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Burning Agile Individuals, Interactions, Scaling and Illusions

Gaetano Mazzanti


1986 – 1st Burning Man

35 people


1986


Burning Man 2001


Burning Man 2001

25,000 people


2001

25,000 people


Burning Man 2012

56,000 people


2012

*

* SAFe is used just as an example of a scaled framework


the illusion of a predefined future state


it’s a complex world out there


complex vs ordered domains

Complex

uncertainty

enabling constraints

heuristics

emerging behavior

emerging practices

not predictable

retrospective coherence

multiple parallel small safe-to-fail experiments

Ordered

certainty (uh?)

governing constraints

rules, no/few degrees of freedom

no adaptive behavior

best practices

predictability, repeatability

design/predict a future state (systems thinking anyone?)

Scrum

Kanban

see Dave Snowden


the dreadful engineering metaphor

complex systems are not causal


rules, exceptions, rules for exceptions, etc.

in a controlled environment (ordered domain) the only way to make things work is to break the rules


rigid rules: we don’t trust managers (let alone others) to take decisions


back and forth from chaos to bureaucracy

nothing done

nothing started



nothing done

nothing started



nothing done

nothing started


wants vs needs


replicate circumstances (practices) hoping to replicate outcomes


correlation vs causation

the ones who failed did quite similar things


once upon a day… ok let’s do Agile :-/

aka Scrum


cross-functional teams


a Scrum Master


a Product Owner


a few fools… ahem tools


the right tools!


here come the tree huggers


then comes the storm


failure or success?


define success…

*whatever that means


hmmm…


the problem with Scrum

It’s not what Scrum is, it’s what it often becomes

(almost) everyone takes it as a recipe. A local recipe btw

Adds more roles to siloed organizations

Rituals as checklists (“because Scrum says so”)

Oppressive Agile (Ron Jeffries)

Velocity, oh my…

Misused or misunderstood? Does it make any difference? It hurts people


The Agile Delivery Manager :-/


JOB DESCRIPTION

Looking for a very strong Scrum Master with at least 3 years as an IT PM. This resource will be leading Agile project coordination to support upstream and downstream teams.

Project Manager services include the management of complex, high value IT delivery projects that require the coordination of development work or technology work on multiple platforms to achieve desired functionality.

Typically, the Scrum Master PM will lead a matrixed team and once the project is complete, the PM will move to another project that will have a different team mixture. Proven and substantial experience leading complex Agile development or IT technology projects (typically 6+ years)

A thorough knowledge of the IT development life cycle, the Agile Framework, Scrum and Kanban experience. Proficient in the use of Version One, the Microsoft Office products: Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project and previous exposure to Clarity a plus!

what about a Strong Scrum Master 1/2


what about a Strong Scrum Master 2/2

Specific role responsibilities include:

…

-  Communicate committed stories for the upcoming sprint to the backlog owner and stakeholders

-  Support the Backlog Owner and Portfolio Manager in updating monthly the 30-60-90 release roadmap based on the health and priority of the stories of the backlog and planning poker estimates/sizing

-  Adding or removing stories based on burn-down of the current sprint (discuss w/ BSA and TPO or Lead BSA)

-  Represent the team daily at the Scrum of Scrums (S2) meeting to report progress against burndown

-  Monitor team backlog in v1 daily and ensure it accurately reflects the current state, including time to be burned and status

-  Forecasting and budgeting

-  Manage business relationships



the problem with Kanban

“Kanban is much easier”

Very few rituals -> no rituals

No new roles -> no change

Just draw a few columns and stick post-its on it

Limit WIP what?

Optimize Flow what?

Safe-to-fail what?


flow?


hierarchy kills flow

Real God

Jupiter

Half-god 1

Half-crap1

Half-crap2

Half-crap3

Half-goddess 1

Juno

Half-goddess 2 Half-god 2

Half-crap4 Half-crap5

Crap1

Crap2

Crap3

Crap4


silos prevent flow


multitasking hinders flow


Results

Actions

Beliefs

Experiences

The “Results Pyramid” is copyright of Partners in Leadership LLC

beliefs, actions, results

Culture


The “Results Pyramid” is copyright of Partners in Leadership LLC

beliefs, actions, results

Results

Actions

Beliefs

Experiences Culture

man

age

lead

man

age

lead


got it, we are ready to change

install change

rollout change

drive change

culture change

…

source Esther Derby

the words of change


the temple of promise

“this time we are going to change, really”


let’s scale too

but we want to feel SAFe


the illusion of predictability

known (?) start

predefined destination


aggregation doesn’t work with a complex system


using an ordered approach in a complex domain

someone could get hurt


so what?

don’t change everything map the culture, map the stories set enabling constraints run multiple parallel small safe-to-fail experiments be ready for the unexpected

inspired by Dave Snowden


so what?

inspired by Dave Snowden

disintermediation distributed cognition (early) detection of patterns to amplify or dampen but no premature convergence/conclusions abduction, not induction (no linearity) decomposition & recombination (scaling)





do’s and don’ts


boundaries - enabling constraints


Black Rock City

a playground for trial-and-error approaches and experiments


no pressure to create something perfect


co-creation - collaboration


multiple parallel safe to fail experiments


multiple parallel safe to fail experiments


multiple parallel safe-to-fail experiments


emerging outcome


but then…



Burning Man Leaves No Trace


what about agile?


Gaetano Mazzanti

@mgaewsj

[email protected]