00:00:18here because I’m not going to talk about
00:00:18code at all I’m going to talk about how
00:00:20to produce code and in particular I’m
00:00:22going to talk about agile not because
00:00:26well let’s put it this way I think agile
00:00:29is by far the best way that we know to
00:00:31produce software and at the same time I
00:00:33think the notion of agile software
00:00:35development is being completely
00:00:36destroyed by most of the agile community
00:00:39so when I talk about the death of agile
00:00:42what I’m really talking about is the
00:00:43death of what I think of as real agility
00:00:45and a replacement of real agility with a
00:00:48kind of fake agility that is suitable
00:00:51for corporations but doesn’t really work
00:00:52in the real world so let me explain
00:00:54exactly what I’m talking about so I
00:00:57would explain it if my clicker was
00:00:58working there it is good so the reason
00:01:00I’m doing this talk is because as a
00:01:02consultant I often come into companies
00:01:04and give them advice about agile process
00:01:06and I am just getting sick to death of
00:01:09dealing with the aftermath of the
00:01:11certified scrum guys and right is that
00:01:15they come in they do their thing and
00:01:17they leave this behind them and the the
00:01:21real there are a lot of issues
00:01:23surrounding that but scrum is really a
00:01:26problem is the problem it is not the
00:01:28solution and the basic problem is the
00:01:30notion of a cargo called now the cargo
00:01:32cults happened in the Pacific Islands
00:01:35during World War two is they’ve
00:01:37Islanders are living happily on their
00:01:38islands without any cares in the world
00:01:41eating fruit as a drops off of trees but
00:01:43they were living in the Stone Age a few
00:01:45minutes later it seems a bunch of
00:01:47soldiers land on the island they make a
00:01:49runway and then airplanes start landing
00:01:51and the airplanes bring with them the
00:01:5420th century so all of a sudden these
00:01:56guys have gone from the Stone Age to the
00:01:5820th century because of these air bases
00:02:00and five years later all of those
00:02:02soldiers get back onto their airplanes
00:02:04and they fly away and the people who
00:02:06lived on the island are back in the
00:02:08stone Age’s and what they saw were the
00:02:10airplanes is what they said if we could
00:02:12only bring the airplane
00:02:13they’re going to bring back the cargo so
00:02:16what they started doing is building
00:02:18things that look like airplanes in the
00:02:20hopes that if they build it they will
00:02:22come
00:02:22if the airplanes flying overhead see
00:02:25their brethren on the ground they’re
00:02:26going to land and bring the cargo with
00:02:28them which of course didn’t happen now
00:02:32the problem with a cargo cult then is
00:02:34what they’re doing is they’re going
00:02:35through the motions as the guys in the
00:02:36cargo cults would build fake conning
00:02:39towers and they would wear coconuts over
00:02:41their ears pretending to be head phones
00:02:42and they would act as if they were
00:02:44working Airport in the hopes that the
00:02:46airport airplanes would land and the
00:02:49problem is that we do this all the time
00:02:51as we see cargo cults everywhere and the
00:02:54biggest cargo cult of all in fact is the
00:02:57modern corporation is that corporations
00:03:00are cargo cults because they believe
00:03:02that there are certain ways to do things
00:03:03and they cannot conceive that there is
00:03:06another way of doing things I
00:03:07participate a lot in one of the LinkedIn
00:03:09agile groups and one of the
00:03:12characteristics of this group is that
00:03:13there’s a constant stream of wrong
00:03:15questions there’s a constant stream of
00:03:16questions that have that are so wrong
00:03:18that you don’t even understand how
00:03:19someone can ask them in the context of
00:03:21agile somebody will always say why ever
00:03:23every couple weeks somebody posts a
00:03:25question what’s the role of a project
00:03:27manager on the agile team and the answer
00:03:30is there is no project manager on the
00:03:32agile team but people don’t understand
00:03:34that is that they’re so convinced
00:03:36because that’s the way the corporation’s
00:03:38think that a project manager is a
00:03:40necessary part of work that they cannot
00:03:42imagine a world in which a project
00:03:44manager does not exist so like the
00:03:46proverbial camel here is that a
00:03:49corporation cannot fit through an eye of
00:03:51the needle is that it can’t make the
00:03:53changes that it needs to make because
00:03:54it’s a cargo call because it does things
00:03:56over and over again by rote without
00:03:58really understanding why it’s doing any
00:04:00of the things that it does in particular
00:04:03what they’re looking for is a very
00:04:05specific process that they can follow
00:04:07the corporation’s are really into
00:04:08process is that what they want to do is
00:04:11they want to do something easy they want
00:04:12to bring in the trainer’s they want to
00:04:13train a few people in the engineering
00:04:15department to follow some process and
00:04:17they think that by following that
00:04:18process that there will be some sort of
00:04:20good result but in fact you don’t get a
