Evaluating Executive Support and Team Willingness
The first and most important step is to get senior management backing. Without support from the very top, it is generally impossible to make significant changes.
—Watts Humphrey
Two important criteria for a successful agile implementation are support from your top executive and willingness to apply Agile by the team. By “executive,” I mean your most senior manager within the scope of deployment. If you are looking to initiate an agile enterprise change, then you need top-level executive sponsorship and management support for the transformation. Because moving to an agile culture represents a significant change for the teams, it is important to have team members willing to make the changes for an effective transition.
As a company approaches Agile, executive support and team willingness should be evaluated so that you understand your starting point. At the executive and management levels, a good way to determine support is to understand what support is needed, evaluate the level of support, and identify ways to increase support. At the team level, a good way to determine willingness is to evaluate the level of willingness and identify ways to improve it.
Agile Pit Stop It is important to evaluate executive support and team willingness to understand your starting point and what you need to do to improve each.
Gaining the full business benefits of Agile requires an enterprise-level initiative with executive support. Agile implementation occurs at many levels: top-down, grassroots, and from the middle in both directions. It is essential when scouting the possibility of an agile implementation to canvass and gauge the level of support from the stakeholders at the highest level of your organization that is in scope.
A good place to start is to understand the organizational scope of the change you are planning. Are you targeting the enterprise, a portion of the enterprise, a solution area made up of several products, or a single product team? This determination constrains the highest level of management support you will need and which teams you need to gain willingness from.
In general, all stakeholders should be evaluated so that you understand their levels of engagement, attitudes toward Agile, and what they may need to gain the Agile mindset. As a starting point, it is important to understand the agile personality types that you may encounter within an organization.
Agile Personality Types
In the agile world, people tend to work from different motivations. This differentiation helps you understand who you are dealing with. There are essentially seven types of people who can affect your agile transformation. They are the Innovator, Champion, Workhorse, Bandwagon Jumper, Cowboy, Deceiver, and Denier. Figure 10-1 places the seven personality types into quadrants based on level of experience with Agile on the horizontal axis and attitude toward Agile on the vertical axis.
Figure 10-1. The seven agile personality types based on their agile experience and attitude toward Agile
I discuss each of the personality types in turn, highlighting their experience levels in Agile, their attitudes toward Agile, the common roles that may fit into a type, and thoughts on their motivations. As you consider your stakeholders and team members, identify which personality types they may fall into. These insights can help you understand who will help you positively drive Agile and whom you need to work with to build their knowledge and alignment.
Innovator
Innovators make up a small population of folks who are very experienced and very positive about Agile. The signatories of the Agile Manifesto certainly fall in this camp, as do seasoned Agile Coaches, writers, presenters, and authors. They are motivated to help organizations adopt Agile and extend its capabilities into all areas of software product development.
Champion
A Champion tends to know Agile well and is willing to advocate for it in a very positive way across an organization. There are even some Champions who may not be well versed in the practices of Agile but have seen the benefits of implementing and using agile methods. Key Champions may include your executives and senior management as well as Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and leaders in engineering. They are motivated by the business and organizational benefits of Agile.
Workhorse
The Workhorse has learned about Agile by implementing it within a team context. Workhorses are mostly positive about Agile, have worked or are working in the trenches as Agile Team members, and will be fairly honest about what works and what does not. Workhorses commonly use Agile on a daily basis. They bring a pragmatic approach and are often the first to experience the agile culture colliding with current company culture. They are motivated to improve the agile deployment so their lives are better. A lot can be learned from this group.
Bandwagon Jumper
The Bandwagon Jumper sees benefits in the move to Agile. If Agile is perceived to be “hot” within their company, they will jump on the bandwagon. This crowd tends to be inexperienced with Agile but generally positive until it is out of fashion. They are motivated by improving their own image. Bandwagon Jumpers may include middle and senior management and engineers who believe they can get ahead by aligning with the hot new trend. Some Bandwagon Jumpers will see the value of Agile and may become Workhorses or Champions.
