Category Archives: Scaling

Agile, Agile_Role, Behavioral Science, Coaching, Metrics & Reporting, Newsletter-Communication, Norms & Principles, Organizational Design, Scaling, Scrum, Team Dynamics, Training, Transformation

Run This Method Through Organizational Compiler

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Running this method through an “organizational compiler” may improve health of your organization:    (variables in blue are “globally declared” and are clickable hyperlinks.  You can pass any arguments to this method, as long as they are valid  🙂 ) 
public class LegacyOrganizationalEcosystem {
 public static void main(String[] args){
 if((agile_framework == this_framework){
    System.out.println ("Simplify your organisation. Try scaling agility by de-scaling complexity")
} 
 else if (agile_maturity_goal == this_goal){
    System.out.println ("Stop chasing numbers. Self-assess, systemically")
}
 else if (agility_measurement == this_measurement){
System.out.println ("Stop internal competition. Recognize command & control behaviors through system modelling.")
}
 else if (coaching_model == this_model-left_side){
System.out.println ("Avoid locally optimized for coaching ivory towers and Agile CoEs.")
} 
 else if (agile_coach == this_coach-right_side){
System.out.println ("Beware of 'quasi-coaches'.")
}
 else if (agile_coach_career_path == this path){
System.out.println ("Get REAL, experienced coaches with effective coaching approaches")
} 
 else if (agile_knowledge_basis == this_certification){
System.out.println ("Avoid certification collectors. Be cyber-vigilant.")
} 
 else if (talent_acquisition_model ==  this_model){
System.out.println (" By-pass staffing agencies. Select vendors diligently and responsibly.")
}
 else if (architecture_expert == this_architect){
System.out.println ("Avoid 'power-point' architects.")
}
 else if (prod_owner_team_communication == this_comm){ 
System.out.println ("Remove translation layers. Learn about benefits of feature teams through gaming.")
}
else if (prod_owner_sm_relationship == this_relation){
System.out.println ("Avoid faking Scrum roles. Understand Scrum roles through system modelling.")
} 
 else if  (scrum_pattern == this_pattern){
System.out.println ("Recognize Scrum anti-patterns.")
} 
 else if (sprint_naming == this_convention){
System.out.println ("Avoid Sprints without PSPI. Understand and expand product definition.")
}
 else if (customer_request == agile_requirement){ System.out.println ("Avoid 'agile' BAs and BRDs.") }
System.out.println (“Overall, your organization may need a refresher on what agility truly means :).  You may enjoy sharing this” + anecdote + “ with your colleagues and play this”+ game +” at your next town-hall meeting.”)
                                      }
                                         }
Agile, Agile_Role, Behavioral Science, Event, Events, Kanban, LeSS, MeetUp, Norms & Principles, Organizational Design, Scaling, Scrum, Team Dynamics, Transformation

11/13 – LESS TALKS: NYC LeSS CLP and Meet-Up with Craig Larman

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NYC LeSS Meetup with Craig Larman (Video Recording)
Summary by a featured guest-blogger, Enterprise Strategy & Organizational Design expert and Certified LeSS Practitioner – David Stackleather.

I had the opportunity to watch the NYC LeSS Meetup with Craig Larman via video. I attended one of these when Craig was in California, and have attended two CLP training sessions with him, so I have some idea about his message. It’s always useful to hear the news again if for no other reason than to overwrite some of the general nonsense one hears so often in the hallways of the average corporation or on the average Slack channel. Fresh air is good for the soul.
For those who haven’t heard Craig speak, or attend one of his training sessions, the best way I can describe him is that he’s the honey badger of change consultants, he just doesn’t give a, well you catch my drift. There aren’t a lot of weasel words or marketing fluff. Just the simple facts as he sees them. These facts, a description of reality really, can be challenging to hear at times. It’s why you often hear folks giggling uncomfortably in these sessions when Craig says something stark. The thing everyone should understand is, he’s not joking. So pay attention.
Although these sessions only run an hour or so, there is enough content to fill a book, literally. The concepts go deep, and the skills and tactics mentioned in a few sentences can take years to master and fully understand (things like systems modeling, for example). Here are just a few items that stood out to me during this particular session.
Scale Matters
A difficult thing to understand for many is that behavior at small scale is almost meaningless at large scale. Everyone wants to think they can improve their process, or get a little better at their job (or, hope that the other guy gets better at his). Larman makes the point that at scale, it’s the structure that drives change. The root cause of the problems many large enterprises encounter are the result of their design not how good the developer sitting in a cube on the 42nd floor is. Deming taught us this long ago; the workers are not the problem; the problem is at the top.
I like to think of this scale issue from the standpoint of process improvement. In process improvements focused on cycle time, improving the performance of individual processes is unlikely to improve end to end cycle time much if at all. Just messing with the procedures is just as likely to elongate the cycle time as it is to reduce it. The queues and delays between are the story. It’s the structure of the process that must change, not the pieces. Same for organizations. This is a very difficult message for folks to hear if they are not in the mahogany lined offices on the top floor. You can improve locally, and that is all well and good, and I’d advise it, because moving forward is the only way to survive, but it won’t solve your organization’s problems.
The market for deep change
Craig makes the point that the worldwide market for deep change, meaning those companies that really want to change at a fundamental level, is small, perhaps 500 companies total.
I’m not sure how many companies there are but I found online that the total listed companies across all stock exchanges is around 45,000. This is wrong, no doubt. It excludes private companies (some of which can be very large even in countries with deep financial markets where listed would be advantageous), and many of those 45,000 companies are likely rather small. But given that number, we’re looking at one percent of listed companies as being open to real, fundamental, change. That’s a sad state of affairs, but there are deep-seated reasons that there is so little appetite for change at the power center of companies.
Without a profound sense of urgency deep change doesn’t happen. Until leaders are backed against the wall with a real crisis, they are loath to upset the very system that has provided so much. Most large organizations are elegantly designed to provide a steady stream of only what the boss wants to hear. Everyone down the chain of command is in on the game as well, so they want to play by the rules as well. Any information that is raw, real, and innovative is squeezed of real value before it ever gets to the board room. This all feeds very nicely into the strong confirmation bias we all have. It’s very near a closed-loop system in many organizations I’d wager, recycling the same excuses over and over again.
Problems are provoked with fake change
Fake change are those change efforts where the senior leaders are unwilling to fundamentally change the organization, even if they say they are. Instituting change in this environment can provoke existing power structures. When problems inevitably are uncovered, there isn’t the courage to tackle the root cause. There isn’t the courage because that wasn’t the point. The most significant sign that the organization isn’t ready for real change is the avoidance of making the fundamental structural changes necessary. There will often be reasons to retain the old structure or relabel them. If that’s the case, it’s just a show. If you begin a change program in such an environment, you run the risk of awakening a dragon with no ability to slay it, at least organizationally. The problems initially articulated that provided the excuse for the change are not resolved and perhaps made worse by the change chaos. In some cases, it would be better to let the dragon sleep.
Is it hopeless?
Perhaps 99% hopeless. But that means there is a chance! Larman makes a great point about the individual, however. A point I think too many people miss because it’s uncomfortable. If you are in management, or any other specialist function that isn’t directly related to building something customers are willing to pay for, plan your exit. Learn a skill, become valuable. So many people operating in large organizations are intently focused on moving up the hierarchy that they forget that the purpose, at least in theory, of hiring anyone for anything is the skills that person brings to the table. If you never gain marketable skills or let them atrophy after years in the corporate environment, you will find yourself a prisoner. A prisoner of the very same organization you complain about.
Certified LeSS Practitioner –  Feedback From The Room

