This document discusses the stages of an Agile transformation and focuses on the "Highway to Hell" stage. It notes that an Agile transformation is about changing the entire organizational system and culture, not just individual teams. It warns against simply copying frameworks from other companies, as transformations take time and experimentation. It also emphasizes understanding the current organizational problems and culture, measuring the current state, empowering teams to suggest changes, and starting small before implementing more changes.

1. The Agile
Transformation
Hell
By Vitor Queiroz

2. Who am I?
● Software Architect
● Agile Coach
● Have been through some Agile Transformations

3. It's not about
changing one team.
It's about changing
the whole system.

4. What about you?
Which stage are you
in?

5. Agile Transformation Stages
Imagine Highway to
Hell
Stairway
to Heaven
John
Lennon
AC/DC
Led
Zeppelin

6. Let's talk about the
"Highway to Hell"
stage today.

7. Have fun !

8. What we will not talk about
today...

9. Agile:
How it used to be
vs.
How it is today

10. Back then...
● Obscure
● Dangerous
● Mythical
● Just the crazy ones
tried it

11. … Now
● Cool
● Necessary
● Efficient
● The market
demands it

12. Suddenly, everyone wants an AGILE COACH

13. Not a Scrum
Master, an AGILE
COACH

14. Even though they do
not exactly know
why...
● Is it a Project Manager?
● Is it a Product Manager?
● Is it a Scrum Master?

15. Agile
Transformation or
Agile Adoption?
What??? Hey!! I just want to be Agile OK?

16. Agile adoption
Is about "Agile doing."
Is about knowing tools, applying
techniques.
Is the beginning.

17. Agile
transformation
Is about "Agile being."
Is about environments, culture,
mindset.
Is the result.

18. Agile adoption
Creates cultural conflicts.
Poor conflict management
creates problems.
Conflicts will happen anyway, so
learn how to deal with it.

19. "Ready to go" models won't work
the first time

20. To change
something at its
core...
You need to understand how it works first

21. System thinking

22. Schneider Culture Model

23. Agile Culture

24. Understand where
you are:
● How is the culture?
● How are the problems related to the
culture?
● Prioritize the problems to attack.

25. Stop pushing Agile
● In fact, nobody wants to be Agile
● They just want to improve their value
delivering
● Use Agile as a mean, not as an end goal

26. Measure the current
state
● How many bugs do you have?
● How hard is it to deploy something?
● How hard is it to validate a hypothesis?
● How hard is it to measure progress?

27. Everybody has some
kind of pain
● C-Level, Directors
● Middle Managers
● Developers, Business Analysts, Testers

28. Everybody has some
kind of pain
● Strategic Level pain
● Management Process pain
● Development pain

29. Understand how the pains are
connected

30. Understand the current flow

31. Choose tools that leverage
results

32. Keep measuring the
results
● Share the successes
● Share the failures
● Create rapport

33. Conflicts and
Problems

34. Big "ready-to-go"
frameworks
● You can't install Agile
● Big complex diagrams, when pushed, will
fail
● You can't run an Agile Transformation in 2
months
● The consultant ALWAYS goes away

35. The Spotify model
(squadification)
● "We watched the Spotify video" - first
warning
● "We created the squads already" - second
warning
● "But we had to adapt" - third warning

36. But… it works on Spotify
● It took YEARS for Spotify to reach this
result
● It took a lot of "try-fail-change"
● It's not a "copy-and-paste" model
● If you don't care about the values, don't
even try

37. Higher management
support
● The C-Level, President, and Directors must
understand what changes will be caused
● You can't work on an Agile Transformation
and deal with hierarchy issues at the same
time

38. Middle management
interference
● They can say it's OK, but may change their
mind in the near future
● They can be afraid about become meaningless
● You need to provide coaching and training to
change them into facilitators
● Don't fight them, invite them to work together

39. Team issues
● Nobody becomes Agile just because the boss
told them to
● Empower them by showing that they can
suggest changes
● Give them tools to check their own progress
● Celebrate their victories
● Expose them to new approaches (conferences,
events, etc)

40. Understand, teach, change
● Understand the way they work
● Teach new patterns to solve problems
● Give them the freedom to break patterns to
improve even more
● Always measure the results--it gives a sense of
evolution and progress

41. Start small and let it grow
● Put "trojans" in the system
● Collect feedback
● Measure the results, change more
● Wait untill the system absorbs the changes
● Do it again

42. That's it - Thank
you!

43. Twitter: @vitor_q
Email: vitorv@gmail.com
Linkedin: vitor-hugo-de-queiroz