Cowboy
The Cowboy sees Agile as an opportunity to abandon discipline and process so that they can enjoy the “Wild West” life. Cowboys are not necessarily negative about Agile. Their motivation is that they know that they get away with pretending to be Agile because those in the Bandwagon Jumper crowd really have no idea what it is. Ultimately, these pretenders can give Agile a black eye in the organization, since others will believe from a Cowboy’s actions that Agile means no discipline or process.
Deceiver
The Deceiver will agree to applying Agile but will either silently attempt to sabotage the change or continue doing things the waterfall way. A Deceiver is negative about Agile. Deceivers behave this way either because they resent having been forced into using Agile or because they feel threatened by the change but do not want to lose credibility by bad-mouthing the new direction. They may have had some agile experience that was thrust on them. Deceivers are the most dangerous because they undermine and obstruct the potential success that Agile can bring to an organization.
Agile Pit Stop It is actually better to have Deniers than Deceivers, because with the former you know where they stand.
Denier
The Denier will deny outright the benefits of moving to Agile. They are typically set against Agile from the beginning because they see that it will interfere with what they perceive to be their currently successful role. They may be motivated by incentives, expecting that Agile will affect their reward structure in a negative way. Deniers typically do not have much agile experience. Many times, it can be beneficial to listen to reasons Deniers give for dismissing Agile. Their input may help you look for a way to overcome their reasons, therefore strengthening the perception of Agile within the organization.
Executive/Senior Management Support
For Agile to truly succeed in an organization, everyone has to be dedicated to the initiative—especially the executive team.
—Robert Holler
It would be great if everyone were an Agile Champion, but this is seldom the case. At a high level, you can start with the rhetorical question of what personality types are the executives, senior management, and other key stakeholders. Though we want them all to be champions, usually we have to build them up to become a catalyst for change. We should consider the level of support we need. Then we should discreetly evaluate the level of support currently conveyed, followed by activities to increase support.
Agile Pit Stop Gauging the level of executive support is an ongoing activity that includes understanding what type of support you need, discreetly evaluating support levels you are actually receiving, and working to increase support levels.
Once you have identified the scope of change you are looking for, then you should identify the top management and key internal stakeholders who are important to the success of an agile implementation effort. Internal stakeholders may include the highest level of management within the level, product management involved in the product and requirements direction, middle management who have resource responsibilities of their team members, and IT governance, HR, and finance personnel.
Early on, we may not really know the level of agile support from executives, senior management, and key stakeholders. This is why it is important to periodically gauge the level of support with the goal of increasing the level of support and creating Agile Champions within your organization.
Support Needed from Executives
As you consider the support you need to achieve an effective agile deployment, you want the most senior executive or manager within the organizational scope you are working with to become the sponsor and rallying point as a catalyst for change. You need this person to accept the sponsor role and acknowledge the responsibilities involved.
Some examples follow of the types of responsibilities involved in the sponsor role. A sponsor does not have to implement all of these areas but must advocate for and support them.
- Obtain funding and resources for the implementation. This sponsor responsibility may include hiring Agile Coaches, procuring training, acquiring tools, and allowing time to adapt to Agile.
- Align leadership around Agile. This responsibility may be in the form of establishing an Agile Deployment Team or steering committee led by an organizational-level Agile Coach or change agent and internal people who are or striving toward becoming an Agile Champion.
- Provide ongoing communications. Keeping the organization informed is important to the success of Agile. This sponsor responsibility initially includes communicating about the agile initiative and why it is good and continues with messaging of progress and successes. Prepare a communication plan and share with the executive as discussed in Chapter 11.
- Build middle management support. This responsibility may include working directly with management to ensure they are becoming educated and aligned with Agile. Middle management is often where change falters because they represent the glue between executives and senior management and team members.
- Manage resistance. This responsibility involves mitigating signs of resistance from senior and middle management and indirectly helping mitigate resistance across the teams. Mitigation may come in the form of Q&A sessions, education, coaching, and so forth.
- Adapt budget language toward value and investment and away from schedule and cost. This responsibility helps set the tone that value for the customer matters most. If you hit the schedule and cost targets but few customers find the deliverables valuable, then you have not succeeded.
- Educate executives around agile values and principles. This responsibility includes promoting agile education for the executive’s management staff and key stakeholders. Begin with sharing Chapters 6 and 9 of this book.
