The HiPPO vs. The Dude - The Eternal Prioritization Battle

If you didn't already know, I'm a huge fan of David Hussman's "Dude's Law", which states that "Value = Why? / How?". I've used this concept both in coaching in general (as it was intended), as well as a fun and easy way to execute Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) prioritization.

A universal obstacle to value-driven prioritization is the HiPPO - the Highest Paid Person's Opinion. I still encounter this in organizations that have been on their Agile journey for over a year. It's painful for me to hear them explain the difficulties they have with changing priorities while being held accountable for the successful delivery of original commitments. Yet, when I recommend they quantify their value somehow, they explain that it can't be done. Priorities are set by people that have much more subject matter expertise and are "above my pay-band". They have to obey the HiPPO.

How does one respond to the HiPPO? With the immortal words of The Dude, of course!

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, uh, your opinion, man."

Opinions are important, but we want everyone's opinion and we want to put those opinions in context of all the available options! When a conversation framework is used to turn opinions into a quantitative estimate that can drive consistent and objective prioritization of work, it becomes easy to justify a change in plans. When teams track how much value they delivered relative to what was committed to (instead of static features or objectives) then the reluctance to take on valuable, unplanned work goes away; even more importantly, the team is armed with the data to push-back against unplanned work that really isn't as valuable as the HiPPO made it seem!

The HiPPO vs. The Dude

Dude's Law isn't the only way to prioritize work. There are other techniques you may decide to use, just know that if you stick with the HiPPO you run the risk of seriously damaging team morale and momentum. The HiPPO destroys, the Dude abides.

Practical Application of Dude's Law: The Value Estimation Game

Last summer, Todd Kromann and I presented on Dude's Law at Agile2014, and I figured it was high time that I wrote a blog post to walk through what we covered.

Dude's Law

If you're not already familiar with the Agile Dude, David Hussman, we highly recommend becoming familiar. David is most well-known for his coining of Dude's Law, which states that "Value = Why / How". The intent behind Dude's Law was to help teams avoid what David refers to as the "Recipe Trap" - doing things because that's what the "recipe" (read prescribed methodology or management mandate) says you're supposed do.

Dude's Law: Value = Why / How

Using Dude's Law as a coach is extremely powerful.It's a simple way for people to question everything they do. It emphasizes the need to know why we do the things we do. It resonates with people at an almost instinctual level.

WSJF

The more Todd and I used Dude's Law in our coaching, the more applications we found for it. Eventually, we noticed the similarities between Dude's Law and Don Reinertsen's concept of "Weighted Shortest Job First", or WSJF.

WSJF is a powerful prioritization tool. There are basically three underlying principles to WSJF. First, if all the work you have to do is the same size, you do the job with the highest cost of delay first. In other words, we want to do the work that is the most urgent or will cost us the most to not do. After all, if all the work items are going to cost us the same amount then we want to get the most out of the time spent.

Second, if all the work you have to do has the same cost of delay, do the shortest job first. In other words, if all work is equally expensive to not do then we want to start getting benefit as quickly as possible.

Third, if both the size and cost of delay are variable, do the weighted shortest job first. You do this by dividing the cost of delay by the size; the higher the result, the sooner the work in question should be executed. Since our highest cost is typically the manpower necessary to do the work, size is defined by duration. Duration is also useful as the denominator because it emphasizes the need to get things delivered quickly, so we have a bias towards smaller slices of value.

WSJF = Cost of Delay / Duration

Where's the work?

Before we go any further, we need work items. If you're applying this within a team, simply use the work that's already on your backlog (or slated to go on your backlog). Application of WSJF (or Dude's Law) tends to work best at the Epic or Feature level, but can be applied to User Stories as well.

If you don't have real-world work, you can do what we do - have the team(s) come up with their own work. We usually run this with multiple "table teams" - teams formed around tables in the room. We like to get one set of Features for the whole room so we can see the differences in prioritization by each group (it makes for some interesting conversation at the end of the workshop). To do this, we tell the room that we have a great idea for a game, but all we have is a title. Based on our market research, we know this title is a winner. We want to build "Angry Flappy Candy Bird Crush Saga". We then solicit five Features from the room that we think are essential to become profitable as quickly as possible. Voila! We now have the beginnings of a backlog.

