Agile is an ideal organizational model to manage complex domains, but it does question many structural and cultural assumptions found in a traditional management culture. This presentation shows how transforming a large enterprise towards Agile requires not only a shift in methodology but also a shift in beliefs. We examine the limits of implementing Agile into a traditional enterprise and explore some transformational approaches that address these limits.
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ETIENNE LAVERDIÈRE
PMP, PMI-ACP, CSP,
ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF
15 years in IT
Agile Coach, Tech Lead
Digital Tango ltée
@elaverdi
HUGO VILLENEUVE
Engineering graduate
15 years in IT
Tech Lead
Start up Co-Founder
Enterprise Architect
Desjardins Bank
@hugovilleneuve
Presented at Agile Tour Montreal 2014 in French : http://goo.gl/69lvBa
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OurAgilefort
Leading an agile project of 60 pers. inside a
waterfall project of 500+ pers.
Cultural Clash
4. 4
IT Projects are getting more complex, but
our management approach is still the same
04
1:1RatioWBS
5. 5
Complexity Factors in Large Enterprise
Cynefin Framework
Organizational Culture
Lessons Learned and recommendations
05
Organizational
Structure and
Culture
Complexity
Agenda:
8. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
More Stakeholders
More variability
More systems and
interconnections
More technical
knowledge
More requirements,
higher expectations
More innovation and
new technologies
More Legacy Systems
and technical debt
08
Complexity Factors in a large Enterprise
10. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
10
Complicated: Knowable
Simple: Known
Cause and effect is
obvious to all
« Best Practices »
Complex
Chaotic
11. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
11
Cause and effect
requires analysis,
investigation and/or
the application of
expert knowledge
« Good Practices »
« Best Practices »
Complicated: Knowable
Simple: Known
Cause and effect is
obvious to all
Complex
Chaotic
12. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
12
Cause and effect can
only be perceived in
retrospect, but not in
advance
« Good Practices »
« Best Practices »
Complicated: Knowable
Simple: Known
Cause and effect
requires analysis,
investigation and/or
the application of
expert knowledge
Cause and effect is
obvious to all
Complex
Chaotic
« Emergent Practice »
13. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
No relationship
between cause and
effect
13
« Good Practices »
« Best Practices »
Complicated: Knowable
Simple: Known
Cause and effect can
only be perceived in
retrospect, but not in
advance
Cause and effect
requires analysis,
investigation and/or
the application of
expert knowledge
Cause and effect is
obvious to all
« Crisis management »
Complex
Chaotic
« Emergent Practice »
14. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
14
« Good Practices »
« Best Practices »« Crisis management »
Complicated: KnowableComplex
Chaotic Simple: Known
« Emergent Practice »
Follow a plan
Build a plan
Build a solution
Adapt to a context
Act
15. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
15
« Good Practices »
« Best Practices »
16%
38%
25%
18%
Complicated: Knowable
Simple: Known
« Crisis management »
Complex
Chaotic
« Emergent Practice »
Task repartition in a standard IT Project
Joseph Pelrine, On Understanding Software Agility - A Social Complexity Point Of View, 2011
16. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Traditional
managementAgile
16
Agile works well in a complex domain.
Traditional management works well in a
complicated domain
Complicated: KnowableComplex
17. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
53%
Inability to
change
organizational
culture
42%
General
resistance to
change
17
Barriers to further agile adoption
Trying to fit
agile in a non-
agile
framework
35%
Version One: Agile Survey 2013
*respondents where able to select multiple options.
18. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
SAFE DAD Vocabulary
None of these tools address the cultural aspect
Poker
Planning
18
53%
Inability to
change
organizational
culture
42%
General
resistance to
change
Barriers to further agile adoption
Trying to fit
agile in a non-
agile
framework
35%
Version One: Agile Survey 2013
*respondents where able to select multiple options.
19. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Agile
19
There is a culture clash between Agile and the
traditional management style
Traditional
management
Complicated: KnowableComplex
Chaotic Simple: Known
21. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Abraham
Maslow
(1908-‐1970)
"The
Emergent,
Cyclical,
Double-‐Helix
Model
Of
The
Adult
Human
Biopsychosocial
Systems"
C.
