I’ve been listening to this absolutely fantastic pull-no-punches podcast from Australian Broadcasting Corp. about management culture, especially MBA management culture. It’s a wide ranging podcast touching on Taylorism, Outsourcing and the current financial crisis. It’s direct, scathing and totally on the money. If I had to recommend just one podcast this year … then this would be it!
Something happened to management culture decades ago and now being a Master of Business Administration, especially from Harvard, is rather on the nose. MBA, it’s being said, can also stand for ‘Mediocre but Arrogant’, or ‘Management by Accident’. Reporter, Stephen Crittenden.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2526727.htm
Filed under: Cultural Change, Organisation Change , management, MBA, Project Management
Image by Mzelle Biscotte: http://www.flickr.com/photos/biscotte/
Introducting Scrum leads to organization change. The specific details of how an organization changes is different for every organization. There is however a number of changes that most organizations will experience as they migrate to Scrum. These are the top five organizational changes that I’ve seen when implementing Scrum.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Scrum , Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Scrum
Image by Zevotron: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomurl/
Over the last few years we’ve seen the introduction of Agile software development into the mainstream. In 2006 the Agile Alliance are
claimed that Agile frameworks had
crossed the chasm. Frameworks such as Scrum have been seized upon by management and they are the ones who are now controlling the introduction of Agility.
The reasons for this are quite understandable. Management are simply looking for ways to improve how technology (and especially software) is created. And why shouldn’t they? As a profession we have been spectacular in our failures. We have deliver low quality code, at a cost that’s greater than what was promised, and we’ve delivered it late. We should expect there to be changes to this state of affairs.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum, Technology , Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum, Technology
Team self-organization is one of the key principles [1] of Scrum and its introduction to an organization raises a number of interesting questions around decisions and decision making. Specifically, the introduction of Scrum leads to consensus-based decisions by the team. I believe that the consensus model of decision is superior the an authoritarian model and results in superior decisions and better information.
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Filed under: Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management
Over the last six months, I have been working with a client that is moving from “RUP” to Scrum. It’s unfair to describe their projects as using RUP because in truth they’re more waterfall than RUP. The project teams used RUP nomenclature and artifacts, but still worked within the waterfall lifecycle.
One particular project that I help convert had an interesting set of circumstances that put the Product Owner/Customer in a very difficult situation.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Estimating, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum
Personal note: I started this article about 9 months ago. Although it’s quite a fun article, I have become increasingly critical of the use of analogies to describe software development. My feeling is that analogies lead to assumption that may, or may not, be valid. So, rather than talk about building a bridge, a house or cooking Thai food I’d rather talk about software specific problems or situations.
After some personal doubt I finally decided to complete the article because it is amusing, if not insightful. I hope you enjoy the article. In the future I’ll endeavour to keep analogies far, far away.
Mae Phim is a small Thai restaurant in Seattle [1]. I went there with my colleagues last year and we were impressed with their speed of operations. Within the space of a few short minutes, we were able to place an order and received a hot, freshly cooked meal.
Despite the short duration, it was sufficient time for us to wonder if there were any lessons here to use in Agile software development. After all, if we were able to deliver software as rapidly and with the same high quality as Mae Phim delivers food then that would surely be a good thing.
An interesting observation was that the business model for Mae Phim is common to the business model of other Thai restaurants [especially those that cater to the lunchtime crowd who present their own set of unique challenges]. This article discusses some of the characteristics of their operation and discusses the applicability (or not) to developing software.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Patterns, Planning, Project Management, Scrum
When introducing Agile/Scrum practices to a new team it’s common for the team to have very chaotic or drawn out meetings. Often the daily scrum will degenerate into a long conversation over topics that are of little interest to the team.
Long daily meetings are insidious for Agile teams. If the the team spends more than 15 minutes in a daily meeting they are more likely to stop having them. It’s important therefore to keep the meetings short and to the point.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Patterns, Project Management, Scrum
Many teams often ask who is the best person to fill the ScrumMaster role. The assumption is that this role is best filled by someone who was previously a project manager [or is the current project manager of a team]. Clients ask: “What’s the difference between leading a RUP (or Waterfall) team, and leading a Scrum Team?”
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum
[Update: This is part 4 of a four part series. Here are links to part 1,
part 2, part 3 and part 4.]