00:04:22good result by following a specific
00:04:24process it just doesn’t work in other
00:04:27is what the corporation’s want is this
00:04:29kind of agile right they want a canned
00:04:32thing right something that you can just
00:04:35roll open up the can and do it and it’s
00:04:38somehow going to magically change the
00:04:40way that things work in a positive way
00:04:42but often when they bring in the agile
00:04:44this kind of agile they they don’t
00:04:47really want to change the way things
00:04:48work they just read about agile
00:04:50someplace and they think it’s a good
00:04:51thing and it’s think that there’s going
00:04:52to be some kind of benefit but they
00:04:54don’t really know what the benefits are
00:04:55so this is just really really a bad idea
00:04:57now what is agile really agile is
00:05:01defined by the agile manifesto and the
00:05:05agile manifesto as you can see here is
00:05:06very simple there’s only four points on
00:05:08it and the first one is the most
00:05:09interesting one is that the way that
00:05:12people work with one another is more
00:05:14important than processes now notice that
00:05:16it doesn’t say instead of process is
00:05:19important
00:05:20agile has a lot of process associated
00:05:22with it and the processes help but the
00:05:26processes are not canned things are
00:05:27things that the individuals come up with
00:05:29as they interact with each other in
00:05:32other words the word agility has to
00:05:33apply to the process as much as it
00:05:35applies to anything else if you’re not
00:05:37agile in the way that you build software
00:05:40then you’re not going to be agile so the
00:05:43whole notion of individuals and
00:05:45interactions over processes and tools is
00:05:46kind of fallen by the wayside as scrum
00:05:48is a process and a lot of people believe
00:05:51that scrum and agile are the same thing
00:05:52and that’s just wrong scrum is a process
00:05:56so by saying we’re doing scrum what
00:05:58you’re saying is that the process is
00:05:59more important than the people that are
00:06:00doing the process and that just is not
00:06:02going to work in any kind of situation
00:06:04now my rule of thumb here then is to
00:06:07make sure to see if something makes
00:06:08sense in any sentence where you see the
00:06:10word agile if you can replace that word
00:06:12with the word flexible then you’ve got a
00:06:14proper sentence if you say we things we
00:06:17do things in an agile way that works for
00:06:19me if you say agile says that we should
00:06:23do X that doesn’t work for me at all
00:06:25what we want is flexibility the whole
00:06:28point of a of agile is to get agility in
00:06:31other words what we want to be able to
00:06:34do is we want to quickly adapt to
00:06:35changing requirements be those changes
00:06:38coming from inside or outside either the
00:06:40customer is mandating them
00:06:41or we are mandating them because there’s
00:06:43some process internal process things of
00:06:45technology thing that changes and we
00:06:46need to change internally but what we
00:06:48need is agility we need flexibility we
00:06:50need the ability to change in a
00:06:51corporation at least many corporations
00:06:53are incapable of doing that so I suppose
00:06:56the one thing that I will agree with the
00:06:59agile skeptics about is that I think the
00:07:01vast majority of large companies cannot
00:07:03ever be agile because it is the very
00:07:05nature of those large companies to not
00:07:07be flexible about things in flexibility
00:07:12is just it’s just built into things
00:07:14right there’s our rule of thumb here
00:07:16where we have to work with then is how
00:07:17do you how do you define that it’s agile
00:07:18if there is a significant requirements
00:07:21change and it could be significant right
00:07:23I suddenly have to make this a cell
00:07:24phone app can you do it that’s the
00:07:28question
00:07:29again can you do it quickly you know
00:07:31think about what’s involved with making
00:07:33this change there’s a lot of training
00:07:36that has to go on there’s a lot of
00:07:38learning that has to go on you might
00:07:40have to bring new people into the team
00:07:42in order to help you make the change
00:07:43right our goal is to get the app into
00:07:45users hands in a few weeks
00:07:46well again speaking as a consultant I
00:07:49can tell you that when I’m hired to do
00:07:50training often as long as four months
00:07:54elapses from the time that I’m first
00:07:55contacted by somebody who needs the
00:07:57training until the time that I can come
00:07:59in and actually give the training
00:08:00believe me if it takes four months to
00:08:02get training you’re not agile so we have
00:08:06a corporate process that’s there for
00:08:08some reason
00:08:08right somebody has decided that
00:08:10corporate governance mandates that we
00:08:12have controls over our spending and what
00:08:15that’s doing is it’s making it
00:08:16impossible for the organization to be
00:08:18agile friction Neil talked a moment ago
00:08:20about friction is this is what we’re
00:08:22talking about here is friction is that
00:08:24what agility is really about is
00:08:26eliminating friction within the
00:08:27organization and if you have an
00:08:30organization in which you cannot
