UNDERSTANDING AGILITY: WHEN AND HOW TO LEVERAGE AGILE …€¦ · Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work Predictive Emergent Chaotic Uncertainty y Low High High Adaptive

© 2012-2016 Eliassen Group. All Rights Reserved -1-

UNDERSTANDING AGILITY: WHEN AND HOW TO

LEVERAGE AGILE TO MAXIMIZE RESULTS

Dave Moran, Agile Coach

PMI PDD Day

October 6, 2017


What happens next?

Some Projects Are Difficult to Manage

Yesterday’s Status

Today’s Status

“Our project is in the red!”


The Reaction

“Let’s get back on track!”

You are failing as a project managerThe team gave me

poor estimates


What is Agile?

And how can agile help?


Some Misconceptions

Something magical that teams use to “increase efficiency”

Agile in undisciplined

No planning No target dates

No budgets


Don’t View Agile as “Change”

Think of it as radical improvement

Disciplined thought

Disciplined action

Done well, agile exhibits these qualities:

Driven by a deep desire to improve the status quo


A Very Brief History

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development

http://agilemanifesto.org

These thought leaders were “… sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes…”

The result of 17 thought leaders meeting in 2001 to find common ground

http://agilemanifesto.org/


A Very Brief History

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development

http://agilemanifesto.org

These thought leaders were “… sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes…”

The result of 17 thought leaders meeting in 2001 to find common ground

http://agilemanifesto.org/


Time

Desire: Produce a result in a planned, repeatable manner, with an orderly progression of work

The Traditional Approach

Requirements Plan Design Build Test Review Deploy


A Common Scenario

Time

“The Squeeze Play”Pressure to deliver

Requirements Plan Design Build Review Deploy


The Need for an Alternative

• 62% of projects overrun on time

• 49% of projects overrun on budget

• 47% of projects suffer from higher than expected maintenance costs

• 28% of organizations have experienced projects that do not fit requirements

• 13% of organizations say projects have not delivered expected ROI

August 2007, Dynamic Markets survey of 800 IT managers from eight countries


The Standish Group Findings

2014 2004 1994

Successful 28% 29% 16%

Challenged 55% 53% 53%

Failed 17% 18% 31%

Standish Group Chaos Surveys on Software Project Success Rates

Software Success Rates

Successful = On time, on budget, with the expected features

Challenged = Late delivery and/or budget overrun and/or less than the expected features

Failed = Cancelled projects or software that was never actually used


Additional Insights

Small projects are overwhelmingly more successful

For all projects regardless of size, agile success rates were over 3x greater

https://www.infoq.com/articles/standish-chaos-2015

(http://www.erikweberconsulting.com/blog/chaos2015)

The Standish Group acknowledged that the “On Target” measure lacked a customer-facing perspective on the outcome

In 2015 they discontinued “On Target” and measured customer perceived value

This resulted in a 7% decrease in the number of successful projects

https://www.infoq.com/articles/standish-chaos-2015

http://www.erikweberconsulting.com/blog/chaos2015


Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnell

The Cone of Uncertainty

Estimates cannot be meaningfully improved until actual work is performed

Planning is difficult because you are striving to predict an uncertain future

The Two Enemies of Predictability

Uncertainty & Variability


Key Insight

The approach that you take can either hinder or enhance your ability to understand and deliver what customers truly value

Deliver value as quickly as possible

Use the least amount of effort

Delivering to plan and “maximizing resource utilization” does not maximize value delivery

With most software efforts, radical improvement comes from emphasizing product management over project management

Value-driven over plan-driven


The Agile Approach

Time

Requirements Plan Design Build Test Review Deploy

Deploy on Demand

JIT

Ela

bora

tion


Iterating in an Agile Context

Iterating should NOT be because…

…we didn’t think things through

…we aren’t disciplined

We should be iterating for value by:

• Planning for value

• Learning what customers truly value & how to best deliver that value

• Adapting & improving


Determining When to Use Agile

Wh

at

is T

ruly

Va

lua

ble

How to Deliver that Value

Predictive

Emergent

Chaotic

Uncertainty

Va

ria

bili

ty

Low

High

High

The Nature of Work


Categorizing Approaches

Predictive

Emergent

Chaotic

Va

ria

bili

ty

Low

High

High

Ordered

Adaptive

Triage

up-front, detailed planning & tactical execution

short feedback loops, adjustments & divergence

Immediate assessment & response

Wh

at

is T

ruly

Va

lua

ble


Uncertainty


Aligning Approaches to a Purpose

Predictive

Emergent

Chaotic

Uncertainty

Va

ria

bili

ty

Low

High

High

Adaptive

Triage

Ordered

Wh

at

is T

ruly

Va

lua

ble


Achieving optimal results is a function of each approach being fit for the purpose


Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work

Predictive

Emergent

Chaotic

Uncertainty

Va

ria

bili

ty

Low

High

High

Adaptive

Triage

Ordered

The goal is to understand what is truly valuable and how to best go about delivering that value, adapting to feedback and responding to changing conditions

Wh

at

is T

ruly

Va

lua

ble



Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work

Predictive

Emergent

Chaotic

Uncertainty

Va

ria

bili

ty

Low

High

High

Adaptive

Triage

Ordered

When might you use an ordered approach?