W.
Graves
(1914-‐1986)
Future
of
Management
Gary
Hamel
21
C. W. Graves Model
Frédéric
Laloux
ReinvenEng
OrganizaEons
(2014)
Abraham
Maslow
Hierarchy
of
needs
22. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
22
C. W. Graves « The Emergent Cyclical
Levels of Existence Theory »
• Each level represents a way of thinking, a world view, a paradigm of thought
• They are applicable to individuals and organizations
• Higher levels include and transcend lower levels
• Evolution is sequential, one cannot jump a level
• No level is better, rather a level is more appropriate for a particulate context
• We cannot force change to another level. We can only ease a transition by
changing the environment
Systemic
Conformist and Traditional
Egocentric
Clannish
Meritocratic and Results-driven
Communitarian and Relativist
23. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Characteristics
• Order and stability-driven
• Hierarchical structure and processes
• Clear roles and responsibilities
• Casts and fixed privilege
• Inflexible and dogmatic
• Bureaucratic
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Conformist and Traditional
Systemic
Conformist and Traditional
Egocentric
Clannish
Meritocratic and Results-driven
Communitarian and Relativist
24. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Characteristics
• Achiever and results-driven
• Factual and rational vs. emotional
• Innovative and progressive
• Short term and local perspective
• Individualistic and competitive
• World divided between winners and losers
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Meritocratic and Results-driven
Systemic
Conformist and Traditional
Egocentric
Clannish
Meritocratic and Results-driven
Communitarian and Relativist
25. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Characteristics
• Team work and harmony-driven
• Equality, relativism and inclusiveness
• Focus on culture and shared values
• Team consensus
• Slow and ineffective at scale
• « Not-invented here » syndrome
• Against hierarchical roles
25
Communitarian and Relativist
Systemic
Conformist and Traditional
Egocentric
Clannish
Meritocratic and Results-driven
Communitarian and Relativist
26. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
In Summary
26
Communitarian
and Relativist
Meritocratic and
Results-driven
Conformist and
Traditional
« Everyone in their place.
We must follow the
process »
« Own your place. Find a
way to deliver results »
« You have your place.
Lets find a solution
together »
Agile
Tradional Management
Operational Management
27. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
27
Agile implementation without a cultural change can only be
partial
Agile implementation by culture
Conformist and Traditional:
Comprehensive
documentaGon
over
working
soJware
Following
a
plan
over
responding
to
change
Processes
and
tools
over
individuals
and
interacGons
Meritocratic and Results-driven:
Contract
negoGaGon
over
customer
collaboraGon
Working
soJware
over
comprehensive
documentaGon
Communitarian and Relativist:
Individuals
and
interacGons
over
processes
and
tools
Customer
collaboraGon
over
contract
negoGaGon
Breddel, Cultural Change with Spiral Dynamics, 2012; Spayd, Coaching Agile Enterprise, 2014
28. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Each level improves the capacity to manage
more complexity
The level of complexity in IT projects forces
organizations to modify their management styles
from a hierarchical command & control to a
pluralist, collaborative and adaptive mindset.
An Agile transformation is a Cultural change.
-50,000 Aujourd'hui
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Organizational Culture Evolution
30. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Agile
Traditional
Management
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Observation 1: Traditional management is unaware of other types
of knowledge domains and therefore imposes a single
management style for all type of problems.
Operational
Management
Complicated: KnowableComplex
31. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
31
Martine R. Haas: The Double-edged swords of autonomy and external knowledge, 2010
Local
efficiency
Scrum
Team
Strategic
efficiency
External
Knowledge
Tasks
Team autonomy impacts:
• Higher local efficiency, lower strategic efficiency
• Replication of know solutions
• « Groupthink » and « Not-invented here » phenomena
Observation 2: Team autonomy and alignment must be balanced
with appropriate governance processes.