Summary by a featured guest-blogger, Agile Coach and Certified LeSS Practitioner – Soledad Rivero.

Definitely, participating in Craig Larman’s CLP training has fundamentally raised the bar for me, as a change agent, Scrum Master and Agile Coach. I managed to incorporate new concepts that will not only help me in my current situation, but will also be handy for many years to come. During this course we dont get into a deep dive of LeSS experiments (there are more than 600 of them and for that, there are 3 books that provide guidance, with examples and practical techniques in different chapters).  Instead, in this course we had a very unique 3-day experience with Craig, as he taught how to design your organization in a systemic way, thinking systemically, seeking to optimize the whole and not just locally. This course broke my mindset and perception and then put it back together again.  It opened up my mind, giving me more tools, and energy to keep changing things.

As Craig said in class: “to be an agent of change in an organization you need a lot of patience and big amount of sense of humor“.   It will not be easy, but for sure it will be worthy. Thanks again for amazing learning opportunity!

More Kodak Moments

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Thoughts by Rick Waters, CST

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Rick Waters is a Business Agility Coach and Trainer, from Chicago, with more than 15 years of technical software development experience, and almost 10 years of Agile leadership experience.  Rick primarily trains Scrum, Enterprise Scrum Business Agility, and Kanban.
This is what Rick wrote, in support of the recently released book by Gene Gendel (Adaptive Ecosystems: The Green Book: Collection of Independent Essays About Agility):

Nearly every time we talked, my dear friend, Mike Beedle (RIP), would challenge me to think deeper about less conventional concepts that I wouldn’t normally consider having an impact on the subject matter we were discussing.  Often, Mike would come back to Employee Experience.

“Employee Experience,” he would say “is the where we need to focus in order to truly give our customers the amazing experience that we want them to have with us, as a company, and our products.”

Recently, the well-meaning practices of installing ping-pong and foosball tables, or game rooms, or a kegerator in the lunchroom, have come under fire.  Though these ‘perks’ to working in a space where at least someone is focusing on an aspect of Employee Experience (EX) seem great on the surface (mainly to new employees during the interview process), they don’t speak to the long-term EX.  They speak, mostly, to something I like to call Short-term Employee Gratification.

I want to reiterate, the people responsible for work-place ‘improvements’ like those already mentioned, are well-meaning.  But, like many good deeds, they don’t go unpunished.  Here, mostly because these Short-term Employee Gratification efforts are just that – short-term.

Long-term EX is about sustainability.  We see, in the Principles behind the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, that there has always been someone concerned with sustainability.

“Agile processes promote sustainable development.
The sponsors, developers, and users should be able
to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.”

So, why do even the best of us not understand that our actions are not having the intended effects?  Because we are HUMAN BEINGS, and we have this natural tendency to believe that when we ‘fix’ something, that it stays ‘fixed’.  In this case, when we make our employees happy, they should stay happy.

So, why don’t employees stay happy?  Because they are HUMAN BEINGS, and trying to get a human being to stay happy when nothing around them is improving, the morale suffers.

We talk a lot, in the Agile world, about the concept of Continual Improvement.  We also warn those whom we mentor, to only take on as much change as they can handle at any given time.  Trying to change too many things at once and realize which of those changes actually had a positive effect can be darn near impossible at times.

So, in this example, maybe just provide one perk at a time.  But, in all fairness, slowly rolling out toys for employees to play with at work … that’s still just a stop-gap measure to gratification, not a solution to improving the Employee Experience.

