Format: Workshop
Duration: 90 minutes minimum

Abstract

Large enterprises find the transition to Agile notoriously difficult. Practices which are readily and energetically adopted by individuals, teams and small organisations run up against any number of obstacles when an attempt is made to scale them to larger groups. In these circumstances, agile adoption is organisational change. Not only the practices, but the mindset around agile adoption needs to change substantially when working at this level.

Why do so many organisations find the first flush of Agile adoption easy, then fall at the next fence? This workshop will explore change at an individual, team and organisational level. We'll look at how organisations have approached change in the past, and examine the poor record of organisational change initiatives. Using more recent thinking about how and why individuals and groups resist change we'll provide tools to help participants recognise what sort of change is needed when Agile adoption at scale is under way. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of change, to consider specific changes that are needed to help Agile work at scale in their organisations, and to identify ways of increasing the chances that the change will succeed.

Detailed description & timetable

The workshop is of 90 minutes (minimum) duration, and is organised as follows:

1. Introduction and goals 10m
2. Reflecting on change (individual/pair activity) 15m
   Individuals spend two minutes reflecting on an episode of successful, sustained change in their personal or professional lives, and write a brief story about this. With a neighbour, they share stories and identify two characteristics of the situation, environment or response that led to the change being a permanent and positive one. These points (not the stories!) are shared with the group as a whole and recorded on a flip-chart.
3. A brief history of organisational change 15m
   An overview of the many ways management thinkers and practitioners have thought about organisations and how to change them. We'll look at some of the models proposed and try to understand the values behind them, and ask why, after all this time, 70-80% of such initiatives fail.
4. Immunity to change 15m
   Drawing on new thinking about change developed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (amongst others), we'll look at ways individuals, groups and organisations protect themselves against change, and introduce some ideas for overcoming this immunity.
5. Things are gonna change around here (group activity) 30m
   Individuals identify one aspect of agile introduction in their organisations that they regard as (actually or potentially) generating resistance to change. In groups of four, one of these is selected (5 min). Using the techniques introduced in the previous section, the resistance is examined, and specific actions identified to overcome the resistance (10 min). Each group prepares a poster outlining the change, the resistance and the steps to overcome, and presents back to the session (10 min).
6. Conclusion 5m

(Timings can be adjusted to accommodate conference schedule)

It workshop will be of interest to:

• Members of teams that have adopted agile and who want to spread the values, principles and practices to other teams in their companies;
• Agile coaches and managers working in organisations undertaking, or about to undertake, the change to Agile development;
• Anyone interested in how organisations resist change

Biography

David Harvey (http://www.teamsandtechnology.com) has over twenty years experience in software - as a developer, manager, technical architect, CTO, coach, trainer and consultant. In the 1990s he helped numerous organizations adopt best practices in object-oriented design and implementation: in investment banks in the 2000s he was responsible for defining, designing and implementing large-scale infrastructure for complex and changing businesses. From 2004 to 2008 he was CTO of Sibelius Software, bringing two significant versions of the world's leading music notation program to market. He is now helping companies throughout Europe realize the benefits of Agile development, and as partner in CATeams is helping bring powerful ideas about social complexity and group dynamics into the way software teams work.

David has played a leading role in introducing new thinking into software practice, through sessions at conferences (including the first XP workshop in the UK, in 1999), in his work in teams and organizations and in the UK's software community, and through his chairmanship of the British Computer Society's specialist group on advancing software practice.

Martin von Weissenberg has a M.Sc. (Eng) in computer science and ten years of professional experience in software development and software processes. Having experienced the pain of executing traditional software projects, Martin became interested in software processes and the ways we work. This led to a careful study of Agile methods, what makes an Agile team tick and - most importantly - what makes an organization truly Agile. Martin is currently working for Nokia, deploying Agile methods and principles in the large and the small in one of the most complex business environments in the world.