Hans Samios' Personal Lean-Agile Knowledge Base

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====== How Do We Encourage Agile Thinking in Non-Agile Organizations? - SSA ======

Or:

  * "How do we improve our effectiveness?"
  * "How do we become Agile when there is no one here to help?"
  * "How do we do DIY Agile?"

====== Summary (For Those Who Do Not Want to Read The Whole Article) ======

To help your people improve how they **do it right**, **do it fast**, and **do it on time** the steps you should take as a leader are:

  - [[how_do_i_create_the_best_organizational_structure_for_success|Set up the best organizational structure for success]]: Create small (less than 10 people), autonomous, cross-functional, teams with compatible soft-skills. Create virtual Teams; no need to go through a re-org to make this happen.
  - [[how_do_i_set_expectations_of_my_people_so_they_are_motivated_to_improve|Set the appropriate expectations for your people so they will improve]]: Be clear that your business need for the Team is "… running, tested, ship-able solutions, built according to an evolving view of customer and solution, on a regular basis (say every week or two)." Leadership defines the "why" and "what". Teams figure out the "how". This statement supports "do it right, do it fast, do it on time."
  - Support your people by:
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_help_my_team_by_removing_systematic_impediments_that_slow_or_stop_work|Removing systematic impediments that slow or stop their work]]: Constantly ask "When you last talked about improvements as a Team, what experiments came out, and what issues can I help you with?" Be prepared to take on and resolve the most thorny of issues.
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_provide_space_to_my_teams_to_improve|Providing space to improve by allowing experimentation and failure]]: Establish the mantra "Improving daily work is more important than doing daily work". Encourage tactical automation (continuous small investments in automation) of the deployment pipeline.
  - [[how_do_i_hold_my_people_accountable|Hold your people accountable for improving their results]]. Ask "How will you know ..." questions. For example, ask "How will you know you are improving your ability to produce solid testable solutions?" or "How will you know your customer is happy?"

Want to know more?

====== What Steps Do I Take to Help My People Improve Value Delivery? (Long Version) ======

One word of warning before we get started. You will often see terminology on this page such as "product", "project", "every two weeks", and so on which are associated with the traditional application of Agile to software and IT systems. Know that these approaches have been applied to all kinds of knowledge work, from ticket driven systems, to hardware development and installation, to teaching, marketing, finance, and HR; anywhere there is knowledge work and where we need to become more effective. The approach and advice here is generic. As a leader you need to establish, to be clear about, what it means to be a great, high performing Team in your context.

It is clear that Agile (and Lean) practices and mindset are effective. However there are often situations where coaching capacity is at a premium and you want to start reaping the benefits now.

As leaders (I am going to be using the term to mean "manager", "leader", "supervisor") you want to want to know "how do I encourage my people to become more Agile so that they become more effective, but also so they don’t end up doing something regrettable or wrong?"

Historically Agile is a grass-roots movement. It arose out the notion that there had to be a more effective way doing knowledge work than pretending that that knowledge work is just like a manufacturing operation. As people worked through this they discovered principles and practices that proved to be more effective; that allowed groups of people to become Teams. These Teams produced more than the sum of their people would indicate. We called these Teams “high performing”. They found leadership approaches that improved a Team’s chances of becoming high performing.

As a leader you can set set things up so that your people can discover these principles and practices. The good news is that your people can leverage existing knowledge rather than inventing everything for themselves. Improving performance should happen faster that if they had to start from scratch.

To create the right environment for your people you will need to set things up so that your people head in the right direction. You need to provide clarity on what you are expecting. You need to support your people so they can do what is needed. You need to provide them with space to try things out and even fail sometimes. You need to help, removing systematic impediments that will slow or stop their work. And you will need to provide the organizational structure so your people have the best chance to succeed.

In other words, as leaders we need to:

  - [[how_do_i_create_the_best_organizational_structure_for_success|Set up the best organizational structure for success]]
  - [[how_do_i_set_expectations_of_my_people_so_they_are_motivated_to_improve |Set the appropriate expectations for your people so they will improve]]
  - Support your people by:
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_help_my_team_by_removing_systematic_impediments_that_slow_or_stop_work|Removing systematic impediments that slow or stop their work]]
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_provide_space_to_my_teams_to_improve|Providing space to improve by allowing experimentation and failure]]
  - [[how_do_i_hold_my_people_accountable|Hold your people accountable for improving their results]]

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====== Summary (Re-stating the Beginning) ======

What you should do if you want your people to move to Agile? The "short version" of the steps you should take if you want your people to move to using Agile is:

To help your people improve how they **do it right**, **do it fast**, and **do it on time** the steps you should take as a leader are:

