Agile Carpentry

Gene and James discuss why agile roles are being eliminated in some companies.

In order to understand the situation in full, from organizational design and systemic implications perspective, these decisions need to be well researched and analyzed. Things to consider, while analyzing:

• Understanding the real purpose of agile frameworks (e.g. Scrum, Large Scale Scrum)
• Funding/budgeting that are aligned to products (not projects, programs, portfolios)
• HR norms/policies, supporting career path, compensation and promotion of agile roles
• Understanding the differences between job security and role security

Have you been impacted by what is described herein? Do you feel that soon you might be impacted by similar decisions of your  company?  Is your company at the point of decision-making, such as:

• Should Scrum Master role be discontinued in favor of an ‘agile lead’ (or similar) role?
• Should Agile lead role be eliminated, as next step in agile maturity journey?

The following two LeSS guides for technical excellence are captured in Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS.

• Guide: Communicate in Code.  This is the best way for developers to exchange information and understand each other's work.  Reading someone's clean code and not having the need to be given additional interpretation of what the code means is a strong indicator of developer's proficiency
• Guide: Integrate Continuously:  "We have installed Jenkins and connected it to Jira" - is hardly an indication that a team has CI/CD pipeline.  The ladder should be viewed as developer's practice/behavior, not as a tool.

Below are some LeSS experiments that are supportive of these two guides:

• Try… Very early, develop a walking skeleton with tracer code
• Avoid… Architects hand off to ‘coders’
• Try… Technical leaders teach during code reviews
• Try… Raise awareness of the negative impact of legacy code

In their short recorded message, James and Gene are talking about these guides, experiments and some real life experience.

The above experiments are detailed in Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum

How to embrace and digest the entire body of knowledge that Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) offers?

How to understand what is foundational, what is minimally required and what is optional?

There is a graphic on less.works site that graphically illustrates LeSS Principles, Frameworks (Rules), Guides & Experiments. However, how the aforementioned relate to one another may require some additional explanation. 

In their short recorded message, James and Gene are trying to explain how to read the complete picture of LeSS. Understanding this, will help you navigate less.works site, understand LeSS case studies and read LeSS books.

There are two key information flows in Scrum related to the Product Owner: (1) Adaptively deciding the direction to evolve the product and reflecting that decision in Product Backlog prioritization, and (2) Discovering and clarifying the details of user needs and items. In the first flow (direction and prioritization), information is sought and analyzed related to profit drivers, strategic customers, business risks, etc. In the second flow (details and clarification), the objective is to discover the fine-grained behavior and qualities of items, the user experience, etc.  

-- Guide: Prioritization over Clarification; Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS; p 178  

As Product Owner, you focus on thinking hard about direction and prioritization, but delegate to the teams as much of the detailed discovery as possible. You encourage and help teams enter in a direct conversation with users, acting as a connector, not an intermediary. In short, you are mostly focusing on prioritization rather than detailed clarification, which is delegated to the teams.

Gene and James discuss how LeSS training alone is not enough. Sub-topics include: 

• LeSS badge is a validation of training content authenticity and quality 
• LeSS badge is not proof of attendee's post-training capability 
• LeSS training is not enough to ensure success with a LeSS adoption, even if training is authentic 
• Self-study BEFORE and self-reflection AFTER LeSS training is a huge plus 
• Initial LeSS adoption coaching is important

Why do we need more fancy frameworks? Why not re-focus on having small successes with good-n-old fundamentals?

The history of Agile Manifesto (AM) and Scrum has 20+ years. Yet, the % of companies that are consistent with basic principles of AM that can demonstrate rudimentary success with Scrum is still very low.

These are the current market trends:

• Agile and Scrum – are now a mainstream/trend/fashion/style
• Agile coaching – has become another name for many ex-roles
• Enterprise scaling – seems to be the main goal for companies
• Large consultancies and business opportunists:
• Take full advantage of the situation and create “magic scaling solutions”, by relabeling/repackaging/hijacking good-n-old concepts
• Trivialize what has been already known for decades, to upsell their own, “improved solutions” (analogy: you cannot sell your own brand of a dish detergent, unless you convince your customers that all other brands are ineffective).

What the market needs:

• Less up-sale and marketing
• Less “magnificent new frameworks” and “enterprise operating models”
• More successes with basic fundamentals

Gene and James discuss common internal distortions of LeSS concepts and terminology. 

* Concurrent Sprints != LeSS * LeSS-Huge is a bad goal

* 1-2 Teams per Product Area != LeSS-Huge

* Technology Area  != Requirement Area (of LeSS Huge)

* "Area Product” (meaningless term) != [Product] Requirement Area

Gene and James discuss the following:

* Deep and narrow organizational design changes aligned with adaptablity can produce fruitful outcomes far faster than applying management pressure to squeeze improved performance out of the status quo system.

* A deep and narrow LeSS adoption will rapidly produce improvement in adaptablity and value delivery, even when the discomfort resulting from increased transparency sometimes makes it feel otherwise.

* The value of using a private Certified LeSS Practitioner or Certified LeSS for Executives course as a way to achieve management alignment at the begining of a LeSS adoption.

* The ability of an external Certified LeSS Trainer to provide consultation which is less influenced by the existing power dynamics of a client organization when compared to inside council.

* Balancing between external vs. internal agile training and coaching support, and the benefits of decentralized vs. centralized internal agile coaches within an organization.

Relevant Links:

Learn @ James: https://agilecarpentry.com/

Learn @ Gene:  https://www.keystepstosuccess.com/

#lessworks #less #largescalescrum #agile

Gene Gendel and James Carpenter discuss various approaches to an agile adoption effort, their effectiveness, and the associated costs.

Learn @ James: https://agilecarpentry.com/

Learn @ Gene:  https://www.keystepstosuccess.com/

#lessworks #less #largescalescrum #agile

Achieve more natural video meetings by using a teleprompter.

Details on all the equipment shown is available on my website at: 

https://agilecarpentry.com/blog/teleprompter/

Equipment discussed in this video includes:

• Luna Display 
• GlideGear TMP750 
• GlideGear TMP100 
• iKan PT Elite Universal Teleprompter
• Prompter People Prompter PAL Desktop Portable Teleprompter 
• iFootage RB-A200 Monopod with round base 
• Matthews Mounting Plate with 5/8" receiver
• Manfrotto 208 3/8" Head Mounting Plate with lock screws
• Matthews Apple Box
• Kupo Apple Box 
• Punks Corey Tripod Range by 3LeggedThing
• Canon EOS RP

Want James to deliver a Certified LeSS Practitioner course in your city?: https://forms.gle/Dz5kakFtg7usFtQu8

¿Quiere que James imparta un curso de Certified LeSS Practitioner en su ciudad?: https://forms.gle/1H65dHwcghT6JZpX7

#LeSS #LeSSWorks #LargeScaleScrum #Agile #Teleprompter