00:08:31eliminate friction the the chances of
00:08:34you being agile are basically zero which
00:08:38brings me to my second kind of major
00:08:39point here is that the corporation’s
00:08:42believe that agile just happens inside
00:08:44engineering and that all that you do is
00:08:49bring in the trainers and teach them
00:08:50scrum and you’re done but in fact agile
00:08:53is an organizational thing
00:08:55there are no silos in an organizational
00:08:57organization the organization as a whole
00:09:00is what’s agile not the team’s not the
00:09:04people on the teams not the departments
00:09:06but the entire organization because if
00:09:09I’ve need my training I need my training
00:09:11now so if there’s a separate finance
00:09:14department that’s providing friction
00:09:15it’s getting in the way of me getting my
00:09:17training there is no way that there’s
00:09:18going to be any agility inside that
00:09:20organization the next issue is equally
00:09:27important is the organization is
00:09:29structured the way it is in order to
00:09:31support a process it has a process and
00:09:35it must support if if you change the
00:09:37process you must also change the
00:09:39organization because if the organization
00:09:42is all built around supporting a
00:09:44waterfall process for example then you
00:09:47can’t just suddenly become agile without
00:09:49changing the support because support for
00:09:51waterfall will not work if you’re trying
00:09:53to support agile and there are lots of
00:09:56things that are part of agile that
00:09:59people think of as things that cannot be
00:10:00changed which have to be changed right
00:10:03the QA department this is one of the
00:10:04reasons it’s so difficult for agile to
00:10:06move into big corporations in every
00:10:08agile process that works testing is
00:10:12integrated into the development process
00:10:13tightly integrated you’re testing every
00:10:1620 minutes on the outside I test every
00:10:18two or three minutes as I’m programming
00:10:20by the time the so called sprint the
00:10:24iteration is finished the code is fully
00:10:26tested and ready to deploy which is to
00:10:29say there’s nothing for a QA department
00:10:30to do which means that the director of
00:10:33QA is not going to be very happy about
00:10:34this which means that he’s going to be
00:10:37fighting really hard to prevent agile
00:10:39from happening inside the organization
00:10:41because he’s going to lose his job now
00:10:43if it’s really an agile organization he
00:10:45wouldn’t lose his job is what he would
00:10:46do is change his job in a flexible way
00:10:48so that he could actually do real QA
00:10:51which is to say it would be his job to
00:10:53look at everybody’s processes and make
00:10:55suggestions about whom how to improve
00:10:57them but a lot of people are unable to
00:10:58make those changes because again they do
00:11:00not have the flexibility product
00:11:02development groups they don’t exist in
00:11:04an agile organization the product that
00:11:06is developed by the customers
00:11:08who are talking to you on a day-to-day
00:11:09basis if your customer cannot walk in
00:11:13the front door of the corporation you
00:11:15cannot be agile and it’s very difficult
00:11:18for somebody who’s not an employee of
00:11:19the corporation to walk in the front
00:11:20door believe me the governance practices
00:11:24we were talking about finance related
00:11:26practices a moment ago is this basic
00:11:28idea of if I need the training I need it
00:11:30now not in six weeks
00:11:31if I need a new piece of software I need
00:11:33it now an agile team has a budget and it
00:11:36spends it however they feel like it the
00:11:38entire team decides to go off to a
00:11:39conference they do that they don’t ask
00:11:42anybody they just do it they need to buy
00:11:44a piece of software they do it right now
00:11:47they’ve got to manage their budget the
00:11:48budget is not infinite but they’re the
00:11:50ones making the choice not some separate
00:11:53governance related organization
00:11:57deadlines there is no such thing in the
00:11:59agile world all of the planning and
00:12:02agile is based on priorities all of it
00:12:05100% of it we’ve all seen the Iron
00:12:09Triangle picture right scope versus time
00:12:12versus money well in agile the
00:12:15assumption is what’s going to change
00:12:16most often is scope requirements always
00:12:19change and if scope changes in a way
00:12:23that some event that needs to happen
00:12:26isn’t going to happen I have to release
00:12:28at some tradeshow the only options you
00:12:31have are to reduce the scope a little
00:12:32bit or to increase spending which is to
00:12:34say bring on another team so if you’re
00:12:37managing in an agile world and you have
00:12:39a time deadline if you will do you’re
00:12:41looking at like a trade show what you’re
00:12:43doing is actually observing the process
00:12:46is that agile is a very transparent way
00:12:48of doing development and doing a
00:12:50projection based on the observed
00:12:52performance of the teams that are doing
00:12:54the work and if your projection is not
00:12:56right then you bring a new team on or
00:12:58you reduce scope those are your options
00:12:59but there are no deadlines there are no