I now invite you to take a trip down memory lane with me.  The year was 2004.  I was working at a young company in Chicago, still relatively small at 100-125 employees.  We had a culture of freedom, not fear.  That would come later.  Our products were platforms and API’s for electronic traders (of stocks, bonds, future, options, etc.) to make trades quickly, setup their own custom automatic trading rules, and develop custom trade strategies.

Life was great!  For a while.  There were monthly bonuses for everyone, when the Sales department hit their quota.  There were free donuts and bagels once a week.  I believe that, for a time, there were even free soft drinks from the vending machines.  Our team even had full autonomy over who we interviewed, and who we hired.

As the company grew, and we grew quickly, these perks slowly disappeared.  Every one of them.  Until if we asked around, “Hey, do you remember when we used to have <perk>?”  The general answer was likely “That was before my time.”  But, in reality, it likely wasn’t before their time, they just didn’t remember it.

Let’s fast forward a bit through the ugly parts – fast growth in head count, demanding deadlines and the resulting loss in quality, stolen/lost autonomy, creation of a command and control environment, increasing number of periodic performance evaluations, and finally periodic layoffs.

The changes did not take long.  Two years at most.  But they, and their resulting culture, lasted for much longer.

I eventually left the company.  I knew I was a valuable part of my team, but I was extremely frustrated with many of the negative turns the company had made, as well as some of the decisions my immediate co-workers had made.  I needed to get out to preserve my sanity.  Or so I thought.

I let my manager know I had another job offer, and I had already accepted it.  I gave my two-week notice.  He begged me to stay.  I asked him “If the company values me so much, why doesn’t anyone feel this way?”

Two hours later I got a meeting request from the CTO.  I was to bring all of my improvement suggestions to him, for discussion, first thing the next morning.  Improvement suggestions?  The CTO!?!

I went home and immediately started writing down everything I thought was wrong with the company and how they could improve the working relationships with their employees.  From problems with retention of talent, to employee happiness, to wage inequality, etc.  It ended up being a 3 page long handwritten bulletized list.  I was proud and scared at the same time.

The next morning I handed the papers across the CTO’s desk, and we had a 3 hour long conversation about why I was leaving, the devolution of morale at the company, my unwillingness to stay, his failure (his words not mine) to his employees, and much more.  This is saying a lot about a man who repeatedly would blow off scheduled meetings and short people on their time to talk with him.  Our meeting was only scheduled for 30 minutes.

I left that meeting feeling extremely valued.  Exactly what I wanted all along.  I was shocked, because nowhere in those three handwritten pages had I even come close to mentioning that a deep face-to-face conversation, with the CTO focused on me as an important employee, was enough to restore my hope in the company.  But that did the trick!

Out of foolish pride, I left anyway.  I wasn’t always as enlightened as I am today.  I’m still not as enlightened as I wish to be.  So I made mistakes.  And I will make mistakes.  Leaving the company at that point was probably a mistake.

After I left the company, it took me six weeks to meet with the CTO again and ask to come back.  He agreed.  He wanted me to see the changes that he was making.

I returned to the office (with a raise and promotion) after 10 weeks of absence.  I found a foosball table and a conference room had been transformed into a game room (the newest Nintendo® and XBOX® game systems installed with many games for each).  These were suggestions I had made.

But during those 10 weeks of absence, I realized I was wrong three different ways.  #1 for leaving.  #2 my suggestions were based on short-term gratification. #3 I never brought up any of my suggestions at the times they occurred to me over the last several years.

Just as you might guess, these improvements, and a few more over a short period of time, had an immediate positive effect on employee morale.  But, long-term systemic change had not been addressed.  Frequent performance evaluations still remained.  Deadlines were a constant source of stress.  Development was not focused on building Quality into the product, so it had to be tested out of the product afterwards.  Layoffs became more frequent, and the culture of fear quickly resumed, after the shine of the foosball table dimmed.

The EX had only gotten better for a short period of time.  Eaten alive by the terrible system that was still in place.  Like painting and waxing a rusty automobile, without grinding away the rusty bits first.

Agility is defined slightly differently by almost everyone in our industry.  To me it speaks of a company culture that I would love to work in.  During my entire career, I can think of only a few years when I worked in an environment that I can confidently describe as Agile.  All other environments were either deviating further and further from Agility, or trying everything they could think of to get closer to Agility (with varying levels of short-term success).

While hearing Mike Beedle’s words about Employee Experience echoing in my head, I blend them with Craig Larman’s.  Craig saying that cultural change follows only if there is systemic change, makes clear sense to me these days.

Today, when large organizations want me to help them change their culture, I try to refocus them on their system and how they are providing a long-term gratifying Employee Experience.  Cultural change will follow, and thus Customer Experience.

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Why Is LeSS Authentic? Why Should Leadership NOT Exempt Itself from Learning LeSS?

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Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) is the agile framework that has a history of implementations, trials & errors, experiments and experience reports collected and documented throughout a decade.
LeSS is Scrum, performed by multiple teams (2-8) that work on the same widely defined product, for the same Product Owner.
LeSS stresses the importance of organizational descaling (a.k.a. flattening) that needs to happen before agility can be scaled.  The first LeSS book (out of three published so far) was written in 2008 and it had incorporated the ideas of its two authors, C. Larman and B. Vodde, by mainly including their own experiences of initial LeSS adoptions, from years before.
Overall, LeSS journey has begun many years before Large Scale Scrum has been officially presented to the world and recognized, as a framework, and this is important to acknowledge.  But why?    