Wh

at

is T

ruly

Va

lua

ble



Is This Radical Improvement?


Detailed, long-range planning

Large batches of work Long cycle times

Avoid Approach Emergent Work Like This!

Begin Here


No evidence of delivery

Frequent delivery & feedback

Begin Here

Small batches of workShort cycle times

Make Yourself Uncomfortable Early


Applying Agile to Non-Software Efforts

Business Agility: Startups & Growth

Internal Functions:

Marketing

Finance

Audits

Human Resources


Startups

Success is not about building the best possible plan up front

It’s about discovering a plan that works before we run out of resources

Responding to change over following a plan – The Agile Manifesto

Amplify Learning & Eliminate Waste – Principles of Lean Development

The Lean Startup by Eric Reis


The Business Need for Agility

The Shift Index study by Deloitte's Center for the Edge

Adapt or Die!

The average life span of an S&P company has been steadily decreasing over the last 50+ years

Without the ability to adapt, corporations risk failure

Global, multi-market, multi-branded competitionPhysical and digital presenceGreater customer segmentation


Business Growth & Remaining Relevant

Conduct a series of experiments designed to discover the truths about business prospects and make meaningful progress through uncertain territory

Low CostLow RiskLow Distraction

Leverage rapid, continuous feedback & data-driven insights

Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen The Lean Startup by Eric Reis

Until we can actually test any concept in the marketplace, it’s wishful thinking


Emerge with a Battle-Tested Plan

Typically, putting together a business plan and requirements for a significant initiative takes weeks or months in an enterprise context

In the same amount of time, by following the Lean Startup model, we could run multiple experiments, learn from real customers, and emerge with a superior, battle-tested plan based on evidence

Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, Barry O'Reilly


Engaging with Marketing

Scenario #1

“We want to be agile!”

“That’s great! Tell me a little about your work.”

“No, you tell us about agile.”

“Well, there are various options, and it’s difficult to know what would be useful without a little background.”

“Just walk us through it, and we’ll figure out how to apply it.”

“I could talk about Scrum, it’s a way of practicing agile, but it may or may not fit your circumstances.”

“Great! We’ll schedule an hour with you next week.”


We Walked Through the Scrum Framework…

“That won’t work for us!”“This doesn’t fit what we do.”

“OK, tell me about your work…”

“I don’t see how this will help us.”


The Real Need

“We have multiple teams, and we need to coordinate our work.”

This was a marketing group, and they had abandoned key practices in an attempt to become more efficient

They were experiencing pain because teams were isolated so that they could focus

This led to a build-up of additional work to enable hand-offs, creating delays and reducing shared understanding of the work


The Solution

We proceeded to talk about techniques to improve multi-team planning and coordination

“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.” – Principle of the Agile Manifesto


Engaging with Marketing

Scenario #2

This was a single team that needed to deliver marketing campaigns under tight timeframes

They had a solid understanding of the lead time required to deliver various marketing assets

They were struggling with managing their work and determining how they could help each other


The Solution

Explicitly categorized work types and lead times

Video Production

Audio Podcast

Animation

Web Site Update

Established WIP limits & managed flow

Visualized workflow & made all work visible


Applying Agile to Non-Software Efforts

Don’t seek to apply agile to only to your specific team or work stream

Examine how your work contributes to the flow of customer-facing value from an organizational perspective


Does This Indicate a Problem?

Does your organization engage in annual planning and budgeting?Are you on an annual performance review cycle?Does auditing help your organization reach its objectives?

Authority

Information

Annual Planning, Budgeting, Reviews

Value DeliveryAdapting and Responding

Directives & Conformance

Autonomy & Divergence

Organizational Friction

Monitoring, Controls, Approvals


Information

Authority

Would This Work Better?

Strategic Direction & Budgeting

Value Delivery

Alignment & Enablement

Previews, Assessments, Fast-Track Approvals

Localized, real-time decision-making

Open, continuous, adaptive process


Reflect and Feedback

Based on what was covered in this session, do you feel that your organization needs to make any adjustments?

Are there sources of – or the potential for – organizational friction in your organization?

In what ways can internal functions like human resources, finance and audits help lead organizational change?


“Agility is a quality of the organization and its people to be adaptive, responsive, continually learning and evolving.“ --

Craig Larman and Bas Vodde in Scaling Lean & Agile Development

Closing Thought


http://www.presentermedia.com

Some of the graphics used in this slide deck leverage images from the following resources:

Thank You!

@EliassenAgile Facebook.com/Eliassen Group

LinkedIn.com/Eliassen Group

The Visual AGILExicon®, a trademark of Innolution, LLC and Kenneth S. Rubin

http://www.presentermedia.com/

Documents

UNDERSTANDING AGILITY: WHEN AND HOW TO LEVERAGE AGILE …€¦ · Agile is Suited for Predominantly Emergent Work Predictive Emergent Chaotic Uncertainty y Low High High Adaptive