00:13:01milestones there’s no estimation in the
00:13:03traditional sense it just doesn’t happen
00:13:06that’s a hard one for people to give up
00:13:08but there we go so there aren’t any
00:13:10timesheets because you don’t need them
00:13:11you’re not doing time-based stuff
00:13:13there’s no kind of organizational
00:13:15friction is that there’s a basic lean
00:13:17concept that any effort or time or
00:13:20energy being spent
00:13:22doing something that is not directly
00:13:24supporting putting valuable software
00:13:27into the hands of the users
00:13:29that’s all waste filling out an expense
00:13:33report or a timesheet is not providing
00:13:35customer value so one of the things that
00:13:40an agile organization has to do is
00:13:41reduce friction by eliminating
00:13:43everything that is in the way of putting
00:13:46value into the hands of the customers
00:13:48including all of this junk that we’ve
00:13:49just been talking about there is no
00:13:52project management and agile you trust
00:13:54people to do the work the teams manage
00:13:57themselves there’s no middle managers at
00:13:59all in fact in an agile world so all of
00:14:02this stuff has got to go and big
00:14:05corporations are not going to do it is
00:14:07they are cargo cults they believe that
00:14:10all this stuff is necessary for a
00:14:12company to function and that a company
00:14:14who doesn’t do this cannot function and
00:14:16that’s nonsense of course there’s some
00:14:18very large companies that function quite
00:14:19well in an agile way but most companies
00:14:22don’t believe that that’s the way things
00:14:23are going to work they have their
00:14:26managers and they expect them to work
00:14:28like managers and more to the point when
00:14:29some things become agile they expect
00:14:31that these same people are just going to
00:14:32change their job titles and suddenly
00:14:33everything’s going to be fine right and
00:14:35it’s not what it is right is that the
00:14:38job titles is not just a change in title
00:14:39is it’s functional it’s a basic change
00:14:41in what you do agile companies are
00:14:43organized very differently this is
00:14:44Spotify people talk a lot about scaling
00:14:47agile Spotify has about 500 programmers
00:14:49in it right now which is about which is
00:14:51big enough for me to say this model will
00:14:54work regardless of the size of the
00:14:55company I would argue that if you have a
00:14:57project that is requires more than 500
00:14:59programmers that what you need to do is
00:15:01break up that project into smaller
00:15:02projects there is no project on the
00:15:05planet that requires more than 500
00:15:06programmers I’m sorry
00:15:08in fact most most projects with 500
00:15:10programmers on them could be done quite
00:15:12well by 5 programmers so if it’s what if
00:15:17I can do this we can scale I’m not going
00:15:18to spend a lot of time looking at this
00:15:20picture but the main thing that I want
00:15:21to point out here is that we do not have
00:15:23a hierarchy we do not have a org chart
00:15:28that’s in a tree form with managers and
00:15:30controls and that kind of stuff we have
00:15:33a kind of matrix though this isn’t a
00:15:35classic
00:15:35matrix organization but there’s no boss
00:15:38the individual tribes which are groups
00:15:40of groups of groups if you will do have
00:15:43one guy a system architect who’s
00:15:45effectively a member of all of the teams
00:15:47whose job is to make sure there’s some
00:15:48architectural coherence across the
00:15:50system so the people are building but
00:15:52he’s not ordering people around either
00:15:54he’s saying well you know we’re doing
00:15:56this over here already
00:15:57so if we do it this way instead it’ll
00:16:00all fit better and this is a process for
00:16:02grownups so the people on Team B say ok
00:16:05we’ll do it that way then because
00:16:07they’re being flexible so nobody’s
00:16:10ordering anybody around this is a very
00:16:12collaborative kind of process which
00:16:17brings us to scrum is that scrum scrum
00:16:25is none of the things that I was just
00:16:27talking about it’s a fixed process it
00:16:31has two characteristics that a lot of
00:16:33people don’t know about is first of all
00:16:35if you look at all the processes in the
00:16:36world all the agile processes in the
00:16:38world scrum is one of them and people
00:16:43equate scrum to agile I don’t know how
00:16:45many times I’ve heard people say well
00:16:46agile says X when they mean scrum says X
00:16:50the second problem is that scrum is a
00:16:53relatively small thing and agile is a
00:16:56relatively big thing there’s a lot
00:16:59associated with agile in fact agile is
00:17:01not really even just agile is that lean
00:17:03techniques have a lot to do with running
00:17:05an effective company in an agile way so
00:17:09it’s even bigger than one guy here scrum
00:17:12is a very small thing scrum is defined
00:17:13by a 16 page document and frankly you
00:17:17can’t define any process in a 16 page
00:17:20document it just can’t be done so it’s
00:17:23very small more than the point
00:17:26the scrum guys imagine that scrum can be
00:17:28done in a kind of bubble where the the
00:17:32nobody outside has to care about what’s
