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Agile Leadership: What It Takes

Jim Highsmith

2010 Jim Highsmith

Buy pizza & get out of the way.

Iteration Manager Project Leader Architect Data Base Specia list Dev eloper Security Specia list Tester

Dont micro-manage.

Product Manager

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There is no more Normal


Without exception, all of my biggest mistakes occurred because I moved too slowly.
John Chambers, Cisco CEO

300 start-ups persisting with the initial business plan was the best single predictor of failure.

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Turbulence

Opportunity

Exploit the change: proactive agility Danger Survive the change: reactive agility
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Core Business Strategy

Responsiveness
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Efficiency
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Business Responsiveness

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Create an Agile Business Strategy


Responsiveness over Efficiency Turbulence how much, what kind, what areas? Business units & functional areas? IT Agility roadmap

Companies dont pass through life cycles, opportunities do. Sull


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Three Levels of Agility Commitment


Strategic
CEO

Chief Agility Officer Portfolio

CIO/VP

CAO

CTO

...

Operational

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Strategy & Continuous Delivery

Increasing Commitment

Adult Agility

Continuous Delivery
Continuous Deployment Continuous Integration Continuous Development

Agility

Agile 101

Strategic Impact
Increasing Benefit & Investment

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Research
Talking with managers & executives APLN Executive Council SEI Architecture Conference Agile 2010 Orlando
Agile Performance Measures with Pat Reed What do Agile Managers Do?

Agile 2010 Australia


Large Telecom presentation Accelerating Agility for Executives & Managers

Agile Management Mastery Course


UC Berkeley

Cutter Summit

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Execution Levers

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Do your systems look like this?

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Quality Matters
Scientific Instrument Company, Canada Average results from 6 before- and 6 after-Agile projects
Previous Performance Project Cost Project Schedule Cumulative Defects Staffing $2.8 Million 18 months 2,270 18 Current Performance $1.1 Million 13.5 months 381 11 Percent Improvement -$1.7M (-61%) -4.5 mo (-24%) -1,889 (-83%) -7 (-39%)

Source: Michael Mah, QSM Associates


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Technical Debt
Customer Responsiveness
Cost of Change (CoC)

Once on far right of curve, all choices are bad ones If nothing is done, it just gets worse With high technical debt, estimating is nearly impossible Only 3 strategies
1. Do nothing, it gets worse 2. Replace, high cost/risk 3. Incremental refactoring, commitment to invest
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Actual CoC

Product Release

Technical Debt Optimal CoC

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Years

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Do Less: Reduce Work-in-Process


Multi-tasking
(Duration/Effort)

Engineer works on 5 projects How many calendar weeks will it take to complete a 2 week effort task?

48 weeks!!

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Do Less: Eliminate Marginal Value

2% of code used as written


Always 7% Often 13% Sometimes 16% Never Used 45% Rarely Used 19%

$35 billion DOD Software Crosstalk Journal 2002


< 5% of code used Commercial Software, 400 projects over 15 years IEEE Conference 2001

Never or Rarely Used: 64%


Standish Group Study, reported by CEO Jim Johnson, XP2002

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Inspire

Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us


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Be an Agile Leader

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There is a difference between half-assed and half-done.

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Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and structure.

Agility is the ability to create and respond to change in order to profit in a turbulent business environment.

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Simple Rules Dee Hock


Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behavior.

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Be Agile
Publisher

Stock Exchange

Lessons Learned
Evolutionary Relevancy Collaboration

Brokerage
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Your Organization
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Rider of Paradox

Paradox: A statement that seems to contradict itself but may nevertheless be true.

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Predictable versus Adaptable


ID Task Name 1 1 Secure Financing 4 8 13 17 23 39 44 49 55 56 64 69 74 82 83 84 85 98 2 Form Corporation 3 File for State Approvals 4 Form Market Council 5 Systems Selection and Acquisition 6 Hire FFCS Staff 7 Develop Field Sales Manual & Forms 8 Develop Field Sales Training Material 9 Develop Insurance Products for FFCS 10 Form Customer Council 11 Develop FFCS Accounting Procedures 12 Obtain Legal Representation in Each State 13 Determine Maximum Finance Rate Permissible in Each State 14 Develop Field & Operational Incentive Plans 15 Custom Printing Implementation 16 Select Priority States 17 Vendor System Implementation 18 Develop FFCS Internal Procedures 19 Reforecast First Year Operating Projections 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% Qtr 1, 1994 Qtr 2, 1994 100% 100% 63% Qtr 3, 1994 Qtr 4, 1994 Qtr 1, 1995 Qtr 2, 1995 Qtr 3, 1995 Qtr 4, 1995

