Agile governance

Agile Governance

Charlie Rudd
SollutionsIQ

Copyright © 2011 SolutionsIQ. All rights reserved.

Speaker Introduction: Charlie Rudd

CEO of SolutionsIQ, an Agile
company that provides Agile
services including consulting,
training, software
development and recruiting
throughout the world

Agile governance: what could this mean?

1. Governance is evil and is Agile is good
2. Governance is a necessary evil
3. Agile provides a lighter-weight means to
achieve corporate governance aims
4. Agile is a superior governance framework


What is this governance thing?
Corporate Stewardship
• Internal
– Clarity of corporate purpose
– Viable strategy & plan
– Necessary resources & environment
• External
– Government & industry regulation
– Legality
– Shareholder expectations
– Public relations
• Risk management

Intended outcomes of governance

• Proper investment decisions are made
• Investments perform as expected
• Work is authorized
• Demonstrable progress is made
• Quality objectives are achieved


Successful portfolio management

Do the right work Do the work right

Investment decision

Investment performance

Work competency

Quality standards

Risk management


How is governance applied?

• Articulate Intentions
– Policies & practices
• Verification (or enforcement)
– External reporting
– Oversight (Approvals & supervision)
– Documentation (proof)
– Audit (inspection)


Which part is evil (maybe)?

• Corporate stewardship?
• Successful portfolio management?
• That leaves how its applied
– Policies and practices
– Verification procedures
– A mismatch between the two


Governance by function
Government & industry regulation

Board

Corporate
Business unit 3
Finance

Finance
Legal

HR
IT

Business unit 2
Business unit 1


Governance stakeholders

Board
regulators
Corporate
shareholders
Business unit 3
Finance

Finance
Legal

HR
IT

Business unit 2
Business unit 1


IT or Local Governance

Technology infrastructure
Production operations

Business solutions
IT

Project management
Quality Assurance
Development practices


Lots of diverse stakeholders

• Shareholders

• Regulators

• Corporate functions

• Business units

• IT functions

Governance success criteria

1. The diverse interests of many stakeholders must
be satisfied


Governance fit

No worries
+ Wrong Integrated
governance governance
applicatoin

Chaotic
No governance Hidden
governance
- Intended Outcome
- +


1. If the diverse interests of many stakeholders are
to be satisfied they must…



1. If the diverse interests of many stakeholders are
to be satisfied they must...

Be aligned (somehow)

Mis-alignment breeds conflict

• Frustration
• Anger
• Fear
• Discontentment
• Anxiety


Alignment produces harmony

• Satisfaction
• Confidence
• Contentment
• Happiness


Good governance requires high alignment

+ Misalignment High alignment
applicatoin

No alignment Misalignment

- Intended Outcome
- +

Forces working against alignment



Functional diversity
• Different objectives
• Different backgrounds



Operational diversity
• Different priorities
• Different time horizons



Globalization
• Different time zones
• Spatial separation
• Different languages


Complicated mechanisms
• Overloaded controls
• Governance “debt”
• Lots of moving parts


When good governance goes bad
Corp functions

Technology infrastructure
Production operations Quality
gates
Business solutions
IT

Project management
Quality Assurance Business units




Corporate culture clashes
• Different management principles
• Different values and assumptions
• Different views on people


Different management cultures
Scope
If you believe there is zero
sum tradeoff between
scope, schedule & resources
it may seem counter-
intuitive that:

By reducing resources you
Schedule Resources sometimes can speed things
up and improve quality



Dynamic business conditions
• Rate of technology change
• Increasing uncertainty
• Competitive pressures


Root causes of misalignment

Forces Lack of
Functional diversity shared
Operational diversity objectives
Globalization
Complicatedness Communication
Corporate culture Barriers
clash


Increasing rate of alignment decay

Forces Lack of
Functional diversity shared
Operational diversity objectives
Globalization
Complicatedness Communication
Corporate culture Barriers
clash

Dynamics business conditions

Getting aligned

Lack of
shared
• Establish shared objectives objectives

• Break down communication barriers
Communication
Barriers

How do you do that?


