stop doing scrum - be agile (a leadership guide)

© 2013 Trail Ridge Consulting, LLC

Stop “DOING” Scrum !

BE agile

(a leadership guide)@petebehrens


75 years

“The Power of Pull” (Basic Books, 2010)average life expectancy of companies in the 1937 S&P 500 Index


“The Power of Pull” (Basic Books, 2010)average life expectancy of companies in the 1970’s S&P 500 Index

40 years


“The Power of Pull” (Basic Books, 2010)average life expectancy of companies in the 2010’s S&P 500 Index

15 years


Corporate Life Expectancy

1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

“The Power of Pull” (Basic Books, 2010)

15 years

75 years

40 years


Corporate Agility

1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

Waterfall

RAD

Agile

Spiral

ComputersAssembly

Line

Lean

15 years

75 years


Corporate Agility

1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

Agile

Assembly Line

WORLD OF CONTINUITY

15 years

75 years

WORLD OF DISCONTINUITY


The World of Discontinuity

2010 IBM survey of more than 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and 33 industries

CEOs identified creativity and agility

as the

top leadership competencies


However

agility is elusiveThis presentation was given at the 2013 Mile High Agile Conference in Denver, CO.

I have include help text for those not attending to “hear my voice over” through the slides...


Who am I?

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

WaterfallRAD

Agile

agility

RUP


Years0 1 2 3 4 5

Adopting Agility

InitialTraining & Coaching

Sustaining Agility

Rolling Agility

Thrashing Agility

Agility


Adopting Agility

Why?

Years

Agility

0 1 2 3 4 5

Why is it that some organizations grow and thrive on agility while most plateau and lose their agility over time?


What is Agility?

CULTURE

STRUCTURE

PROCESS

values

form

behaviors

Outside-In

Most agile adoptions leverage an “outside-in” approach. Starting with a process like Scrum or Kanban, they expose impediments within the organization.


Years

Agility

0 1 2 3 4 5

“Outside-In” Adoption

Training & Coaching

Rolling Agility

Thrashing Agility

Agile doesn’t stick because this outside-in approach runs into systemic structures and values of the organization which don’t align to agility.


What is Agility?

CULTURE

STRUCTURE

PROCESS

Inside-O

ut

values

form

behaviors

Taking an opposite approach - from the “inside-out”, leaders start with an understanding of their culture and build systems to support and sustain agility.


Years

Agility

0 1 2 3 4 5

“Inside-Out” Adoption

Sustaining Agility

With an “inside-out” approach, agile sticks because it builds on values and creates an organizational architecture to support agility - much like a software architecture supports scalability and growth.


Culture is a prevalent problem identified in the latest state of agility survey (2013) by Version One.


75% of Organizations are

“Doing” Scrum


What do we know?

✓We live in a discontinuous world

✓ CEO’s want creativity and agility

✓Most organizations are “Doing” Scrum

✓Organizational agility is hard

✓Organizational agility requires culture


Agility Dimensions

Clarity to determine what

to do

Physical & Technical ability

to change

Executional competence to deliver


A Language for Culture


Competing Values Framework

CREATECOLLABORATE

CONTROL COMPETE

Do things together

Do things right Do things fast

Do things first

Let’s start with an understanding of culture. Using the Competing Values Framework (CVF) as a model to understand the values and norms of what makes an organization tick.


Collaborate / Clan Culture

Family Team

PeopleFocused

Interactions

Sacrifice

RelationshipPower

Diverse

Communication

Development


Collaborate / Clan Culture

Collaboration cultures are personal cultures who value the relationships and people over the process and systems. They believe teams are stronger when they work together.


Create / Adhocracy Culture

Organic

FreeFlowing

Visionary Transformation

Innovation Independent

ExpandingIdeas

Cultivation


Create / Adhocracy Culture

Creation cultures are personal and focused on growth of people and of the world beyond their organization. They are quite fluid and organic structures and value new ideas, learning and growing.


Compete / Market Culture

University

CustomerFocus

Excellence

Intense

Competitive

MarketShare Aggressive

Visionary


Compete / Market Culture

Compete cultures are impersonal and focused on the work products or research. It is less about the people and more about what they accomplish. They are intense and competitive environments.


Control / Hierarchy Culture

Top-down

TightDelegation

RealisticMethodical

Analytical

Hierarchy Systems & Processes

Efficient


Control / Hierarchy Culture

Control cultures tend to be more impersonal and focused on the systems and processes to create predictability and performance through repeatability.



