Plenary Keynote Agile – Supercharged

Agile SuperchargedScaling Agile as a Business Change Tool

James Yoxall – IndigoblueKevin Heery – IPC MediaAgile Business Conference

Lean Objective SettingLean Delivery = Better Products Faster

© 2012 IndigoBlue Consulting Limited

Agile at IPC

• ‘Doing Agile’ for 5 years• Scrum and Kanban teams• Development process was Agile• Business process wasn’t Agile• Engaged with IndigoBlue in May


Vanity Metrics

wedopublishing.com

Business model: display advertising

Performance Metrics: Page Impressions / Unique Visitors

2011 Average: 5m Page Impressions / 1m Unique Visitors

2012 Average Target: 7.5m Page Impressions / 1.5m Unique Visitors

What should they do?SEO Newsletter optimisation More frequent news updates SEM

New video channel Launch a Facebook app Get into the Apple storeBuild relationships with influential bloggers Launch a forum Make a game

Acquire wedopublishingtoo.com

But What do we do First?

Don’t Know?The Data tells us how we’re performingNot how to perform better


Measuring Customers not Products

Pioneered by the new social games giants:

• Acquisition (Cost per Acquisition - CPA)– How do I get the right audience to turn

up for the least amount of money

• Retention– How do I persuade them to come back

of their own accord, so I don’t have to pay to get them again

• Monetisation (LifeTime Value - LTV)– How do I persuade them to buy stuff or

do other things that make me money

• If I get CPA < LTV and my audience is still growing…

• … I sell my company for $250m


Publishing Site Customer Journey

Recruitment Referral

Awareness

Acquisition

Engagement

Monetisation

Retention


Objective Setting

9

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective


Objective Setting

10

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective


Objective Setting

11

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective


Objective Setting

12

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective


Objective Setting

13

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective


Objective Setting

Top Rank Objective

Trigger Objective

KPIs• Google Page Load Time


What Should IPC Do Differently?

• Business Process• Measure customer journey and identify strategic gaps . Objectives are for

filling gaps• Run objective review and KPI setting sessions at least every 3 months

– Attendees should include PD, Editorial, Marketing, Sales rep, Product Manager and FULL development team

• Reduce objectives list to 3 max - better to act on one at a time• For each objective, decide on a max of 2 KPIs (use %s, not volume numbers)• Communicate objectives and KPIs to EVERYONE involved• Put someone in charge of each one. Editor? Marketer? Sales Exec? Product

Manager?• Review performance versus KPIs at least every 3 weeks


What should IPC do differently?

• 1st Loop– Getting the MVP

live

• Every other loop– Testing– Optimising– QUICKLY

Product team debate how to improve

performance

Product team debate how to improve

performance

NoYes

Agree the business objective

Agree the business objective

Establish a measure of performance

Establish a measure of performance

Measure performance

Objective achieved?

Measure performance

Objective achieved?

List ideas and prioritise

[value vs effort]

List ideas and prioritise

[value vs effort]

Start with top priority

Start with top priority

Agree minimum

viable product

Agree minimum

viable product

Build and launch

Build and launch

Grand Design vs. Incremental Development


Grand Design Approach

Develop a Product Vision that fulfils an

Objective

Launch

Move on to next objective

Build feature A2Build feature A2







MVP

Build Feature A3

Build Feature A4

Incremental Approach


Objective


Launch


Agree Assumptions and measures to

testAgree MVP


Launch


Launch


Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasureBuild feature A3Build feature A3

Pivot?


Pivot?Build feature A3Build feature A3

Persevere

Persevere

Persevere


Getting Value Early


Objective





Launch



testAgree MVP



Launch



Launch


Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasure

Pivot?

Pivot?

Persevere

Persevere

MVP

Persevere


Failing Fast


Objective





Launch



testAgree MVP



Launch



Launch


Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasure

Launch andMeasure

Pivot?

Pivot?

Persevere

Persevere

MVP

Persevere

STOP


Prior Agile Whiteboard


New Board - Objectives, KPIs and Target

23


New Board - Validating Column

and they’re already winning!


New Board - What worked and what didn’t?

25

And what did we do that we knew wouldn’t help our objective!?


Measure VALUE as well as Effort

26

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6

Unplanned / No KPI

Planned


Optimisation Tools


Optimisation Analytics


Optimisation Analytics

40% increase in sign ups


James Yoxall


Specific Changes at IPC

• Create a structured approach to planning and prioritising change• Highlight the volume of non-strategic work• Build measurement and validation into each story• Be explicit about assumptions and underline the need for experiments


Wider Considerations

• This was a mature Agile team, and yet …– “Waste” in the system occurs when work done does not achieve the intend result– Or when more work is done than necessary achieve result or fail the experiment– The team was overly focused on solution and velocity– Focus on BUSINESS VALUE was “outside the room”

• Was the team not doing Agile “properly”?– Was the Product Owner not fulfilling their role?

• How can you tell whether a team is doing Agile “properly”?


A Reminder of the Past

• The “development factory” – a recent real-world example– Optimise development to minimise cost– Focus on rigorous entry criteria

• Impact on the wider system– Projects spend a long time preparing to start development– Deployment cycle times (for new systems) measured in years– Development capability is lagging behind business expansion– The board considers IT to be “broken”

• To Agile eyes– The difficult work is being shifted outside the “system”– There is a disconnect from business value– Development is being batched up– Optimisation is not across all the activities required to deliver value


Key Message - Don’t “Do” Agile

• Agile is not a set of activities• Agile is a different way of thinking about how an organisation achieves its

aims, with intended benefits– More business value– Less risk– Shorter release cycles– Higher quality

• Agile is a set of concepts and a toolbox of techniques– We are constantly improving our understanding of what organisations want and

how Agile thinking enables that– We are inventing new tools all the time– Scrum is just one particular toolbox – it is a good first step on a journey


Don’t Stop With the Agile Manifesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

• The manifesto (partially) describes the way of thinking …– … not the benefits to the business– It is related to activities


Be Clear About the Boundaries of the System

• Optimising part of a system may negatively impact the whole system• It’s not just about IT delivery, but …

– Agile initiatives are often IT-led (can the tail wag the dog?)– The Product Owner is a very simplistic way of extending the boundaries beyond IT– Apart from “being available”, it is very unclear how the business should think

differently• A process that assumes the wrong boundary will be the wrong process• Provide specific tools to widen the system

– Understand the objectives, constraints and concerns of the wider systems (“the business”)

– “Explain” to the wider system how they need to think differently, and how that will benefit their objectives

– Provide specific tools to support effective business engagement- Decision-making- Governance


How the Business Needs to Think Differently

• Incremental Planning– Clarity on the meaning of “value”– How to achieve it early and often– Build in the ability to “pivot”

• Uncertainty Management– What don’t we know and how are we going to address it?– Up-front approaches

- Investigation and analysis- Assumption- Assigned ownership

– Alternatives- Experiment and feedback

– Uncertainty and risk- Reducing uncertainty too late increases risk- Reducing uncertainty too early increases risk

– The interface to the supplier is not just about Solution


In Conclusion

• Definition of a novice: "rigid adherence to taught rules or plans“– From the “Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition”

• Many teams who have learned Agile successfully are now needing support to get to the next level of adoption

• A key area of focus is widening the scope of the system to include the business• This introduces a number of challenges which require new Agile tools, e.g.

– Delegation models and authority structures– Rapid decision-making structures– Agile governance frameworks

Thank You

Documents

Plenary Keynote Agile – Supercharged