Last week, in Copenhagen, I had my first ever taste of moose. I also had my first taste of cowberries. Both different and tasty and new to my palate. And so I suppose you could say my palate matured a little as a result. That alone could have been enough to make for an interesting week. But what do moose and cowberries have to do (if anything) with my passion around Agile transformations
Several weeks ago, I posted about my pending Agile Europe Road Tour . In that post, I mentioned that I’d be on an Agile grand tour in Europe for 6 weeks. And so here I am. The trip started in London, moved to Copenhagen Denmark, Aarhus Denmark, back to Copenhagen, and then on to Stockholm where I am right now. I’ll soon have a brief trip to Estonia, back to Sweden in Malmo, and the a final stop in London as the punctuation of the tour before heading home to Boulder.
Lucky for me, the variety of Agile conversations has been delightful everywhere. At the Agile Business Conference in London, it was wonderful to bring my “Community of Thinkers” message as a keynote. (And yes, for those of you keeping score, I delivered it barefooted :-) The keynote afforded me opportunity to once again promote my conviction about our actions as an Agile community. That is, as Agile matures and as Agile transformations are going mainstream, we must invite dialogue, inquiry and artistry in how we bring our “genius selves” to the continued healthy growth of Agile.
At the GOTO conference in Aarhus, I suspected that the very technical community gathered there wouldn’t be powerfully driven by Agile conversations. And yet, there was a full day of an Agile track. In that track I talked about Simon Sinek’s ”The Golden Circle: Tell Me Why” with regard to Agile Adoptions. (The talk received a nice write up in Danish here.) Both in this track and in my keynote the following day, I found people clearly eager to be transformative agents in their organizations based on their Agile passions. My keynote on “Complexity Theory and Design Thinking in Agile Adoptions” helped further these discussions and even invited several people to approach me afterward to talk about how they now understood they work they really wanted to do in Agile. They agreed. Agile was more than just a set of engineering practices and more than the Scrum framework; organizational Agile and its growth are now moving beyond just a level set with IT disciplines. And it wasn’t too shabby to get to play Pong using my Smartphone, or to watch the annual Lego Mindstorm competition!
Liv, Jean, Aino, and Helene - GOTO Aarhus Denmark
Another part of my GOTO positive experience were the great people of Trifork : tireless volunteers and selfless sponsors of GOTO throughout the organization including their energetic CTO Kresten Krab Thorup. I was grateful to meet so many Trifork people, to enjoy their enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, passion and knowledge. In particular, it was such a pleasure to meet Aino Vonge Corry, Helene Simoni Thorup, Janne Jul Jensen, Liv Beswick Skov, Marlene Staunstrup Hyldborg, and Simon Hem Pedersen. Also from Trifork, Jesper Boeg was kind enough to provide me with a copy of his book on Kanban, as well as a book on Personal Effectiveness by his colleague Troels Richter. And Jasper Bjergard Arildslund sponsored me in speaking at a Copenhagen ScrumGroup gathering. Such great enthusiasm around Agile and its growth in software development communities worldwide.
But the pinnacle to date of discussions about complex challenging Agile transformations has been during my time at Rally’s Agile Open Forum in Copenhagen October 19th. Why? Because, in that day of tutorials and interactions, we engaged as a community of executives looking to bring Agile success out of the IT group. We created dialogue about the challenges organizations face when we move Agile upstream from the IT work into the business, and downstream into Agile practices for deployment and maintenance. Besides the session presenters from Rally (Ryan Martens in a surprise appearance, Karl Scotland, Wanda Marginean, and me) we were very fortunate to have the insights of Peter Holmelin of NetOp regarding his experiences in adopting Agile and creating significant organizational change.
I feel so fortunate to have engaged as a sponsor, a speaker and a participant in this event. In Copenhagen, During that one day, we concentrated on seeking the next level of maturity with regard to Agile practices effective scaling, and organizational change. I loved it. The level of engagement and the variety of conversations were definitely different than any other Agile event I have attended in the past.
