Guvenc Gurgor and myself gave a talk at Agile Turkey Summit 2017 about Agile Fluency, why Agile falls in some companies and the ways of fixing these issues.

1. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
1
T H O U G H T W O R K S
AGILE FALLS
SO HOW TO
FIX IT?
Fatma Ürek Uludağ
Güvenç Güngör
19 OCTOBER 2017

2. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHO WE ARE
Fatma Ürek Uludağ
Business Analyst & Agilyst
at Turkey & Germany
@fatmaurek
Güvenç Güngör
Delivery Principal
at Turkey
@ggungor

3. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
Continuous Delivery, DevOps, Microservices, Architecture
Lean & Agile Development
THOUGHTWORKS - Over 23 Years of Thought Leadership

4. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHY ARE YOU
HERE?

5. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGENDA
AGILE
Its popularity still
climbs and
it is considered as
a magical solution
to many different
problems.
WHY IT FAILS?
Despite its rising
popularity, Agile
keeps failing in
some
circumstances.
HOW TO FIX IT?
Some suggested
approaches to
solve the most
common failures
on Agile
implementation.
AGILE FLUENCY
Model for
understanding
your current and
targeted fluency of
Agile.

6. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHAT IS AGILE?
Journey from
Plan-Driven Development
To Agile
PREDICTIVE
PLANNING
ADAPTIVE
PLANNING
PROCESS
ORIENTED
PEOPLE
ORIENTED

7. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE POPULARITY
Source: 11th Annual State of Agile Report, VersionOne, 2016
SUCCESS OF AGILE PROJECTS: %98

8. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY

9. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHAT IS FLUENCY?
Fluency is defined as:
the quality or condition of being fluent, in
particular:
synonyms: fluidity, flow, smoothness,
effortlessness, ease, naturalness
Language Fluency:
1- Tarzan at the party
2- Getting to the party
3- Discussing the party
4- Charley Rose
by Willem Larsen, www.languagehunters.org
5.5

10. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
“How are we doing?”
“What should we do next?”
“How do we compare?”
“Who/What can help us?”
By Diana Larsen & James Shore
Source: http://www.agilefluency.org/

11. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
Management Practices
Benefit: Greater visibility into
teams’ work; ability to redirect.
Investment: Team development
and work process design.
Core Metric: Team regularly
reports progress from a business
value perspective.
Source: http://www.agilefluency.org/

12. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
Management & Technical
Practices
Benefit: Low defects and high
productivity.
Investment: Lowered productivity
during technical skill
development.
Core Metric: Team ships on
market cadence.
Source: http://www.agilefluency.org/

13. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
Management & Technical &
Cultural Practices
Benefit: Higher value deliveries
and better product decisions.
Investment: Social capital
expended on incorporating
business expertise into team.
Core Metric: Team provides
concrete business metrics.
Source: http://www.agilefluency.org/

14. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
Organisational Shift
Benefit: Alignment with
organizational goals; synergistic
effects.
Investment: Significant effort in
establishing organizational
culture; inventing new practices.
Core Metric: Team reports how its
actions impact the overall
organization.
Source: http://www.agilefluency.org/

15. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE FLUENCY
% 45 | 2-6 Months
% 35 | 2-24 Months
% 5 | 1-5 years
???
Source: Martin Fowler, Agile Essence and Fluency, 2015
TEAM
CHANGES
ORGANISATION
CHANGES

16. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHY AGILE FAILS?
and
HOW TO FIX IT?

17. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
AGILE IS NOT A “SILVER BULLET”
Agile does not
work in our
company!
Where is our
PO?
What is Scrum
Master? New kind
of boss?
I am asked to be
Agile after 2 days
training!
PO over-controls
the team!
Too much
meetings at
Scrum!
Our project is too
complicated to
work with Agile!
Our manager is
resistant to Agile!
Some stakeholders
are resistant to
Agile!
Business Teams
always try to insert
new tasks to our
Sprint!
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18. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHY AGILE FAILS?
ORGANISATION AGILE EXPERIENCE
%47
Lack of Experience
with Agile methods
%20
Fragmented
tooling, data and
measurements
%63
Company Philosophy
or Culture at Odds with
Core Agile Values
%31
Inconsistent Agile
Practices and
Process
%41
Lack of
Agile-focused roles
%45
Lack of Management
Support
%43
General Organization
Resistance to Change
%34
Insufficient Training
and Learning
%34
Pervasiveness of
traditional
development
%19
Ineffective
Collaboration
Ineffective
Communication
Lack of Ownership
No Transparency
Personalities
Source: 11th Annual State of Agile Report, VersionOne, 2016

19. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
WHY AGILE FAILS?
NONADAPTIVE ORGANISATION
Culture
Communication
People
Structure
Visibility
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
- Peter Drucker

20. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
CASE STUDY 1
One of Fortune-500 Companies
● Dictated Agile practices for whole Agile
teams
● Weak Agile roles
● Water-Scrum-Fall
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21. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
OUR RECOMMENDATION - NONADAPTIVE ORGANISATION
● Be ready to transparent
● Feedback culture
● Empower Leaders, not Managers
● Be a real community
● People is important
● No micromanagement
● Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
Fail fast, Learn fast, Improve fast

22. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - NONADAPTIVE ORGANISATION
Retrospectives, PostMortem, Operational Review Other practices
Retrospectives
Conway’s Law
Schneider’s Culture model
Tuckman’s Team Formation
Organisation Context
Alignment Autonomy Matrix by H.Kniberg
Roles & Responsibilities
Digital Platform Strategy
Brown Bag sessions
#noJerks

23. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - NONADAPTIVE ORGANISATION
Team Structure, Interactions, Communication
Retail
Day of
Travel
Apps &
Platforms
Digital Services
Frontend Applications
Backend APIs
Previous State Targeted State
Marketing &
Discovery
Selection &
Booking
Customer Mgmt
& Day of Travel
Foundational

24. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - NONADAPTIVE ORGANISATION
Core Values, #noJerks
Other practices
Retrospectives
Conway’s Law
Schneider’s Culture model
Tuckman’s Team Formation
Organisation Context
Alignment Autonomy Matrix by H.Kniberg
Roles & Responsibilities
Digital Platform Strategy
Brown Bag sessions
#noJerks

25. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
“You did have the right people. I
hired them from you and got out
of their way.”
— Adrian Cockroft
http://mashable.com/2013/05/13/netflix-dream-job

26. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
LACK OF AGILE EXPERIENCE
“Training is useful but there is no substitute for
experience.”
- Lotte Lenya
WHY AGILE FAILS?

27. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
CASE STUDY 2
US Investment Bank
● Highly regulated, monolith structure
● Long and unpleasant deployment cycles
● Some agile practices but not able to get the
value from it
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28. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
OUR RECOMMENDATION - LACK OF EXPERIENCE
AGILE
Build the
thing right
LEAN
Build the
right things
DESIGN
THINKING
Explore
problem/solution

29. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
OUR RECOMMENDATION - LACK OF EXPERIENCE
● Be experiment-friendly
● Self-Organised Teams
● Be adaptive, not predictive
● People > Processes
● Practice, Practice, Practice
Learning instead of Training

30. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - LACK OF EXPERIENCE / Business
Other practices
Agile Maturity Model
Product Visioning
Information Radiators
Value Stream Mapping
Prioritisation
Collaboration tools
Decision Boards
Alignment Maps
Event Storming
Lean Value Tree
Product Vision Board

31. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - LACK OF EXPERIENCE / Business
Information Radiators - Portfolio over the Wall
Other practices
Agile Maturity Model
Product Visioning
Information Radiators
Value Stream Mapping
Prioritisation
Collaboration tools
Decision Boards
Alignment Maps
Event Storming
Lean Value Tree

32. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - LACK OF EXPERIENCE / Business
Value Stream Mapping Other practices
Agile Maturity Model
Product Visioning
Information Radiators
Value Stream Mapping
Prioritisation
Collaboration tools
Decision Boards
Alignment Maps
Event Storming
Lean Value Tree

33. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - LACK OF EXPERIENCE / Technical
CI/CD - DevOps

34. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
TO FIX - LACK OF EXPERIENCE / Technical
Continuous Delivery Maturity Model - CDMM
34
Other practices
CI/CD - DevOps
CDMM
Test Automation
Pair Programming
Microservices
Containers
Refactor / Code Review
TDD

35. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
CASE STUDY 3
Over 30 years Corporate Enterprise
● Traditional, hidden stakeholders
● Do not open to change
● No realistic expectations
● No common understanding on roles and
responsibilities
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36. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
BE AGILE
DO NOT PRETEND.

37. #ATSummit17 | @fatmaurek & @ggungor
37
THANK YOU!
T H O U G H T W O R K S
Fatma Ürek Uludağ
Güvenç Güngör
@fatmaurek | @ggungor
19 OCTOBER 2017