Estimation Game

The key to applying WSJF (or Dude's Law) in the context of prioritization is the quantification of those values. We need numbers so we can do an actual numeric division to get a numeric value for WSJF (or Value). How do we do this? We highly recommend relative estimation! The most common way to use relative estimation is to use Fibonacci numbers to size items relative to each other. If you've never done this before, this can be daunting - especially for your first work item, when you do not yet have anything to compare the item's size against.

The technique that we use in this workshop is called the "Team Estimation Game". This technique works well to quickly get an initial backlog estimated. Since most people are used to estimating size anyway, we have teams estimate the size (what we refer to as "Cost of Implementation") first using the Team Estimation game. Once they're done, we have them write the number on the bottom of each story card, in the center.

The Team Estimation Game summarized

Cost of Delay

Now that we've estimated the cost of implementation, we need to estimate the cost of delay. We do this with the exact same approach we used for cost of implementation. When trying to figure out cost of delay, think of it in terms of, "How expensive is this to not do?"

When considering cost of delay, there are several factors we need to consider: inherent value to the business; urgency due to any number of reasons (legal deadlines, market demands, partner collaboration, etc.); the value of other work that's dependent on this work item being done first; risks that this item may reduce; and so on.

When we're talking about benefit, we usually use the priority scale where 1 is most important, then 2, then 3, etc. That is not what we're doing here. In this case, a 1 is something with a very low cost of delay - it's not very urgent, valuable, etc. The higher the number, the more expensive it is to not do.

Once each card has a number value, write it in the bottom left corner of the card.

Run the Math

Now that we have the two variables on the right side of the equation, we need to "run the math" to see what our WSJF (or Dude's Law) number - what we call the Value Index - comes out to be. For each card, divide the Cost of Delay (bottom-left number) by the Cost of Implementation (bottom-center number) and put the result, the Value Index, in the bottom-right corner. Order the cards from highest Value Index to lowest Value Index. This is now the priority that the math recommends you complete the work in.

As long as your estimation was honest, doing the work in this order will give you the greatest return on your investment over time. We can maximize how much we capitalize on our work as soon as possible. The below graphs help illustrate this.

Add value sooner with WSJF/Dude's Law

Remember Dude's Law

What we often find is that the first time people use this approach their prioritization is a little wonky. That's okay - the purpose of this exercise isn't to mandate what order you do things in. This approach is a conversation framework to help teams make sure they're working on things in the right order, factoring cost of implementation into the prioritization process instead of looking only at short-term benefit. Teams also find that this tool becomes more beneficial as they gain experience with it - they learn what they need to discuss in order to come to proper estimates that lead to better prioritization.

Remember the original intent behind Dude's Law: to avoid the Recipe Trap. This approach is not intended to be a recipe for the team to follow blindly. This is a tool, one that the team should understand the benefits of before they decide to adopt it. Understand the Why before jumping into the How.

You may also decide to elaborate on the formula. You may take the SAFe approach and discuss different factors to Cost of Delay instead of having a single number. You may decide to incorporate IBM's approach of Value Dials and ITBV. You may end up with a multi-sheet Excel workbook with dozens of numeric inputs that feed into a complicated formula. In the end, it all boils down to Why/How. Be careful how much extra time you put into prioritization and make sure the improvements to your prioritization justify that extra time.

Revisiting Normalized Story Points

It has been just over 18 months since I published my most popular blog post to-date: "Normalized Story Points". As of this writing, it has received over 5,400 page views, thanks primarily to the reference it has from Dean Leffingwell's blog post from ScaledAgileFramework.com entitled "More on Normalizing Story Point Estimating".

As an Agile Coach who takes continuous improvement seriously, I have learned much and grown much over the last year and a half. Here are a few of the things I've learned regarding Normalized Story Points.