MagnitudeVelocity

CREATECOLLABORATE

CONTROL COMPETE

FastChange

VELOCITYSome dimensions expressed in the model in dealing with change, collaborate cultures focus on long-term while compete cultures change quickly.

Long-TermChange



MagnitudeVelocity

CREATECOLLABORATE

CONTROL COMPETE

TransformationalChange

IncrementalChange

FastChange

MAGNITU

DE

VELOCITY

In addition, control cultures seek small and incremental changes while create cultures transform through big changes.

Long-TermChange



MagnitudeVelocity

ExternalPositioning

InternalMaintenance

CREATECOLLABORATE

CONTROL COMPETE

The cultures on the left focus more internally on people and processes.

The cultures on the right focus on ideas, markets and solutions.



MagnitudeVelocity

ExternalPositioning

InternalMaintenance

IndividualityFlexibility

StabilityControl

CREATECOLLABORATE

CONTROL COMPETE

The cultures on the bottom focus more on systems.

The cultures on the top focus more on people.


Leading Agility “Inside-Out”

Understand and align the culture

Build flexibility into the organization

Focus on learning& expect change


McKinsey IT Create Culture

People

Learning

Cultivation

Growth

CREATEDo things first


McKinsey IT Create Culture

10

20

30

40

50

20

30

40

50

10

20

30

40

50

10

30

40

50

10

20

Create

Com

pete

Col

labo

rate

Con

trol

This is a create cultural signature of a very agile company. They have been agile for over 6 years.


McKinsey IT - Organizational Glue

Create

Com

pete

Col

labo

rate

Con

trol

Commitment to innovation and development.

There is an emphasis on being on the cutting edge.

Loyalty and mutual trust.

Commitment to this organization runs high.

Formal rules and policies.

Maintaining a smooth-running organization is important.

Emphasis on achievement & goal accomplishment.

Aggressiveness and winning are common themes.

One of the dimensions in the model looks at what ties the organization together - you can see here that they are very forward thinking.


McKinsey IT Results

In addition to being agile, they are succeeding across many business metrics.


McKinsey IT Results

Years

Rel

ease

Dur

atio

n

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

12+ months

1 month

3 months

A key metric they measure is how quickly they can productize functionality for their business - before they began their agile journey, it took over 1 year to deliver functionality - now they average 1 month.


McKinsey IT Transformation

Years

OrganizationalAgility

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

IT -> Service

GlobalIntegration

WorkingSoftware

SmallTeams

No ScrumMaster

Role/TitleChanges

RemovedQA

Support2.0 3 months

12+ months

1 month

Release Duration

To accomplish this, they have had many significant transformational organizational changes to their roles, responsibilities, team structures, and global alignment. These are signatures of a create culture.


Be Agile

McKinsey IT is not “DOING” Scrum

they are “being” agileand they are evolving and growing


Salesforce.com Compete Culture

Competitive

Never Satisfied

Be the “Best”COMPETEDo things fast


Salesforce.com Compete Culture

10

20

30

40

50

20

30

40

50

10

20

30

40

50

10

30

40

50

10

20

Create

Com

pete

Col

labo

rate

Con

trol

This is a compete cultural signature of another very agile company. They have been agile for over 7 years.


Salesforce R&D - Strategic Emphasis

Create

Com

pete

Col

labo

rate

Con

trol

Acquiring new resources & creating new challenges.

Trying new things and prospecting for opportunities are valued.

Human development.

High trust, openness, and participation persist.

Permanence and stability.

Efficiency, control and smooth operations are important.

Competitive actions and achievement.

Hitting stretch targets and winning in the marketplace are dominant.

Another dimension in the CVF model looks at what strategic emphasis - you can see that competition is critical to their external and internal world.


Salesforce.com

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Features Deliveredper Team

Days betweenMajor Releases

2008 Scrum Gathering - Steve Greene

Prior to their agile transition in 2006, they struggled with delivery as their organization and clients grew.


Salesforce.com Impact

Features Deliveredper Team

Days betweenMajor Releases

2008 Scrum Gathering - Steve Greene

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Since that time, they have turned around and have been one of the top performing companies in the world.


Their own approach

“All-in” fast

Be the “Best” @ agile

Salesforce.com Approach

As a compete culture, they took the initiative to be the “best” at agile. They developed their own approach, R&D went “all-in” through a rapid transition (like pulling off a bandaid), and they have never looked back.