Because LeSS, unlike some other very popular and commercially successful frameworks, that are very easy to ‘unwrap and install’, was not invented re-actively, as a “quick fix/hot patch”, in response to growing market trends and business needs (commercial driver).

LeSS is authentic.  LeSS took its time to mature and cultivate, as a philosophy and way of thinking, not as a revenue-generating utility.  LeSS did it at its own pace, without a rush, while incorporating learning of many coaches and companies that went through LeSS adoptions, over years.   LeSS has naturally “aged”, in a good sense of this word 😊.

Important Point: Whereas, deep learning of system dynamics and organizational design is equally available to everyone who attends LeSS training, not everyone can equally impact-fully apply this learning, when they go back to work.  But why?

Lots of LeSS learning (through system modelling, using causal loop diagrams) touches upon organizational elements, such as HR norms and policies, reporting structures, career paths and promotions, location/site strategies, budgeting/finance processes, etc. – things that are considered to be “untouchable” for an average person (employee).

Of course, it does not mean that an average person is not able to start seeing things differently (they definitely do!) after studying LeSS but it is just that he may not have enough power/influence to make necessary organizational changes that are required by LeSS.  In fact, for many people, this newly gained knowledge which is no longer possible to “unlearn” 😊 (e.g. ability think systemically), is accompanied by realization of one’s own powerlessness – and could be pretty frustrating.

Things are different for people that occupy higher organizational positions.  A senior leader is able to combine the decision-making power that is given to him by his organization and the power of newly obtained knowledge, coming from LeSS training.  These two powers, united, can have an amplified effect.

Notably, a senior leader who wants to apply LeSS learning to improve his organization must have something else that is very special, in addition to just having general curiosity of the subject and desire to experiment: it is called a ‘sense of urgency’.  The best examples of senior leaders that have learned LeSS and then applied learning to reality, came from situations, where the need to change was urgent and separated success from failure.  Then, if the above is true, the formula of LeSS adoption success becomes:

(Organizational Power + Power of Knowledge)  x Sense of Urgency = Success of LeSS adoption

Important Point: It is strongly not advisable for senior leaders to delegate LeSS learning to people that are below them organizationally and therefore, not empowered to make organizational changes. Granted, individuals at all organizational levels will be benefited from learning LeSS (it is a great eye opener).  But senior leaders – people that are empowered to make significant organizational changes, must attend LeSS training in person and not delegate attendance to their subordinates.  Leadership should not exempt itself from learning.
In fact, and ideally, senior leadership should attend LeSS training, accompanied by their respective organizational verticals, so that everyone goes through the same learning journey together.  Having HR and finance people, alongside with C-level executives and staff members of lower organizational levels – is a HUGE BONUS.
Agile, Agile_Role, Behavioral Science, CLP, Coaching, Event, Events, Kanban, LeSS, MeetUp, Metrics & Reporting, Newsletter-Communication, Norms & Principles, Organizational Design, Scaling, Scrum, Team Dynamics, Training, Transformation

May 19-22: Global Scrum Alliance Gathering | AUS-TX

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An amazing 2019 Global Scrum Alliance Gathering (May 19-22), organized by SA staff that brought together a record-high number of professionals from around the globe and had countless amazing events – too many to describe them all in one newsletter. 🙂
Here, I would like to  recap what committed to my memory the most:
  • Keynote presentation by Daniel Pink
  • My personal experience from servicing the ‘Fans of LeSS’ booth, attended by hundreds of people
  • Highlights of my own presentation that draw more than 100 people: “How to Stop Deterioration of Coaching Quality: Industrially and Organizationally” and feedback from the room
  • Coaches Clinic and Coaches/Trainers Retreat highlights 
Keynote Presentation by Daniel H. Pink

During his keynote presentation, Daniel H. Pink (the best-selling author, contributing editor and co-executive producer, known world-wide) shared the highlights of his new book: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

Pink’s Synopsis: “We all know that timing is everything. Trouble is, we don’t know much about timing itself. Our business and professional lives present a never-ending stream of ‘when’ decisions. But we make them based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, we believe, is an art.  But timing is a really a science – one we can use to make smarter decisions, enhance our productivity, and boost the performance of our organizations.”

Some highlights from Pink’s talk:

Scientifically and statistically, both humans and apes, have the lowest well-being at mid-life.

Therefore, D.Pink’s recommendation on how to deal with such unpleasant mid-points, are as follows:

  • Beware [of such mid-points]
  • Use midpoints to wake up rather than roll over
  • Imagine you’re a little behind

Then, D. Pink also stressed that there are hidden patterns of how time-of-day affects our analytic and creative capabilities – and how simple work rearrangements can improve our effectiveness. For example, when a person makes an appointment to a physician, it is best to ask for a morning time slot, instead of afternoon slot, since physicians tend to have more analytical capabilities before lunch.

D. Pink’s next point was that as individuals get older, at the end of each decade, they are more prone to take certain actions that psychologically make them feel younger. As an example, he used statistical data of marathon runners: people are most likely to run their first marathon at the ages that are just at the brink of next decade: e.g. 29 or 49 years old.

“Because the approach of a new decade… functions as a marker of progress through the life span…people are more apt to evaluate their lives as a chronological decade ends, than they are at other times.”- Daniel H. Pink
How about psychological reaction to the fact that something will be GONE and the time when it will happen is coming up shortly?

In one case study (left image), when a person was given one chocolate candy at a time, and was asked to give feedback about its taste, a response was usually consistent, for each subsequent candy. However, as soon as a person was told that it was the last candy to taste, feedback about how a candy tasted became significantly more positive.

