Strategize a Smooth Tenant-to-tenant Migration and Copilot Takeoff
Myths, Legends and Monsters of Enterprise Agility
1. Myths,
Legends &
Monsters
The Quest for the
Grail of Enterprise Agility
François Bachmann, SPRiNT iT
2. Who’s talking
François Bachmann
• « The Urban Traffic Parable »
• « The Art of the Retrospective »
(Agile-Alchemist.com)
• Organisational Development Coach since 2004
• Interests:
Systemic Thinking, Complex Adaptive Systems
(like a Jam Session @AgileEE )
4. Your initial situation
• Pilot project « success »
• Request/need to scale this success
• Existing company
]Out of Scope[
• Introduction to Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, …
• Growing an agile company
6. Warnings (2)
Agile is a mindset, an attitude
plan lots of time for full-fledged adoption
7. Starter: A customer myth
« Normal Change » at a Swiss bank
Source: http://itsm.certification.info/normalchg.html
8. Myth
A traditional or legendary story
that can contain a moral lesson
Built on Archetypes
Gods, animals, angels, demons, other worlds
Used to justify a social institution
and its way of viewing the world
Source: dictionary.reference.com
Told at ceremonies
(start, transformation, end)
Principal purpose: federate
9. Myths: project choice / dimension
« Let’s do Agile within a fixed-price contract »
« We apply Agile but only to Development »
« We do ALL our projects with Agile»
10. Myths: Roles
ScrumMaster: Thor / Superman /
James Bond / Chuck Norris
« Three Roles is enough for any
company »
Scrumdamentalism (H.Kniberg)
« In our company, we’re all like a big family»
11. Myths: transition
« Just use Scrum of Scrums
and everything will be fine»
« Trust me, in this company we know
what change management is! »
« To really become Agile,
you have to destroy & rebuild from scratch»
12. Summary: Myths
• Main purpose:
federate
• Used for
justification
of status quo
• Usually involve
superhumans
• Reveal values of the company
13. Legend
(lat. legenda = to be read)
• Official shape of the rumour
spread during coffee breaks
• « I know someone who… »
• Urban Legend
• Can end both ways
• Finishes with a lesson to learn
Principal purpose: education
14. Legend: Company Culture
« My cousin tried to introduce Agile in his
company: it didn’t work at all!
Now I agree that they have a very special
company culture….»
« Actually, our company culture
has always been agile; let’s just change the
terminology and we’ll be fine»
15. Customer Legends: Company Culture
• Mediterranean: mix of nationalities
• Web company: resource allocation > flow
16. Legends: Organisation
« It seems that this won’t work
in an outsourcing context… »
« Another team in our division used it during
a few months, their productivity dropped…
and they switched back afterwards»
« What about my career plan? »
17. Legends: Transition
« A well-planned transition is the cornerstone
of success: plan the work, work the plan»
« Let’s just establish a matrix between the
old and the new roles»
18. Legend: Tool
« Company X bought tool Y when
they moved to Agile and the whole
enterprise is now using it.
But how can I convince my
management? »
20. Monster
(lat. monstrum:
wild beast)
• Impersonates
resistance
• Gatekeeper
• Requires the
hero to go
beyond the
normal plan
21. Monsters: Middle Management
« I’ll be the Scrum Master for all teams »
« I can replace the Product Owner, if needed »
« Well, someone has to assign the developers to
projects, no?! »
Strengths: network, relationships
Weaknesses: conflicting priorities,
overestimates his potential influence
Fights for: his position and his « power »
Approach: give him a catalyst role,
actively include in information exchange
22. Monster: Project/Process Office
Distinguishing marks: once they understand Agile is not
going away, they will try to govern it and create rules
Strength: power to standardize
Weakness: mechanistic world view
Fights for: being the process master
and force their rules on developers
Approach:
1) produce their artefacts and
2) when the right time comes: question the value of
these artefacts (not of the Project Office!)
23. Monster: Saboteur
Definition:
Person who is involved
but has a hidden agenda
(subversion, obstruction,
disruption, or destruction)
Strength: internal knowledge
Weakness: bottleneck
Fights for: « unofficial » priorities
Approach: make responsibilities explicit,
confront one-on-one if necessary
24. Monster: AgileGuru
Pretends to sell the One And Only Agile
Distinguishing marks:
elitist, likes to fight
(he/she usually wins)
Strength: *very* convinced by his Agile flavor
Weakness: exclusive, tends to work alone
Fights for: his Truth (destroying others)
Approach: recall Agile values, let him show
how his flavor brings them forward
25. Summary: Monsters
• Strongholds, Gatekeepers
• Have power & reputation
• Often easier to « turn around »
than to overpower
• Advice: don’t play on their territory!