Know Why You Want Them

I've become a HUGE fan of David Hussman's "Dude's Law". Before you do anything, you need to know WHY you're doing it, not just HOW to do it.

The purpose of Normalized Story Pointing is to enable high-level estimation of work for a SAFe Release Train comprised of closely aligned teams, any one of which may pull a Feature off the Program Backlog for implementation. Normalized Story Points should not be used for:

1. Comparing teams against each other
2. Forcing teams to use the same story point size (so that "1 Story Point" means exactly the same thing to everyone forever and ever amen)
3. Defining "Story Point" to mean "Ideal Man-Day"
4. Any punitive purpose

If you don't know why you're using Normalized Story Points, don't use them. If your intended use of Normalized Story Points violates the mindset established by the Agile Manifesto, don't use them (although, if this is the case then you probably won't realize it unless someone points it out to you).

Beware the Ideal Man-Day

The 4-step process for getting started with Normalized Story Points involves using time as a reference. This works well because you're using a very small story, one with very little complexity, which means the primary factor for determining "bigness" is lapsed time. That being said, I've found that teams that start with this approach have a very, very difficult time recovering from the mindset of "1 point == 1 ideal man-day". This is bad for reasons.

This also leads to teams always using days of availability to forecast velocity rather than taking a rolling average velocity or "yesterday's weather" as an indicator of what they're likely to deliver. Data trumps theory; the approach to get started is based on theory, while average velocity is data.

Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools

Processes and tools exist to enhance and enable interactions between individuals, not replace them. As I've explained in a previous post, the process of Agile estimation is beneficial primarily because of the conversation that it fosters. It's a well-formed game that drives a shared mental model of the work for the entire team.

I've found that teams that use Normalized Story Points may skimp on the conversation, especially if one team ends up with work that another team has already estimated (after all, we all share the same definition of story point, right?). This was never the intent behind Normalized Story Points, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Beware the Recipe Trap

David Hussman explained that he uses "Dude's Law" to help teams avoid what he calls the "Recipe Trap" - doing something because that's what the recipe says to do, without understanding what the intended benefits are. When it comes to Normalized Story Points, the recipe trap is very real and very dangerous. If you use it, be very careful about how you explain and implement it with your teams. If your teams can't all pull from a common backlog; if you're going to use them to run punitive metrics; if you want to streamline your process by reducing meaningful conversation; or if you're looking to use it because that's what SAFe says to do, I plead with you to reconsider.

TL;DR: Normalized Story Points can be a useful tool for your organization, but it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. 

WSJF - What to do in a tie?

Todd Kromann and I facilitated a workshop at Agile2014 on the subjects of Dude's Law and Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF). We helped the group understand how to apply relative estimation not only to Cost of Implementation (size, expense, complexity, etc.) but also Cost of Delay (urgency, risk, dependency, compliance, etc.). We used the modified Fibonacci sequence most often used for Story Points to quantify both of these numbers, which was done by table teams. Each feature's Value Index, used to prioritize, was determined by its Cost of Delay number divided by its Cost of Implementation number. (You can get a soft copy of the handout we used here).

At the end of the workshop we had, as we usually do, a team whose features included a tie. This sometimes happens because they have the exact same Cost of Delay and Cost of Implementation numbers. More often, this happens because the numbers used in the equation are different, but the division comes out the same. One of the questions that invariable arises is: which feature should be prioritized first?

In theory, it doesn't matter - the ratio of urgency to expense is the same. Once both are implemented the ROI is equal. The decision of which to do first should be determined by the organization. In reality, I believe that the smaller feature should be implemented first. I've drawn up an example to illustrate.

In this scenario, we have two features, A and B. Feature B is 20 times more expensive than A, but also 20 times as valuable. Let's look at what would happen if we implemented Feature A first.

As you can see, we get a little value very quickly and significantly more after a delay. If we say that the y-axis represents millions of dollars and the x-axis represents quarters of the year, then we get $2MM/quarter after our first three months with no increase until five years later, when our quarterly revenue jumps to $42MM. By the end of our 22nd quarter, we will have earned $82MM.

