Agile and the Enterprise Culture

AGILE and the ENTREPRISE CULTURE

BY Etienne Laverdière & Hugo Villeneuve

AGILE TOUR MONTREAL 2014

2014

15.11

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ETIENNE LAVERDIÈRE PMP, PMI-ACP, CSP, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF

15 years in IT Agile Coach, Tech Lead Digital Tango ltée @elaverdi

HUGO VILLENEUVE Engineering graduate

15 years in IT Tech Lead Start up Co-Founder Enterprise Architect Desjardins Bank @hugovilleneuve

Presented at Agile Tour Montreal 2014 in French : http://goo.gl/69lvBa

3 03

Our

Ag

ile fo

rt

Leading an agile project of 60 pers. inside a waterfall project of 500+ pers.

Cultural Clash

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IT Projects are getting more complex, but our management approach is still the same

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1:1

Ra

tio W

BS

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Complexity Factors in Large Enterprise Cynefin Framework Organizational Culture

Lessons Learned and recommendations

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Organizational Structure and

Culture Complexity

Agenda:

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Complexity

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CULTURE & STRUCTURE COMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS

ENTREPRISE STARTUP

Context

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More Stakeholders

More variability

More systems and interconnections

More technical knowledge

More requirements, higher expectations

More innovation and new technologies

More Legacy Systems and technical debt

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Complexity Factors in a large Enterprise

CULTURE & STRUCTURE COMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS 09


Complicated: Knowable

Simple: Known

Cause and effect is obvious to all

« Best Practices »

Complex

Chaotic


Cause and effect requires analysis, investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge

« Good Practices »



Simple: Known


Complex

Chaotic


Cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance




Simple: Known



Complex

Chaotic

« Emergent Practice »


No relationship between cause and effect

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Simple: Known

Cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance



« Crisis management »

Complex

Chaotic




« Best Practices » « Crisis management »

Complicated: Knowable Complex

Chaotic Simple: Known


Follow a plan

Build a plan Build a solution

Adapt to a context

Act




16%

38% 25%

18%


Simple: Known

« Crisis management »

Complex

Chaotic


Task repartition in a standard IT Project

Joseph Pelrine, On Understanding Software Agility - A Social Complexity Point Of View, 2011


Traditional management Agile

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Agile works well in a complex domain.

Traditional management works well in a complicated domain



53% Inability to

change organizational

culture

42% General

resistance to change

17

Barriers to further agile adoption

Trying to fit agile in a non-

agile framework

35%

Version One: Agile Survey 2013 *respondents where able to select multiple options.


SAFE DAD Vocabulary

None of these tools address the cultural aspect

Poker Planning

18

53% Inability to

change organizational

culture

42% General

resistance to change

Barriers to further agile adoption

Trying to fit agile in a non-

agile framework

35%

Version One: Agile Survey 2013 *respondents where able to select multiple options.


Agile

19

There is a culture clash between Agile and the traditional management style

Traditional management


Chaotic Simple: Known

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Culture & Organizational Structure

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Abraham Maslow

(1908-‐1970)

"The Emergent, Cyclical, Double-‐Helix Model Of The Adult Human Biopsychosocial Systems"

C. W. Graves (1914-‐1986)

Future of Management Gary Hamel

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C. W. Graves Model

Frédéric Laloux ReinvenEng OrganizaEons (2014)

Abraham Maslow

Hierarchy of needs


C. W. Graves « The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory »

• Each level represents a way of thinking, a world view, a paradigm of thought • They are applicable to individuals and organizations • Higher levels include and transcend lower levels • Evolution is sequential, one cannot jump a level • No level is better, rather a level is more appropriate for a particulate context • We cannot force change to another level. We can only ease a transition by

changing the environment

Systemic

Conformist and Traditional

Egocentric

Clannish

Meritocratic and Results-driven

Communitarian and Relativist


Characteristics • Order and stability-driven • Hierarchical structure and processes • Clear roles and responsibilities

• Casts and fixed privilege • Inflexible and dogmatic • Bureaucratic

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Systemic


Egocentric

Clannish




Characteristics • Achiever and results-driven • Factual and rational vs. emotional • Innovative and progressive

• Short term and local perspective • Individualistic and competitive • World divided between winners and losers

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Systemic


Egocentric

Clannish




Characteristics • Team work and harmony-driven • Equality, relativism and inclusiveness • Focus on culture and shared values • Team consensus

• Slow and ineffective at scale • « Not-invented here » syndrome • Against hierarchical roles

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Systemic


Egocentric

Clannish




In Summary

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« Everyone in their place. We must follow the process »

« Own your place. Find a way to deliver results »

« You have your place. Lets find a solution together »

Agile

Tradional Management

Operational Management


Agile implementation without a cultural change can only be partial

Agile implementation by culture

Conformist and Traditional: Comprehensive documentaGon over working soJware Following a plan over responding to change Processes and tools over individuals and interacGons

Meritocratic and Results-driven: Contract negoGaGon over customer collaboraGon Working soJware over comprehensive documentaGon

Communitarian and Relativist: Individuals and interacGons over processes and tools Customer collaboraGon over contract negoGaGon

Breddel, Cultural Change with Spiral Dynamics, 2012; Spayd, Coaching Agile Enterprise, 2014


Each level improves the capacity to manage more complexity

The level of complexity in IT projects forces organizations to modify their management styles from a hierarchical command & control to a pluralist, collaborative and adaptive mindset.