Where you wont find the answer

• Governance controls
– Designed as fixed constraints
– not to auto-align
• Technology
• Institutional governance
– Operate in different jurisdictions
– First mission often enforcement


IT governance authorities

• Part of the solution for
sure, but also part of
PMO
the problem

• The trick is knowing
Architecture how to tell one from
& Standards the other & get
stakeholders to agree!


IT Governance frameworks

• Institutional
– PMO
– Architecture & standards
• Technology
• Industry
– CMMI
– PMI
– Gartner


IT Maturity models (my apologies to Gartner)

Technology infrastructure Our focus is business
Production operations solutions

Business solutions
IT

Project management Maturity theme:
Quality Assurance “Business alignment”


Low & high IT maturity (apologies to Gartner)

Purpose Function Role Solution Maturity

Order Contractor Point
Cost center
taker Solutions LOW
Commercial
Solution Partner Product,
Profit center
architect Colleague Integrated HI
architecture


Forces moving IT to solution partner role

Public internet platform
• Consumer experience sets standard for
business apps
• Mash-ups with 3rd party commercial
products raises expectations
• Easy to compare competitive offering (low
barriers to exit)
• More high profile IT solutions
• Release cycle time needs to be fast


Different IT roles suggest different
governance styles


Cost center
taker Solutions LOW
Commercial
Profit center
architecture


Traditional business principles

Do it right the
1- first time
Best 2 – Centralized
Centralized
Solution planning
evaluation

3 - Production
Facts
Facts

Optimize
Algorithmic
External constraints

Traditional governance

Detailed spec &
1 - Business plan
Project 2 – Centralized
case
charter planning
decision

3 – Follow orders
Facts
Facts

Big bang
Optimize release

Algorithmic
External constraints

Traditional governance

Detailed spec &
1 - Business plan
Project 2 – Centralized
case
charter planning
decision

3 – Follow orders

Facts

Big bang
release

When good governance goes bad

1. Identify a potential opportunity
2. Gather facts, make assumptions, run scenarios
3. Stop before business case is proved
4. What’s riskier? Doing nothing or something?

Business case shaky because
I
?? ? instability of key variables
I
I I
?

Questionable governance controls

Shaky business case leads to:
• Incomplete, flawed specification
• Flawed implementation plan ?

$6 m $1.5 m $1.5 m $1.5 m $1.5 m

I
? ?
?
I I
?
.5 years 1 year 1.5 years 2 years

Traditional governance makes things worse
1. Spec and plan insufficient as compliance controls
2. No good way to modify spec or plan or respond to
emerging conditions
3. No easy way to revise contracts and agreements
Yet all the money is spent
$0.0 m $1.5 m $1.5 m $1.5 m $1.5 m

.5 year 1 year 1.5 years 2 years

Why Agilists find governance is evil

1. Out of time and out of money

2. Key features missing

3. Delivered features not desired (waste built in)

4. Desired technical quality not delivered

If not the traditional, then what?


Cost center
taker Solutions LOW
Commercial
Profit center
Solution
architect
Partner
Colleague
Product,
Integrated
architecture
?


IT Governance frameworks

• Institutional
• Technology
• Industry
• Agile frameworks


Why Agile governance frameworks may
be superior

• They have built-in alignment features
– Establish shared objectives
– Break down communication barriers
• They auto re-align


Built-in alignment features

• Iterative progress

• Feedback-driven adaption

• Share information

• Empower knowledge workers

• Self-organization & collaboration

• Deliver early and frequently

Agile governance principles

Evaluation

planning

Production

Agile governance principles

Solution
prototype
(vision)
Evaluation
Iterative
planning
progress
Production
Production increment

feedback

Innovative
Heuristic Early &
Internal constraints frequent
delivery

Agile governance style good fit for the
partner role


Cost center
taker Solutions LOW
Commercial
Profit center
architecture


Agile scope of influence

Maturity Objective Strategy Impact on
Governance
1 Grass roots Sponsorship Do no none
harm
2 Co-existence Legitimacy Show New
value procedure
3 Strategic Full partner Skin in the New
game goals


