Top Ways Agile Adoption Fails, How to Avoid Them!

Presenter: Sally Elatta

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Top Reasons Agile Adoption Fails

and How to Avoid Them!

copyright © Sally Elatta 2010

About Sally

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• Sally Elatta• Leading Agile Transformation Coach and Trainer

• Background: Java/.Net Software Architect

• Certified Scrum Practitioner & ScrumMaster

• Certified IBM, Sun, Microsoft Professional

• Taught over 1000+ and helped coach over 20+ teams

• [email protected]

I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really passionate about transforming individuals, teams and organizations to doing what they do better. I value instilling soft skills and leadershipqualities in the people I coach. I believe in Servant Leadership as the way to lead change and create a culture of empowered teams, as opposed to Command and Control.

mailto:[email protected]


The manifesto’s shared value statement:“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and

helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals & interactions Over Processes & Tools

Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation

Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation

Responding to Change Over Following a Plan

“That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”

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Project Management Principles

(Release Planning, Sprint and Iteration Planning, Daily Scrum,

Sprint Demo and Retrospective ..etc)

Engineering Principles(TDD, Continuous Integration,

Refactoring ..etc)

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Agile Characteristics Product Backlog

Test Driven Development Business / IT as One Team5


Product Owner

thinks of New Idea

Product Backlog

Sprint Backlog

Features/Stories Small Stories

Each story is broken down into tasks. Each team member signs up for tasks and provides estimates of effort.

Tasks

Spri

nt

1Sp

rin

t 2

Spri

nt

3Sp

rin

t 4

Spri

nt

N

Each Iteration is 1 – 4 weeks in length. Multiple iterations make up a Release.

Work Breakdown Process

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Sample Backlog

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How to Avoid Agile Failure!

ProcessManagementProduct OwnerTeam

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Process Success Factors

Please .. Try a successful Agile recipe first before

customizing it!

Do understand the motivation behind a specific practice

before dropping it.

Do start with a Pilot, prove success, inspect and adapt,

then adopt at scale. (avoid too big, too fast)

Do have a thought out adoption rollout plan.

Avoid the ‘Checklist Agile’ adoption by also

transforming soft skills and leadership.

Avoid WAGILE!

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Process Success Factors ..

Develop new incentives that recognize team delivery

instead of individual delivery.

Do go through Release Planning and Iteration 0.

Do use expert coaches to help through initial phases.

Do pre-planning on iteration ahead of the other.

Do understand what is ‘Just Enough’ documentation.

Do factor in dependency and proof of concept stories

upfront during release planning.

Do breakdown stories to the right size.

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Process Success Factors ..

Develop new incentives that recognize team delivery

instead of individual delivery.

Do go through Release Planning and Iteration 0.

Do use expert coaches to help through initial phases.

Do pre-planning on iteration ahead of the other.

Do understand what is ‘Just Enough’ documentation.

Do factor in dependency and proof of concept stories

upfront during release planning.

Do breakdown stories to the right size.

Do solve the organizational impediments Agile

exposes.

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Management Success Factors

Management ‘genuine’ buy-in to giving Agile a

chance.

Converting from ‘Command and Control’ to

‘Servant Leadership’.

Trust the team to self-manage, but provide

leadership.

Control resource shifting and multi-tasking.

Structure the teams so they can get a story

‘done’, reduce dependencies.

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Management Success Factors ..

Celebrate success, even small wins, and show

confidence.

Support the Agile practices yourself. Agile

requires discipline at all levels.

Support new ScrumMasters and watch against

reverting to form.

Avoid Agile Team burn-out!

Remove impediments quickly. Don’t be one

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Product Owner Success Factors

Educate the business side early (not just IT)

on Agile, get their buy-in.

Help the Product Owner develop a realistic

plan/schedule for team collaboration.

The right Product Owner should lead with a

strong vision and passion for success.

She/he should be Knowledgeable,

Empowered and Engaged with the team.

Manages and controls scope changes.

Not the ScrumMaster. 15


Product Owner Success Factors ..

Manages stakeholder expectations and solicits

feedback. Invites them to demos/reviews.

Focus team on top priority stories.

Provides early and frequent testing feedback to

the team.

Encourages, supports and motivates the team to

continuously improve and deliver the right product.

Keeps an eye on the vision ahead.

Collaborates with the team to develop a release

plan that meets the vision.

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Team Success Factors

Team is trained and ‘genuinely’ interested in

giving the new processes a chance.

Team members represent cross-functional

roles that collaborate daily to get stories ‘Done’.

Team is empowered and engaged. They sign

up for tasks, provide realistic estimates, make

realistic iteration commitments.

Members create their team norms, define

‘Done’, have mutual accountability.

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Team Success Factors ..

Developers deliver small testable code every

day.

Team is co-located as much as possible.

Team measures progress in terms of story

points accepted by product owner.

Team tracks tasks and progress visibly.

Team members provide input to continuously

improve processes.

Team members care about quality and focus

on ways to reduce defects. 18

copyright © Sally Elatta 2010 19



How We Can Help

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Real World Workshops

• Management and Business Overview of Agile/Lean

• Real World Agile and Scrum team training + Project Jump Start

• Effective Facilitation & Requirements Gathering

• Servant Leadership

• Agile Project Estimating and Planning

• Engineering Best Practices

• … More!

Real World Coaching

• Agile Project Jump Start Coaching

• Leadership Coaching

• Full Time ScrumMasters

• Troubled Project Assessment & Recovery

• Enterprise Transformation Roadmap Development and Execution


Real World Agile and Scrum

•

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Evaluations for Real World Agile

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Servant Leadership

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Evaluations for Servant

Leadership

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Effective Facilitation

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Evaluations for Facilitation

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Requirements Gathering

•

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• My Article: http://tinyurl.com/6h5mam

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http://tinyurl.com/6h5mam

http://tinyurl.com/6h5mam


Contact Us

United States

402 212-3211

Web

www.AgileTransformation.com

www.AgileTraining.com

Email

[email protected]

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