Now let's see what it would look like if we did Feature B first.

Using the same axis values as before, we're basically going five years without any revenue. However, after five years of development, our revenue jumps to $40MM/quarter, with a $2MM/quarter bump immediately after. Just like before, we will have earned $82MM by the end of our 22nd quarter and will be earning $42MM/quarter thereafter.

So which one's better?

Do you really want to go five years without bringing in any revenue? Of course not! You'd much rather start capitalizing on your work after only one quarter's worth of work. Not only do you now have some money in to fund yourself, you're learning from the market based on how they use what you've released. This new-found knowledge will improve the quality of subsequent releases.

The reality is that, although the former option is better than the latter, neither are great. What you should do is, while you implement Feature A, break down Feature B into smaller components. It is highly unlikely that all of these components will have a 2:1 ratio of CoD:CoI. You'll identify which sub-Features provide the highest relative ROI and implement them as soon as you finish with Feature A. There may be sub-Features that you never get around to implementing because the value doesn't justify the expense. You can instead move on to a new Feature and begin decomposing and prioritizing its pieces. By the end of your 22nd quarter, you'll end up bringing in much more than the $82MM/quarter number that the two options above afforded.

That's my take on what to do in the event of a WSJF tie. What would you do?

Personal WIP

As my faithful subscribers (all both of you) may have noticed, I haven't posted anything in a while. Despite my commitment at the beginning of the year to blog at least weekly, I found myself recently with too much Personal WIP (Work In Progress). Let me catch you up on what's been going on.

New Baby!

We recently welcomed our third child into the world! His older brother and sister are both very excited, as you can see. He's been a joy, one that's kept us quite busy! He came in at 10 and a half pounds, which means that I spent more and more time helping at home to alleviate the burden on my already overburdened wife. This was a no-brainer - as my WIP increased, the priority went to my family.

Agile2014

Last week I had two firsts: I attended my first Agile Alliance conference and presented at my first Agile conference! I made sure that I had family and friends in place to assist my wife with our 2-week-old and flew to Orlando to co-present with fellow Agile Coach, Todd Kromann. We didn't use any slides, just a hand-written handout (available here), some index cards, markers, and tape. We played a game and had a great discussion. We even had the Dude himself, David Hussman, show up and commend us on our use of his Intellectual Property. We had a blast! Of course, in order for it to go as smoothly as it did, I had to spend some time before the baby came tweaking the handout and rehearsing the workshop.

Walmart Agile Summit

Prior to Agile2014, I participated in a 3-day Walmart Agile Summit in June. While I wasn't as involved as I'd have liked (again, that pesky WIP), I was on the core team and got to present a dry-run of my Dude's Law workshop. I got to meet Al Shalloway and Don Reinertsen, and I got to see Pat Reed and Rich Sheridan again. It was a fantastic experience made possible through the hard work and dedication of many people. I may not have had a lot of bandwidth, but I wanted to make sure I dedicated at least some of my WIP went to the Summit.

Walmart Agile Transformation

Of course, as the Agile Summit might have indicated, we're taking the Agile effort at Walmart quite seriously. I'm not going to disclose a lot of information or details - this isn't going to be a case study - but Todd and I were the first 2 Agile Coaches in Walmart's Bentonville office, and we wanted to make sure the Agile Transformation was done by invitation, not edict. We've had fantastic support from senior leadership, and the success of our Agile teams has accelerated the grassroots momentum that's been building. The Agile Summit served as gasoline to the proverbial fire, and interest in Agile began to rise sharply, even before the first day of the Summit. My time at work has been exciting, challenging, and incredibly rewarding. As much as I wanted to keep sharing my thoughts with the blogosphere, I owe my professional efforts first and foremost to my fellow Associates.

So that's what I've been up to. I can't promise I'll resume blogging on a weekly basis, but I am cautiously optimistic that I'll be posting more regularly that I have the past few months!

