Herding cats, or the art of scaling agile teams

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Cat Herding, or the art of scaling agile developmentDave Sharrock agile42


Cat herding…

The Sinking of the Vasa

The Copernican revolution in management

Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile

It’s just about technology, right?


The sinking of the Vasa August 10, 1628

http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/The-sinking/


Reasons for failure

• Excessive schedule pressure

• Changing needs

• Lack of technical specifications

• Lack of documented project plan

• Requirements creep

• Ignoring the obvious

Why the Vasa Sank: 10 Problems and Some Antidotes for Software Projects, Richard E. FairleyMary Jane Willshire, Journal IEEE Software archive, Volume 20 Issue 2, March 2003


Cat herding…



Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile



http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/28/more-on-why-managers-hate-agile/


The traditional economy is vertical

Strategy gets set at the top.Power trickles down. Big leaders appoint little leaders. Individuals compete for promotion. Compensation correlates with rank. Tasks are assigned. Managers assess performance.Rules tightly circumscribe discretion.

Gary Hamel


The creative (agile) economy is horizontal

It is oriented to understanding and creating the future.It believes in banking, not necessarily in banks.It believes in accommodation, not necessarily hotels.It believes in transport, not necessarily cars.It believes in health, not necessarily hospitals.It believes in education, not necessarily schools.

Steve Denning


A thriving Creative Economy

Market Capitalization

• Apple - $660 billion

• Google - $362 billion

• Facebook - $222 billion

• IBM - $155 billion

• GM - $54 billion

What billion dollar companies look like at Series A funding rounds?

Easy-to-dismiss ideas Competitive markets Reinventing existing customer behaviour Untested founders Zero monetization

https://medium.com/@todfrancis/what-did-billion-dollar-companies-look-like-at-the-series-a-e53ea8043a85

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/26/why-do-managers-hate-agile/


Cat herding…



Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile



Agile Operating Models

Isolated Synchronous Networked

#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s

#products single few many

technology stack simple complex unknown


#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-1000 100’s-1000’s


technology stack simple complex decoupled

team location collocated simple distribution global


Isolated

• Simple technology stack means team is completely cross-functional

• Single product under development, with all teams focussed on the same product backlog

• Small team size (7±2)


agile teams and small organizations

get things done

by creating an environment where good practices are easy to do


collaborationsmall, dedicated cross-functional teams


collaboration

focus

small, dedicated cross-functional teams

product owner, ordered backlog


22% of teams have no product owner

http://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/state-of-scrum-report


collaboration

focus

transparency

small, dedicated cross-functional teams

Product Owner, ordered backlog

simple, big visible charts show progress


Isolated Agile Team agile42 home team board


IsolatedProject Management

• ScrumMaster and Team cover project management responsibilities

Program Management

• Product Owner determines priority (assumes frequent releases)

Focus

• Frequent releases





Isolated




• Scale by adding teams not growing team size


Isolated




• Scale by adding teams not growing team size

• Product Owner team for larger development environments


Six-team Isolated Agile Team formation exercise




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




Project Management None

Program Management None

Focus Frequent releases


Cat herding…



Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile


# ## ##




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-1000 100’s-1000’s





Size and complexity breakdown these constraints

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlevin/4488369118


functional silossingle-points-of-failure

residual bureaucracy

collaboration

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebastiandooris/2449853812


informal networkstime slicing

project funding

collaboration

focus

http://www.flickr.com/photos/onemananhisdog/5718624579


collaboration

focus

transparency

terminologylocal optimization

illusions of progress

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/2460655511/


Synchronous Operating Model

• Deep technology stack means team is completely cross-functional

• Multiple products sharing common platforms or services

• Built with isolated agile teams (not dev & test teams…)

• Scale by decoupling components not adding teams

• Component team product owners serve feature teams


Integration, front-‐end development, creative design

Shared services & platform

Experience #1

#3#5

#4

#6

#2

Experience Delivery Team #1



Capability Delivery Team #1






Experience visioning and conception


Experience #1

#3#5

#4

#6

#2







Integration, front-‐end development, creative design

Shared services & platform

Experience visioning and conception





Component Teams

Com

pone

nt #

1

Com

pone

nt #

2

Com

pone

nt #

3

Com

pone

nt #

4

Experience Teams

A B C D E F

Team

#4

Team

#5

Team

#6

Team

#1

Team

#2

Team

#3

Com

pone

nt #

5 Com

pone

nt #

6

Com

pone

nt #

7

Com

pone

nt #

8

PMO


Synchronous - Project Management

Project Management

• Make dependencies visible, and facilitate conversation, not do the work for them…

• Focus on frequent integrated increments/releases

• Scrum of Scrums between teams to manage technical in-sprint dependencies

• Release coordination through PMO (e.g. Release Train Engineer)


Synchronous - Program Management

Program Management

• Feature team priorities set through Product Owners, but priorities are rarely set across feature teams

• Technical (component) priorities inherited from feature teams - move to service-oriented mindset

Focus

• Coordinating dependencies


Synchronous - Common characteristics

• Aligned sprints

• Common integration points

• Some form of hardening sprint (real cost to deployment/integration)

• Release planning might be big, shared event (per feature team)

• Sequential delivery; either on or off the ‘train’

• Watch for different ‘releases’, different ‘done’ states

• Dependencies should be visible and continually in discussion

• Priorities visible at all times and continually reviewed




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




Project Management None Delivery

Program Management None Feature team


Dependency coordination


Cat herding…



Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile


# ## ##


http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/28/more-on-why-managers-hate-agile/




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-1000 100’s-1000’s





Two pizza teams

No, communication is terrible!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos


Characteristics of Networked Agile organizations

• Asynchronous delivery

• Different teams deliver on their cadence, not the release cadence of product

• Automated deployment

• Not continuous integration or continuous deployment

• Automated Immediate feedback on different versions

• Dynamic budgeting

• Earn-to-play (not pay to play)

• Treat budgets as malleable

• Value-based decision-making


Get ready to lose control “I tell people I push more code by 9 AM Pacific than most people do in a lifetime. And that’s [just] 2% of what I’m going to do in the next couple of hours,”

Garo TaftFacebook’s Release Engineer


Opportunity Canvas Building a case for funds


Siemens Opportunity management




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




Project Management None Delivery Market’ forces

Program Management None Feature team Earn-to-play


Dependency coordination Value delivery


Cat herding…



Isolated Agile

Synchronous Agile

Networked Agile


# ## ##


We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.

Jeff Bezos


Fast (agile) Fashion Design to display in 15 days




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




#people < 50-60 100-200 100’s-1000’s




Project Management None Delivery Market’ forces

Program Management None Feature team Earn-to-play


Dependency coordination Value delivery


thank you [email protected]

@davesharrock

Herding cats, or the art of scaling agile teams

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