00:17:35going on inside that bubble but we were
00:17:36just seeing people do have to care is
00:17:39that the purchasing procedures of the
00:17:42organization affects what goes on inside
00:17:43the bubble so it’s not a separate bubble
00:17:46it’s not something that can be isolated
00:17:48the scrum guys also have no respect at
00:17:51all for the existing processes of the
00:17:53organization when they come in is they
00:17:55imagine they can just bulldoze those
00:17:56processes out of the way and replace
00:17:57them with scrum but what they’re really
00:17:59replacing them with is nothing because
00:18:02the scrum is not going to work in a
00:18:04situation where you’re not changing the
00:18:05entire organization and if scrum is not
00:18:09going to work people are not going to do
00:18:10it a lot of places a lot of times when
00:18:12you see the organizations that have
00:18:14brought in the scrum guys a year later
00:18:15they’re not doing anything even close to
00:18:17scrum anymore because they’re not
00:18:19getting the support they need to make it
00:18:20work so they don’t do it in terms of the
00:18:23smallness you look at extreme
00:18:25programming and extreme programming is
00:18:27made up of a largest set of practices
00:18:31the interesting thing about this is the
00:18:33practices are all interwoven and
00:18:35interlocked in complex ways for example
00:18:40one of the key practices in extreme
00:18:43programming is that you need to be
00:18:44testing all the time you’re testing
00:18:46every two or three minutes as you’re
00:18:48writing the code another important
00:18:51practice in extreme programming is
00:18:53constant aggressive refactoring is that
00:18:56every time you look at a piece of code
00:18:58if it’s not right you fix it but the
00:19:01fact is you can’t do that if you don’t
00:19:03have your tests in place you can’t
00:19:06cherry pick these they’re all meshed
00:19:08together to make one unified process now
00:19:11you can modify this process and in fact
00:19:13the the XP teams do that all the time
00:19:15but they know what they’re doing they
00:19:17understand well I have these benefits
00:19:19and this has this interaction with those
00:19:21things and if I change this then I have
00:19:23to change this other stuff too in order
00:19:25to compensate you look at scrum though
00:19:28and what have they done first of all
00:19:30they have cherry picked two things they
00:19:32have stolen the XP planning game
00:19:35directly as scrum planning is nothing
00:19:37but extreme programming planning and
00:19:38then they have stolen a bunch of the
00:19:40little stuff stand-up meetings and that
00:19:42kind of stuff and then they’ve taken to
00:19:45other things that transmogrified them to
00:19:46the point where they’re unrecognizable
00:19:48the whole team among other things says
00:19:51you should have an actual customer in
00:19:53the room with you people think that when
00:19:57you’re doing extreme programming you
00:19:58don’t do design that’s nonsense what you
00:20:01are doing is you’re doing the design
00:20:02incremental e as the program evolves
00:20:03instead of spending three months talking
00:20:06to a user before you start coding you
00:20:08put the user in the room with you so you
00:20:10can ask them the question immediately
00:20:11before you start coding the user
00:20:14interaction is still there you’re still
00:20:16talking to your users you’re still doing
00:20:18design but you’re doing it as you’re
00:20:19working well they’ve gotten rid of the
00:20:22user and they’ve replaced it with this
00:20:23management Lackey called the the project
00:20:25manager where the product owner edit
00:20:29write the product owner is not a
00:20:30customer the product owner is usually a
00:20:32representative of the marketing
00:20:33department so all of the guarantees that
00:20:37you’ll get about billion valuable
00:20:38software they’re gone and then they put
00:20:42in the rigid time box which they call a
00:20:44sprint which is also a huge waste of
00:20:46time
00:20:46think how much waste there is in trying
00:20:49to size a story so you can do it in a
00:20:52two-week sprint and think of all of the
00:20:54sturm and drawing that happens when
00:20:57you’re one day off right we’re at the
00:21:02end of the sprint but there’s still one
00:21:03more day’s work to do and that’s such a
00:21:06hassle that often people don’t do that
00:21:08day’s work and you end up with buggy
00:21:11software and that’s just not okay so
00:21:15this is flying in the face of agility
00:21:18also this stuff just doesn’t work the
00:21:23next problem has to do with the
00:21:25certification mills which produce
00:21:29certificates which have no value at all
00:21:34you take a 16-page scrum guide you read
00:21:37through it so I’ve spent an afternoon
00:21:38curled in front of the fire with my
00:21:40scrum guide I go online I take a
00:21:43completely automated test which is
00:21:45graded by a computer comprised of 35
00:21:48multiple-choice questions
00:21:49I get a grade of 60% I don’t know about
00:21:53you but when I when I was in elementary
00:21:54school 60% was considered a failing
00:21:56grade but if I get a failing grade
00:21:58that’s good enough I get my certificate
00:22:00I am a master now the problem is is that
00:22:06those corporations think of this as some