Karl Scotland - Agile Open Forum, Copenhagen Denmark
All in all, you might say that, as I have been on this tour, I see that the Agile community is primed to stretch the “knowledge discovery process” posited by David Anderson in his blog based on his application of Michael Kennedy’s work in Lean Enterprise guidance. In the discussions in London, Aarhus, Copenhagen and now Stockholm, we’ve been challenging ourselves to expand the definition of knowledge and the definition of discovery as Agile expands: when does the discovery begin, and when does it end (if ever)?
To that end, I’ve been listening to these leaders of large Agile adoptions. And I’ve heard the need to create greater understanding around the value and disciplines of Agile Portfolio Steering. (In fact, Wanda Marginean led a great afternoon session game on Enterprise Steering based on work by Rally colleagues Isaac Montgomery and Ronica Roth.)
Now I am in Stockholm. Thanks to a colleague from the LSSC community, Joakim Sunden of Spotify, I have been invited to a number of additional Agile events here. The level of discussions of Agile transformations continues to concentrate on organizational issues. I’m excited about my upcoming talk at the LESS2011 conference on Systems Perspectives in Agile Adoptions through Visioning and Learning Models. I can’t wait to hear the participants’ experiences and challenges, to engage in all the interactions and, perhaps, to continue to expand my palate as well.
And so my Agile Europe Trip continues. As for my taste in food though, I know right now I won’t be tasting the specialty found on my dinner menu in Stockholm last week: “Långhalsar” in Swedish. Or if you prefer English: “Barnacles”. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
Jean Tabaka is a frequent flyer on no particular airline hence no particular status, an author and Agile Fellow at Rally Software Development. You can follow Jean on Twitter at @jeantabaka
It’s March Madness for college basketball here in the US. And if you know me, you know I am a nut about college hoops. Hence my metaphor for David Anderson’s recent book, “Kanban”. It is a true dream team of material and I am a true fan.
I had been flipping through David’s book, a bit here, a bit there. And then one day, found myself completely absorbed. I am so struck by David’s expanse of knowledge, his well-founded observations, and his breadth of very accessible experience. What strikes me most though is the clarity of voice in which David offers us his depth of guidance on Kanban.
I first remember hearing David’s passion around Kanban at the Agile 2007 conference in Washington. Just a few feet away from where I was putting final touches on my systems thinking talk, here was David. In the Open Space of the conference, he collected anyone interested to listen to his passion about Kanban. I watched the small group of people grow to a larger group. For me, that was the moment I started to see David and Kanban become synonymous.
Since that 2007 conference, Kanban has become a much sought after topic by organizations looking for visualization, transparency, and continuous improvement in their processes. David’s book is a wonderful place in which to begin your Kanban immersion. Through David’s book, we learn why we should care about Kanban; how principles of flow guide our perspectives on Kanban; and what the Kanban practices are that specifically help us continuously deliver value in the larger context of our organizations.
Now, to admit my particular biases about why David’s “Kanban” is a top seed in my brackets:
I love the “Takeaways” at the end of each chapter. Each snippet is spot on.
I already mentioned it but the clarity of voice. It is key in how David brings us Kanban in such an accessible way.
Everything about WIP limits. David has a “cool your jets” approach to how to set WIP limits and then watch how they help or hinder the value stream.
“Dragos and the 25 Days.” Sound like a children’s book? Too bad. You are going to have to read David’s book to find out why Dragos and his 25 days, for me, is like an incredible 3-point fadeaway shot, all net, with one second on the clock!
I am fortunate to be in an organization that is embracing Kanban. I am fortunate to experience Kanban day-to-day as well as to bring my experiences to others. I am so fortunate I have other colleagues here at Rally passionate about Kanban. I’m very fortunate to be involved in the upcoming Lean SSC conference in Long Beach where many of us will be coming to talk about Lean and Kanban. And, I am so fortunate to have been there in 2007 for David’s talk about Kanban and to now have David’s “Kanban” book in my toolbox of Kanban goodness.
Read this book and embrace David’s advice. It will not only put you and your organization at the top of your bracket; it will keep you there.