  - [[how_do_i_create_the_best_organizational_structure_for_success|Set up the best organizational structure for success]]: Create small (less than 10 people), autonomous, cross-functional, teams with compatible soft-skills. Create virtual Teams; no need to go through a re-org to make this happen.
  - [[how_do_i_set_expectations_of_my_people_so_they_are_motivated_to_improve|Set the appropriate expectations for your people so they will improve]]: Be clear that your business need for the Team is "… running, tested, ship-able solutions, built according to an evolving view of customer and solution, on a regular basis (say every week or two)." Leadership defines the "why" and "what". Teams figure out the "how". This statement supports "do it right, do it fast, do it on time."
  - Support your people by:
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_help_my_team_by_removing_systematic_impediments_that_slow_or_stop_work|Removing systematic impediments that slow or stop their work]]: Constantly ask "When you last talked about improvements as a Team, what experiments came out, and what issues can I help you with?" Be prepared to take on and resolve the most thorny of issues.
    - [[how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_support_my_people_so_they_improve#how_do_i_provide_space_to_my_teams_to_improve|Providing space to improve by allowing experimentation and failure]]: Establish the mantra "Improving daily work is more important than doing daily work". Encourage tactical automation (continuous small investments in automation) of the deployment pipeline.
  - [[how_do_i_hold_my_people_accountable|Hold your people accountable for improving their results]]. Ask "How will you know ..." questions. For example, ask "How will you know you are improving your ability to produce solid testable solutions?" or "How will you know your customer is happy?"

Done properly, you will see success. As John P. Kotter says in his book "Accelerate":

> "... when you find energized people producing effective change, you almost always find people who want to do just that and feel they have been given permission to do so."

Your job is to create this environment for your people.

This will not be easy for you. You will be uncomfortable because there is risk here. You will need to take a leap of faith. You will need to lead-by-example. You will be watched by your people. Your behavior will be reflected by the Team.

And you will need to adapt the generic advice here to something that is concrete, clear in your context of what it means to be a great, a high performing, Team.

But you can expect to see results, and as you and the Team learns, you will find the knowledge generated is applicable in many areas.

Good luck!

====== Now Just a Minute, Don’t We Need Coaching? ======

The short answer is "you really don’t NEED coaching." You will be able to get to where you want to go without it.

Don’t get me wrong; there are benefits to bringing a coach in as they can provide:

  * A sense of urgency resulting in continuous, probably gentle, pressure applied to the organization to change.
  * A different point of view when it comes to assessing how things are going and where we should go to next, based on the wider understanding the coach has of base agile, lean etc. thinking as well as their experience in working other organizations.
  * A set of individuals in your organization will be developing their skills based mentor-ship and coaching of the coach.
  * A wider set of ideas on how to work specific situations that arise in your organization as a result of their wider experience.
  * A cheerleader that can help drive the transformation as a result of their experience at seeing things improve in other organizations (they “know” agile will help) which can help overcome obstacles.
  * A point of stability as, when things do not go as expected (big or small) there is someone in the room that is calm and helping you through the situation.
  * A way of explaining new concepts that may be difficult for the organization to accept. For many, agile and lean concepts applied to knowledge work are counter intuitive or worse, simply unbelievable. But people need to make the change in mindset to really get the business results they need. A good story, a good metaphor developed by working in previous transformations can help the organization get more quickly to understanding and application.

But these benefits will not stop you from being successful. It may mean that improvements don't happen as fast as they would have if you had a coach. And you will benefit in that you will know how to improve without having a coach as a crutch.

====== Want to Know More? ======

Before you start encouraging your Team toward Agile, you probably should improve your understanding of what to expect. There are literally thousands of books, blogs, podcasts, articles, etc. out there and, by all means feel free to research them all.

===== Approach =====

Let’s assume you don’t have time to do the research, and just want to understand a little more about what you’ll be asking your people to do as well as have the background so you can defend your ideas and requests. There is no need for you to be expert at everything. You can learn as your people do.

Here are a couple of articles that I used to develop this approach that will provide good background.

  * [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/09/08/explaining-agile/#17cf872c301b|“Explaining Agile”]] by Steve Denning. Forbes Magazine article that explains common characteristics for Agile from a business perspective.
  * [[https://ronjeffries.com/articles/018-01ff/imposition/|"How to Impose Agile"?]] by Ron Jeffries. Tongue-in-cheek title for a thought experiment about how he’d "impose" Agile on his organization, if he was the boss and knew that Agile works, but didn’t want be not Agile by dictating how people work.
  * [[https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game|"The New New Product Development Game"]] by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka. One of the original inspirations for Scrum, this (is the influential) HBR article discusses research findings of common principles used by leading companies to innovate knowledge.
  * [[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html|What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team]] by Charles Duhigg. Report on research from Google that showed that emotional intelligence of all Team members and psychological safety of the Team were better predictors of a Team being high performance than other more traditional approaches such as building a Team using all “best” people at specific jobs.
  * [[how_do_small_changes_lead_to_big_improvements|How Do Small Changes Lead to Big Improvements?]]. Blog posting to help you understand the effect of compounding, small improvements in your quest for high performing Teams.
  * [[how_much_coaching_do_we_really_need|How Much Coaching Do We Really Need?]]. Blog posting to help you understand the pros and cons of using an Agile coach.

===== Books =====

If you have time, there are some excellent books out there that will help broaden your understanding:

  * [[https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Scrum-Practical-Addison-Wesley-Signature-ebook-dp-B008NAKA5O/dp/B008NAKA5O/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=|Essential Scrum]] by Kenny Rubin. If you go the Scrum (one of the Agile practices) this book is the best, most pragmatic introduction.
  * [[https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business-ebook/dp/B078Y98RG8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PG16LFRUNCW0&dchild=1&keywords=phoenix+project&qid=1586976736&sprefix=phoeni%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1|The Phoenix Project]] by Gene Kim. This is an easy to read "business novel" that helps people understand how to improve the delivery process.

More at [[recommended_reading|Recommended Reading]].

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