Practical Agile Transformation framework — Conduct Experiments to get there
Yaya, It’s the third part of the practical agile transformation framework that we call it Factful Agility Framework. In the first part we created a shared change vision, in the second part we understood the current condition and chosen some meaningful metrics.
In the last part, we will exploit the change program by conducting experiments.
Why do we call it experiments?
We are factful, so we should make decisions based on facts. There are 3 facts here:
1- We have a shared change vision, So we know the direction.
2- We assessed the current situation, So we know the current conditions.
3- We have some hypotheses on how to reach the direction, But we are not sure, these are just hypotheses.
These are just hypotheses
So let’s come back to our first principle: Our goal is not to implement “scrum”, “Kanban”, or even scaled ones like “SAFe”, “LeSS”, ….
We will hire one or mix of these practices to help us to reach our own objectives.
Develop the Experimenting mindset
It’s really important to develop the experimenting mindset in you and your team members.
Start with yourself
“I have Scrum Master certification, So I believe that scrum will help us to reach our goal.”
Change your word, Change your World
As a change agent, or Agile coach or … we need to change our words “In order to reduce the lead time, We will use Scrum and Kanban”.
Hypothesis Story
You can use the Coaching Card or Hypothesis Story to frame better hypotheses(It’s a tool to change word). A template like this:
In order to (Our determined metrics in the second part)
We want to hire/use (a specific practice)
For example:
With these details:
The granularity of stories:
Like user stories, you can break down big Hypothesis stories to small stories too. You can create Hypothesis Epic <- Hypothesis Story.
Develop the Experimenting Mindset on team members
I can guarantee that the change will fail:
1- Couldn't be able to develop the experimenting mindset on team members
2- Couldn't be able to create and visualize a great scoreboard. Great teams know at every moment whether or not they are winning. They must know, otherwise, they don’t know what they have to do to win the game.
How to develop an experimenting mindset on team members?
As an agile coach or Scrum master you need to use all of your skills:
I will tell you how to use these skills to stick the team to the change.
Conduct a “Change Exploit Planning”
This event is designed to:
1- Stick the team to the change
2- Create a small and concrete winning plan
3- Create an experimental mindset
1. Prepare yourself for the event, Pre-Planning
In this part, you need to use your Agile/Lean Practitioner skills. There are lots of Agile/Lean practices, let’s create a Practice Backlog. You can use any framework. As a template for your backlog items, you can use the Hypothesis Story too.
If you don’t have any idea about practices, you can use your assessment tools too. For example, the Comparative Agility assessment is mostly based on known practices. or you can use scrum/kanban/XP checklists like this one.
You don’t need to prioritize this backlog right now. Don’t forget that, in the future, we will find new practices too, so this Practice Backlog is a live artifact.
2. Train them (Optional)
This level is optional, and it depends on your team knowledge about Agile/Lean practices.
In this level, you will use your training skills. The goal of the level is, create knowledge and awareness about practices.
I suggest don’t skip this level. Why? Based on my experience, most of the teams have a very superficial knowledge of agile methods. A deep understanding of agile midset and practices can help you in later stages.
You can ask other coaches/trainers to help you in this part too.
3. Start Change Exploit Planning with coaching skill
It’s time to show your coaching skills. The essence of coaching based on the International Coaching Community:
- To help a person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go.
- Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change.
In the coaching stance, You should do 4 things(Idea from Toyota kata):
1- Create or Share a shared direction. If the change vision is not created by them, share the created vision and let them know what is the direction.
2- Create awareness about current conditions. Sometimes, there are people who will ask “Why we need to change?”. In this part, you want to create awareness of why we need to change.
For example, In a company, I asked the team, “Do you think, how many bugs reported last week?” They said “Almost 10- 15 bugs”. Then I presented a Jira report of production bugs “44 bugs”. “Holy sh*t, we created a crappy product!!! What we should do?!” they told me. It’s a great moment in a coaching stance. They are ready to contribute to the change program.
3- Create an agreement about the next target
Having a direction and awareness is not enough, we need to breakdown the change. Small targets but meaningful outcomes.