Sales Management (SM)

108 20 Server and Communications Network 158 21 Telecommunications 168 22 Develop Internal, Management and Field Sales Reporting 181 23 HO Product Interfaces Testing 182 24 Vendor System Preview 183 25 FFCS Systems Running in 'Mock' Mode for Testing 184 26 Vendor System Installation and Training

Sales Analysis (18)

Prospecting (10)

Territory Management (8)

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May 2004

June 2004

July 2004

Adapting over Conforming


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Marketing (MM)

Lead Generation (22)


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Lead Follow Up (8)

Advertisement Placement (9)

Call Center Service (28)


0

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June 2004

August 2004

Sept 2004

October 2004

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The New Predictable Both/And not Either/Or Releasable product (Value, quality, constraints) Cadence & capacity (not detailed task/schedule)

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Evolutionary Action
Plan-Do vs. Fast cycles Envision-Evolve 50% Rule Evolutionary Action Learn from Failures Decision Making
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Balance Front-End & Iterative

Managing Change Knowledge Sharing

Short Cycles
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Agile 101

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Adult Agility
Rider of paradox

Learn the law very well, so you will know how to disobey it properly. Dalai Lama

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Agile Leadership
Continuous Process Improvements Make Kaizen Mandatory

Speed to Value Culture Emergence: Making Value Real Seeing Reality

Value Measures & Metrics Common Value Currency

The New Management Agile / Lean Vision, Values & Practices What Havent You Noticed Lately? Seeing Reality/Reality Maps/Trees Lean Leadership/ Empowerment

Being ALERT
Navigator

Big Visible Walls/ Dashboards / Scorecards / Transparency Making Value Visible Simple & Efficient Frameworks Continuous Learning / Experience Analysis/ Let Learning Lead

Creating an Agile Strategy & Structure Waste Management Agile Communication & Collaboration Deepening Engagement Root Cause Analysis/ Strategic Systems Thinking Capture the Intangible Retrospectives & Reflection

Agile Leadership

Growing Agile Teams Enemies/Anti-bodies

Being AGILE

Courageous Conversations

Embracing & Creating Change

Being ALIGNED
Building Effective Networks/Partnerships

Emergence & Sustainability Innovation Management

Creating a Culture Of Value

Mental Models/ Presensing

Dilemma Management Dealing with Paradoxes

Team Rewards/ Agile Performance Management

Rethinking the Future Deepening Trust Coaching Circles

Quality / Stop the Line


Change Leadership

From Pat Reed


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High Performance Questions


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The World is a Complex Place

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Adult Agility

Continuous Delivery

Agility

Continuous Deployment Continuous Integration Continuous Development

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Agile 101

Strategic Impact

Balance Front-end & Iterative

Plan-Do vs Fast cycles Envision-Evolve 50% Rule Evolutionary Action Managing Change Knowledge Sharing Short cycles

Learn from failures Decision Making


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Your Organization

Doing Agile
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Do Agile

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Leading Traits

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Execution Levers

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Provide Focus & Clarity


Clarity not Certainty
Self-organizing Delegation Team Management Empowerment Autonomy

Decision Framing

Leadership Panarchy

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Uncertainty & Ambiguity of Choices

Balancing on the edge of chaos, between order and chaos determines success.
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Why are Focus & Clarity Hard?

"The Satir Change Model" by Steven M. Smith, published in Amplifying Your Effectiveness: Collected Essays, p. 96, Gerald M. Weinberg, James Bach, and Naomi Karten, eds. 2000 by Gerald M. Weinberg. All rights reserved.
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Anticipate the Future


Structure Time

Transitions

Cost of Change (CoC)

Actual CoC

Product Release

Technical Debt Optimal CoC

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Years

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Technical Debt

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How Buildings Learn (Stewart Brand)


Increasing Rate of Change

stuff Space Plan Services SKIN STRUCTURE

SITE

Building Layers

application logic Stored Procedures Languages, Tools DBMS Application Server Service-oriented Architecture

Software Architecture Layers


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Increasing Rate of Change

Architects of Time

Time pacing is one of the least understood facets of strategy in unpredictable industries.
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Transition & Migration

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Be Architects of Structure, Time, Transition


application logic Stored Procedures Languages, Tools DBMS Application Server Service-oriented Architecture Increasing Rate of Change

Software Architecture Layers

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Create Agile Design Guidelines