When initially introducing Agile practices to a team, the difficulties experienced by the team are all centered on the immediate adoption of the practices, and the consequences of that adoption. After some experimentation with Agile methods the focus becomes centered on larger problems that confront an entire team. Once experienced with Agile practices the problems are larger still and will confront many teams. The scope and nature of the problems faced by an Agile team grow over time as knowledge of Agile practices spread throughout the organization in ever increasing circles of influence.
In an effort to discuss the issues faced by Agile teams, I’ve broken down these issues into the following categories: People, Process, Technology, Teams, Management and Culture. My final article in this series of articles ([1], [2] and [3]) discusses team, management and cultural impediments faced by teams transitioning to an Agile model.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum
[Update: This is part 3 of a four part series. Here are links to part 1,
part 2, part 3 and part 4.]
In the first two articles in this series I discussed an overall road-map for introducing Agile methodologies into an enterprise [1] followed by a plan [2]. Both of these articles only considered an idealized scenario, one in which there was a logical progression and there was little (if any) objection. This is seldom the case.
There is often very strong resistance to the introduction of Agile methodologies from many quarters. This resistance may be direct, or it may be indirect. Ultimately however it is related to the organization’s or individual’s perceived threat to their position, authority or compensation (i.e. power and money).
This article discusses some of the impediments that may be faced by a transition to Agile methods.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Planning, Project Management, Scrum
[Update: This is part 2 of a four part series. Here are links to part 1,
part 2, part 3 and part 4.]
As Agile methodologies gain wider acceptance, they will be taken up by larger numbers of organizations. The question of how to introduce an Agile methodology into an enterprise with the least amount of risk will become more and more common. The two approaches that are typically talked about are Top-Down, where senior management take the initiative to introduce Agile, and Bottom-Up where developers and testers take the initiative to introduce Agile.
The truth of the matter is that both of these approaches have flaws. The successful approaches that I’ve witnessed have used some combination of both the Top-Down and Bottom-Up approaches. Agile software development practices can force large changes in the corporate culture, and making the change to an Agile organization is only possible if there is support from all parties involved.
Ultimately, there needs to be some coordination of both these efforts. There needs to be some planned approach to deal with concerns raised by those who do the work, in addition to those who lead the organization and make the strategy a reality.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Planning, Project Management, Scrum
[Update: This is part 1 of a four part series. Here are links to part 1,
part 2, part 3 and part 4.]
Once introduced into an organization Agile software development practices can spread quicker than can be controlled. Without a strategy Agile projects can emerge with different or even conflicting approaches. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but a traditionally top-down management structure can be uncomfortable adjusting to the more egalitarian Agile approach. There will be concerns over introducing Agile practices in a consistent manner without cause undue risk.
Over the last two years I’ve been involved with several clients who were trying to rollout Agile practices across the enterprise. The stages that each of these organizations moved through were very similar as were the problems that they faced. It is possible to anticipate some for these problems and to lessen their impact but only if there is a known roadmap for the overall strategy. Although no two organizations follow exactly the same path, nor have the exactly the same timing, it is possible to exact the major trends and patterns.
What follows is an overview of those major trends and patterns.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum
In the realm of software development there is a board spectrum of different processes currently in use; from the very complex where each and every change to is analysted and designed many different different ways, to chaos where changes occurs without control or testing.
My good friends Alex Pukinskis, Jason Lewis, and I were discussing Agile software processes and where they placed on a graph relative to other methodologies and chaos. Alex drew the graph which I’ve shown below. I’ve seen this diagram reproduced by other people since, but because Alex was the first to introduce me to it, I’ve called it the Pukinskis Graph.
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Filed under: Cultural Change, Project Management
So you’ve started you’re Agile project and the first thing that a team member asks you is “What is my Role and what are my Responsibilities?” At this point it’s common for Agile practitioners to start waxing philosophically about shared responsibility, the advantages of being multi-skilled and how responsibility should be shared by the team.
Although this is all well and good, it’s not concrete advice and does not directly answer the question. From the point of view of a developer (or Analyst, or Tester etc) that is accustomed to working in a structured environment the lack of clearly defined roles and responsibilities can be very unsettling.
I’ve used variations of the following framework on previous projects. I’ve found it useful in that it does not explicitly define what an individual should do, but provides enough guidance to ensure that team members are comfortable.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Project Management, Scrum
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