SETTING UP SUCCESSFUL AGILE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

SESHADRI VEERARAGHAVAN

PRINCIPAL PROJECT MANAGER – AGILE TRANSFORMATION

IHS, INC. – HOUSTON, TEXAS

AN EXPERIENCE REPORT

DEFINITIONS – COMMON UNDERSTANDING

• Community (noun) - com·mu·ni·ty

• a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

• a similarity or identity.

• Practice (noun) – prac·tice

• the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use.

• repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it.

• Practice (verb)

• perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency.

• carry out or perform (a particular activity, method, or custom) habitually or regularly.

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Cognitive anthropologists Lave and Wenger define it as a group of people who

-- share a passion for something they do

-- learn how to do it better

-- interact regularly

EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

• Research areas by Lave and Wenger included studying learning among

• Yucatan midwives

• Tailors in Liberia

• Insurance claims processors

• These groups exhibited common paradigms of sharing, learning, and growth

A MODERN-DAY EXAMPLE OF A COP: XEROX

• Xerox repairmen in the field used to informally exchange tips and tricks on common problems

• Communication usually done over lunch and informal meetings

• Eureka database created to keep track of these tips and tricks

• Savings due to the Eureka database: over $100 MM USD

CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL COP

• Domain (e.g. agile)

• Community (e.g. ScrumMasters)

• Practice (the practical aspect of the application of the knowledge and sharing the learnings)

SO, WHY SET UP A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE?

• Share

• Learn

• Grow

• Teach

• Enrich

• Mentor

BENEFITS OF COP

• Organic organizational growth

• Higher productivity

• Happier employees

• Cost savings

• Sharing of key knowledge and technologies

• Unexpected and fruitful collaboration

• Empathy and shared emotions, leading to stronger employee bonding that transcends normal, business-as-usual interactions

• Smoother and easier onboarding of new employees

• A safe environment within which one can learn without judgment and contribute without fear

• Employee empowerment and engagement

• Ownership through involvement

• Innovation through broader collection of ideas

EXPERIENCE REPORT: SMCOP AT IHS

CURRENT COPS AT IHS

CoP ScrumMasters Product Owners/Managers

Quality Assurance

Developers

Established July 2013 Coming soon (relaunch) 03/2015

April 2014 April 2014

Frequency Every 2-3 weeks Monthly Fortnightly Fortnightly

Member Count Approx. 90 Approx. 40 (already signed-up)

Approx. 12 (expanding quickly)

Approx. 12 (expandingquickly)

Topics Covered Kanban, collaboration, open forum, planning,estimation, Rally demos

Q&A, crossover with SMCoP QA signoff, test case design, demos, integration and security testing

Data analytics/cloud, major platforms,web frameworks

STEP 1 – IDENTIFY THE COP

• Need: Identify the Community to be created

• Challenges:

• Most colleagues very new to or not exposed to agile

• Dispersed teams and colleagues

• Very large organization with varying reporting hierarchies and groups

• Overcome by:

• Strong backing of executive sponsor

• Bureaucracy/red-tape cleared quickly

• Already buzz around the company around agile

• Qualified colleagues eager to join/make a difference (we already had some CSMs)

STEP 2 – IDENTIFY THE STAKEHOLDERS

• Need: Figure out who the stakeholders are (influencing; removing roadblocks)

• Challenges:

• Resources and time are not free

• Understand and respect the time commitments of all involved

• Early game – only promises; trying to get something for nothing

• Very large PD&D group spread all over the world

• Overcome by:

• A willingness on the part of supportive management to encourage this experimentation

• Strong networking

• Interest coming from the grassroots

• Many stakeholders already were (somewhat to quite) knowledgeable regarding agile

STEP 3 – EDUCATE THE STAKEHOLDERS

• Need: Full disclosure to the stakeholders on what’s coming and what’s needed

• Challenges:

• Potential negative response post-disclosure

• Overcome by:

• Being able to demonstrate the value of CoPs

• Being upfront and honest about the effort

• Promise to start small and fail quickly and cheaply

STEP 4 – IDENTIFY THE MEMBERS

• Need: Figure out the participants in the CoP

• Challenges:

• Need to identify qualified candidates

• Should also be willing to participate and evangelize

• Should be willing to devote time from work to do this

• No real (perceived) gains – mostly notional in nature

• Overcome by:

• Getting recommendations from the main stakeholders

• Network across teams and groups to pick out start contributors

• Spread the message as much as possible to attract the top talent

STEP 5 – GET EXECUTIVE SPONSOR BUY-IN

• Need: Get full and unconditional support of the chief sponsor of the effort

• Challenges: None, as they already were on-board

STEP 6 – CREATE THE CHARTER/MANIFESTO

• Need: Get the charter/manifesto together

• Challenges:

