Burning Agile

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Burning Agile
Individuals, Interactions, Scaling and Illusions
Gaetano Mazzanti

1986 – 1st Burning Man
35 people

1986

Burning Man 2001

Burning Man 2001
25,000 people

2001
25,000 people

Burning Man 2012
56,000 people

2012
*
* SAFe is used just as an example of a scaled framework

the illusion of a predefined future state

it’s a complex world out there

complex vs ordered domains
Complex
uncertainty
enabling constraints
heuristics
emerging behavior
emerging practices
not predictable
retrospective coherence
multiple parallel small safe-
to-fail experiments
Ordered
certainty (uh?)
governing constraints
rules, no/few degrees of freedom
no adaptive behavior
best practices
predictability, repeatability
design/predict a future state
(systems thinking anyone?)
Scrum
Kanban
see Dave Snowden

the dreadful engineering metaphor
complex systems are not causal

rules, exceptions, rules for exceptions, etc.
in a controlled environment (ordered domain)
the only way to make things work is to break the rules

rigid rules: we don’t trust managers
(let alone others) to take decisions

back and forth from chaos to bureaucracy
nothing done
nothing started

wants vs needs

replicate circumstances (practices)
hoping to replicate outcomes

correlation vs causation
the ones who failed did quite similar things

once upon a day… ok let’s do Agile :-/
aka Scrum

cross-functional teams

a Scrum Master

a Product Owner

a few fools… ahem tools

the right tools!

here come the tree huggers

then comes the storm

failure or success?

define success…
*whatever that means

hmmm…

the problem with Scrum
It’s not what Scrum is, it’s what it often becomes
(almost) everyone takes it as a recipe.
A local recipe btw
Adds more roles to siloed organizations
Rituals as checklists (“because Scrum says so”)
Oppressive Agile (Ron Jeffries)
Velocity, oh my…
Misused or misunderstood?
Does it make any difference?
It hurts people

The Agile Delivery Manager :-/

JOB DESCRIPTION
Looking for a very strong Scrum Master with at least 3 years as an IT PM. This resource will be
leading Agile project coordination to support upstream and downstream teams.
Project Manager services include the management of complex, high value IT delivery projects
that require the coordination of development work or technology work on multiple platforms
to achieve desired functionality.
Typically, the Scrum Master PM will lead a matrixed team and once the project is complete,
the PM will move to another project that will have a different team mixture. Proven and
substantial experience leading complex Agile development or IT technology projects (typically
6+ years)
A thorough knowledge of the IT development life cycle, the Agile Framework, Scrum and
Kanban experience. Proficient in the use of Version One, the Microsoft Office products:
Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project and previous exposure to Clarity a plus!
what about a Strong Scrum Master 1/2

what about a Strong Scrum Master 2/2
Specific role responsibilities include:
…
-  Communicate committed stories for the upcoming sprint to the backlog
owner and stakeholders
-  Support the Backlog Owner and Portfolio Manager in updating monthly the
30-60-90 release roadmap based on the health and priority of the stories of
the backlog and planning poker estimates/sizing
-  Adding or removing stories based on burn-down of the current sprint
(discuss w/ BSA and TPO or Lead BSA)
-  Represent the team daily at the Scrum of Scrums (S2) meeting to report
progress against burndown
-  Monitor team backlog in v1 daily and ensure it accurately reflects the current
state, including time to be burned and status
-  Forecasting and budgeting
-  Manage business relationships

the problem with Kanban
“Kanban is much easier”
Very few rituals -> no rituals
No new roles -> no change
Just draw a few columns and stick post-its on it
Limit WIP what?
Optimize Flow what?
Safe-to-fail what?

flow?

hierarchy kills flow
Real God
Jupiter
Half-god 1
Half-crap1
Half-crap2
Half-crap3
Half-
goddess 1
Juno
Half-
goddess 2
Half-god 2
Half-crap4
Half-crap5
Crap1
Crap2
Crap3
Crap4

silos prevent flow

multitasking hinders flow

Results
Actions
Beliefs
Experiences
The “Results Pyramid” is copyright of Partners in Leadership LLC
beliefs, actions, results
Culture

The “Results Pyramid” is copyright of Partners in Leadership LLC
beliefs, actions, results
Results
Actions
Beliefs
Experiences
Culture
managelead
managelead

got it, we are ready to change
install change
rollout change
drive change
culture change
…
source Esther Derby
the words of change

the temple of promise
“this time we are going to change, really”

let’s scale too
but we want to feel SAFe

the illusion of predictability
known (?)
start
predefined
destination

aggregation doesn’t work
with a complex system

using an ordered approach
in a complex domain
someone could get hurt

so what?
don’t change everything
map the culture, map the stories
set enabling constraints
run multiple parallel small safe-to-fail experiments
be ready for the unexpected
inspired by Dave Snowden

so what?
inspired by Dave Snowden
disintermediation
distributed cognition
(early) detection of patterns to amplify or dampen
but no premature convergence/conclusions
abduction, not induction (no linearity)
decomposition & recombination (scaling)

do’s and don’ts

boundaries - enabling constraints

Black Rock City
a playground for trial-and-error approaches and experiments

no pressure to create something perfect

co-creation - collaboration

multiple parallel safe to fail experiments

multiple parallel safe-to-fail experiments

emerging outcome

but then…

Burning Man Leaves No Trace

what about agile?

Gaetano Mazzanti
@mgaewsj
gaetano.mazzanti@agile42.com

Burning Agile

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