Jean Tabaka is a March Madness college hoops freak, a crash skier, author and Agile Fellow at Rally Software Development. You can follow Jean on Twitter at @jeantabaka
I was fortunate and honored to be able to attend the 10 year Agile celebration in Snowbird, UT on February 11th and 12th. The 2-day meeting in Snowbird had four very positive attributes that allowed the 33 participants to produce a solid retrospective on the last 10 years.
Group busy in Snowbird, UT 2011
It was:
Thoughtful
Diversified
Well-facilitated
Collaborative
As a result, it was a very satisfying event because of the energy that Alistair put into it and the facilitation by Janet and Bob from Coach4hire. The event met all of Alistair’s objectives and everyone seemed to have fun. What more can you ask?
Maybe you want to know what came out? As a celebration and retrospective, we did a very good job of appreciating the positive things of the past 10-years and reflecting on the puzzles and issues.
We agreed that we achieved the following things in the last 10 years:
changed the mindset of a big portion of industry allowing folks to move past agile
recognition that software development is a team sport
emphasis on shipping and rapid feedback, higher level of trust
transparency, reporting & tracking
unit and automated testing is good,
worldwide acceptance that it is OK to be agile
What we did not do was make a plan. A small group did spend time discussing ways the Agile Alliance could evolve to support our maturing and growing community. As we were all from diverse companies and background, we were not in a place to really make a plan. Rachel Davies, Todd Little and I shared context from having been on the Agile Alliance board. And, Todd Little is taking many of the recommendations back to the Agile Alliance’s next board meeting in Stockholm. I have hopes to see some of these ideas surface at Agile 2011 that will be back in Utah in August.
If you are really interested in the events of the weekend, I would encourage you to read these posts and others that will surely emerge during the remainder of the week:
10 Years Agile Web Site – with background leading up the event – results will be publish here in future
There were four summary statements that the group developed with regards to what we, the industry, need to do in the next 10 years of Agile. Please know that the group does not see the high value in these summary statements, but in the details that are below these categories.
Demand Technical Excellence
Promote Individual Change and Lead Organizational Change
Organize Knowledge and Improve Education
Maximize Value Creation Across the Entire Process
At Rally, we are planning on being here for the next 10 years even as the industry moves from revolution to evolution:
“The mission now is incremental improvement. It’s evolution, education and improving levels of maturity, rather than a revolution. The enemy is now within. The enemy is as Joshua Kerievsky put it “all the crap I see out there” despite 10 years of Agile methods.” – From David Andersen’s post
10 Years ago as the Agile Manifesto was being crafted in Snowbird, UT, I was working at BEA Systems on E-commerce product and its web services strategy. Agile has had a big impact on my past including the Global Village team in 1995, operating Avitek in the late 1990′s and through the first four releases of BEA’s Ecommerce solutions in 2000. I had read Kent Beck’s white book, but I did not notice the Snowbird event in 2001. It was not until I had left BEA in late 2001, that I noticed the snowball forming. I am very happy to have been personally and professionally part of helping this critical industry scale the benefits of software agility.
I feel like I owe a big Thank You to the whole community, we really made progress and it has been a great last 10 years. Now, I am really looking forward to the next 10 years where we are able to use these attitudes, beliefs, skills, capabilities, awareness, and sensibilities to work with with some of societies most complex difficulties.
Recently, I was working on an introductory presentation about Kanban. A “thorough” Google search revealed how drawn out and convoluted many Kanban explanations can be. Was there one true answer I was missing? Something nice and succinct like, say, a tweet on twitter?