The organization can be both bad and better. Progress comes bit by bit.
You can use the metrics of the change vision(Described in the second part of the Facful Agility Framework).
For example, In the first quarter, we would like to focus on just 2 objectives:
1- Low defect rates and technical debt are beneficial to job satisfaction and morale, improving retention and productivity. (Qualitative and Lagging)
2- Bug rates (Quantitative and ~Leading)
So the team decided to use a quantitative metric(Bug rates), and they know the current condition is 44 bugs per week. But What is the next target? The team thinks the Next Target should be zero bug state.
ِDon’t forget our principle, Small changes but meaningful outcomes. “What do you think to reach 5 bugs?”.
4. Create an agreement about how to visualize the scoreboard
“People play differently when they are keeping score. If you doubt this, watch a group of teenagers playing basketball. See how the game changes the minute score-keeping begins, it’s not a subtle change.” 4 disciplines of execution
In this part, we will talk about how to visualize important metrics. You can use a big TV. let people see the progress. Sometimes you can celebrate progress in daily standups or …
4. Continue Change Exploit Planning with facilitating skill
It’s time to show your facilitating skills. I will show how to do it easily.
Draw one or several circles on a whiteboard, then write your next target(s) in the circle.
As a facilitator, you should facilitate this part (You can use liberating structure too)
1- “What practices can help us to reach our target?”
You can print your practice backlog or bring it with you and let the team see it. They are free to use practice backlog or write a new practice or initiative. Ask them to write the practices on sticky notes and put them on the whiteboard.
2- “I bet you the ____(practice) ___will help us to reach our target faster”
It’s time to bet :) Why Bet? Because we are not sure, but if I would like to be on something, It means “ something has a near certainty of being right”.
Bet = Experiment.
Ask guys to bet on practices. Let’s Complete this sentence “I bet you these____practices ___will help us to reach our target faster”.
You can use dot voting for betting. Ask the group to cast their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly about(I bet on this one). They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb, giving each participant five votes to cast works well.
Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their new rank.
3- Form “Hypothesis Story” cards
In order to Decrease bug rates of a week to under 5
We want to “Write unit tests for critical features”
or
In order to Decrease bug rates of a week to under 5
We want to use a “Definition Of Done”
4- Select high priority practices and create a change sprint backlog
The concept of the change sprint is a period of a short time, to conduct experiments and see the result. You can map it to your current sprints and check the result in the retrospective meetings.
Or you can create a Change Sprint with a 1-month length. You can conduct a “Change Exploit Planning” at the beginning of each change sprints.
For change sprint backlog you can create a simple kanban board.
Ok, It’s time to exploit and adopt practices. But don’t forget our goal is not to adopt practices, we adopt practices to reach our objectives :)
1 more thing: Management Support and Investment
Teams will focus on their change sprints and adopting practices, but management support is necessary. Insufficient support can cause turnover and create a cynical corporate culture that hinders improvements.
For example, When a team wants to work on quality and decrease bug level, Based on agile fluency we know that they are trying to reach “Delivering” zone, and this zone needs some investment:
Common Organizational Investments
Provide time for lowered productivity while team members learn new skills.
Integrate non-programming technical disciplines, such as QA and ops, into the team.
Provide training in agile technical practices.
Engage skilled practitioner-coaches to mentor the team on their real-world work.
Regards
Asad
This story has already been published here
Maybe you like:
Practical Agile Transformation framework — Grasp the current condition
Practical Agile Transformation framework — Start with a vision
Real Agile transformation case study, with Agile Fluency Model
Two ways for better planning and estimating
Create a real agile team with Fogg behavior model
Jobs To be done in the real world
5 Steps to Create an Agile Structure
About the Author:
Asad Safari is an Enterprise Lean/Agile Coach. He has worked as an Agile coach for more than 8 years with several enterprises and startups. He has more than 14 years of experience in the IT industry as a Software Developer, Tester, and finally an agile practitioner. You can follow Asad on Twitter and LinkedIn.