Just had my first article posted to Scrum Alliance website. (Click link to check it out). I originally wrote this 9 months ago to support my Certified Scrum Coach application, but that process finished first.

Here is the abstract:

Scrum contains a set of practices distinct from XP that are intended to enhance project safety. The Scrum framework is simple and intentionally incomplete. Scrum expects that teams will add in practices that are relevant to their specific context. For example, there is wide recognition within the Scrum community that XP engineering practices need to be added to Scrum to create sustainable software projects. So, Scrum and XP together is a good starting point.

Agile failure is a sensitive topic but one that we as a community need to talk about in order to build a brighter future together. In this post, I will share some observations that came out of an informal session that took place over an extended coffee-break session at Play4Agile conference.

Survey Results

I ran a quick fist of five survey with first eight coaches and then with twelve as people. The question was:

“How many (percent) of your Agile transitions have been successful? Zero for none. Five for all.”

The results confirmed what I have suspected and experienced: a single one, lot’s of twos and threes, and one four. No zeros or fives.

It was noted that one problem with the survey is that Agile (Lean?) is a direction (dream of perfection) and not a destination.

Good news, Bad news

Consider the visual note below (start in the top left).

Agile in the small is fine

When probing about what was working and what wasn’t it became clear that agile in the small was working well. With single teams and smaller companies, people were pretty happy with the results. Even isolated teams at large companies seemed to find success when the teams wanted to go Agile. The principle that applies here is: Go where the energy is.

Agile in the large needs attention

Now that Agile has crossed the chasm and many more transitions are initiated by the early majority we are seeing more of “me too” Agile adoption. Some of the support found in earlier transitions are now missing:

1. Strong management support
2. Sense of urgency (Critical for Kotter model)
3. Notion that: failure is not an option

Case studies MIA

One key need of early majority is case studies. We as a community do not do a good job sharing success stories and an even worse job sharing failures. This makes it hard to learn and improve.

Agile in the Large

Craig Larman and Bas Vodde have written a great book - Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum – on how to make Agile work in the large. This is a good start and paints a clear vision for alternatives for making Agile work.

We also have Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising. This is nice, but not nearly enough to get to a playbook for Agile adoption.

I believe that we as a community need focus more attention on models, patterns and guides for Agile transition and adoption. Lot’s of open territory here.

It’s about people. Duh.

One of the challenges with Agile in the large is that many people really don’t care about Agile and don’t want to change. Yeah, this happens with small teams too, but I find it is manageable there. When dealing with hundreds and thousands of people the problem gets amplified.

I thank Christine Neidhardt for reminding me that organizational change is about people. The way to change an organization is one person at a time.

Addendum

Subsequent to publishing this, I found this great post that I strongly recommend: Agile’s Second Chasm (and how we fell in)

Ilja Preuß ran a peer workshop at Play4Agile on Tips for debriefing a game. Thanks to everyone for sharing such wonderful ideas.

I synthesized this into the visual note:

The main points are:

• Go with their energy so that it feels like a conversation.
• Less is more: Give them space so they can debrief each other.
• Guide their attention through powerful questions and observations.

Original flipchart photos are page 1 and page 2. I didn’t capture everything so check them out too.

I was already able to apply some of my learnings when I facilitated a game debrief later in the conference. Thanks Ilja!

Not only was I fortunate to attend Play4Agile in Germany this week, I also had the privilege of working with the organizing team to act as a Spirit Keeper and help with facilitation. During the opening on Friday night we played Constellations and observed that a lot of people already knew Open Space. So how to explain Open Space rules so that newbies learn enough and yet avoid boring the veterans to death? The answer comes from Training from the back of the room: let them teach each other. Then newbies get individual attention and veterans learn it better by teaching it.

I realized later that this pattern can be used for teaching anything (with help). Not just Open Space rules. See the five simple steps in the diagram below:

Steps:

1. Fist of five for checking the knowledge level of everyone in the room. Let them know to keep their arms and fingers up. (Oops. Not sure what this is really called. Fist of five is actually something different. Please comment if you know…)
2. Have them form diverse groups (people with different knowledge levels) of 5 to 7 people. Smaller groups may work well too.
3. In small groups, knowledgeable people teach the new folks. In my group, we took turns explaining key concepts and let newbies drive learning by asking questions. Hang posters high enough so people can see them when everyone is standing.
4. (Optional) Each group can check how successful learning was using fist of five.
5. In the large group, ask the people who learned the most to share one key learning.

Many thanks for Katrin Elster for helping develop the approach and to Marc Bless for a great facilitation – it rocked!