Agile2014 Proposal Accepted

Today is a big day for me; today I accepted an invitation to speak at a conference for the first time! Todd Kromann and I will be co-facilitating a workshop I've put together on value-driven prioritization, based on the concepts of Hussman's "Dude's Law" and WSJF. I've copied my abstract below. If you're going to be at Agile2014, let me know! I'd love to meet you in Orlando this summer!

Practical Application of Dude's Law: Come Play the Value Estimation Game!

Abstract:

You know how you determine the "bigness" of your work and establishing commitments, but how do your customers ensure you're committing to the right thing?

Come experience relative estimation to determine value. We'll use David Hussman's "Dude's Law" (Value = Why? / How?) to prioritize the work.

We will share techniques for determining the "Why?" so that you can generate a Value Index. What many people will be surprised to learn is that they already have tools for sizing that can be used for determining value and prioritization.

Information for Review Team:
The break-out of the 75 minutes would include:
3 minutes: Introduction to Dude's Law and the Value-Driven Heuristic
10 minutes: Explain and model the first exercise (Team Estimation Game for relative sizing)
10 minutes: Have round-table teams execute first exercise with a set of 10 features
5 minutes: Explain and model the second exercise (Team Estimation Game for relative benefit - same mechanism, so it takes less time to explain and model)
10 minutes: Have the round-table teams execute second exercise with the same set of 10 features
10 minutes: Have each team determine the Value Index of each card by applying Dude's Law
15 minutes: Have teams share their outcomes, insights
12 minutes (or less, if previous sections have run over): Q&A *

* In the case that there are not enough questions to fill the remaining time, I will explain the flexibility of Dude's Law (you can use Planning Poker or whatever technique works best for you) and introduce them to concepts such as Weighted Shortest Job First and Value Dial weighting.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

The concept of Relative Sizing (Story Points, T-shirt sizing, etc.)

Learning Outcomes:

• Experience and learn how to apply a practical, proven game for prioritizing your work based on value
• Understand that using a heuristic for valuation is better than both gut-feel and over-engineering
• Understand that, as with estimating size/cost, the real value comes from the conversation

Presentation History:

I've done the Team Estimation Game dozens of times before with as many teams and have done the exercise including benefit to determine a Value Index with at least one of those teams. I also have led Program Management teams through a very similar prioritization matrix model that leverages the concept of Weighted Shortest Job First.

Comment:
My presentation is a reflection of my own beliefs and experiences. None of the material I present should be interpreted as an endorsement by my employer. I have received express written permission from David Hussman to reference Dude's Law, and I am a Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), which qualifies me to speak on their Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) Framework.

Addendum: Agile 2014 Proposals

I blogged recently about a proposal I submitted to Agile2014. As the deadline for submission is today, I won't be asking for your feedback on the submission website (unless you're a reviewer for the track). However, I'd still love to hear your thoughts here on the blog!

Additionally, I have assisted a co-worker with putting together 3 additional proposals as co-presenter. I'd like to share the information on all of these proposals here with you now. I cannot over-emphasize how much I want to hear what you think about them!

Practical Application of Dude's Law: Come Play the Value Estimation Game!

Abstract:

You know how you determine the "bigness" of your work and establishing commitments, but how do your customers ensure you're committing to the right thing?

Come experience relative estimation to determine value. We'll use David Hussman's "Dude's Law" (Value = Why? / How?) to prioritize the work.

We will share techniques for determining the "Why?" so that you can generate a Value Index. What many people will be surprised to learn is that they already have tools for sizing that can be used for determining value and prioritization.

Information for Review Team:

The break-out of the 75 minutes would include:

3 minutes: Introduction to Dude's Law and the Value-Driven Heuristic
10 minutes: Explain and model the first exercise (Team Estimation Game for relative sizing)
10 minutes: Have round-table teams execute first exercise with a set of 10 features
5 minutes: Explain and model the second exercise (Team Estimation Game for relative benefit - same mechanism, so it takes less time to explain and model)
10 minutes: Have the round-table teams execute second exercise with the same set of 10 features
10 minutes: Have each team determine the Value Index of each card by applying Dude's Law
15 minutes: Have teams share their outcomes, insights
12 minutes: Explain the flexibility of Dude's Law (you can use Planning Poker or whatever technique works best for you) and introduce them to concepts such as Weighted Shortest Job First and Value Dial weighting*

* As this section is the least important it may be reduced or eliminated if previous sections run long

Prerequisite Knowledge:

The concept of Relative Sizing (Story Points, T-shirt sizing, etc.)

