Agile Complexification Inverter

I am working with a team that is in transition.  They have been told that they will practice Scrum.  I don't bother to question this directive from above.  I figure that the people above the team don't know why either...  oh, yes they were at the company all-hands meeting where IT was handed down, there were the typical platitude reasons for the change, faster time to market, being able to respond to new influences in the greater marketplace (e.g. AI, Serverless Environments, etc.) all sounded great at the town hall.  But when asked why this particular team that will never see those technologies in their arena would need to practice Scrum - the best reason is - because we said so.  So that is the CHANGE - it has been forced upon these 7 people.  I am acting upon the transition they are going through.  The current transition is in writing stories.  All have said they are use to working with stories, so we dive right in... but they are not ver...

There's a lot of talk these days in the tech sector about "digital _________" or a "______ Platform" - have you noticed it also?  I find this astonishing, as the world turned digital back in the 1980s along with disco.  And as for platform - well adding the word to shoes was a bad idea back then also. So what causes this echo from the past? I don't know - shall we investigate this over the next few months - the dog days of summer 2017? Summer is a season.  Season are cyclical - they come around again and again.  So this brings us to ponder... When do the days get longer and why?  Most people answer Summer.  And what's the longest day of the year (Northern Hemisphere)?  Right June 20th, the summer solstice .  And so the next few days the daylight is getting less and less - all summer long the days get shorter and shorter.  Almost completely backwards from what we thought we knew. Do you remember way back in 2001... when Steve Jobs ...

Do we mean the words we use - or do we just use them because everyone else does...  you know like the popular buzz word in corporate bingo?  Let's take the word Transformation , as in: "Hi team, I will be you Agile Coach - let's all do the Agile Transformation thing together.  Out the other end of this transformation we will be a changed company." Some definitions of Transformation: a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal. (in physics) the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process. In an organizational context, a process of profound and radical change that orients an organization in a new direction and takes it to an entirely different level of effectiveness. BusinessDictionary.com Some in the agile world are pulling against this trend... see Dan Mezick's The PUSH of Agile Causes "Trance Formations ". So stop that. And do these things,...

I'm taking Mezick's introduction course to OpenSpace Agility - thought I'd write a bit about what I'm learning. Unboxing the workshop - Your move Schrodinger. Day One: Beginning concepts - leaders have a duty to set direction and name constraints; yet stay away from telling how to achieve the goals.  Executives commits to holding first OpenSpace and Acting upon the proceedings.  And holding a second OpenSpace after a time box (100 days). A constraining forces in OSA will be the Agile Manifesto, actions and experiments should be judged by this definition and if seen to support it, be considered good. Another foundational concept of OSA - Self Management - defined as the behavior of a group to know and practice their decision making process (whatever that may be).  A good test is to ask 5 people how their group makes decisions - then count the number of answers - one general description of their decision making apparatus points strongly toward a self-managin...

Now that everyone knows about Bill Murray's movie Groundhog Day - I love February 2nd.  It's my favorite , most enjoyable, beloved, cherished, esteemed day of the year.  And I don't need to tell you again how many LIKES I give this redundant day... so on to the story. Bill & Groundhog Well this happened about ten years ago, and about 6 years ago, or maybe it was 4 years past, and seems like we did this about 24 months ago...  or it could be today! The Agile Transition Initiative at the company has come upon an inflection point (do ya' know what that is...  have you read Tipping Point ?).  I'm not exactly sure of it's very precise date... but  Feb. 2nd  would be the perfect timing.   The inflection has to do with which direction your Agile Transition Initiative takes from this point into the future.   Will it continue on it's stated mission to "transform" the organization?  Or will it stall out and revert slowly to the stat...

Visual.ly Infographic Understanding why an organization thinks it needs to change is enlightening.  Many times the people at the bottom ranks of the organization have no idea the driving forces that necessitate a change.   As a group brainstorm a list of possible reasons for the change. Dialogue on the difference between change and transition.  How long does change take?  What is a transition?   Bridges Transition Model :  Ending - Neutral Zone - New Beginning. Dialogue on the difference between satisfiers and dissatisfaction in the workplace (Herzberg's  Two-Factor theory ). See Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement survey . First just capture all the reasons that might be the answer to - Why change? Typical reasons (if you need to prime the pump - or when the answers slow down - throw one of these out to head in a different direction). Current process just doesn’t work Decrease time to market for new products Cost reducti...

Are we applying a great solutions to a poorly understood problem?   What is the question - we know the answer is 42 . The early adopters of Scrum were seeking a method of controlling the chaos of emergent product development processes.  They needed empirical methods to discern if the product was moving in a meaningful direction.  They were willing to risk accepting technical debt to validate working solutions in the hands of real customers.  They were focused on delivering value, they wanted a process that optimized on value delivery and embraced the learning process required to explore new product domains.  They were organizations capable of thriving on the edge of chaos.  Organizations in the early adopters phase seek to keep options open (decide at the last responsible moment), to pivot  upon learning about the opening market space, to fulfill an undefined emergent need. "Intelligence should be viewed as a physical process that tries to maxim...

People just don't like change.  Case in point, all the hubbub over the new iPhone 5 lightening adapter plug.  So many people are upset that the connector is changing from the 9 year old iPod 30 pin adaptor to the new lightning adaptor.  Yet at the same time the iPhone 5 pre-orders have record sells ( 2 million in first 24 hrs ). Why did Apple force this change on it's loyal customer base?  Dont they know we humans don't adapt well to changes.  Oh yes, we want the new shinny iPhone but we want it to stay the same AND get better. Maybe this picture will give you a clue as to why Apple changed the connector. It shows a typical iPhone and it's 30 pin connector, with a Raspberry Pi.  The Raspberry Pi is a full fledged computer on a board.  Take a look at the board and the most obvious thing is all the connectors.  The interface connections are the largest things.  They occupy the most space. Raspberry Pi & iPhone compared The ...

The agile reboot is underway... the company says it is using "Agile" yet there is no methodology/process/framework that defines "Agile" is there.  So it is not a very valid statement to say we do Agile.  Agile is a philosophy - defined by 4 comparative value statements and 12 principles.  So the top-dog rightly focuses the company on one well defined Agile process - Scrum.  Great move for a change initiative.  Focus is going to be important.  Now we need to discriminate the change - what is it that we want to quit doing and what do we wish to start doing?  We must label these things. Three of the 12 principles of Agile with engineering practices mapped to them (TDD, Pair Programming, etc). When we tried to map our existing practices - we found we didn't have very many disciplined practices, so this is a mapping of a desired future state. Typically it is easy - one applies the Waterfall label to the old and the Agile or Lean label or more s...