Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility
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The document discusses myths, legends, and monsters that may arise when scaling agile practices in an organization. Myths are used to justify the status quo and involve heroic figures, while legends spread rumors and lessons learned. Monsters represent resistance and require confronting objections. The document provides examples of each and suggests approaches like communication, negotiation, and aligning on values to address concerns raised by myths, legends, and monsters.
![Your initial situation
• Pilot project « success »
• Request/need to scale this success
• Existing company
]Out of Scope[
• Introduction to Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, …
• Growing an agile company](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/francoisbachmann-110926034758-phpapp01/85/Myths-Legends-and-Monsters-of-Enterprise-Agility-4-320.jpg)
Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility
- 1. Myths, Legends & Monsters The Quest for the Grail of Enterprise Agility François Bachmann, SPRiNT iT
- 2. Who’s talking François Bachmann • « The Urban Traffic Parable » • « The Art of the Retrospective » (Agile-Alchemist.com) • Organisational Development Coach since 2004 • Interests: Systemic Thinking, Complex Adaptive Systems (like a Jam Session @AgileEE )
- 3. What You Should Get
- 4. Your initial situation • Pilot project « success » • Request/need to scale this success • Existing company ]Out of Scope[ • Introduction to Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, … • Growing an agile company
- 5. Warnings(1) Scaling is always complex
- 6. Warnings (2) Agile is a mindset, an attitude plan lots of time for full-fledged adoption
- 7. Starter: A customer myth « Normal Change » at a Swiss bank Source: http://itsm.certification.info/normalchg.html
- 8. Myth A traditional or legendary story that can contain a moral lesson Built on Archetypes Gods, animals, angels, demons, other worlds Used to justify a social institution and its way of viewing the world Source: dictionary.reference.com Told at ceremonies (start, transformation, end) Principal purpose: federate
- 9. Myths: project choice / dimension « Let’s do Agile within a fixed-price contract » « We apply Agile but only to Development » « We do ALL our projects with Agile»
- 10. Myths: Roles ScrumMaster: Thor / Superman / James Bond / Chuck Norris « Three Roles is enough for any company » Scrumdamentalism (H.Kniberg) « In our company, we’re all like a big family»
- 11. Myths: transition « Just use Scrum of Scrums and everything will be fine» « Trust me, in this company we know what change management is! » « To really become Agile, you have to destroy & rebuild from scratch»
- 12. Summary: Myths • Main purpose: federate • Used for justification of status quo • Usually involve superhumans • Reveal values of the company
- 13. Legend (lat. legenda = to be read) • Official shape of the rumour spread during coffee breaks • « I know someone who… » • Urban Legend • Can end both ways • Finishes with a lesson to learn Principal purpose: education
- 14. Legend: Company Culture « My cousin tried to introduce Agile in his company: it didn’t work at all! Now I agree that they have a very special company culture….» « Actually, our company culture has always been agile; let’s just change the terminology and we’ll be fine»
- 15. Customer Legends: Company Culture • Mediterranean: mix of nationalities • Web company: resource allocation > flow
- 16. Legends: Organisation « It seems that this won’t work in an outsourcing context… » « Another team in our division used it during a few months, their productivity dropped… and they switched back afterwards» « What about my career plan? »
- 17. Legends: Transition « A well-planned transition is the cornerstone of success: plan the work, work the plan» « Let’s just establish a matrix between the old and the new roles»
- 18. Legend: Tool « Company X bought tool Y when they moved to Agile and the whole enterprise is now using it. But how can I convince my management? »
- 19. Summary: Legends Purpose: Institutionalized Learning « What hasn’t worked in the past and what were the consequences » Advice: are a very efficient communication tool: « Worst Practices » or NotHow-Transfer©
- 20. Monster (lat. monstrum: wild beast) • Impersonates resistance • Gatekeeper • Requires the hero to go beyond the normal plan
- 21. Monsters: Middle Management « I’ll be the Scrum Master for all teams » « I can replace the Product Owner, if needed » « Well, someone has to assign the developers to projects, no?! » Strengths: network, relationships Weaknesses: conflicting priorities, overestimates his potential influence Fights for: his position and his « power » Approach: give him a catalyst role, actively include in information exchange
- 22. Monster: Project/Process Office Distinguishing marks: once they understand Agile is not going away, they will try to govern it and create rules Strength: power to standardize Weakness: mechanistic world view Fights for: being the process master and force their rules on developers Approach: 1) produce their artefacts and 2) when the right time comes: question the value of these artefacts (not of the Project Office!)
- 23. Monster: Saboteur Definition: Person who is involved but has a hidden agenda (subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction) Strength: internal knowledge Weakness: bottleneck Fights for: « unofficial » priorities Approach: make responsibilities explicit, confront one-on-one if necessary
- 24. Monster: AgileGuru Pretends to sell the One And Only Agile Distinguishing marks: elitist, likes to fight (he/she usually wins) Strength: *very* convinced by his Agile flavor Weakness: exclusive, tends to work alone Fights for: his Truth (destroying others) Approach: recall Agile values, let him show how his flavor brings them forward
- 25. Summary: Monsters • Strongholds, Gatekeepers • Have power & reputation • Often easier to « turn around » than to overpower • Advice: don’t play on their territory!
- 26. Summary Properties How it’s helpful Suggested approach Myth Historical, federates and passive-implicit communication, heroes, illustrates common strategy and long term follow-up « Best values (world view) Practices » Legend « Worst Lessons learnt, active-explicit communication, Practice » NotHow-Transfer© use & recall in major retrospectives Monster Personalized Strong, potential negotiate, convince, align on objection , ally, when aligned values Gatekeeper with your cause
- 27. Enjoy the Quest, brave knights!
- 28. Thanks! © Pixar Technologies, Inc. f.bachmann@sprint-it.ch FrBachmann