Agents Unleashed

“I think a good SPC has to be a coach, too … You have to use the language of the people who have to become agile because agile isn’t the goal. It’s using the agile things to become faster, to become better, to have better user feedback” - Niko Kaintantzis

Stephan Neck and Niko Kaintantzis join Mark Richards in the first ‘reprise’ episode.  The initial iteration of SPC’s Unleashed delved into some critical dimensions in a theoretical manner.  We felt the need to revisit these dimensions, infusing our unique perspectives and real-life experiences from the field. And what better place to start than with Lean Thinking People and Agile Teams from the Organizational Agility competency?

We kick off by sharing our practical experiences of teaching the SAFe courses to non-technical audiences.  Niko enlightens us about ‘Greifin’ (touching or grabbing), and Stephan underscores the significance of linking the audience’s pain points to breathe life into the concepts in their own context.

There’s a natural progression from training to coaching, so the second topic we explore is coaching non-technical people. Stephan’s first ART was actually in HR, so he has some great stories to share. Niko stresses the importance of coaching skills and ‘using the language of the people’ to connect worlds.

Next, we reflect on how valuable the recent evolution of SAFe’s built-in quality article has been in supporting non-technical teams.

Our final topic was the Patterns for Agile Business and Technology.  Questioning which of the five patterns was most popular revealed that we have tried making every ART a Business-Enabled ART for years.  Niko and Stephan share some great insights about their experiences coaching Agile Executive Teams and Combined Portfolios.

Cast:

Mark Richards (Moderator)

Niko Kaintantzis  

Stephan Neck 

Links:

Marshmallow Challenge

Pair Drawing Activity

Organizational Agility Article

Built-in-Quality Article

“Not having good DevOps is a lot more expensive than having DevOps” - Mark Richards

In this enlightening podcast episode, Niko takes the reins as the host, guiding Ali, Stephan, and Mark through a rich discussion on the essence of DevOps and its implications for modern organizations.

Niko initiates the dialogue by delving into ownership and collaboration in DevOps. Ali highlights the importance of agreements and ownership within teams, highlighting how these agreements facilitate smooth collaboration between development, operations, and other domains. Stephan chimes in, emphasizing the significance of value stream mapping and its role in fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility within teams.

Mark redirects the conversation toward the early integration of DevOps principles in the development lifecycle. He underscores the misconception of DevOps as solely a production-focused endeavor, advocating instead for its integration right from the outset. Mark shares insights from his experience, emphasizing the importance of practicing DevOps principles during the development, testing, and pre-production stages.

As the discussion evolves, Niko steers the conversation toward the learning journey inherent in DevOps. Stephan articulates the three fundamental ways described in the DevOps handbook: establishing flow, establishing feedback mechanisms, and continual experimentation. Ali adds depth to the conversation by highlighting the importance of resilience and proactive approaches to disaster recovery and business continuity.

The dialogue extends to the cultural shift required for successful DevOps implementation. The panelists agree that DevOps is more than just a set of tools—it necessitates organizational cultural transformation. They emphasize the importance of embracing a people-centric approach, fostering a team-oriented mindset, and aligning goals and practices across the entire value stream.

The key takeaway is that DevOps is not merely about adopting tools with fancy names—it’s about fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and resilience within organizations. The panelists leave listeners with a call to action, urging them to rethink their approach to DevOps and embark on a journey toward organizational transformation.

Cast:

Book References:

• The DevOps Handbook - by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, & John Willis

“Can you integrate, and do you do that very frequently on a cadence?  Yes, then that generates learning, and so forth, and so forth!  Und so weiter, und so weiter!” - Ali Hajou

Why is it important to Develop on Cadence and Release on Demand?  How fast can you learn?  Does it integrate?  Does it work?  Do your customers like it?  In this episode, Ali, Stephan, Niko, and Mark continue in their quest to provide insight and inspiration to SPCs and other change agents by sharing their personal journeys and war stories from the field.

Stephan hosts and begins by asking Niko, Ali, and Mark how they help teams and ARTs establish a flow system.  Ali emphasizes the importance of the flow of knowledge as described in the DevOps handbook.  Niko reminds us to build our cadence around people, while Mark wants to minimize the batching impact of cadence.

Exploring the inherent variability of product development, Niko focuses on Continuous Exploration, and Ali empathizes with management and ‘real-world’ commitments.  Mark balances the variability of estimates with the chance we’re building something that doesn’t meet customer needs.

The Measure and Grow debate is divided into two camps.  Ali and Niko argue for the ART demonstrating an integrated solution in the System Demo".  Stephan and Mark, however, stress the importance of the ART addressing bottlenecks in the value stream.

Cast:

Book References:

• The DevOps Handbook - by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, & John Willis

"Team of teams is not a target state, but rather an opportunity for value creation and delivery" - Stephan Neck

As an SPC or other agile change agent, how do you bring the Team of Agile Teams dimension of SAFe's Team and Technical Agility competency to life in your organization? In this episode, Ali, Stephan, Niko, and Mark continue in their quest to provide insight and inspiration by sharing their personal journeys and war stories from the field.

Mark hosts and begins by asking Ali, Stephan, and Niko to describe their first ART and their worst ART and the lessons they learned from both. Niko takes the opportunity to remind us that we're dealing with a living organism, not a machine, which makes a great segue to the secrets we've all found regarding ART design. Ali provides an excellent foundation for this discussion as he shares the story of an ART that took ten weeks to design. Getting an ART designed and launched is only the beginning of the journey, though, and we move on to critical moves to setting it up for self-sustaining success and avoiding the perils of the feature factory.

