Drupal GovCon 2021 - The MOST Important Agile Role NO ONE is Talking About
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The document discusses the roles and challenges of product owners/managers in agile environments, particularly within government IT projects, with a focus on improving customer centricity and organizational culture. It highlights the failures of the healthcare.gov launch and the recovery process that followed, emphasizing the importance of clear leadership and collaborative team structures. The author advocates for agile principles, including prioritization and continuous learning, to support successful outcomes in product management.
Drupal GovCon 2021 - The MOST Important Agile Role NO ONE is Talking About
- 1. October 13, 2021 The MOST Important Agile Role NO ONE is Talking About
- 2. ● About me ● Is failure the new norm? ● Common vocabulary as it relates to Product Owner/Manager (PO/PM) ● Organizational & cultural challenges ● Discuss the need to pivot to customer centricity ● PO/PM responsibilities ● Lean Agile principles to aid the PO/PM ● PO/PM success factors
- 4. Bill Annibell, SPC Digital Polygon COO & Chief Agilist bill@digitalpolygon.com ● Agile enthusiast & change agent ● Recovering technologist ● Party DJ, and former singer in a rock and roll band https://www.linkedin.com/in/billannibell/ @billannibell
- 6. ● 21+ Years ● 850,000+ miles ● 3+ hours of commute time daily ● Excludes train, Uber, cabs, and Metro rides
- 7. 3 hours x 5 days x 48 weeks = 720 hours -OR- 18 weeks of sitting in a car
- 9. Is failure the norm?
- 12. 87% of Large Government Projects Challenged and/or Failed The Standish Group’s CHAOS database: 2010-2014
- 13. The fundamental question I continue to ask myself is this... Under what circumstances are government IT projects the most successful?
- 14. Emergent Situations (e.g. Natural disaster response, COVID, etc.) Abject Failures Particularly, very public ones (e.g. Healthcare.gov) Mandates Executive or Congressional (e.g. often in response to either of the above)
- 15. But why?
- 16. HHS and CMS made many missteps throughout development and implementation that led to the poor launch of HealthCare.gov. ● Most critical was the absence of clear leadership, which caused delays in decision making and a lack of clarity in project tasks. ● Additional missteps: ○ Devoting too much time to developing policy, which left too little time for developing the website, and failing to properly manage its key website development contract. ○ CMS's organizational structure and culture also hampered progress, including poor coordination between policy and technical work. CMS continued on a failing path despite signs of trouble, making rushed corrections that proved insufficient. Following the launch, CMS and contractors pivoted quickly to corrective action, reorganizing the work to improve execution. Key factors that contributed to recovery of the website included: ● Adopting a "badgeless" culture for the project, wherein all CMS staff and contractors worked together as a team ● Practice of "ruthless prioritization" that aligned work efforts with the most important and achievable goals. CMS recovered the website for high consumer use within 2 months, and adopted more effective organizational practices. HHS OIG - HealthCare.gov: Case Study of CMS Management of the Federal Marketplace
- 18. Title: Is simply the label you have within your company or organization, based on the position you hold. Role: Is what you actually do regardless of title.
- 19. Program Manager ˈprō-ˌgram ma-ni-jər noun : can be thought of as a “super” project manager. His or her role is mainly operational since this person is responsible for planning and governance and for overseeing the successful delivery of the program’s output/product. That is, the new capability. : the action of carrying out the coordinated organisation, direction and implementation of a dossier of projects and transformation activities to achieve outcomes and realise benefits of strategic importance to the business Project Management Institute
- 20. Project Manager ˈprä-ˌjekt ma-ni-jər noun : play the lead role in planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing projects. : have a broad and flexible toolkit of techniques, resolving complex, interdependent activities into tasks and sub-tasks that are documented, monitored and controlled. They adapt their approach to the context and constraints of each project, knowing that no "one size" can fit all the variety of projects. CIO.com + Project Management Institute
- 22. Scrum Master ‘skrəm ma-stər noun : the Scrum Team member tasked with fostering an effective and productive working environment and guiding others to understand Scrum values, principles and practices. Scrum Masters tend to be people-oriented, have a high level of emotional intelligence, and find joy in helping team members to grow. : servant leaders : generally, well understood role within an Agile organization : otherwise known as Agile bad@$$es Scrum Alliance + (Me!)
- 23. Product Manager ˈprä-(ˌ)dəkt ˈma-ni-jər noun : responsible for defining and supporting the building of desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable products that meet customer needs over the product-market lifecycle. : the second MOST overlooked, underfunded, and misunderstood Agile role in government. Scaled Agile + (Me!)