00:22:07kind of diploma they think of the
00:22:09certificate as being meaningful and why
00:22:13because they do that what you get is
00:22:15something that is at
00:22:16destructive because if you imagine that
00:22:18the guy that has a certificate is
00:22:20competent and he’s not and things don’t
00:22:22work you don’t blame the guy you blame
00:22:25the thing that he’s supposed to be
00:22:27competent in doing you say agile doesn’t
00:22:30work you don’t say that scrum certified
00:22:33scrum guy didn’t actually know what he
00:22:35was talking about so certification is
00:22:38not only meaningless it is actively
00:22:39destructive especially when companies
00:22:42use certification as a criteria for
00:22:44hiring because it doesn’t tell them
00:22:46anything useful
00:22:47they bring in people that don’t know
00:22:49anything about agility but they’re
00:22:50certified and then they imagine that
00:22:52they’re somehow agile it just doesn’t
00:22:54work now the worst case of this is safe
00:22:58the problem with safe is that safe is
00:23:00designed to be acceptable to a
00:23:05corporation but it’s not safe that is is
00:23:10that in other words if you look at safe
00:23:13it’s just the same old same old
00:23:15at the bottom you’ve got scrum which is
00:23:17barely agile in the middle you’ve got
00:23:20the same old stuff that you always used
00:23:21to do well we haven’t accomplished
00:23:24anything real here we look at those flat
00:23:26hierarchies a moment ago you don’t have
00:23:27a flat hierarchy and safe you just have
00:23:29the same old corporate hierarchy that
00:23:30you ever had all the governance stuff is
00:23:32still in place it’s not real and it’s
00:23:35not necessary agile scale is just fine
00:23:38we saw that with Spotify why do we need
00:23:41to do this special thing and it’s
00:23:42because again the corporation is a cargo
00:23:44call they can’t imagine taking a big
00:23:46project and breaking it up into smaller
00:23:47projects so this is fake agile this
00:23:52isn’t real agile now mixed into this is
00:23:55a whole set of tool vendors who are
00:23:57supporting this dysfunction is that all
00:24:01of these tools force you into working in
00:24:04an old-style way is that what they’re
00:24:06doing is taking waterfall style
00:24:08management and trying to impose that on
00:24:10top of agile process by doing ridiculous
00:24:12things like burn down charts there are a
00:24:15complete waste of time as you spend more
00:24:16time entering data into this thing then
00:24:19you get useful information out of it and
00:24:20that time is waste it’s time not spent
00:24:24providing direct customer value what do
00:24:27you need when you do agile in the way of
00:24:29tools right
00:24:29is agile exactly and the thing is is
00:24:33that agile is basically very very simple
00:24:36what agile is first of all is that it’s
00:24:38a culture and the culture is the most
00:24:43important thing not the process and
00:24:45again I’m not saying process isn’t
00:24:47important but a specific process is no
00:24:50better than any other specific process
00:24:52provided that is working out within an
00:24:54altar of agility so for agile to work
00:24:57you have to put the proper culture in
00:24:59place which is to say that agile
00:25:00infusion in order to be functional has
00:25:02to come from the top down it is the CEOs
00:25:05job to manage the culture of the
00:25:07organization so if the CEO does not
00:25:10understand what agility is about there
00:25:12is no way that he or she is going to set
00:25:14up a culture that supports it so culture
00:25:18is central the second issue is trust
00:25:22everything in agile depends on trusting
00:25:24people to do their job they’re one of
00:25:28the REA in other words you don’t have
00:25:29managers why don’t you have managers and
00:25:31it’s because I trust people to do work I
00:25:33don’t need to sit there with a bullwhip
00:25:34and crack it over their heads in order
00:25:36to get them to work I trust them and you
00:25:40get trussed up and down the chain I
00:25:41don’t need to make them get sign offs in
00:25:44order to go to a conference because I
00:25:46trust them to assess their abilities
00:25:49understand that if they go to the
00:25:51conference they can increase those
00:25:52abilities and then let them go it’s all
00:25:55about trust the other issue is that the
00:26:00things on the left here communication
00:26:02simplicity courage all these values and
00:26:04principles inform the things on the
00:26:06right the practices is that the
00:26:09practices exist because the principles
00:26:11exist and the principles exist because
00:26:13the values exist so unless you have
00:26:17those principles and values in place the
00:26:20practices that you come up with they’re
00:26:22not going to be functional so we get
00:26:25back to the principles to the basic
00:26:26principles is that everything depends on
00:26:30ultimately communication and simplicity
00:26:33and courage and feedback and if you
00:26:36don’t have that inside the organization
00:26:38as a whole then you can’t really do
00:26:40functional work
00:26:43everyone following what I’m getting at
00:26:46here this is probably the most important
00:26:48thing that I can say is that the culture
