Keynote at Agile Camp 2019, Portland. It explores the people side of agile transformations.

1. Reaching Agility:
Why aren’t we done yet?
Nicola Dourambeis
September 2019

2. Enterprise Agile, Innovation &
Organizational Transformation
Former salesforce VP & first
agile hire. Learned agile at
ThoughtWorks in 2004
Consulting clients include
Athena Health, Medium, eBay,
British Telecom
Focus on people and culture
over process and tools

3. What we mean by Agile Transformation
Four issues that make it really hard
Some advice and lessons learned

4. What do we mean by Agile
and why Transform?

5. Business Agility -
The ability to respond
to new opportunities
or changes without
losing momentum or
vision

6. For those of you who are looking
for a step by step instructions on
how to do transformation, you’ll
be disappointed by this talk.
But here’s some help.

8. Agile google results 1 & 2

9. Big Five
Consulting

10. With all of this
information freely
available, why are many
still struggling with agile
transformation?

11. Here are 4 issues that
are making things
hard

12. Issue #1 – We don’t
understand the “why”
What problem are you
trying to solve?

13. We have to align on an
understanding of what we hope to
achieve
If agile means the installation of a
process, then that is relatively easy
But if it’s “transformation” for an
outcome (and let’s acknowledge
that no one likes to change),
then there has to be a simple well
understood reason to make the
change

14. The purpose of our agile
transformation is so we
can predictably deliver
high quality customer
value with happy teams

15. Issue #2 – We don’t
thoroughly understand
our entry point or
baseline,
yet apply a one-size fits
all solution

16. Before we “transform”,
we have to understand:
where we are
how we got here
what we need to amplify
& what we need to
change
While there are common
patterns, every company
is different

17. agile agile assessment findings (at 2008)
19 year old enterprise saas
company
Successful forth quadrant
product, scaling rapidly to
multi product suite
Innovative, risk taking
culture. History of taking
big bets.
Leader in Cloud – helping
to define the industry
Well understood force
ranked priorities from
the CEO on down
Large investment in
technical infrastructure
and automation allowing
for low risk releases
Strong relationships with
customers and deep
values in quality and
trust
Scrum rolled out in 2006
Profile Amplifiers Challenges Goals
Instill agile values and
principles across all levels.
Build stronger middle
management capabilities
and push responsibility
down
Improve predictability with
richer team planning and
recalibration
Rationalize global
processes, expose
bottlenecks and constraints
.
Static use of scrum from
the book, which in
practice were mini
month waterfalls
Command and control
leadership styles, lots of
top down decision-
making and heroics
Lack of predictability and
difficulty with managing
dependencies

18. Approach:
Agile training for whole teams,
leaders, new hires focused on
values and principles
Lightweight global planning
framework & integrated bottom
up release planning
Leadership coaching, sprint
review transparency for feedback
and course correction

19. Alpha company agile assessment findings
20 year old healthcare saas
company
Distributed R&D
development across 5 US
locations and India
New CTO brought in to
modernize technology/
Platform
Strong history of profits,
with growing market
consolidation & customer
attrition
Very culture focused
CEO/founder – “teachers
and learners”
Young, smart employees.
Many straight out of
college, with long
tenures
Very start-up like in drive
to “get stuff done”
Various agile mechanics
in place
Profile Amplifiers Challenges Goals
Create a predictable
delivery cadence with
upgraded quality for
better customer
outcomes
Build strategic roadmap
capabilities that balance
current needs with new
innovation
Create common patterns
for scaled execution
(people, technology,
capabilities)
No product management
function
Distributed QA, mostly
manual testers and
insufficient automation
Many hybrid roles and a
lot of “we are so unique
that we had to invent it”
(roles, tools, etc.)
History of bespoke
solutions for large
customers

20. Approach:
Build product management
team/capability
Update quality strategy with
automation and push responsibility
to scrum teams
Change organization to scrum team
structure (funding), roll out scrum
Slow down deployment and
increase quality in releases

21. Beta company agile assessment findings
9 year old enterprise saas
company
High growth mode, gearing
up to IPO in the next couple
of years
Large international
presence –customers,
offices and employees
Unique industry with
commanding market
leadership
Tech & product executive
team are very agile, very
open to feedback
Modern technology
choices with many
deployments a day. Lots
of automation
High degree of personal
autonomy and
entrepreneurialism
Lots of agile ceremonies
in place
Profile Amplifiers Challenges Goals
Increase resiliency with
teamwork, fewer
handoffs and reduced
silos
Focus execution on
fewer priorities,
delivered to completion
Build common standards
and practices across all
teams for better
collaboration, less
duplication & risk
Functions operate very
silo’d, despite apparent
team formation
Lots of unnecessary
handoffs across
functions
Too much work in
progress, too many
concurrent priorities
Lots of responsibility
held by very few people,
insufficient delegation

22. Approach:
Build up Scrum Master role. Train
agile values for better teamwork
Embed all functions (including UX
and QE), merge tiny teams
Force rank prioritize and minimize
work in progress
Create standards & patterns to
guide development for scale

23. Measure outcomes rather than
outputs. 3-5 is plenty (bonus if
some are counter measures)
Just as the approaches are
different, what we measure
should be too
Measurements are tricky as
they influence behavior and
could have unintended
consequences

24. Issue #3 – We under-
estimate the challenge
of “people, mindset or
culture transformation”

25. Even though we *know*
it’s about people, many
transformations focus on
the implementation of a
process or tool
…sometimes by people
too junior and without
experience in people
change management

26. Doing agile does not mean
becoming agile
What works in one
team/department/company
may not work in another
It’s easy to get stuck, ignore
or not know how to adapt
when people behave in
unexpected ways

27. Issue #4 – We expect
there to be an end point
when we are
Transformed
….even though our
business should be
constantly changing

28. We may find that at a
certain point what we did
before no longer produces
the same results
Scaling, growth, even
routine, can start to show
diminishing returns or
backslide

29. We mistakenly believe there
should be a “done” state
Agility isn’t the point
Agile isn’t an end
It’s a means to a never-ending
transition to a better, and
better, and better, state

30. So what should we do?
Some advice and
lessons learned

31. Use agile to deliver agile
Start with the people:
Align leaders on outcomes,
required changes and
tradeoffs
Rationalize the
organizational structure to
support agile delivery
(roles, teams, incentives)

32. Form a cross functional
team with every role
required to support
change
They figure out the agile
narrative, measure and
global standards
Make the transformation
part of their job
responsibility and goals

33. Make obstacles visible:
Are priorities clear?
Are teams able to focus on the
end to end outcomes?
Are there too many
dependencies?
Do teams locally optimize?
Does everyone agree on who is
the customer?

34. Amplify successes:
Positive examples build
momentum
Reward learning, teaching,
coaching, community
Make results real – create
connections to customer
benefit and joy

35. Train everyone on agile values
and principles. Apply it
immediately
Focus on mindset. Processes
may need to change over time
Invite flexibility and autonomy
with mechanics
Push decision making to the
lowest responsible level to
increase accountability

36. My agile transformations
generally:
Pilot and measure
Experiment and iterate
Fail fast and learn
Inspect and adapt
Focus on customer
outcomes

37. Final Thoughts

38. There may be many
transformations needed in
your evolution
And that’s ok
Your customers change
Your business changes
Your people change
Why wouldn’t your agile
adapt?

39. But always remember the
“why” on your journey
We want to create an
environment where it’s
easy and joyful to do hard
work. And deliver benefits
that show results and
make us proud
Which is the point of
reaching agility

40. Questions?