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Polar Expeditions and Agility: The 1910 Race to the South Pole
and Modern Tales
Alexandre Masselot Agile Tour, Lausanne
November 2016
Alexandre Masselot Agile Tour, Lausanne
November 2016
Polar Expeditions and Agility: The 1910 Race to the South Pole
and Modern Tales
Polar Expeditions and IT projects
a goal, a team, constraints, risks and a methodology
Polar world 101
1. South & Greenland: an icecap 2. North: a frozen sea and polar bears 3. It’s cold, but it’s cool
Polar world in 1900
The last unconquered lands
Robert F. Scott- British - Captain in the Royal Navy - Average evaluations, but
eager to climb the ladder
At the South Pole
Roald Amundsen- Norwegian, skier - North West Passage
1903-1906 - South Pole
1910-1912
At the South Pole
Today, still in Norway
Børge Ousland
- Norwegian - North Pole - North Pole solo - Antarctica crossing solo - Arctic crossing solo - North Pole Winter crossing
Solo or small parties, Unsupported
“Børge Ousland is arguably the most
accomplished polar explorer alive!”
National Geographic
Børge, Sjur, Liv, Vegard and the others: The Oslo Gang
… and a personal perspective
Alex
- Ten years of polar expeditions
- Two Greenland crossing - Polar bear sightseeing in
western Svalbard - Patagonia Northern Icecap
(a turn back) - www.framexpeditions.com
Small parties or solo, Unsupported
Introductions are over, may the expeditions start!
And everything starts with
A Vision
The vision
Google’s: “to organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Agile consulting 1st workshop: Framing the vision
Never seen a team where folks could not simply phrase their job goal?
The vision
“Going to the pole and back”AMUNDSEN
2 goals, plus collecting stones…SCOTT
“Scott was marshaling his forcesfor a ponderous campaign,while Amundsen was sailing on a raid”
Roland Huntford
A map is display in the chart roomfor “everybody’s use”
The contemporary vision: “from A to B, unsupported”
We have a vision, let’s assemble a team!
“The wrong companion is infinitely more dangerous
than the worst blizzard” R. Amundsen
Building a team
That resonates like IT project management
“There were many men, shoved at random”
Wilson
SCOTT
“A small team of chosen specialists” Huntford
AMUNDSEN
Amundsen interview patterns
Seeking for “I don’t know”
and “I cannot do that”
Team Organisation
- Applies the Royal Navy rules - “Lt Ewans, Campbell and Wilson have formed
a sledging committee and I am nominally the secretary […] with not much to do.”
Cherry Gallard
SCOTT
- Everybody takes turn, cleaning dog shit,handling the rudder… including the Captain
- A pilot on Fram: “It was the most astonishing boatI have ever seen. No order were given but everyone seemed to know exactly what to do.”
AMUNDSEN
Team Organisation
- The boss did not show in the shop except if called.AMUNDSEN
Team OrganisationAMUNDSEN SCOTT
All men share the same
comfort level.
Officers have separate quarters
The leader position
“Discipline was instinctive. […] He often used to say that on board all were captains and all crews […] But nevertheless nobody was in any doubt who was the chief on board”
Helmer Hanssen
AMUNDSEN
SCOTT
“Myself, I dislike Scott intensely […] He is not straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere.”
Lawrence Oates
We have a team, Let’s hit the snow!
Problem #1: Moving on snow
Dogs or no dogs: the expert voice
- Nansen: “go find dogs in Siberia!” - Inuit: “how can we move without dogs?”
Dogs or no dogs: Tradition rules
“No Ski. No dog” Sir Clements Markham, 1888 Father of modern British Antarctic Exploration
Sticking to legacy Oracle for all problems When NoSQL opens new horizons
“I use MongoDB for all my NoSQL challenge,because it’s the only one I know.”
Dogs or no dogs?
AMUNDSEN SCOTT
Sails with 52 dogs Sailed with ponies,cars, dogs and man hauling
Focused on ponies
A key to success They will die before start
Can be eaten “It’s not human to eatthese poor creatures”
Dogs or no dogs: learn the tool
AMUNDSEN SCOTTImprove, optimize
sledge, ski…
Train, test
played football
Dogs or no dogs AMUNDSEN
SCOTT
Tradition is not always beaten
Amundsen shoes ruled the polar world until early 2000
R for graphics
LaTeX for publication
A well crafted set of Perl scripts for infra tasks
Innovation: other ways to move
To cross a sea of ice,why not using sails?Nansen, 1888
Greenland 2002
Disruption: crossing arctic waters
© National Geographic
Process automation wherever possible
Camping by -39°C can be smooth: - Learn from others - Have a clear routine - Improve each steps to make it as smooth as possible
Testing (unit, integration, system, perf…) - Deployment - Monitoring -
Incident handling -
Continuous improvement
The Gjøa went ashore twice, ⇒ a man was in the crow nest 24/7
Retrospective Actually do it!
AMUNDSEN
Lessons learned: - first thing in the plane home - published on the net
Spitsbergen 1996
Decision Making
Hielo Sur, Patagonia 2000
Group decision making- Phrase the topic at hand and a scope - Encourage and listen everyone’s opinion - Trigger alternatives if only one solution is foreseen
Setup a mindset where: - the decision is built upon group contribution - “the best solution is not my solution” - “I’m not stupid because the group did not go for my idea”
A simple pattern: rank decidesSCOTT
Managing Risk
How to avoid being eaten by a polar bear?
- learn from past incidents - don’t listen to “reasonable voices” - get a clear process for crisis - enjoy!
Spitsbergen, 2001
The main risk: starvation
- one depot every degree - carefully packed - depot were marked sideways
(to be found in the fog)
AMUNDSEN
- minimalist depotsSCOTT
The strategy is to lay food depot along the route
Amundsen backto base camp
Scott teamR.I.P.
{
SCOTTAMUNDSEN
A PLANNED VICTORY A PREDICTABLE DEFEAT
SCOTTAMUNDSEN
“Victory awaits him who has everything in order
— luck, people call it.Defeat is certain for him who
has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time;
this is called bad luck.”
“Our luck in weather is preposterous… How great may
be the element of luck”
Ice river crossing, Greenland 1998
Landing ashore
Oslo, the Silicon Valley of polar expeditions
Agility is not about rituals
Agility is about growing a group,
values and a mindset to go after a project.
Every organization can change