In another case study (right image), when a group of people was asked to fill out a survey, in order to receive a certificate, before it expired, responses were different, when conditions were set as “will expire in 3 weeks” vs. “will expire in two months”.  Apparently, proximity of expiration date made people much more responsive to the request to fill out a survey.

D.Pink’s next point was about how half-time checks can shape our behavior and impact final results. According to D. Pink, scientists and researchers really like statistical data from sports because it is ‘clean’.  Here, using an example of basketball teams, when teams play a game, the following can be observed, depending on half-time results:

  • Being significantly behind – usually results in a loss
  • Being significantly ahead – usually results in a victory
  • Being slightly behind – motivates people to step up and put an extra effort, which results ultimate victory
  • Being slightly ahead – makes people relaxed, less focused and less persuasive, which results in ultimate loss

As such, there is a conclusion:

“Being slightly behind (at half-time) significantly increases a team’s chance of winning” –D.Pink
Fans of LeSS Corner
A small group of Certified Scrum Trainers and Certified Enterprise-Team Coaches, supported the Large Scale Scrum (LeSS booth):  Fans of LeSS.

At least a few hundred people has come by the booth, asking for information about LeSS.
The booth servants received the following three biggest take-away points:

  • Unfortunately, still not too many people are aware of LeSS.  This is not to be confused with attempts or successes of adoption.  Rather, this is about general knowledge of what LeSS is. Ironically, the booth was labeled “Area 51” – the world’s best kept secret :).
  • Once being explained what LeSS is, how simple and common-sense it is, for many people, it has become an ‘AHA’ moment. The most awakening moment was understanding the difference between ‘global and local optimization’, ‘deep and narrow, as opposed to broad and shallow’, ‘owning vs. renting’.
  • Amazingly, how many people shared the same, almost standard complain/pain-point: “… we are currently using a very complicated, monolithic and cumbersome process (usually referring to some widely marketed XYZe framework), with multiple organizational layers involved,… and it creates lots of overhead, waste and friction,… practically nothing has changed in our workplace since the time we adopted it…same people, same duties and responsibilities (practically) BUT different terms, labels and roles … We really don’t like what we have to deal with now and our senior management is also frustrated but it seems that there is really nothing we can do to fix it at the moment…“.
“How to Stop Deterioration of Agile Coaching Quality: Organizationally, Industrially?” (my own presentation)

The goal of my presentation (Gene is here) was to discuss with the audience:

  • What is the problems’ origin [as it is derived from the title]?
  • Examples of the problem’s manifestation?
  • How can we solve the problem?

Throughout the course of my presentation I:

  • Exposed some classic systemic dysfunctions that sit upstream to the problem in scope.
  • Gave some examples of the problem, by using cartoons and satire
  • Delineated between the problem aspects, coming from outside organizations vs. siting on inside
  • Described types of internal (organizational) coaching structures that are to be avoided vs. tried
  • Gave some suggestions on what to avoid vs. what to look for in a good coach
  • Gave additional recommendations to companies, coaching-opportunity seekers and companies’ internal recruiters

“Download Presentation as PDF”

…and a some additional highlights from the gathering….
The Coaches Clinic – for 3 days
This traditional ‘free service’ by Scrum Alliance Enterprise and Team coaches and trainers what at the highest ever: 300 people were served in total,  over  course  of  3 consecutive days.

Certified Enterprise & Team Coaches and Scrum Trainers Retreat – Day 0:

This year brought together the biggest ever number of CECs-CTCs and CSTs.  One of the most important themes that was elaborated: how important it is for guide-level agile experts (CECs, CTCs, CSTs) to unite together in a joint effort to change the world of work.

Note: Thanks to Daniel Gullo (CST-CEC), who generously created for each attending Certified Enterprise Coach – colleague a memorable gift: Coach’s Coin with The Coach’s Creed:

  • CARITAS: Charity, giving back, helping others
  • COMMUNITAS: Fostering community and interaction
  • CONSILIARIUM: Counseling, consulting, The art of coaching
2020 Global Scrum Alliance Gathering is in NEW YORK(registration is not open yet)
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HR-Related LeSS Experiments – Deciphered

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Large Scale Scrum has a history of more than a decade. The first book about LeSS was published by C. Larman and B. Vodde (the co-creators of LeSS) in 2008.  There were two more books on LeSS, subsequently written in 2010 and 2016.  There is no surprise, why the collection of LeSS experiments from the field is so valuable: the authors have documented many (more than 600) experiments, based on their personal experience with LeSS adoptions, as well as feedback and information collected from other organizational design consultants, coaches and early adopters of LeSS, around the globe.
Today, references to LeSS Guides and Experiments can be found in various places on the internet and intranet of many companies that have decided to experiment with LeSS.
This writing is about a small sub-set of LeSS experiments that are specifically related to HR norms, policies and practices. They are all listed in the guide (referenced above), under the section “Organization” and it implies that they are directly related to organizational design – the first-order factor that is responsible for success of LeSS adoptions and agile transformations, at large.
Experiments with Performance Appraisals:
“Avoid… Performance appraisals – p. 273” — There is a lot of research and evidence, supporting that individual performance evaluations and individual appraisals that are linked to monetary rewards, are not an effective way to make individuals to become more efficient and productive.  When a manager appraises an employee, usually only one opinion in the room that matters: a manager’s.  Feedback that is delivered once or twice a year is not timely and therefore is hardly actionable by an employee, thus useless, for the most part.  Neither an individual that delivers an appraisal, not an individual that receives it – like the process.  The process, is also pretty expensive, as it uses a lot of company’s resources: it involves lots of documentation, coordination and men-hours spent by many people, from first-line management to HR.
It is worth noting that there is an indirect relationship between conventional Budgeting process and conventional Performance Management process – both of which harmfully feeding off of one another. This is described in the book “Implementing beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential“, by Bjarte Bogsnes.  In his work, Bjarte refers to performance appraisals as “legal trail for a rainy day”.