Learning Outcomes:

1.       Experience and learn how to apply a practical, proven game for prioritizing your work based on value

2.       Understand that using a heuristic for valuation is better than both gut-feel and over-engineering

3.       Understand that, as with estimating size/cost, the real value comes from the conversation

Presentation History:

I've done the Team Estimation Game dozens of times before with as many teams and have done the exercise including benefit to determine a Value Index with at least one of those teams. I also have led Program Management teams through a very similar prioritization matrix model that leverages the concept of Weighted Shortest Job First.

Comment:

My presentation is a reflection of my own beliefs and experiences. None of the material I present should be interpreted as an endorsement by my employer. I have received express written permission from David Hussman to reference Dude's Law, and I am a Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), which qualifies me to speak on their Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) Framework.

The Secret Sauce of Agile

Abstract:

Humans are basically moist robots. As much as we like to think that we are logical, rational beings, we really aren't. The best thing we can do to improve our decision-making is to influence our environment and develop skills that will increase the odds of making the right decisions.

Beyond the techniques, practices, principles, and even beyond the manifesto; that's the secret to Agile success. Through dialog, games, and an open agenda, we'll explore that secret. Together we'll find the next evolution of Agile via application of that secret.

The foundations of Agile are human centered and scientifically backed. To get the most out of Agile and to leapfrog beyond it, we need to understand how Agile works. It's the wiring of our social minds, the relationships, tacit knowledge, and our predictably irrational natures that ensure Agile success and doom all other approaches. So, what is that secret sauce that mix of ingredients?

Information for Review Team:

Introduction (7 minutes)

We will discuss the hypothesis that influencing those factors that determine our decisions is a more effective use of time than simply exerting willpower to make correct decisions. We will introduce factors of significance that we have already found and invite the audience to provide others.

Mind Mapping (50 minutes; up to 10 minutes per factor)

We will use mind-mapping to explore what we can do, as practitioners and coaches, to increase our odds of success by influencing:

1.       Knowledge and skill-set (what knowledge, if internalized and applied, will help us make the right choices?)

2.       Environment (How can we modify our physical environment to make us more successful?)

3.       Chemical makeup of our bodies (What foods, drinks, and activities make us more likely to succeed?)

4.       Removal of guesswork (What decisions can we make when in a "rational" state that will lessen the impact of impulse decisions when we're "irrational", i.e. conflict protocols, etc.?)

5.       Others as identified by the audience

So What? (Remaining Time)

Use the information to help those in the audience generate actions based on their new knowledge to help their teams and organizations succeed. This is not a theoretical exercise; this is an Inspect & Adapt exercise rooted in human psychology.

We are prepared to adjust the presentation style depending on the seating arrangement; we can make both work well.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

Deep experience with breathing

Learning Outcomes:

1.       Learn the success secrets of Agile embedded in human behavior, social science, and the way we're wired.

2.       Learn to use science and human nature to go beyond Agile.

3.       Walk out being able to use your knowledge to be more successful with Agile.

4.       Move to the next evolution of Agile.

Presentation History:

This is a new approach that we're experimenting with currently with small teams and leadership groups. The agenda is loose because every group is different and responds differently; our goal is to let those present take ownership of the meeting and take it where they need it to go.

Flexible IT Using Enterprise Kanban

Abstract:

We will walk through multiple examples of how to setup visual signaling systems to replace the wasteful reports, meetings, management, tools currently used to track, prioritize, manage, and control portfolios, investments, programs, and projects. This talk will describe the essentials of how IT can adapt to massive disruptions. The story comes from one of the world’s largest companies. We've altered things to form a generic story; but the techniques are proven, simple, working and effective. These disruptions are constant major shifts in technology and business that have been canceling and starting new programs / projects for years.