00:26:50is more important than anything and that
00:26:52the principles are more important than
00:26:53the practices and that any practice that
00:26:56works in the framework of the principles
00:26:58is a good practice at least from an
00:27:00agile point of view the process itself
00:27:05is very simple you start off by talking
00:27:08to your customers and find out what they
00:27:10need and then you break off a small
00:27:13chunk of that and you build it and you
00:27:17give it to them that’s it everything
00:27:21else is icing and you do this on a small
00:27:25loop write that loop is a two-week loop
00:27:28and the reason it’s a two-week loop is
00:27:30because the general assumption of all
00:27:32the agile processes is that people don’t
00:27:34know what they need until they have
00:27:36something in their hands so upfront
00:27:39requirements gathering doesn’t work
00:27:41because the requirements that you gather
00:27:42are never correct so the process itself
00:27:49is very simple the tools for the process
00:27:52are very simple you need a whiteboard
00:27:54you need some post-it notes you need
00:27:57some index cards and some thumbtacks and
00:27:58that’s it if you’re working remotely
00:28:03maybe you’ll mix a couple other things
00:28:04into this you need some good
00:28:05communication software you probably need
00:28:07to take that that whiteboard and put it
00:28:09into a computer someplace but that’s
00:28:11inferior actually this agile is all
00:28:13based on a face-to-face communication
00:28:16two people are physically standing in
00:28:17front of a physical board will be able
00:28:19to do better work than two people
00:28:20working electronically the real problem
00:28:22with the electronic version is it’s
00:28:24hidden inside the computer instead of
00:28:25being sitting up on the wall where you
00:28:26can see it every day when you’re walking
00:28:28by it so when it’s hidden you tend to
00:28:31not think about it if it’s a physical
00:28:33thing it’s out there where you can think
00:28:35about it so those are all the tools you
00:28:37need and again we go back to our
00:28:39corporations and they’re not thinking in
00:28:41these terms they’re thinking in terms of
00:28:42big expensive tools because they’ve
00:28:44decided that that’s what they need in
00:28:45order to handle this a complexity that’s
00:28:47completely unnecessary and we don’t need
00:28:50any of that we need very simple things
00:28:54so we come back to the basic agile
00:28:57principles we finished the first one
00:28:59let’s look at the other ones our main
00:29:02goal here is to produce working software
00:29:03now over comprehensive documentation
00:29:05there are still still some corporations
00:29:07that have a documentation fetish but
00:29:09they’re getting to be less and less as
00:29:11time progresses general rule of thumb is
00:29:13that if nobody is ever going to read
00:29:14anything don’t bother to write it the
00:29:17vast majority of documentation is never
00:29:19read by anybody so it’s not it’s not
00:29:23valuable it’s waste it’s another example
00:29:25of waste but by documentation they don’t
00:29:29just mean software documentation they
00:29:31mean all paperwork inside the
00:29:32organization any kind of paperwork
00:29:35that’s getting in the way of producing
00:29:36the working software is not is not
00:29:38desirable you want to collaborate with
00:29:42your customers not negotiate with them
00:29:46customers don’t know what’s hard so they
00:29:49often ask for things that you can’t
00:29:51build a negotiation leads to dysfunction
00:29:54I want you to do such-and-such and I’m
00:29:58saying sure I’ll have it next week
00:30:00there’s an xkcd comic there was the –
00:30:03who was to this effect a couple weeks
00:30:04ago and then somebody comes in a few
00:30:06minutes later and says I need this other
00:30:07thing and you go sure I need 15 research
00:30:11assistants in a 7 million dollar budget
00:30:13and I’ll have it for you in eight years
00:30:14and the person the person who’s actually
00:30:17the question is often the same person
00:30:19they don’t know that one thing is art
00:30:20and another thing is not hard well if
00:30:23you could if you negotiate the next
00:30:26thing that person is going to say how
00:30:28about three years with eight research
00:30:31assistants and you go no well maybe four
00:30:33right and this is not solving the
00:30:35problem for one thing even the 15
00:30:38research assistants in five years or
00:30:40eight years as a guess so negotiating is
00:30:43not going to help any if you collaborate
00:30:45though you sit down and you go that’s a
00:30:47really hard problem but if we make this
00:30:50little change it turns into a really
00:30:52easy problem do you think that’ll work
00:30:53and then the guy who comes in with the
00:30:55idea says well yeah maybe but if we do
00:30:57this other little thing maybe it’ll work
00:30:58a little bit better and you collaborate
00:31:00so this goes way beyond contracts this
00:31:03goes goes into the way that you work on
00:31:05a day to day basis
00:31:08you need to be able to respond to
00:31:10changes at all levels I just said a
00:31:12moment ago that if the word agile
00:31:14applies to the process itself if the
00:31:15process isn’t working change it