“Avoid… ScrumMasters do performance appraisals – p. 275” —Just like performance appraisals done by agile coaches could lead to serious dysfunctions (page. 130), performance appraisals done by ScrumMasters are extremely harmful.  Drafting ScrumMaster into this role will create a serious conflict of interest and will hinder ScrumMaster’s ability to influence natural growth and evolution of learning among team members. Impartiality and neutrality of ScrumMaster is highly important; becoming an appraiser – takes away this advantage.  Only by remaining neutral and non-authoritative (performance appraisal is exhibition of authority) will ScrumMaster be able to help a team to self-discover, self-improve, and become autonomous in their journey to success.

“Try… De-emphasize incentives – p270.” | “Avoid… Putting incentives on productivity measures – p. 271.” — If achieving a higher productivity (output, velocity) is coupled with monetary incentives/perks or other political gains (typical of many companies that overuse scorecards, metrics, KPIs, RAGs), there is will be always attempts by individuals/teams to claim successes/achievements by ‘playing the system’, in pursuit of recognition and a prize.  For example, in pursuit of ‘higher productivity’ teams may start inflating estimates, to claim higher velocity or deliver work that is low in priority but simple to deliver – just to create an illusion of volume. Incentivizing ‘higher velocity’ is an invitation to moving from “low Fibonacci numbers to high Fibonacci numbers” during estimation.  (Also, see Addressing Problems, Caused by AMMS)

“Try… Team incentives instead of individual incentives – p. 272” — The process of individual performance reviews loses its original meaning when people work on same teams, where swarming (working together on the same task) and collective ownership is encouraged.  Offering individual incentives to people would just polarize them and move in opposite directions, towards becoming selfish, individual performers and super-heroes. In cases such as these, people may be easily drafted into unhealthy competition with each other over claims of success, trying to privatize what should be owned and worked on collectively. Companies that continue incentivizing individual performance with monetary perks just continue widening the gap between “what science knowns and business does” (quote from Daniel Pink).

“Try… Team-based targets without rewards – p. 273” — Clearly, team-level behavior, is an extension of individual behavior.  Just like individuals could be inclined to ‘game the system’, so could whole teams, under certain conditions.  Just like individuals, whole teams could be drafted in unethical conspiracies to game numbers, in pursuit of meeting targets, or beating other teams (e.g. producing ‘higher velocity’), whenever monetary rewards are at stake.  It is absolutely necessary to set targets to individual teams that work on par with one another, for the same organization, it would be best to decouple team targets from team rewards.  The latter could be handled through, some sort of profit sharing formula, based on a company’s financial success that is traceable back each team’s work.
Experiments with Job Titles:
“Avoid… Job titles – p. 276 | Try… Create only one job title.  Try… Let people make their own titles – p. 277 | encourage funny titles” – p. 277 —In pursuit of job titles, individuals may also seek gaining authority and “upper hand” over their peers and colleagues.  This may lead to artificial organizational complexity and hierarchy, as well as a casting system.  Individual job titles can also polarize people and drive them in opposite directions, away from shared ownership.  It is for this reason that on agile teams (e.g. Scrum), there is only one title – Developer.  This approach encourages people to think of each other as on-par, as peers, and grow into T-shaped, multi-skilled, cross-functional, willing-to-swarm workers.  In situations, where some distinction between individual jobs is absolutely necessary funny job titles are recommended.  For example, instead of calling someone QA Tester, a person could be called “Bug Finder and Exterminator”
“Try… (if all else fails) Generic title with levels – p. 277” — If it is absolutely necessary to have title distinction (e.g. to signify different levels of seniority/expertize of individuals), try using a leveling system.  For example, Developer level 1(junior), Developer level 2 (mid-level), Developer level 3 (senior)…. However, care should be exercised, not to explicitly associate different title levels with different levels of pay.
Experiments with Jobs:
“Try… Simple general job descriptions – p. 278” – Do not overcomplicate job descriptions.   Precision in a description may lead to contractual perception of what a person should and should not do, in a workplace.  This may also limit a person’s willingness to step out of his comfort zone and learn other areas of work, other skills and becoming multi-faceted.  It may then further lead to “managing by objectives” that are based on detailed job descriptions, and subsequently bring about problems of performance appraisals, described above.  Complex job descriptions also have a tendency attracting underqualified external candidates, whose resumes are excessively long, as they are ‘tailored to closely match complex job descriptions’.  (Relevantly, attracting bad agile coaches, by creating inappropriate job descriptions is a known problem).
“Try… Job rotation – p. 279 | Try… Start people with job rotation – p. 280” — Give individuals opportunities to learn new domains, technologies, lines of business.  This is will reduce the risk of a person becoming uninterested/bored with his current job.  Further, by rotating from one job to another, a person may discover where he fits best and delivers most value.  By having this opportunity, a person will also have a higher chance of merging the gap between “having to do a job” and “wanting to do a job”.  This is especially important with newly hired people that have a limited industry experience (e.g. recent college graduates).
 Experiments with Hiring:
“Try… Hire the best – p. 280 | Avoid… Hiring when you cannot find the best – p. 281” — Do not settle for less than “best people your money can buy”.  It is better to rely on fewer great people that you already have on-staff than bring on more under-qualified people, to speed up work, especially at the end of a project that is already late (Brook’s Law).  From a system thinking perspective if you are trying to increase velocity (output) by a scrum team and decide to do so by adding more developers that you procured on low budget (low pay will most likely buy you low-skilled developers), you will most likely reduce velocity, by having low-skilled developers introducing more bugs into a system. Please, see why.
“Try… Team does the hiring – p. 281” — If you plan on hiring an individual to join a team, please make sure that a team does most of interviewing and vetting.  Through that, not only a person’s skills and experience will be examined but it will become more apparent if a person can organically jell with a team: if there is compatibility, chemistry and synergy with other team members.   Panel interviews by whole teams are usually much more effective, since they include practical tests, real-life simulations and hands-on exercises.  It also allows some people to observe, while others ask questions, and then rotate.  Try to reduce the level of influence that HR personnel and first-line management have on the process as much as legally possible.  This will reduce the amount of subjective, administrative, frequently bias and error-prone screening (refer to top of page 17).
Conclusion:
As a summary, please consider the following quote that describes sushi-roll-like organizational design in Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), by C. Larman (also, explained in detail in Agile Organization, as a Sushi Roll):
In it, HR policies is listed as one of the vital elements of overall organizational agility.
Agile, Behavioral Science, Coaching, Scaling, Scrum, Team Dynamics, Training, Transformation

