afford.

Maximised productivity

Positive Patterns

« Productivity not a function of utilisation

« Learning part of the job

« Managers lead by example

Maximised productivity

Perfect system

Single road to success Frozen middle

Demanding spectators

Confused PMO

other things first

change our people measure and compare

productivity

one approach

guarantee

More about (anti)patterns

by Linda Rising by J Coplien and N Harrison

by C Alexander et al. by E Gamma et al.

Thank you! @MilanJuza