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Different Designs

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Pro

c du

Capa bilities

mT ype

St ru ct

Sys te

ur e

Pr

c oje

Sys tem

Framework
ne po om C

Sc

ala ble

nfig ura

f Co S el

ble

nt a

nits dU i ne

Pr Des in ig ci n pl es

Rec o

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am Te

nt

RESPONSIVE SYSTEMS

Re u s a
lf O Se an rg

ble

An organization or systems structure that enables change is based on reusable elements that are reconfigurable in a scalable framework. (Rick Dove, Response Ability)
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iza n tio

Response-able Systems Principles


Elastic capacity Self contained units

Facilitated reuse

Self-organization
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The President of the Internet


Rules The Network effect Power of Chaos Values are the organization

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Applying Guidelines to Adaptive Architectures


Source Systems Integration Presentation Analysis

Legacy Mainframe

ODS
CRM/ERP

Central Warehous e
ETL

Visualization Reports

ETL

Flat Files

EII Data Marts Metadata Management


Data Mining

Scorecards & Dashboards

External Data

Classic Business Intelligence Architecture


Slides on BI courtesy of Ken Collier
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Notifications

Critical Events

Mashups

Exception Based Real Time

Todays Business Leaders Need More


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And They Need it Now


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Adaptive Architectures
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Create a Value Imagineering Culture

Value Dials Agile Value Curve Value Points Reducing Marginal Functionality Value/Cost Ratio

Delivering Continuous Value Optimal Cost of Change/Reducing Technical Debt Minimal Releasable Product

Value and Priority are Different

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Mixed Messages

Conform to Plan

Be Flexible

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The Agile Triangle

Value (Releasable Product)

Quality (Reliable, Adaptable Product)

Constraints (cost, schedule, scope)

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Value Creating Opportunities


Increase: Productivity, Throughput, Flow, Highest Value Work, Profit, Growth, Share, Retention, Loyalty, Satisfaction, ROI, Efficiency, Cash Flow, Quality, Future Value, Visibility

Decrease: Marginal Value Work, Cost, Time/Effort, Risk, Complaints, Turnover, Conflict, Waste (excess WIP/inventory, waiting, rework, defects, technical debt, defects)

Improve: Engagement, Morale, Processes, Services, Collaboration, Information Flow, Quality, Loyalty, Talent (Skills), Image, Reputation, Value

Source: Pat Reed


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Value Engineering
We need to understand both Value and Cost at the Capability/Feature level to make informed Valued Engineering Decisions during project execution.
Value Portfolio Financial Business Case (NPV/IRR) Cost Portfolio T-Shirt Sizing
Inception - Revised Cost Estimate

Project

Same as above Iterative Development - Monthly Forecast


Top Down Decision Making Sweet Spot Allocation of Value Where we want to start/continue to make better informed

Value Engineering Decisions

Feature

ROI = Value/Cost
MoSCoW or other prioritization method

Bottoms Up Calculation of Cost

Story

Story Points (3,5,8)

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Source: Pat Reed

Capability

Traditional Value Curve


Value Cost Ratio Curve (Traditional)
120 Vaule Captured vs Cost Expended 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 0 1 10 5 2 20 5 3 5 4 5 5 10 6 15 20 40 25 60 50 80 Value % Cost % 100

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Developme nt Phases

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Agile Value Curve


Strategies
Value Cost Ratio Curve (Agile)
120 Vaule Captured vs Cost Expended 100 80 60 40 30 20 0 1 10 5 2 20 15 85 75 55 40 60 50 90 70 100

Most valuable first Evolve features


Value % Cost % 98 90

95 80

Determine right cut-off

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Iteration

Where is the right cut-off point?


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Be a Leader, Be Different

Different Link

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Becoming an Agile Leader


Lead
Develop an agile business/delivery strategy Be agile (values & traits)
Ride paradox Practice evolutionary action

Champion focus & clarity Manage Levers


Do less Demand quality Inspire Speed-to-value

Create a Value Imagineering Culture (Agile Triangle)

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Becoming an Agile Leader


Facilitate
Collaborative, self-organizing teams Agile performance measures Agile design guidelines Agile transformation Architecture of structure, time, and transition Agile governance system Agile portfolio/program management system

Agile proficiency evaluation framework Proactive and reactive organizational adaptation processes Technical debt prevention and reduction strategy

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Becoming an Agile Leader


Constrain
Balance the Agile Triangle Develop boundary constraints for agile practices

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What Leaders Really Do

They dont make plans; they dont solve problems; they dont even organize people. What leaders really do is prepare organizations for change and help them cope as they struggle through it. John P. Kotter

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Its kind of fun to do the impossible


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