BABA Meetup – Does Agile Really Work in Sales?

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Business Agility is at the top of conversation in the workplace. The Big Apple Business Agility (BABA) MeetUp launched on Monday, March 11, with an interactive presentation, “Does Agile Really Work in Sales?”, by Marina Alex, Business Agility Transformation Coach.
Marina related several of her experiences applying agile to sales, from banks, to an Agile Museum to a chain of dental clinics, Marina shared data that proved improvements in sales were recorded rapidly. In one case 50% in two months, 12 months later 127%. Of course, a shift in culture was at the heart of the process and the biggest challenge, but outstanding results led teams to want to work this way.  A copy of the presentation can be downloaded here.
For the first time, publicly, SWAY Framework guide has been released.  To download a copy please click here.
Some of the steps to success were adopting a backlog that was also qualitative and becoming collaborative through stand-ups, retrospectives and cross-functional teams. One significant hurdle that needed to be overcome was identifying leaders who would take ownership. Marina has adopted an Agile Framework – SWAY, that she shared with the group. One of the highlights of the evening was engaging the participants with the content with the Nureva Wall + Span Workspace. The interactive Wall and collaborative software enabled them to make predictions and add their thoughts to the conversation.
SWAY Framework Guide

[Download Meetup Presentation]

Session Feedback

 

SWAY – Agile Sales Framework 1.0

Meetup-recap.  TBA.

 

Agile, Behavioral Science, Coaching, LeSS, Newsletter-Communication, Norms & Principles, Organizational Design, Scaling, Training

Mentor-Guided LeSS Case Study Writing Experience Report

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This writing is about mentor-assisted LeSS adoption case study, written by Certified LeSS Trainer-Candidate – Gene G [MENTEE]: Certified Enterprise & Team Coach (CEC/CTC), Certified LeSS-Friendly Scrum Trainer (LFST) / LeSS-Trainer Candidate, Certified in Agile Leadership (CAL) | Certified in Scrum @Scale (CS@S) and assisted throughout by Jurgen D. S. [MENTOR]: Certified LeSS Trainer, Licensed Management 3.0 Trainer, Innovation Games Qualified Instructor, Black Belt Collaboration Architect

Purpose of a case study:

The purpose of writing a case study was to re-live the experience of Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) adoption, by going back in time and memory to everything that was done by me – the agile coach, trainer and organizational design consultant at a large financial institution.  This engagement was done in conjunction/partnership with my former trusted colleague Stuart P. (also, an experienced agile and software engineering coach).   Writing this case study gave me a great opportunity to self-reflect (retrospect) and think about what I could have done differently back then, if I had to go through adoption again.  The name of the organization, as well as names of people, products, projects, applications, components, etc. that were involved in the study are intentionally withheld, for confidentiality and privacy protection reasons.Nevertheless, hopefully the case study, when published on less.works will serve as a guideline to others, in their attempts to experiment with LeSS adoptions in their respective organizations.  It is worth nothing that many existing LeSS case studies on less.works had provided my former colleague and me with some great references when we worked on our artifact piece.

More About my Mentor:

My mentor, also one of not too many Certified LeSS trainers, was very knowledgeable about LeSS (as trainer, coach and practitioner) and very supportive in my case study work.  Him and I have met more than once in real life, at various agile- and LeSS-related public events (conferences, retreats), and this allowed for some of in-personal mentoring sessions.  Visual technology took care of the rest and made our remote sessions also effective (Note: I am based in the US, he is based in Europe)

Dynamics of Case Study writing:

The process had been very iterative all along.  My mentor and I used google docs, as a communication media and it allowed us to work incrementally and transparently with one another: typically, I would capture my thoughts directly in the google document, iterate multiple times through them and then, once feeling comfortable enough, would share them with the mentor, asking for his feedback. The mentor would provide feedback, ask questions and suggest clarifications.  My former colleague and the peer-coach, who also had full access to the case study, would attend to it at any point in time, leave his comments, provide clarifications and add his details to mine.  Notably, my former colleague-coach has helped me significantly, by recalling facts, decisions, ideas, events that we lived through together (LeSS adoption took place a few years before the case study was incepted).  Specifically, my former colleague also helped me significantly in those areas of the case study that talked about technology: architecture, design, and development.  In all fairness, this was ‘our’ case study, not just ‘mine’.
Regularly, at least once a month, when meeting with my mentor, I would receive feedback on those parts of the case study that required further refinement and re-work.  Many times, my mentor would ask me questions that initially seemed to be intentionally tricky or even irrelevant.  But I always had to give my mentor the benefit of the doubt that he, being a deep system thinking just like me, tried to set me up to think deeper, broader and most systemically into the matter, helping me to discover better ways to formulate my thoughts.   Specifically, many of his questions made me go backwards from many of the LeSS experiments that were leveraged during the case study, to underlining LeSS principles – and making a connection.