Team autonomy at large scale
33. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
To align autonomous teams - develop a systemic governance
• Use the Enterprise Architecture to help align products and vision
• Use Communities of Practices to align methodologies and technical skills
• Use an Agile PMO to structure these communities
• Use “Principles” to guide and facilitate decision making
Systemic perspective
33
Medium and large-sized
enterprises
34. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
EA Principles defined by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:
EA Principles examples
34
① You build it, you run it.
② All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.
Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces.
③ There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed (no direct linking, no
shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever).
④ It doesn't matter what technology they use. (Jeff Bezos doesn't care.)
⑤ All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be
externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the
interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions.
⑥ Anyone who doesn't do this will be fired. Thank you; have a nice day!
35. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Medium and
large-size enterprise
Bimodal approach
Mode-2 :
Innovation, agility, short iterations
Client focused
Agile and lean gravity center
Mode-1 :
Standardization and predictability
Stability, order and cost control
Stage-based and traditional management gravity
center
Two models of Agile Transformation at scale
35
Meritocratic and
Results-driven
Communitarian
and Relativist
e.g.. SCRUM
Solution 1:
Build a bi-modal
enterprise.
To avoid a cultural clash
Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, 2014
36. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Spin-Off
36
Solution 2:
Start an independent
« agile & systemic »
company.
Medium and
large-size enterprise
Bimodal approach
Two models of Agile Transformation at scale
Meritocratic and
Results-driven
Communitarian
and Relativist
e.g.. SCRUM
Solution 1:
Build a bi-modal
enterprise.
to avoid a cultural clash
Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, 2014
37. CULTURE & STRUCTURECOMPLEXITY LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS
Characteristics
• Mission and principle-driven
• Flexible and opportunist
• Networked structure with groups autonomy
• Each level of management has its place depending on the context
• For decision making, the entire system is considered (e.g. l’Holacracy)
• Decision supported by the entire organization
• Sustainable structure and development
• Systemic view: no opposition between emotions and rationality
37
Graves’ Systemic level for IT
Systemic
Conformist and Traditional
Egocentric
Clannish
Meritocratic and Results-driven
Communitarian and Relativist
38. 38
2007
2014
Some readings…
38
Some companies…
FAVI,
Foundry,
France
40. 40
Russell L. Ackoff: From Mechanistic to social
Systemic Thinking, System Thinking in Action
Conference, 1993
Dajo Breddel: Cultural Change with Spiral
Dynamics, http://tinyurl.com/qdjn5yf, 2012.
Chabreuil: La spirale dynamique, Interedition, 2008.
Cowan & Beck: Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values,
Leadership and Change, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996
Martine R. Haas: The Double-edged swords of
autonomy and external knowledge: Analyzing
team effectiveness in a multinational organization
in Academy of Management Journal 2010, Vol. 53,
No. 5, University of Pennsylvania, 2010.
Gary Hamel and Bill Breen: The Future of
Management, Harvard Business Review Press, 2007
Clare W. Graves: Levels of Existence: an Open
System Theory of Values in Journal of Humanistic
Psychology 1970; 10, 131
Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organization, Nelson
Parker, 2014
References
40
Joseph Pelrine: On Understanding Software Agility -
A Social Complexity Point Of View in E:CO Issue
Vol. 13 Nos. 1-2, 2011
Snowden, Boone: A Leader’s Framework for
Decision Making in Harvard Business Review,
Novembre 2007
Kurtz. Snowden, The new dynamics of strategy:
Sense-making in a complex and complicated
world, http://tinyurl.com/ldgsa2x, 2003
Michael Spayd: Time’s arrow: The evolution of
complexity in Downloading the Integral Operating
System (IOS) A Framework for Agile Enterprise
Transformation, 2014 http://tinyurl.com/o74fqdy
Michael Spayd: What would it mean to Coach an
Agile Enterprise?, http://tinyurl.com/peozpk8, 2014
* * *
Deloitte: Scalling Edge, A Pragmatic Pathway to
broad internal change, 2012
Gartner: Bimobal stragegy, http://
www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2865718, 2014
Version One: 8th Annual State of Agile Survey 2013,
http://www.versionone.com/pdf/2013-state-of-
agile-survey.pdf