This document discusses common agile adoption anti-patterns that organizations should avoid, and presents positive patterns to follow instead. Some anti-patterns discussed include thinking there is a "perfect system", not fully committing to agile and wanting to do other things first, trying to measure and compare teams' performance numbers, thinking there is a single road to success, and focusing only on maximizing productivity. The document recommends focusing on people's interactions, understanding how the organization really works, seeking support and feedback, keeping business outcomes as the focus, allowing experimentation, and recognizing that learning and idle time are important.

1. Why is it so hard?
Agile adoption anti-patterns and how to avoid them
Milan Juza
National DevOps Conference 2016

2. Hi!
My name is Milan Juza
What I am passionate about:
• agile and lean
• building great teams
• awesome technology
• changing how businesses operate
@MilanJuza

3. Pattern is a general reusable solution to
a commonly occurring problem within a
given context.

4. Anti-pattern is just like pattern, except
that instead of a solution it gives
something that looks superficially like
a solution, but isn't one.
− Andrew Koenig, Patterns and Antipatterns (1995)
‘‘

5. 1
No.
The perfect system
The mysterious case of…

6. ‘‘To successfully adopt agile we need to
change our people.

7. The perfect system
Positive Patterns
« Focus on the system and people’s interactions
« Understand how you really work
« Challenge system dogmas

8. 2
No.
The frozen middle
The mysterious case of…

9. ‘‘Our exec management is really
committed to agile. I am too, but we
have so many other things to do first.

10. The frozen middle
Positive Patterns
« ‘The Why’ in team’s context
« Managers seek support & feedback
« Make agile work for you

11. The demanding
spectators
The mysterious case of…
3
No.

12. ‘‘OK, fine, do your agile thing. But you
have to guarantee you will deliver the
existing roadmap. And that I will not need
to change anything on my side.

13. The demanding spectators
Positive Patterns
« Everyone on the same bus
« Business outcomes in focus
« Short feedback loops

14. The confused PMO
The mysterious case of…
4
No.

15. ‘‘We have to measure how we are doing –
we need the numbers. We need to
compare teams and their performance.

16. The confused PMO
Positive Patterns
« Ask the right questions
« Trends over absolute numbers
« Review and adapt

17. The single road to
success
The mysterious case of…
5
No.

18. ‘‘Having one approach across the whole
organisation is vital. Differences will only
lead to confusion.

19. The single road to success
Positive Patterns
« ‘Best practice’ does not exist
« Team autonomy and ownership
« Space and safety to experiment

20. The maximised
productivity
The mysterious case of…
6
No.

21. ‘‘We always optimise for productivity. Idle
time means waste we can’t afford.

22. Maximised productivity
Positive Patterns
« Productivity not a function of utilisation
« Learning part of the job
« Managers lead by example

23. Maximised productivity
Perfect system
Single road to success
Frozen middle
Demanding spectators
Confused PMO

24. other things first
change our people measure and compare
productivity
one approach
guarantee

25. More about (anti)patterns
by Linda Rising by J Coplien and
N Harrison
by C Alexander et al.by E Gamma et al.

26. Thank you!
@MilanJuza