From time to time, my mentor would also share his own experiences and give his own perspective like mine, or related situations.  This made our mentoring more interactive, engaging and fulfilling.

How did I decide on the scope of my case study?

One of the most important mentoring ‘aha moments’ for me was the decision on how many LeSS experiments that were actually used during LeSS adoption did I really want to describe in detail, as a part of my case study.Here, one of LeSS adoption concepts came to rescue: Deep & Narrow is better than Broad & Shallow.  I consulted with my former colleague-coach on how many of our LeSS experiments and experiences do we really want to discuss and how deep.  We agreed on the shorter list of experiments that represented the crust of our work and could be aligned with logical and chronological sequence of events, as we remembered them.  We made our selection described experiments, based on what we felt was most important during the adoption, relevant to the case study and memorable to us, as coaches.  I consulted with my mentor on the final list and the overall approach and based on his recommendations, proceeded with deeper dives into the case study.

A picture is worth a thousand of words.

During one of the many case study reviews with my mentor, it became obvious that long paragraphs and dry text would make many readers bored.  This is when I have decided to spice up the case study with graphic illustrations and other visual artifacts (e.g. causal loop diagrams, tabular data).  I had to make a dedicated iteration throughout the whole case study and introduce graphics, were they seemed most appropriate.  Ultimately, this made the case study more readable and informative.

Overall experience.

My overall experience of writing the case study was amazing.  It took me through the process of additional deep re-learning and self-discovery.  It made me reassess my past decisions, now seeing them through the prism of additional experience acquired during the last three years of professional work.
Agile, Agile_Role, CLP, Event, Events, LeSS, Organizational Design, Scaling, Training

September 17-19th: Certified LeSS Practitioner Course With Bas Vodde | NYC

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Experience Report by Guest-Blogger Heitor Roriz Filho
I am not going to entertain your hypothetical situation” answers Bas during the LeSS training in the last three days in NYC. His modesty during answering the questions posed by participants, advanced or more basic, really struck. The strong influence from Systems Thinking brings to mind the importance of experiments and hypothesis validation, one thing that most companies using Scrum today have completely misunderstood. Overall the three days of training were entertaining and served for me to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the first LeSS training I attended in Minneapolis with Craig Larman earlier this year.
Less (Large Scale Scrum) is a very strong and solid option scale Scrum in organizations. This is due to the fact that LeSS, as pointed out by Bas Vodde, was actually the result of Systems Modeling exercises and discussions. As a consequence of that, LeSS explores the organizational ability and desire to be more adaptive and to create and maintain customers by producing products or services they actually love. Systems Thinking applied in practice to actual problems organizations face, Product Owner responsibilities, team accountability and several real life examples and case studies were the things that stood out in the training.
If you are willing to learn more about LeSS, or become a LeSS trainer, you need to attend both classes: with Bas and the one with Craig. One complements the other in such a way that someone who is passionate with Agile can feel reinvigorated to go back the their clients and promote real Agility. Both instructors teach theory and practice but Craig’s class stands out laying more theoretical and philosophical foundations (crucial for true Agility) while Bas brings that to the trenches (crucial to get your hands dirty).
Experience Report by Guest-Blogger Michelle Lee
This was the first training class I have attended in several years. I’ve been reading Bas’s books and visiting the LeSS.works website to learn about this scaling framework. I ended up in New York on accident. I was suppose to attend this same training a week prior in Atlanta, but that class was cancelled due to scheduling issues. I am so glad it was. 

I have been interested in LeSS for about 5 years. What attracted me to this framework over others was the simplicity of the principles. For anyone who has done Scrum with a team, the principles just make sense, period. Had I attended the previously scheduled class in Atlanta, I would not have had Bas as the facilitator and I don’t think I would have learned as much. No offense to the trainer who I would have learned from, but the opportunity to learn from one of the co-creators made the class all the better. Bas does a great job telling stories and giving examples, he doesn’t pretend to know the answer to everything and he is honest about it. Just as all good Scrum Masters know, you can set up the guardrails, but until you experiment with what works for your company, team, style, it’s just an opinion. 

The content of the class was what I expected, and more. To be honest, I was frustrated after the first day. Why was I frustrated? I was frustrated because my table group and I were storming during our first exercise. Most of the people in the class are used to being the coach, not the player! When you are used to being the coach, jumping “in the game” requires you to look at the problem from a different angle and I wasn’t used to looking from that angle!! The exercises Bas put together forced each of us into having to play the game, listen to our teammates and self-manage our time to accomplish the outcomes. Sometimes we did well, sometimes we didn’t – sometimes we failed. I was reminded that failing is hard. Yet, we coach teams through failure all the time? We coach teams to learn from their failures, in fact, as Bas shared, most of the time we know an idea will fail, and we let it play out because we know the learning will be worth it!

The 3-days have made me look at how I coach differently and I thank the “banking table” team and Bas for allowing me the opportunity to fail, to learn, and to improve! New York was also a great city and the location was amazing, nothing against Atlanta. 🙂