Bob Marshall The Bigger Picture

©2010 www.fallingblossoms.com www.rightshift.co.uk

The Bigger Picture

And Why it Matterswith Bob Marshall

The Bigger Picture

©2010 www.fallingblossoms.com www.rightshift.co.uk2

Why It Matters to Me

• Quality of Life at work is important (morally).

• We have a social responsibility to make our businesses as effective as possible (ethically).

• Software is important (commercially).

• These are NOT incompatible (exactly the opposite, in fact).

The Bigger Picture


The Workers

The Bigger Picture


The Boss

The Bigger Picture


The software development industry worldwide - as generally perceived

Distribution of Organisations vs. Effectiveness

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Effectiveness

1

median

The Bigger Picture


% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Distribution of effectiveness is severely left-shifted.

Benefits derive from shifting to the Right.

[Courtesy: Steve McConnell: After the Gold Rush]

Reality: The Basic Rightshifting Curvemedian

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


The Four Mindsets

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

100

75

50

25Ad-hoc

Synergistic Chaordic

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

Analytic

The Bigger Picture


Mindset transitions: Analogy

The Bigger Picture


Waste = All those activities that don’t add stakeholder value.(N.B. Some essential non value-adding activities always remain).

Waste

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Wasted effort

% w

aste

100

75

50

25

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

80%

The Bigger Picture


Not a direct reciprocal of waste.Can - and does - go negative.Productivity = unit of output per unit of input or value per unit of effort.

Productivity

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

Wasted effort

Productivity

A

B

F100

75

50

25

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Straw Poll !

Quality of Life at Work?

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

100

75

50

25

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

Aspiration Gap!

The Bigger Picture


The Challenge We Face

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

100

75

50

25Ad-hoc

AnalyticChaordic

Wasted effort

Productivity

Synergistic

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Discussion

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

100

75

50

25Ad-hoc

AnalyticChaordic

Wasted effort

Productivity

Synergistic

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

@FlowChainSensei

@pg_rule

The Bigger Picture


Discussion

@FlowChainSensei

@pg_rule

The Bigger Picture


Software Development Life Cycle

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Code & Fix

Waterfall

Agile

Beyond?

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Flow Mode

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Random

Batch & Queue

Per-project sprints / Backlog / User Stories / Use Cases

Systems Thinking – e.g. Single piece continuous flow?

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Feedback delay

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Random

3 – 6 Months

2 – 4 weeks

Daily or better

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Administrative Project Management

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

APM

Fun a.k.a. Job Satisfaction, Work-life balance

Fun

APM a.k.a. Ceremony, bean counting, and exemplified by command & control management style (transactional leadership).

Wasted potential

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Perspective on the Individual

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Respect

.

Heroism

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Measurement

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Metrics Effort

Rightshifted organisations put less effort into measurement because they have a better idea of their Rightshifting goals, therefore the questions to which they need answers, and thus what to measure.

Plus, measurement is generally part of their BAU. (Effort a.k.a. cost)

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Toolheads

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Predilection

Showing the relative predilection for tools (as the answer to e.g. ignorance), not so much the actual deployment or utilisation of tools.

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Quality and Testing

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

How can Rightshifted organisations get away with so much less testing, yet still have very low defect rates?

Testing effort

Defects seen by users

High

Low

Quality Philosophy

Inspection (test after)

Zero defects (test first)

Many

Few

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Development Focus

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

CV-centric

Code-centric

Requirements-centric

Learning-centric

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Maturity

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

e.g. CMMI

APM

1 2 3 4 5

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Risk awareness

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Awareness

Left-shifted organisations avoid talking (even thinking!) about risk.Agile practices more-or-less implicitly mitigate risk.Rightshifted organisations transcend risk management in favour of opportunity management.

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Learning

Learning = knowledge systematically captured, and with BAU designed such that knowledge assets must be “Pulled” - and thus re-used - across projects.

Systematic Learning

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Even though e.g. Agile practices such as refactoring reduce the impact (cost) of design loopbacks, they may actually exacerbate their frequency.

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Frequency

Unplanned design loopbacks

Many

Few

None

Impact

Dip in frequency for e.g. Waterfall organisation is bought at the expense of product quality (fit for purpose)

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


a.k.a. Due Date performance.

i.e. How often products are shipped on time, milestones and deadlines met, etc.. Best = circa 98% on-time delivery.

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Conformance

Conformance to Schedules

Good

Poor

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Third Parties here include benchmarking partners and organisations, consultants, etc. in the pursuit of (external) knowledge and skills.

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Involvement

Use of Third Parties

High

Low

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Problems with the product found “post-live”

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Problems

Deployment problems

Many

Few

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Rightshifted organisations have much more uniform results across projects.

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

Variation

Variability in Project Success

High

Low

Individuals

The System

Unsure

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


The Four Mindsets (Reprise)

% o

f org

an

isa

tion

s

% w

aste

100

75

50

25

Ad-hoc

Analytic

Synergistic

Chaordic

Effectiveness

0 1 2 3 4 5

The Bigger Picture


Although this data is for projects (2087 separate projects), it looks surprisingly similar to the rightshift curve for organisations.

ISBSG = International Software Benchmarking Standards Group

Corroborating data from ISBSG

The Bigger Picture


End of Part 1

The Bigger Picture


FlowChain™ evolving the Software Development Organisation

What is a Business?

The Bigger Picture



A business as a System

Customer

Seeking Value

Shareholder

Seeking a Return on Investment

The Bigger Picture



Value Stream Development as a System

Operational Value Stream

Owner

Creating an OperationalValue Stream

Enhancing an Operational Value Stream

The Bigger Picture



FlowChain in Practice

Operational Value Stream

Owners

Backlog

PoolWIP

The Bigger Picture


The Beginning – Thank You!

Technology

Bob Marshall The Bigger Picture