We’re here to change the world – Reflections on Agile Australia 2015

“You are not here to build software. You are here to change the world” were the words used by Linda Rising at her Keynote that was attended by 1100 attendees at the 7th Agile Australia Conference in Sydney last month.  In today’s world, you can’t stay still.  Nigel Dalton cited Charles Darwin when he said

It is not the strongest species [organisation] that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Agile Australia Conference Attendees 2009 to 2015

Over two jam packed days, there were a lot of new ideas to experiment with but there were also some basics to cater for those just starting out on their agile journey. The vibe at the conference is that Agile is no longer a fad and is transforming across the wider organisation – we have crossed the chasm from IT agility to business agility. However, speaking with people from the trenches there are still many struggling to get the benefits of agile with existing hierarchical management style at odds with the horizontal product delivery focus of agile. James Shore summaries this well when he said

agile is about how you think and that organisation thinking overrides team thinking. Therefore success with agile depends primarily on organisational culture and investments.

Here’s some highlights from the conference:

David Marquet (@ldavidmarquet) – Intent-based leadership

David Marquet is a former nuclear submarine commander and author of the book ‘Turn the ship around‘. His opening Keynote looked at the future of Leadership.

• In the future leaders will get people to think (not do)
• In the future Leaders will help people feel safe (not scared)
• In the future leaders will push authority to information (not information to authority)
• People doing the work can make better decisions because they have the information. You will get better speed of execution because you don’t have a delay.
• In the future leaders will focus on getting better (not being good)
• In the future leaders will fix the environment (not the people)
• In the future, leaders will give control & take leadership
  • The only thing hard about this is you, we have been genetically and culturally to take control and attract followers. What you want to do is give control and create leaders.

During his keynote, David did a live poll of the audience on what it would like to work in an environment where the leadership style meant controlling people . I hope the managers and leaders in your organisation are not creating a work environment like this….

What working under a leadership style that meant controlling people, David Marquet

Jeremie Benazra (@jemben) – How forgotten knowledge will help you avoid regrettable decisions

Jeremie’s presentation took a interesting look at turning some common questions we may face into reality checks using some common principles that we know today. Whenever we make decisions we need to be grounded (and often reminded) that there are certain principles that may challenge our biases.

Bernd Schiffer (@berndschiffer) – Concrete experimentation in Agile environments

Bernd talked about a problem that many organisations face today, struggling turning change ideas into tangible outcomes so they get better at being Agile. What we need is a way to use experiments to drive change throughout the organisation and Bernd introduced a nice mnemonic to help us remember how to perform an experiment to drive change and improvement – CAT SHOE, SIC! It’s really simple of course:

CAT SHOE, SIC!, Bernd Schiffer

• Clear goal – what are the outcomes you want to achieve
• Arranged – A plan how you will approach the experiment
• Trackable through metrics – measure the improvement/change. did it have an impact?
• Small – make small incremental experiements, short timeframe, small/one team.
• Has due date – do I need to say more? timebox the experiment
• Out in the open – make the experiment visible eg use ganban boards
• Evaluated through hypothesis – leveraging the lean startup approach, what hypothesis are you trying to prove? what does success look like? what does failure look like?
• Safe-To-Fail – it is an experiment after all so we need to take some risks, but balance risk taking with impact if it fails. You need to be able to recover (and learn) from failure
• Impelled by champions – need people (1 or 2) to sponsor and champion the experiment – they will own the outcome and be impelled to make it happen
• Communicated before start – be transparent and make sure everyone understands and is comfortable with the experiment before starting

Stuart Bargon (@StuartBargon) – Don’t scale Agile. Descale your organisation.

With many talks about scaling agile and lots of conversations in the industry about applying agile in the large enterprises, its easy to forget what makes agile successful. Enterprises often scale by watering down agile.  So it was refreshing to see a talk about descaling the organisation.   Stuart described how Fairfax Media, one of Australia’s oldest public companies transformed its Domain Group business to be a focused, nimble, growing and Agile company.

Descale your organisation, Stuart Bargon

Of note, when Fairfax Media formed Domain Group, they moved PMO across but then moved it back into Fairfax Media.  From the image, you can see from the new structure the PMO were no longer needed as the decisions that was traditionally done by the PMO is now taken on internally by the Product Development Teams (circled in green) as they are closer to the information.  Not only did they descale the organisation, the descaled the need for coordination/projects by making teams responsible for a product area and are largely independent of each other.  To enable teams have this autonomy, they made some investments to descale their technology and introduced microservices.  The decoupled technology removed the tight coupling/dependencies between teams so they can be autonomous and release independently.

Spotify Agile Coach, Anders Ivarsson

Linda Rising (@RisingLinda) – Myths and patterns of organisational change

Linda is the author of several books, the most notable being Fearless Change – Patterns for Introducing New Ideas.  Just like Design Patterns from the Gang of Four, Linda has introduced some patterns as way to address recurring problems with organisational change.  There are some cognitive biases that prevent us from introducing new ideas and she tackled these through demystifying these myths and their pattern for change and influence:

Myth	Pattern for Change
Myth #1: Smart People are rational Most people make decisions that are not rational or for logical reasons.  In reality rational arguments with reasons, benefits and decision tables do not convince people. No matter how well you explain things to people, people don’t buy-in. None of our decisions are rational, but we are good at explaining decisions once a decision has been made – a process called rationalisation.	Take on a role of a Evangelist.You need to believe and have a passion for the change.  What you have is your belief that your idea is a good one and that it will work.Create short term goals – build on your successes and learn from your failures – do small experiments, just do it, time for reflection, baby steps.
Myth #2: Good always triumphs over evil. (Just World Fallacy, one of our many cognitive biases.) My idea is so good, that should be enough. There is a belief that truth, justice and good should win.	Do Food. Data clearly shows, that when we are eating we are more open to influence.All languages speak to this connection.  When we eat together, there’s a feeling these are the people we trust – its a great influencer even if its a bad idea.
Myth #3: If I just had enough power I could make people change. People believe that they can tell people what to do, and if they don’t they can just fire them. This is an illusion, this does not make real change.  Forcing people to change, you may get compliance (or appearance of compliance).  What you want is real change.  We want people who are passionate about and care about it.  We want people to have real commitment, and you can’t get this with an edict.	Personal Touch.You must address a genuine user need.  Data does not equal empathy.  You need to reach out and try to understand the viewpoint of people who you want to change and give them a reason (sell your idea as a way for them to be better).Different people accept new ideas differently, so you will need to address people differently and answer the “What’s in it for me?” and bring them along the journey.
Myth #4: Skeptics, cynics, resistors—THOSE people, well, they must be BAD or STUPID or BOTH!! Ignore them!! We label people as THOSE people.  This ends up dividing the world up.	Fear LessUse resistance to your advantage. Listen, really listen and learn all you can, even from the cynics.  Respect and build on the resistance.Find a Champion Skeptic: Encourage a resistor to play the important role of “Devil’s Advocate.”  Treat the person as valued partner in the change effort.  Get them to help get better.
Myth #5:You’re a smart person, so you don’t need help from others. After all, it’s your idea!	Ask For HelpThe idea is yours and you believe in it, but the change must NOT be “all about you”.You need other people’s help.  And when others help you, recognise their contribution with Sincere Appreciation – this is a powerful influencer!  The thanks must be sincere, timely, contain details of what they did and the impact of their help.

What pattern will you use to change?

Linda was very generous with her busy travel schedule and joined us at the Agile Coaching Circles Meetup the following day in Melbourne.

Final words…