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Getting Started with Agile

Alan Gladman – Intel Corporation (UK) LtdAgile Coach & Chief Happiness Officer

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Legal Notices

This presentation is for informational purposes only. INTEL MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

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Copyright © 2014, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Alan Gladman• A project manager turned scrum master turned

agile coach at Intel in Swindon.• Worked in IT industry since 1982. Joined Intel in

‘93.• Practicing agile development since ‘02.• Trained as a professional coach in 2010.• Agile evangelist, coach

and instructor.• And chief happiness

officer

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Aim of this talk• A lesson in software development

history.• A strategy for agile transformation.• Best known methods.• Working around the barriers.

• “I believe in this concept, but the implementation described above is risky and invites failure.”

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History of Software Development

Waterfall?Source: photographyjournal2013.wordpress.com

1970

Read more about The Waterfall Accident

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Start with “Why?”• What problem are you trying to

solve?• What objective are you trying to

achieve?• How will you measure success?• What are the early signs of failure?• How will an agile approach help

achieve this?

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Transformation Roadmap

Team adoption

Program adoption

Whole products

Continuous improvement at senior levels

Org transformation

Grass roots adoption

Top-down Transformation

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Grass Roots Basics• Agile manifesto & principles• Choose a method– Agile Sherpa for intro to

agile.• Train the teams• Provide coaching• Small wins

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Customer/Product Owner• Agile Principle#4

“Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.”

• Prevents waste.• Ensures short feedback loop.

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Working Software• Agile Principle#4 - “Deliver working

software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.”

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Requirements Breakdown

Source: NetObjectives

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Mind-set: From Agile “Adoption” to Agile “Transformation”

• “Adoption is more about what you do…. practices, tools, techniques, habits.”

Mike Cottmeyer - LeadingAgile

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Mind-set: From Agile “Adoption” to Agile “Transformation”

• “Adoption is more about what you do…. practices, tools, techniques, habits.”

• “Transformation is more about who you are…. reflected in both the structure of the org and who you are as people.”

Mike Cottmeyer - LeadingAgile

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Gotcha!

• Blind Adoption Can Become “Cargo Cult”

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Cargo Cult Scrum“Cargo Cult Scrum is what happens when you adopt the practices, vocabulary, and artefacts of scrum but you don’t understand why or how they work.”Implementing Scrum? – Avoid Cargo Cult Scrum – Rally Software

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Example• Team: Oh yes, we’ve been doing agile for a while.

• Coach: That’s great! So you haven’t had any trouble getting the Product Owner to work closely with the team?

• Team : Well, we…uh…don’t really have a Product Owner.

• Coach: Oh. Well, who keeps the Product Backlog in shape?

• Team : Well, we…uh…don’t really have a Product Backlog, per se.

• Coach: Oh. So how do you plan your sprints?

• Team : Well, we really don’t do that in a very formal way. But we do meet every morning. That’s what it’s all about, right?

Rally Software

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Other examples• Long sprints/iterations• Testing at the end• Increasing no of defects• Regularly working long hours• Skipping retrospectives

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Coaching & Community • Start with a few educated* and

empowered people.• Build a community.• Train the teams AND the managers.• Ongoing coaching.

* Truly understand the agile mind-set and practices.

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Barriers

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Senior Management Support

Source: Polartec.com

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Management vs Leadership Management• Planning• Budgeting• Organising• Staffing• Measuring• Problem Solving• Doing what we know

how to do exceptionally well

• Producing reliable, dependable results constantly

Leadership• Establishing direction• Aligning people• Motivating• Inspiring• Mobilising people to

achieve astonishing results

• Propelling us into the future

Source: Kotter International

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Questions to ask the permafrost

• Tell me about your continuous improvement efforts.

• How are you managing your WIP?• What would it take to make your

pace sustainable indefinitely?• What do you understand about agile?

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Show them the org impediments

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Organisational Refactoring

• Refactoring: – “Code refactoring is the process

of restructuring existing computer code – changing the factoring – without changing its external behaviour.” – Wikipedia

• Organisational refactoring:– Restructuring an existing

organisation – without changing its external behaviour.

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Teamwork

Source: hexjam.com

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• Team Development Stages

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Tuckman Model

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Learning to Learn• Agile principle#12

“At regular intervals the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.”

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Encourage and reward teamwork!

32Source: http://blog.itil.org/2015/01/allgemein/self-organized-teams-where-great-things-start/

Self Organizing Teams

• Self Organizing Team – Is a group of people working together in their own way toward a common goal which is defined outside the team. The team decides their work schedule,  in what order, when to deliver, how, to what standards, and by whom.

Self Organizing

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Takeaways• Waterfall and its flawed origin• Get some small wins• Secure senior sponsorship• Educate all levels• Encourage teamwork• Ongoing coaching• Learn how to learn

Questions?