00:31:17notion of retrospectives comes out of
00:31:19this but the most functional agile teams
00:31:21do not do retrospectives because our
00:31:24highly functional agile team will
00:31:26instantly recognize that something’s not
00:31:28working every better will huddle
00:31:29together they’ll come up with a solution
00:31:31they’ll put the solution in place and
00:31:32then they’ll move on a retrospective is
00:31:36kind of a transitional measure it’s
00:31:37something that you need before you get
00:31:38good enough to be able to make those
00:31:40changes quickly then there are the
00:31:45principles let’s look at just a few of
00:31:48them the welcoming changes of
00:31:50requirement even late in development
00:31:52right and the basic notion of harnessing
00:31:55to change for the composite for the
00:31:56customers competitive advantage is
00:31:58important here is that an agile team is
00:32:01in a service role it’s their job to
00:32:03solve other people’s problems not to do
00:32:06stuff because it’s cool and not to do
00:32:07stuff because it’s techie and it makes
00:32:09them feel good but to do stuff because
00:32:11it increases the but improves the
00:32:12bottom-line your customer
00:32:13whoever that customer should be the
00:32:17change the requirements are going to
00:32:18change they always change so setting up
00:32:20things where they can’t change is not
00:32:21going to work another flaw in scrum is
00:32:23they say once the scrum starts there
00:32:26will be no changes well what’s what’s
00:32:28that about I’m five minutes into the
00:32:31scrum and I realize that we’ve got a
00:32:32requirement wrong and we can’t make any
00:32:33changes it’s not going to work as you
00:32:37have to accept them at any point in the
00:32:39process the developers of the business
00:32:42people are working together on a daily
00:32:44basis that means they’re in the same
00:32:45room with each other that does not mean
00:32:47that they send memos back and forth that
00:32:51does not mean that the business people
00:32:52ask nicely before they do something
00:32:55arbitrary anyway it means that they’re
00:32:57on the team literally they’re sitting in
00:32:59the same room you’re talking on a day to
00:33:02day basis the individuals are more
00:33:06important than anything and that it is
00:33:09the job of the company to support the
00:33:10individuals if you have a situation
00:33:13where somebody has to argue in order to
00:33:15get the support they need to do their
00:33:16job there’s no way that you’re going to
00:33:18have any agility
00:33:23the constant pace issues have to do with
00:33:27the way again most corporations work
00:33:28deadlines milestones all of this stuff
00:33:31what this is a way to manipulate people
00:33:33into working overtime company meals
00:33:36high-quality cafeterias inside the
00:33:38building that’s all manipulation that’s
00:33:41all ways to get you to work overtime
00:33:44agile companies will not do that because
00:33:46they know that tired people can’t do
00:33:48good work you have to be able to come in
00:33:52every day rested and ready to go and if
00:33:54you can’t do that you can’t be agile the
00:33:59team’s themselves have to organize
00:34:01themselves right I did a class yesterday
00:34:04the end of the class we did an exercise
00:34:06I said we’re going to go on a break when
00:34:08I get back I want you guys broken into
00:34:10broken up into four groups of five or
00:34:11six I want you to pick a project that
00:34:13you’re going to work on and then I left
00:34:15them alone and I came back and they did
00:34:18it well the organization has to work
00:34:21that way you don’t assign people to
00:34:23teams you don’t break up teams teams
00:34:26form they do the job and then maybe they
00:34:28reform but usually not they usually stay
00:34:30together as a team and that’s best but
00:34:32it’s up to the teams to make those
00:34:33decisions not some sort of some sort of
00:34:35management layer so I’m going to finish
00:34:38this by thinking about Charles Darwin is
00:34:40that agile is by far the most effective
00:34:44way to develop software and the
00:34:46companies that do things in an agile way
00:34:48are going to have a huge evolutionary
00:34:50competitive advantage over the companies
00:34:53that don’t those big corporations that I
00:34:56was just talking about they’re the Dodos
00:34:58is that they’ll keep doing what they’re
00:35:02doing but their competitors who are
00:35:04working in an agile way are not limited
00:35:06in the same way that the corporation’s
00:35:08are limiting themselves so they’re going
00:35:11to just wither away maybe there should
00:35:13be a picture of Marx instead of a
00:35:14picture of Darwin but the point in other
00:35:17words the point that I’m making is that
00:35:18eventually evolution will help us here
00:35:19eventually the companies that can’t do
00:35:21things in an agile way will cease to
00:35:22exist but most companies don’t have that
00:35:26as a goal it’s not part of their their
00:35:28corporate mission statement that they
00:35:29will cease to exist in five or ten years
00:35:31because the competitor can move faster
00:35:32so really when it comes to Jill
00:35:35we have no choice we have to embrace
00:35:36change and just do it so that’s that’s
00:35:41what I have to say
”