Big data, competitive innovation, mobility, leverage, and fluxes in profit and loss have had huge impact over IT. Consider having to building a data center, starting a big data pillar with hundreds of specialists, and dropping large portions of budget all at the same time. These disruptions cannot be planned for their adaptations in response to technology, financials, and business changes.

To protect the innocent, this story details in this discussion have been formed in the form of a story. However, this leverages stories from a successful implementation of enterprise kanban at a major retailer. The approach is so simple it may not seem realistic. But stories of dealing flexibly with disruption are becoming common. Our stories will be richer and will have more real without any complexity. This story leverages a chain of values, decentralized and centralized decision-making, transparency, collaborations, evolutionary architecture, and innovations. These form the backbone for allowing a simple kanban system manage the flow of a flexible approach to dealing with global, enterprise disruption.

Information for Review Team:

Ideally, this would use large post-its and sticky notes with strings in a live demonstration. Our current system uses LeanKit; but we'd like to present tool agnostic.

The break-out of the 75 minutes would include:

5 minutes: Introductions - A story of 5 Continuous Crucial Conversations
5 minutes: Pre-requisites to Flexibility
5 minutes: Disruption – Innovation – Zero Click Shopping
5 minutes: A Flexible Response –Enterprise kanban in Action
5 minutes: Business Leadership - Reprioritize IT funding (Business Investments)
5 minutes: IT Leadership – Adjust IT capacity and create big requirements– (epics)
5 minutes: Domain Leadership - Breaks big requirements into pieces, rank, and distribute work (sub-epics)
5 minutes: Team of Teams Leadership - Form domain teams, Break sub-epics, and rank (features)
5 minutes: Teams - Break features into stories, Deliver solution parts (stories)
5 minutes: Enterprise kanban as an Innovation engine
5 minutes: Enterprise kanban supported by Lean IT & Kanban Services
5 minutes: Enterprise kanban as an Execution engine
15 minutes: Q&A

Prerequisite Knowledge:

Have to have worked in mindless, massive, and. Mismanaged companies. Need to have intimate, firsthand knowledge of corporate waste, stupid status and other mindless bureaucracy. Must have years of experience trying to do the right thing while working with overly complex, boring and unproductive program and portfolio management policies, processes, methods, tools and people.

Learning Outcomes:

1.       Walk out being able to setup a simple, flexible way to connect the effort of teams of teams.

2.       Trace funding, strategy and progress to value delivery.

3.       Increase visibility and communication while decreasing reporting, meetings, and planning.

4.       Know how to use enterprise Kanban to replace status reports, time sheets, and management.

5.       Having talking points and examples that will help you set your organization free of vanity metrics, over processing, and micro management.

Presentation History:

Not formally presented outside the company internal Agile User Group

Leading Agile Transformation from a Beach: 2 Agile Coaches’ Journeys

Abstract:

Todd and Mike have both experienced the growing pains that come from becoming Agile and helping others with the same. They had similar experiences and learned similar lessons, but their journeys have been surprisingly different. One took 15 years, the other took 5, and both took longer than they had to.

This is a story of what not to do, what to do, and how do it by not doing anything. It pulls from at least six multi-year Agile transformations in some of the world’s largest companies. We'll share our experience in a story that is sometimes funny, mostly true, and utterly real. We'll save you from failures, help you see new ways of transforming yourself, teams, companies, and cultures. Or, perhaps, we'll just provide a self-affirmation opportunity for you to confirm that what you are doing is much more intelligent than what other Agilists have done.

Information for Review Team:

May have to protect names to save the innocent and spend less on legal fees. Combined transformation experience of almost 2 decades covering thousands in major companies and consulting firms.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

Must have lead an Agile transformation of a team, set of teams, company or, that hardest of all Agile transformations - yourself.

Learning Outcomes:

1.       Build confidence

2.       Teach you how to transform without working

3.       Help you avoid stupid transformations

Presentation History:

First time for this one. Parts shared at PMI chapter and local Agile User groups.

Attachments:

Leading_From_Beach.pdf