Disciplined Agile Continuous Improvement: Speeding Up Organizational Learning

Disciplined Agile Continuous Improvement: Speeding Up Organizational Learning

Scott W. Ambler Senior Consulting Partner

scott [at] scottambler.com

@scottwambler

Agenda

•  Our principles •  Our scope •  From adoption to continuous improvement •  Team-based improvement •  Organizational improvement •  Parting thoughts

© Disciplined Agile Consortium 2


The Seven Principles of Disciplined Agile


DelightCustomers

Pragmatism

BeAwesome

ContextCounts

ChoiceisGood

OptimizeFlow

EnterpriseAwareness


Our Scope

Improvement Occurs At Many Levels


Individual

Team

Organization

From Transformation to Continuous Improvement


From Transformation to Continuous Improvement


Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 …

Transformation Continuous Improvement

This is a journey, not a destination

You may choose to start your process improvement efforts as a “transformation project”

To succeed in the long term you must adopt a continuous improvement mindset

Agile Adoption Effort Over Time


Continuous Improvement Effort Over Time


Team-Based Improvement


The Process Goals of Disciplined Agile Delivery


Goal: Improve Team Process and Environment


Retrospectives

•  Take time to reflect on what is working well and identify potential improvements or experiments to try

•  Retrospectives can be performed individually, at the team level, or across teams

•  Success factors: –  Change up your approach to retrospectives to keep things fresh –  Track/measure your progress in adopting potential improvements –  Use the goal diagrams to provide options for potential improvements –  Hold retrospectives when you need to, not just at the end of an

iteration/sprint –  Bring in “outsiders” for a fresh perspective –  Aim to get multiple viewpoints/opinions

•  Suggested resource: RetrospectiveWiki.org


Value Stream Maps


Value Stream Mapping Session


Value Stream Mapping – Suggested Resource


Running “Improvement Experiments”

•  Adopting an experimentation mindset is critical

•  Potential improvements can be implemented as “experiments” or “minimal viable changes (MVCs)”

•  The goal is to identify what works for you in the context that you face


Measured Improvement


•  The Challenge: –  It is fairly straightforward to identify potential improvements –  You can only adopt so many changes at once –  BUT, it isn’t so easy to continue with the hard work of adopting the

improvements over time

•  The Solution: –  Track how well you’ve adopted a given change –  For example, a team can regularly rate itself for how well it has adopted

previously identified changes through voting/poker/survey strategies –  Wait until your ratings have consistently levelled off before focusing on

new changes

Sharing Improvements With Others

•  Open spaces •  Hackathons •  Lean coffee •  Practitioner presentations (e.g. lunch and learns) •  Discussion forums •  Capture/document improvements •  Write a blog/article •  Word of mouth


Organizational Improvement © Disciplined Agile Consortium 21

Organizational Improvement


Maximize the ROI of “failures”

Increase the chance of radical improvement

Shorten cycle time from improvement idea to implementation


Continuous Improvement Beyond the Team?


Continuous Improvement

Criteria for Effective Agile Coaches

Years of experience, not days of training Proven coaching experience and skills

Robust agile skills and knowledge Experience in a similar context

Suggested Resources: •  DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org/CDAC •  DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com/gooddadcoach/ •  DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com/qualified-agile-coaches/


Communities of Practice (CoPs)/Guilds


Organizing an Agile Center of Excellence (CoE)


Capturing Improvements


Governing Continuous Improvement

•  Effective governance focuses on motivation and enablement –  Motivation:

•  Celebrate learnings, including “failed” experiments •  Actively share improvements and strategies for improving

–  Enablement: •  Provide people with the time to reflect and experiment •  Invest in CoEs, CoPs, and other sharing strategies

•  Tracking improvements: –  DANGER: You get what you measure –  Measure desired business outcomes, not adoption of

techniques or conformance to standards


Justifying Continuous Improvement

•  At some point somebody is going to ask “what did we get for our investment?”

•  Co-relate desired business outcomes to investment in: –  Training –  Coaching –  Certification –  Improvement activities

•  You likely won’t have a baseline, so track trends over time



Goal: Improve Team Process and Environment



Continuous Improvement

Join the DA Community!

Anyone who attends a Disciplined Agile presentation or workshop is entitled to sign up at DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org to register for the designation “Disciplined Agilist”

Seriously though, the DA designation is an important first step towards earning an actual DA certification, such as: More importantly, it gives you access to our “members only” information and webinars at DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org


Thank You! Scott [at] scottambler.com

@scottwambler

DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com

ScottAmbler.com

Disciplined Agile Delivery


Scott Ambler + Associates is the thought leader behind the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) framework and its application. We are an IT

management consulting firm that advises organizations to be more effective applying disciplined agile and lean processes within the

context of your business.

Our website is ScottAmbler.com We can help


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