An Agile transformation is a Cultural change.

-50,000 Aujourd'hui

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Organizational Culture Evolution

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Lessons Learned

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Agile Traditional Management

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Observation 1: Traditional management is unaware of other types of knowledge domains and therefore imposes a single management style for all type of problems.

Operational Management



Martine R. Haas: The Double-edged swords of autonomy and external knowledge, 2010

Local efficiency Scrum Team

Strategic efficiency

External Knowledge

Tasks

Team autonomy impacts: • Higher local efficiency, lower strategic efficiency • Replication of know solutions • « Groupthink » and « Not-invented here » phenomena

Observation 2: Team autonomy and alignment must be balanced with appropriate governance processes.

Team autonomy at large scale

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Recommendations

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To align autonomous teams - develop a systemic governance • Use the Enterprise Architecture to help align products and vision

• Use Communities of Practices to align methodologies and technical skills

• Use an Agile PMO to structure these communities

• Use “Principles” to guide and facilitate decision making

Systemic perspective

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Medium and large-sized enterprises


EA Principles defined by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

EA Principles examples

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① You build it, you run it.

② All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.

Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces.

③ There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed (no direct linking, no

shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever).

④ It doesn't matter what technology they use. (Jeff Bezos doesn't care.)

⑤ All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be

externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions.

⑥ Anyone who doesn't do this will be fired. Thank you; have a nice day!


Medium and large-size enterprise

Bimodal approach Mode-2 : Innovation, agility, short iterations Client focused Agile and lean gravity center

Mode-1 : Standardization and predictability Stability, order and cost control Stage-based and traditional management gravity center

Two models of Agile Transformation at scale

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Communitarian and Relativist e.g.. SCRUM

Solution 1: Build a bi-modal enterprise.

To avoid a cultural clash

Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, 2014


Spin-Off

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Solution 2: Start an independent « agile & systemic » company.

Medium and large-size enterprise

Bimodal approach

Two models of Agile Transformation at scale


Communitarian and Relativist e.g.. SCRUM

Solution 1: Build a bi-modal enterprise.

to avoid a cultural clash

Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, 2014


Characteristics • Mission and principle-driven • Flexible and opportunist • Networked structure with groups autonomy • Each level of management has its place depending on the context • For decision making, the entire system is considered (e.g. l’Holacracy) • Decision supported by the entire organization • Sustainable structure and development • Systemic view: no opposition between emotions and rationality

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Graves’ Systemic level for IT

Systemic


Egocentric

Clannish



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2007 2014

Some readings…

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Some companies…

FAVI, Foundry, France

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Questions ?

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Russell L. Ackoff: From Mechanistic to social Systemic Thinking, System Thinking in Action Conference, 1993

Dajo Breddel: Cultural Change with Spiral Dynamics, http://tinyurl.com/qdjn5yf, 2012.

Chabreuil: La spirale dynamique, Interedition, 2008.

Cowan & Beck: Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996

Martine R. Haas: The Double-edged swords of autonomy and external knowledge: Analyzing team effectiveness in a multinational organization in Academy of Management Journal 2010, Vol. 53, No. 5, University of Pennsylvania, 2010.

Gary Hamel and Bill Breen: The Future of Management, Harvard Business Review Press, 2007

Clare W. Graves: Levels of Existence: an Open System Theory of Values in Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1970; 10, 131

Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organization, Nelson Parker, 2014

References

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Joseph Pelrine: On Understanding Software Agility - A Social Complexity Point Of View in E:CO Issue Vol. 13 Nos. 1-2, 2011

Snowden, Boone: A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making in Harvard Business Review, Novembre 2007

Kurtz. Snowden, The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world, http://tinyurl.com/ldgsa2x, 2003

Michael Spayd: Time’s arrow: The evolution of complexity in Downloading the Integral Operating System (IOS) A Framework for Agile Enterprise Transformation, 2014 http://tinyurl.com/o74fqdy

Michael Spayd: What would it mean to Coach an Agile Enterprise?, http://tinyurl.com/peozpk8, 2014

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Deloitte: Scalling Edge, A Pragmatic Pathway to broad internal change, 2012

Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2865718, 2014

Version One: 8th Annual State of Agile Survey 2013, http://www.versionone.com/pdf/2013-state-of-agile-survey.pdf