The Measure and Grow debate is less divided this week. Ali, Mark, and Stephan all settled for "The ART being organized to optimize value delivery" as their favorite, and Niko provided the only contrast with his love of the trust required when "Our team can rely on the other teams to deliver work on which we are dependent."

Cast:

Book References:

• Artful Making - by Robert Austin, Lee Devin

Other References:

• 12 signs you're working in a feature factory - John Cutler

"Experiment like a scientist, not a mad scientist" - Mark Richards

Have you ever asked yourself, "If Innovation was an animal, which one would it be?" That's how Niko started this episode's journey into the Innovation Culture dimension of SAFe's Continuous Learning Culture competency. It set the scene for an eventful discussion as Mark, Ali, and Stephan shared insights on lessons they'd learned and successes they'd seen.

The conversation led from slices of cake inspiring innovation in semiconductor design through Hackathons and "Awesome Challenges" to ensuring there was time for Innovation in the IP iteration. We explored the challenges and possibilities of Pivoting without mercy and ignoring sunk costs before Niko and Stephan took us back into the world of slicing elephants of various flavors.

No two of us agreed on a most critical Measure and Grow metric. Ali opted for "Leaders creating an environment that supports creative thinking, curiosity and challenging the status quo." Stephan asked for an organization that "cultivates the courage and aptitude for innovation and encourages risk-taking." At the same time, Niko wanted to "promote learning and exploration through experimentation without fear of failure." Mark is obsessed with "pivoting without blame or consideration of sunk cost."

Cast:

Book References:

• Lean Startup - Eric Ries

Other References:

• Epic Fails Brought to You By the Genius Mind of Thomas Edison - Smithsonian Magazine

"At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind - from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something 'out there' to seeing how our actions create the problems we experience" - Peter Senge

As an SPC or agile change agent, how do you bring the Learning Organization dimension of SAFe's Continuous Learning Culture to life in your organization? In this episode, Ali, Niko, and Mark continue in their quest to provide insight and inspiration by sharing their personal journeys and war stories from the field.

Ali hosts as Mark describes the tension between the slow but sustainable growth from coaching time-poor executives on the journey and the rapid acceleration when you focus at the team level. Niko reminds us that the coach's job is to make themselves redundant as he describes an organization that achieved "learning on auto-pilot." After Mark explains his love affair with the Improvement Kata for developing reflective conversation skills, Ali shares his experience with the value of templates and tools to help people start on the journey.

Regarding Measure and Grow metrics, we are fully divided on our favorites. Ali's favorite is an "organization [that] continuously creates, acquires, shares, and transfers knowledge." Niko wants "organizations [that] encourage employees to challenge the status quo," and Mark wants "Teams [that] work collectively to achieve common objectives by sharing knowledge, solving problems, and learning together."

Cast:

Book References:

• The Fifth Discipline - Peter Senge

Other References:

• Building a learning organization - Harvard Business Review

"Test it while it feels unfinished. Otherwise, you fall in love with your solution and defend it instead of accepting feedback." - Niko Kaintantzis 

Stephan hosts while Niko gets passionate about an ISO standard (yep, it is possible), Ali fights the constant idea of developing a one-size-fits-all solution, and Mark gets fired up about the importance of product strategy. Ali shares a great story about how a cyber-physical company found a way to be 'first on the market,' Mark reminisces about a group of Product Owners who brought the customers to life for their developers, and Niko stresses the importance of involving teams in the design thinking process.

As usual, we're divided on our favorite Measure and Grow metric, but Mark and Ali win Niko over to their view that the presence of true rolling-wave roadmaps implies that the organization is incorporating customer feedback. Stephan is left in the minority, fighting for ‘Empathy’ as the most critical metric.

Cast:

Book References:

• Lean UX: Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden

"Scream and shout that you've done good things" - Ali Hajou

As an SPC or other agile change agent, how do you help your organization turn Relentless Improvement from something you talk about to something you do? In this episode, Ali, Stephan, and Mark continue in their quest to provide insight and inspiration by sharing their personal journeys and war stories from the field.

Mark moderates, as Stephan and Ali share secrets they've discovered about bringing it to life. Ali recounts the story of a client who came up with a gamification approach to generate a beginning that snowballed. Team members went from being demotivated and departing to happy and sticking around.  Meanwhile, leadership went from reluctant to excited about allocating time for improvement activities as the results piled up. Stephan illustrates the importance of discipline and structure in improvement efforts by taking us on a personal journey he followed with his health and fitness.

In the battle to pick a favorite Measure and Grow metric, Stephan and Mark join forces to argue the importance of facts and data. At the same time, Ali sits firmly behind his belief that it's about "the organization giving improvement activities priority, visibility, and resources.

Cast:

• Toyota Kata: Mike Rother

"You can build a hut on rotten ground, but not a skyscraper" - Niko Kaintantzis

Ali, Niko, Stephan, and Mark are on a quest to help agile change agents, particularly SPCs, grow their skills and impact beyond certification. In this episode, they share insights from their personal journeys with the Built-in Quality dimension of the SAFe Team and Technical Agility competency.

Ali hosts Niko, Stephan, and Mark reminisce on their days as developers and how they learned the importance of built-in quality practices early in their agile journeys with XP. Stephan and Mark explore the criticality of BDD and insights to be gained from the Context Driven Testing movement, while Niko stresses the fact that you need to test that you're building the right thing as well as whether you're building the thing right. 

The battle to pick a favorite metric in the Measure and Grow assessment becomes spirited as Stephan, Mark, and Ali unite behind "Our team's testing practices catch defects early." At the same time, Niko staunchly defends his choice of "Our team gathers feedback from users."

• Specification by Example - Gojko Adzic

Other References:

• BDD in action