program selection system

Agile methods, and Scrum in particular, are enjoying a surge in popularity. Forrester Research’s “The Truth About Agile Processes” states that 17% of North American and European companies are now using Agile. Yet Forrester tells us that “many of these shops (companies adopting Agile) aren’t completely clear about what Agile adoption really entails” (2). Introducing Agile, a better process, causes an immediate improvement in productivity of 30 to 100%. This improvement is seen as a major win for the projects. Unfortunately, this is often where the adoption stops.

There are two fundamental problems with the current state of Agile adoption:

1: Companies suck less than we did before and that is acceptable 2: Most companies are blind to the game changing benefits of pursuing excellence in Agile organization

Agile methods, and Scrum in particular, are enjoying a surge in popularity. Forrester Research’s “The Truth About Agile Processes” (Schwaber 2007) states that 17% of North American and European companies are now using Agile. Scott Ambler, IBM’s Agile Practice Leader, conducted a survey in 2007 of organizations using Agile that prompted him to state that it is now mainstream (1). Yet Forrester tells us that “many of these shops (companies adopting Agile) aren’t completely clear about what Agile adoption really entails” (2). Introducing Agile, a better process, causes an immediate improvement in productivity of 30 to 100%. This improvement is seen as a major win for the projects. Unfortunately, this is often where the adoption stops.

Most of companies who adopt Agile profess to have made ‘significant’ improvements in their software delivery process. We do not dispute this. We believe this to be a given considering the superiority of the Agile delivery methodology over phased. Adopting Agile, even poorly, will tend to give organizations a boost in productivity. Despite the excitement and the obvious successes to date, we are worried that Agile adoption is and will continue to be mediocre and fail in its promise to deliver anything more than 2x productivity gains. Agile methods like Scrum, XP, and Crystal, amongst others, were designed to drive significantly higher levels of productivity. Jeff Sutherland, PhD, the co-inventor of Scrum, has claimed 10x improvement in productivity at Patient Keeper. Yet his example and the few others like it are certain to remain significant aberrations unless we recognize and do something about the challenges to becoming excellent at Agile.

Can the organization become Agile?

Agile organization adoption is not an easy process for many organizations because they are designed for a different method of delivery. The structures, values, and behaviors were formed based on non-agile processes. Agile and Lean call for a different structure. When Toyota took over the NUMI plant from GM, they eliminated over 100 job descriptions from the floor, replacing them with 5 roles. How many organizations adopting Agile have eliminated roles, silo departments, or functional management? How many organizations using Agile deliver multi-platform projects without using waterfall estimation and planning and integration testing iterations? Our experience is that adopting a simple process like Scrum at the team level is relatively easy, and the fundamental shift in organizational structure is beyond the control of the teams and manager’s influence. In this presentation we will show data and case studies that show how “good enough” leads to backsliding and dysfunction in the organization.

Can the organization become Lean?

Lean adoption has significantly more history than Agile adoption and may therefore be prophetic in understanding where Agile is heading without our intentional action. James Womack of Lean.org and co-author of the landmark book, The Machine that Changed the World, posted the following summary of the past 10 years of lean adoption across the world:

“In fact, the amount of change in management practice and organizational performance over the past ten years has been modest. There is still only one Toyota. And I worry whether Toyota will continue to be Toyota as its growth rate seemingly outpaces its ability to grow lean managers. (What an irony if Toyota becomes more and more like General Motors even as it surpasses General Motors in sales!).” Womack, James (October 2007 e-newsletter) http://www.lean.org/Community/Registered/ShowEmail.cfm?JimsEmailId=74

It is interesting how Agilists are excited about leveraging Lean with Agile without recognizing that most companies practicing lean still do not do it well. Do we possess the required skills and experiences to really understand how to incorporate an incredibly simple yet powerful way of thinking into the way we deliver software when very few others with a lot more experience have failed to create Lean organizations? The Agile community needs to listen closely to why Lean is failing to live up to its promise outside of Toyota or risk the same fate for Agile.

We began to have these trepidations during the course of the single largest rollout of Agile in the financial services industry. This three year conversion continues to receive accolades in the market for its ‘successful’ Agile adoption. The time to market numbers dropped by over 50% and product quality improved, but many dysfunctions have appeared because of the failure to reshape the organization. The trap most fall into is settling for good enough. And good enough eventually erodes into quasi-Agile. In reality, the organization settled on a better result than it had previously and was not prepared to take the more difficult steps required to achieve breakthrough performance.

(1) http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/news/interview/0,289202,sid9...

(2) Schwaber, Carey (2007). “The Truth About Agile Processes”. Forrester Research.