Agile governance maturity
influence

Maturity

Alignment


Strategy to gain influence

• Treat stakeholders like customers
– Break down communication barriers:
Invite, share success, take initiative to determine needs
and requirements
• Convert to partners
– Establish shared objective (customer)
• Repeat


Strategy to gain influence

Corporate

Business
unit

IT

Team


Grass roots: Governance is a necessary evil

• Objective: Formal sponsorship
• Requirements
– Ability to work fulltime on a project
– Agile knowledge
– Ability to assign work as a team (self-organize)
– Ability to comply with governance policies
– Build control
• Span of shared objective
– The development team


Grass roots: Governance is a necessary evil

• What you can accomplish
– Develop agile skills
– Start to Improve technical quality
– Begin building a case for broader use
• What you cant accomplish
– Change or replace governance policy
– Exploit agile dynamic scope management
• What the org expects
– you don’t exist


Grassroots: governance is a necessary evil

• Breaking down communication barriers
– Make progress visible
– Do demos (even without a stakeholder),
invite people
– Reach out to PMO, architects, key analysts
– Confer with project managers
– Don’t over-reach
• Do simulations


Grassroots: governance is a necessary evil

The simulated Product Owner


Co-existence: Agile provides a lighter
weight governance alternative
• Objective:
– Full legitimacy
– Agile established as a recognized alternative to meet
governance objectives
• Requirements
– Formal sponsorship
– History of success in terms of delivery & meeting
governance requirements
– Support from multiple stakeholders
• Span of influence
– Development organization

• What you can do
– Introduce alternative governance verification
mechanisms
– Establish systemic quality and delivery improvement
– Sustain persistent teams
• What you cant do
– Apply agile portfolio management
– Change governance policies
– That there is an agile alternative equivalent to
traditional practice

• Breaking down communication barriers
– Quantify success and improvement
– Establish common objectives with IT
stakeholders (Architecture, QA, PMO)
– Establish common objectives with business
stakeholders
– Turn remote stakeholders into new
customers



The value stream analysis

The proof of code analytics


Strategic: Agile is a superior governance
framework
• Objective:
– New governance objectives
– Broad collaboration with business including strategy
and solution development
– Highlighted at a Gartner conference
• Requirements
– Solid trust basis with key business sponsors as
outcome of successful collaboration
– Full engagement of business in Agile methods
– IT org wide adoption of agile


framework
• Span of influence
– Business unit via active collaborative partnership
• What you can do
– Become profit center
– Develop strategy
– Change IT governance policies
– Influence corporate governance policies
– That IT and rest of business are collaborating
partners


framework

The collaborating auditor

Courtesy of Dan Greening
dan@greening.org


DOs

• Exploit PM knowledge to break the code of hidden governance
• Worry about side effects
• Promise what’s already in the bag
• Set the right expectations for yourself and your stakeholders
• Begin what will be a long conversation
• Begin building a case (gather evidence, line up supporters)
• Identify & court allies (business, PMO, architects)
• Extend invitations (sprint reviews) (don't force what you don’t have
the authority to enforce)
• Choose total victory on small, low risk “wins” rather than partial or
doubtful victory on high stakes gambles
• Simulate new roles (proxy product owner, internal scrum master)


Don’ts

• Don’t beat up customer with Agile values
• Don’t assume that a governance policy that is no use to you is of no
use to anyone
• Don’t invite failure by committing beyond your span of control
• don’t change governance strategy unilaterally
• Don’t provide more information than is asked for (do encourage the
request for more information)
• Don’t upset the applecart
• Don’t create more work for governance authority
• Don’t talk about improving until you can demonstrate compliance
with status quo
• Don’t assume that executive sponsorship eliminates governance
conflicts


Questions

Crudd@solutionsIQ.com


Agile governance

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