Balanced Team PowerRedefined Roles

Everything thru a team

Salesforce.com Approach

Focus on “What”

Focus on “How”

Balanced MatrixIn addition, they made a subtle, but significant shift in the balance of power/responsibilities in their leadership - their engineering managers focused on coaching over directing - allowing the teams to better self-organize on the work.


Salesforce.com Results

2006 2008 2010 2012

R&DAgility

ITAgility

Tech OpsAgility

MarketingAgility

Every release - 3 per year Has been delivered on time!300 people

1,800 ppl

$21.90 stock price

$163 sp

Their compete culture drives them to be the best in the world, not only at delivering solutions, but in how they do it - and their growth has shown it.


Be Agile

Salesforce.com is not “DOING” Scrum

they are “being” agileand they are evolving and succeeding


Leading Agility “Inside-Out”

Understand and align the culture

Build flexibility into the organization

Focus on learning& expect change


10

20

30

40

50

20

30

40

50

10

20

30

40

50

10

30

40

50

10

20

Current

Desired

DominantCharacteristics The organization is...

• A very controlled and structured place

• Formal procedures generally govern what people do

• A very dynamic entrepreneurial place

• People are willing to stick their necks out and take risks

Most organizations find a gap between their current and desired cultures. The CVF model maps this and provides leadership tools to move forward in a more agile fashion.


Cultural Gap AnalysisHere is an example leadership analysis of the gaps in the create and control cultural dimensions - in this example, looking at ways to increase create and decrease control.


Agile Leadership

CatalystLeadership

WORLD OF UNITY, COLLABORATION,

INTERDEPENDENCY

WORLD OF DUALITY, COMPETITION,SEPARATION

HeroicLeadership

OR ANDThe key to CVF is the value created by holding both competing values simultaneously - (e.g. we do not throw out control values as we add create values - we balance them)


Competing: Collaborate & Compete

Com

pete

Col

labo

rate

Let’s look at a couple of competing leadership values - in this case collaborate and compete.


Leadership: Intense Collaboration

The leader speed and urgency to the exclusion of teamwork and collaboration. The leader focuses exclusively on immediate results and ignores long-term outcomes.

The leader emphasizes teamwork and collaboration to the exclusion of speed and urgency. The leader overemphasizes participation and empowerment and is indecisive

Negative

Negative

The leader emphasizes teamwork and collaboration

The leader emphasizes speed and urgency

Positive

Positive

As competing values, both collaborate and compete have positive opposites - however, taken too far, each one can become a negative characteristic.


Competing Values Leadership: Intense Collaboration

The leader emphasizes teamwork and collaboration to the exclusion of speed and urgency. The leader overemphasizes participation and empowerment and is indecisive

The leader speed and urgency to the exclusion of teamwork and collaboration. The leader focuses exclusively on immediate results and ignores long-term outcomes.

Intense UnityRapid Alliances

Intensity &Rapidity

Unity &Alliances

The leader emphasizes speed and urgency

The leader emphasizes teamwork and collaboration

NEGATIVE

POSITIVE

While many companies (or leaders) prefer a single focus, the most value is generated from integrating the opposites - in this case intense collaboration.


Competing Values: Create & Control

Create

Con

trol

Let’s look at a one other example of competing leadership values - in this case control and create.


Leadership: Responsible Risk-Taking

Positive

Positive

Negative

Negative

The leader emphasizes innovation and risk-taking

The leader emphasizes predictability and stability

The leader’s ungrounded future-mindset overlooks operationalizing opportunities.

The leader’s over-conformity stunts growth and misses opportunities.

Again, each value has an opposite positive - and negative if taken too far.


Value: Responsible Risk-Taking

The leader emphasizes predictability and stability to the exclusion of innovation and risk taking. The leader’s over-conformity stunts growth and misses opportunities.

The leader emphasizes innovation and risk-taking to the exclusion of predictability and stability. The leader’s ungrounded future-mindset overlooks operationalizing opportunities.

Sustainable IngenuityReliable Courage

Ingenuity & Courage

Sustainability & Reliability

The leader emphasizes innovation and risk-taking

The leader emphasizes predictability and stability

NEGATIVE

POSITIVE

The key is in the balance.


Cultural Visioning

Competence

Create

Control

Here are some cultural modeling samples from leadership workshops - in this case looking at cultural change.


“Inside-Out” Agile Leadership

enables

TeamsA Leader’s focus on

Cultureto be

Successful


Adopting Agility

Why?

Years

Agility

0 1 2 3 4 5

Companies that start with an understanding of culture, and build their organizational systems to support agility will out perform, out maneuver, and out last their competition.

stop doing scrum - be agile (a leadership guide)

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