Acting on this and laziness, I decided to pose the following question to twitter:
I was so surprised by the number of great responses that I’ve decided to compile and share them with you here:
giff24:#kanban 130 chrctrs? PLS!!! I dnt hve time or patience 2 rd that much
erwilleke:#kanban combines systems thinking with a work-limited pull system to allow rapid maturation of teams and delivery of software.
davenicolette:#kanban “What 100-130 characters would you use to describe Kanban?” I’d use the cast of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_
knoxgourmet: Kanban is Scrum without the mess, no sprint planning, no midrange planning, no MSG headache.
kjscotland: Map the value stream, visualize, limit WIP & establish cadence. Reduce WIP to improve flow of value and individual fulfillment
agilemanager: #kanban visualize flow & limit WIP to encourage evolutionary change towards a lean outcome & high maturity culture
Sprezzatura: First establish your value stream. Next limit your work in progress. Then visualize & learn from your workflow. #kanban
most_alive: . #kanban: value flows, post-its move, step,step,step, workers unite
neontapir: Kanban uses visual signals to track and optimize work delivery through key stages in its lifecycle.
I like the commonalities around value, visualization, limited WIP, pull systems, cadence, and flow. This tells me that Kanban is speaking a common and useful language to a lot of us. And, its value can be articulated in a tweet.
But my quest goes on!
I encourage you to add to this list by submitting your own 130 character Kanban definition either as a comment to this post or as a tweet to me (@jeantabaka and use #kanban in your answer.)
In April, I’m attending the Lean SSC conference in Atlanta. There will be a lot of discussion about Kanban. I’ll personally carry all comments and tweets to the conference for inclusion in the discussion. If you’re able to attend, let’s stretch the envelope and go beyond 130 characters on Kanban.
I know what you are thinking with the title of this post – I am drinking the Kool-Aid. Just bear with me for a minute. Back in 2002, when I started working on Rally, it was originally known as F4 Technologies. It was known as F4 because I did not want to work on anything that did not have the potential impact of a Factor of Four, for example a 4X increase in productivity or effectiveness. There are two reasons for this:
According to Paul Hawken in Natural Capitalism, we need a 4X productivity increase in the use of natural resources to get to a sustainable place with the current population in the world. Chapter 7 of that book helped form the core purpose and mantra of Rally – “Muda, Service and Flow.”
Now seven years into Rally, we have the proof that teams – including large and distributed teams – can be 4 to 10X more productive by following Lean principles and effectively implementing Agile development. Like the story of “Good to Great” from Jim Collins, you can’t leap here, but you can put yourself on that path by adopting a continuous improvement approach like Agile. If you do that, you can be a “great” software development organization that dominates your market and is 10X better than the good ones. Great organizations that dominate in their industry also have the knowledge and resources to change world, a la Google.org, the Salesforce.com Foundation and or through my favorite the Entrepreneur’s Foundation.
If you are working toward this, I believe you increase your business value by 4 to 10 times. I am going to make the case with the help of ROI models from David Anderson. (BTW, I love his book – it does a great job explaining the simple physics of Agile.)
From Chapter 2 - David Anderson's "Agile Management for Software Engineering"
This is a very simple model of software process. David shows more complex ones that model all the loop backs of large shipping software, but let’s work with this one. So, the rough equations to calculate the business benefit of the process are the following:
Net Profit = Throughput – Operating Expense
ROI = Net Profit / Investment
In the following four pages, I am going to look at how this equation plays out for four different scenarios:
Beginning Agile team in Flow benefiting from the 25% productivity savings of an Agile teams in the same study
Intermediate Agile team in Pull with incremental releases of value
Advanced team in Innovate that cuts time-to-market in 1/2 to end early after delivering 50% of the work but 80%the value
What you will see in this hypothetical modeling exercise is the true power of Agile to dramatically impact the software development teams in the organization. For a deeper understanding of what I mean by Flow, Pull and Innovate, please Jean and I’s white paper on moving to Program Pull.
Here is the summary:
Good waterfall team – ROI – 0.8
Beginning Agile team in Flow – ROI – 1.4 (1.6 factor better than good waterfall team)
Intermediate Agile team in Pull – ROI – 2.6 (3.2 factor better than good waterfall team)
Advanced Agile team in Innovate – ROI – 6.3 (7.7 factor better than good waterfall team)
Factor or Four or better – that is why there is such a rush towards Agile development. Of course, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Moving up this maturity curve takes long-term dedication to increasing discipline and agility across the entire organization, but there are dramatic benefits if you can get on the continuous improvement path and stay there.
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