Neil Killick, Program Delivery Manager at neilkillick.com neil2killick@gmail.com @neil_killick

Copyright Neil Killick, 2015

What to do when adopting Agile

NOT

Most Agile adoptions “fail”...

❏ Doesn’t stick❏ Doesn’t scale❏ Different measures of success❏ No improvement in results❏ Isn’t universally welcomed

WHY?

❏ Ignore Systems Thinking and Theory of Constraints

❏ Expect teams to improve but not ourselves

Focus on “the team”❏ Don’t seek executive

support / understanding

❏ Ignore organisational cognitive dissonance

❏ “Adopt” rather than transition

❏ Think Agile == Scrum events

❏ Underestimate significance of mindset

Practices over principles

One tool to rule them all

❏ Stifle teams

❏ Try to control vs allow self organisation

❏ One-way transparency

❏ Train only developers and some managers, or nobody

❏ Provide coaching for developers only, or nobody

❏ Think CSM is enough

Not enough coaching & training

Remain predictive,not empirical

❏ Break teams up❏ Estimate too far into the future❏ Increment without iterating

❏ Agile the destination, not the journey❏ Too busy to improve❏ Think we’re as good as we can be❏ Think we can’t influence change

Stop learning & discovering better ways

So what SHOULD we do?

❏ Seek to understand cognitive dissonance & influence with empathy

❏ Optimise the whole, not the parts

Focus on the system❏ Seek executive

support / understanding

❏ Be clear on the goal of Agile in your organisation

❏ Use principles to guide incremental improvement

❏ Don’t blindly adopt practices

❏ Seek out those of a similar mindset and work together

Principles over practices

Focus on culture, not tools

❏ Enable teams to pick the right tools for the job

❏ Use constraints rather than control mechanisms

❏ Allow teams to self organise and astound you

❏ Senior managers, middle managers, developers, designers, everyone!

❏ Lean/Agile leadership, CSM, CSC, CSD, Kanban, BDD, XP

❏ Hire dedicated Agile coaches

Train everyone

Be empirical,not predictive

❏ Inspection, Adaptation, Transparency

❏ Keep teams together

❏ Iterate thinking, building, funding

❏ Proactively manage risk

❏ Continuous improvement, e.g. Toyota Kata, kaizen, retrospectives at all levels, etc.

❏ No “best practice” in complex environments - Experiment!

❏ Push boundaries to discover where they are

Keep questioning the status quo

Neil Killick, Program Delivery Manager at neilkillick.com neil2killick@gmail.com @neil_killick

Copyright Neil Killick, 2015