- 24. Product Owner ˈprä-(ˌ)dəkt ˈō-nər noun : a full-time member of the Agile Team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components for the team. : is one person, not a committee. : the MOST overlooked, underfunded, and misunderstood Agile role in government. Scaled Agile + Scrum.org + (Me!)
- 25. Organizational & Cultural Challenges
- 26. This is how we organize. This is how we deliver. This is why we struggle to innovate and adapt. Mission Execs Mission PMO OCIO Mission Contractor OCIO Contractor Agency Execs
- 27. This is how we organize. This is how we deliver. This is why we struggle to innovate and adapt. Project Manager Business Analysts Design Team Architects Developers Testers
- 28. This is how we plan. This is how we execute. This is why we fail to consistently deliver results.
- 29. This is how we prioritize (we often don’t). This is how we manage risk (we often don’t). This is why we struggle to produce value.
- 30. This is how we operate. This is how we maintain. This is why we struggle to build-in quality.
- 31. ● Organizational silos ● Ineffective, often sequential planning & budgeting ● Lack of prioritization, risk identification, and identification of inter/intra-team dependencies ● Manual Processes Organizational & Cultural Challenges
- 33. ● Every decision we make must be focused on driving value to the customer ● Adopting a Product vs. Project mentality ● Organizational Human Centered Design ● This takes a continuous learning culture that stresses individual and organizational commitment to learning ● May require Agile coaching until the processes have become the ”new normal” and are ready for automation Customer Centricity
- 39. 1. Take an economic view - Digital assets evolve over time. Tradeoffs must be made between risk, cost of delay, operational costs, etc. 2. Apply systems thinking - Just because you optimize an individual component does not mean you are optimizing the entire system (same goes for organizations, too). 3. Assume variability; preserve options - assume requirements are going to change, have multiple options. Leverage cross-functional teams to solve toughest problems. 4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles - Do you want faster customer feedback? Build incrementally and get their feedback early and often. 5. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems - integrate system early and often. 6. Visualize and limit work in progress (WIP), reduce batch sizes, and manage queue length - Kanban!!! REMEMBER: Humans beings STINK at multitasking and estimating work. Prioritize and re-prioritize! 7. Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning - Dependent teams (I’m talking to you marketing and web teams) should plan and execute together at the same time and pace. 8. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers - Provide time for exploration and experimentation, individual autonomy and purpose and innovation will blossom. 9. Decentralize decision making - Those closest to the customers are best suited to solve said problems. 10. Organize around value - Customer centricity requires an understanding of the customer’s journey as well as the processes and systems that support said journey. Lean Agile Principles to Aid Product Managers and Owners
- 40. HHS and CMS made many missteps throughout development and implementation that led to the poor launch of HealthCare.gov. ● Most critical was the absence of clear leadership, which caused delays in decision making and a lack of clarity in project tasks. ● Additional missteps: ○ Devoting too much time to developing policy, which left too little time for developing the website, and failing to properly manage its key website development contract. ○ CMS's organizational structure and culture also hampered progress, including poor coordination between policy and technical work. CMS continued on a failing path despite signs of trouble, making rushed corrections that proved insufficient. Following the launch, CMS and contractors pivoted quickly to corrective action, reorganizing the work to improve execution. Key factors that contributed to recovery of the website included: ● Adopting a "badgeless" culture for the project, wherein all CMS staff and contractors worked together as a team ● Practice of "ruthless prioritization" that aligned work efforts with the most important and achievable goals. CMS recovered the website for high consumer use within 2 months, and adopted more effective organizational practices. HHS OIG - HealthCare.gov: Case Study of CMS Management of the Federal Marketplace
- 41. 1. Product Management and Product Ownership are full-time jobs a. Own the leadership responsibility b. Invest in the role c. Provide PO/PM training and take it 2. Make quick decisions based on fast feedback cycles by NEVER missing a system demo 3. Break down the silos and embrace a “one team” culture 4. Agile teams have fixed capacity, and requirements will change - “ruthlessly” PRIORITIZE and RE-PRIORITIZE the backlog regularly and understand and communicate the impacts to executives, stakeholders, and your teams - their feedback may help you! 5. Addressing technical debt and maintenance activities leads to more flexible and scalable systems - since you own the product and sprint backlogs, PLAN FOR IT, REGULARLY 6. Don’t EVER assume you know what your customers/users want - HCD is a continuous process that the PM owns 7. Adopt a continuous learning culture Product Owner and Manager Success Factors
- 42. Thank you! Together We Can Build it Better