• Can’t be too specific

• Can’t tie yourself down to any specific methodology or a rigid structure/hierarchy

• Overcome by:

• Keeping the overall purpose and mission a bit flexible

• Being totally open about the exact nature and purpose of the CoP – so no twisting/bending needed

• Check-in with the Sponsors to ensure the charter/manifesto was in keeping with their vision

STEP 7 – SET UP THE WEBSITE/SOCIAL SITE

• Need: Set up a website for storing documents/artifacts and to collaborate

• Challenges:

• No ESN existed at the time

• SharePoint has easy-to-use templates to create a basic site, but not built for collaboration

• Need to keep material fresh and relevant

• Overcome by:

• Leveraging a SharePoint expert to set up the initial site and get training on admin/maintenance work

• Encouraging collaboration beyond just the site and bleeding into local(ized) meetings

• Recent rollout of Jive (ESN) has helped things tremendously

STEP 8 – SOLICIT MEMBERS AND GENERATE BUZZ

• Need: Get a strong awareness of this movement going, plus ensure identified members are invited and that they’re committed, as well

• Challenges:

• Highly dispersed teams

• VERY busy colleagues tied down by releases, bugs, production issues – typical software demands

• Overcome by:

• Getting stakeholders to talk about this effort via email; in meetings; in the intranet as blogs etc.

• Once the buzz set in, reaching out to the members and set up group meetings

• Explaining the purpose, charter, goals, and any other useful information

• Following-up and saying they’ll hear back soon

STEP 9 – LAUNCH THE COMMUNITY

• Need: Final step in the main process: LAUNCH!

• Challenges:

• Finding a suitable time for all (remember, we have global participants)

• Has to be done right to instill confidence and to gain credibility and support

• Has to be the right length – not too long or too short

• Has to demonstrate immediate value or immediate potential

• Overcome by:

• Coming up with a quick consensus on the date/time (majority wins – can’t please everyone)

• Maximum length has been 1 hour (with the odd exception)

• Bringing in an expert from within or outside of the company for a talk

• Having them talk specifically about the value of such communities

• Have the expert speak to their direct experience and provide examples of previous success

STEP 10 – SUSTAIN THE COMMUNITY

• Need: Sustain the effort now that things have started

• Challenges:

• HOW?

• Overcome by:

• Engaging informally and formally via internal social media or website

• Holding regular sessions (WebEx and teleconference) and recording them

• Uploading the recordings and related artifacts and send out follow-up email promptly

• Asking for what’s needed/what’s missing/how to improve/deliver on needs and requirements

STEP 11 – SUCCEED!

• After 2-3 months, request feedback on the Community

• Make changes gradually

• Point out the changes being made if appropriate to satisfy those requesting them

• List successes and bring to the attention of the stakeholders and executive sponsor

• Invite stakeholders and executive sponsor to ALL sessions (let them decide if they wish to attend)

• Publish periodic executive summaries in newsletter format, easy to read, short, relevant and interesting. Include links, graphics, and resources

• New Enterprise Social Network, based on Jive, is really making a lot of difference!

• The Agile Investigation Groups that we created (SIGs) did some very nice work in areas such as Commitment-Based vs. Velocity-Based planning and scaling agile etc. They have been quite influential

CURRENT CHALLENGES & NEXT STEPS

• Current challenges:

• Getting new members interested right away

• Different levels of maturity and knowledge and interest

• Getting many more people to contribute

• Bringing in awareness of the latest industry trends

• Next steps:

• Leverage the ESN a lot more

• Create local “guilds”

• Create more special investigation groups

FURTHER SUCCESS

• Helped set up a CoP for QA – it’s going really well

• Helping set up a CoP for Product Owners

• Assisting also with a CoP for SCM (Source Code Management)

TESTIMONIALS

Project Manager: I look forward to these meetings; I know that when we had a sub-team that researched and presented, it was great. The recordings are great to have.

ScrumMaster: I don't just like it, I LOVE it!

Sr. Mgr. PD&D: I really like the community!

Sr. Mgr. PD&D: I think this is great idea to share knowledge in a discussion form to achieve better efficiency.

Sr. Software Engg./ScrumMaster PD&D: I love the idea of the community!

Dir. R&D: I find the community very vibrant...For the sessions, I like the variety, where we go sometimes from open questions to full presentations

Q&A/SOURCES

• Sources:

• Wikipedia (Communities of Practice/Lave and Wenger)

• Contact:

• Seshadri.Veeraraghavan@ihs.com