PM’s and BA’s in an Agile World: Where do we go from here?

PMI Professional Development Days September 22-23, 2014

• Scott Bird Lead Agile Coach in the PMO at Great- West Financial, responsible for process definition and agile support for all teams and projects. He has over 10 years of experience in various agile roles. Prior to that he has 20 years of project management experience. He is a PMP, CSP, and PMI-ACP.

• Jim West Manager in the PMO, responsible for providing direction and career management for product owners and analysts. Jim has over 20 years’ experience at JP Morgan / Great-West in a variety of roles including analyst, programmer, and project manager. He is a PMP and CSPO.

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Introductions

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Overview of the JP Morgan | Great-West Journey

• 2008 JP Morgan pilots agile • 2010 RPS starts experimenting with agile

• 2013 Mass adoption of agile, climbing the maturity curve • 2014 Great-West Financial Acquisition

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Organization

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Agile Transformation Results to Date

• 75% of all team members would recommend agile to other organizations • 93% of stakeholders would recommend agile to other organizations

• Biggest benefits to implementing agile:

• Ability to manage change • Better alignment between IT and the business

• Biggest drawbacks to implementing agile:

• Lack of documentation • Culture change • Lack of upfront planning

• Over 86% of stakeholders agree with the following: • Our teams deliver more software • Our teams deliver more business value • Our teams deliver higher quality software

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Systems Thinking

• An approach to problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences.

Wayne Madden, “Building Blocks of Systems Thinking”, www.maddenbusinessdevelopment.com

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System Model of an Organization

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Top

Middle

Bottom

The Model

Customer

Customer Customer

Customer

Barry Oshry, “Seeing Systems” System Model, www.powerandsystems.com

One “System” in a traditional organization

Flavius Ștef , “Team Leaders and Scrum Masters”, www.mozaicworks.com

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With a dash of Barry Oshry…

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Top

Middle

Bottom

The Agile “System”

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Flavius Ștef , “Team Leaders and Scrum Masters”, www.mozaicworks.com

Empowered Team

The Agile “System”

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Facilitated by Scrum Master

How does the Agile Manifesto Apply?

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes

and tools Working software over comprehensive

documentation Customer collaboration over contract

negotiation Responding to change over following a

plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

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And the 12 Principles

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Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on on how to become more.

Attributes of a good Scrum Master

• Humble • Collaborative

Attributes of a good Scrum Master – Mike Cohn, “Succeeding with Agile”

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• Responsible • Committed • Influential • Knowledgeable

Scrum Master: Our Experience at Great-West

• Tech Leads initially • Stepping stone to “management” • Not good at non-technical aspects of job

• Then PM’s

• Mostly positive • Some command and control • Some us/them mentality

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• What about the functional manager? Do they make a good scrum master?

• Shares many of the positive traits of the Scrum Master • And also the pitfalls of the project manager mentality • With one really big one: Today, in this meeting, am I talking to my boss,

or am I talking to a team mate?

So What’s the Answer, PM’s or Tech Leads?

• There is no easy answer

• Look at the goals of the position and your organization

• Find the person who has the traits you are looking for

• AND the desire to do that job

• Inspect and Adapt

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Other paths for the PM

• Scrum Master • If you can overcome the old habits of

directing the team and making all the decisions

• Team member

• If you miss the technical challenges

• Product Owner • If you are very knowledgeable about

the business and customers

Mike Cohn, Mountaingoat Software, www.mountaingoatsoftware.com

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Other Paths for the PM (cont)

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Case Study - TriZetto Provider Solutions

• PM’s became the first SM’s • Dev team began to ask “Just what is the value of the PM’s were adding to

their team?” • Each team was allowed to select their own SM • PM’s started doing cross-team coordination and agile coaching • Eventually, PM’s evolved into program delivery managers

Brian Lawrence, TriZetto Provider Solutions http://www.infoq.com/articles/scrum-master-position-role

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Business Analysts (BA) & Business Systems Analysts (BSA)

Analysts – Moving to an Agile World

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Adopting Agile / Scrum

Product Owner

The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland

Scrum Master Development Team

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Analysts – Moving to an Agile World

“… I deal with the customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?”

- Tom Smykowski “Office Space”

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The Pilot

• Adopt Scrum

• Form the team • Product Owner • Scrum Master • Development Team

• Analyst added for context

• Learning began

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What we learned…

Traditional Analyst Agile Analyst Business domain knowledge Knowledge of the business is key Talk the business talk Speaking business terms is critical Critical listening skills Listen for understanding Organization skill Ability to stay organized Leadership Leading teams to discovery /solution Communication – oral / written Effectively communicate to all Adaptability Adapt to change

Some things stayed the same!

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What we learned…

Traditional Analyst Agile Analyst Business Requirements Document User Stories Requirements Workshop Story Review Comprehensive Documentation Incremental Sign-off Collaboration Part-time Dedicated

Some things did NOT stay the same!

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Learning and Adapting

• Product Owner (Strategic) • Leads customer and product-discovery activities • Create strategic product plans and define business value • Communicate product roadmap and plans to internal/external stakeholder • Decisions backlog requirements for agile release planning • Leads and/or participates in agile planning and retrospective workshops

• Agile Analyst (Tactical)

• Leads and/or participates in backlog refinement and estimate prep • Specifies acceptance criteria for each backlog item • Leads story review with the team • Participates daily with team for ad hoc questions & decision-making • Acts as Product Owner Proxy

It’s the Goal, Not the Role: The Value of Business Analysis in Scrum by Ellen Gottesdiener and Mary Gorman

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Learning and Adapting (Community of Practice)

• Knowledge transfer – addressing common problems

• Sharing lessons learned and best practices

• Establishing common tools & deliverables

• Held separately at first / with quarterly cross-pollination

• Combined for on-going meetings / with separate

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Other Paths?

• Product Owner • Assessing business value • Defining and driving the strategy of the

product

• Development Team member • Problem-solving mentality • Technical skills

• Scrum Master

• Understanding of Agile Scrum and Practices • Coaching mindset

• Tester

• Understanding of systems and processes • “I want to break it!” mindset

Elizabeth Larsen, “Is the Business Analyst a Product Owner or Tester on Agile Projects?”, www.batimes.com

BA’s: Our experience at J.P. Morgan

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• Analysts in the Agile World • Analyst skills are still in high demand • But you have options

• Product Owner vs. Analyst • Both can live together in a harmonious world • Think about strategic / tactical relationship

• Community of Practice • Share common goals and practices • Working collectively

Update the text poll

• What role do you think the BA/BSA is best suited for? a) Product Owner b) Agile analyst reporting to the Product Owner c) Scrum Master d) Agile analyst as part of the team e) Tester as part of the team f) None. I like being part of a traditional organization. I’m outta here!

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Suggestions for your Journey

• Create/Understand the goals and requirements of the roles first

• Then evaluate based on skills and traits of candidates

• Inspect and Adapt

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Retrospective

• Using text polling

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