- Provide education at all levels. Agile is a fundamentally different way of doing and being. It requires continuous education in the early stages to move the company in the right direction. This responsibility includes instructor-led training, in-session coaching, webinars, seminars, Q&A sessions, and so on. (Learn more about agile education in Chapter 16.)
- Promote objectives for Agile at all levels. This includes aligning organizational and team objectives toward Agile and advocating for team-based goals instead of individual goals. Add “Customers and employees really matter” to the company vision and “customer engagement” and “employee engagement” to management and employee objectives, as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5.
- Support an organizational realignment toward building effective Agile Teams. Adapt resource management along the lines of Agile Teams. This responsibility comes in the form of establishing Agile Teams whose primary responsibility is driven from the backlog and not from the functional manager. This means bringing together the business side (such as Product Owners) with the engineering side.
This is not a comprehensive list. You need to articulate the type of support that you need for your agile transformation.
Agile Pit Stop It is very important to assure the executive that you, acting as Agile Champion, will support their sponsorship activities and keep them informed of the latest progress so they appear knowledgeable regarding the agile initiative.
Once you have drafted this list of the type of support you want, it is important to share it with your senior executive within the organizational scope of your agile implementation. The list begins the discussion that helps you understand their level of support. You should initially ask if the executive can become the sponsor of the initiative. Ensure that the executive understands that you will support them in their sponsorship activities and will keep them informed of the latest progress regarding the deployment of Agile so they appear both knowledgeable and confident.
Evaluate and Increase Executive Support
Evaluating executive support is an aspect of the inspect-and-adapt model of Agile. The person who is the acting Agile Champion and lead of the agile deployment should discreetly evaluate the executive’s position of support. The relationship between the lead and the sponsor should be one of trust and support. To know what to adapt, this person should inspect (or in this case evaluate) the level of support. Then in the discussion with the executive, you can understand what can be done to help increase support.
The evaluation should be done discreetly and privately. Although you may share the list of support needs with the executive, you do not share your evaluation. It is only meant for you to understand the level of support so you can adapt along the way with the goal of increasing support. More important, the evaluation becomes a risk indicator of whether you are receiving the level of support you think you need for a successful transformation to Agile.
The purpose of the evaluation is to identify actions for the sponsor. The lead and the sponsor can work together to determine the best means to implement the actions. Assuming the actions will be carried out, this continues the notion of the inspect-and-adapt model to the benefit of the overall agile deployment.
You may also wish to evaluate the support of all key stakeholders who are within the organizational scope of the agile initiative. Any one of them can be a roadblock to the success of an agile transformation. Likewise, any one of them can become a strong Agile Champion.
Team Willingness
Willingness may be defined as a disposition to be accommodating and even enthusiastic. It implies that the willing person is doing something out of choice rather than under compulsion. When people are willing to do something, it means they are open-minded and receptive. In the context of being Agile, willingness means embracing the change toward Agile. It is important when you begin educating a team toward agile adoption that you gauge their level of willingness. Gauging their willingness can mean the difference between a successful or failed adoption.
The goal is to cultivate team members toward becoming Agile Champions and Workhorses. The good news is that many on an Agile Team are willing to move to Agile for multiple reasons. One reason is that they look at Agile as something new and exciting. Others realize that Agile provides business benefits to their personal growth and an increase in employment opportunities. Having Agile on the résumé is a benefit because many companies include it as one of the skill sets they are looking for.
Agile Pit Stop Agile Team members are willing to move to Agile for both singular and aggregate reasons. Some realize the benefit to their personal growth and an increase in employment opportunities.
Some of the Agile Team members may be Deniers and Deceivers. Some will take a wait-and-see position because they do not have a basis to form an opinion. This is why it is important to begin the education process to build team knowledge of Agile and then introduce the retrospective. The retrospective provides a platform for team members to speak honestly about challenges and seek opportunities for improvement.
Willingness Needed
As you consider willingness in relation to Agile, you need to direct the energy of the willing toward building knowledge and gaining experience in Agile. Though you cannot expect all of the team members to become Agile Champions, you would like them to at least become Workhorses. Some examples of the types of activities in which the Agile Deployment Lead or Agile Coach may observe willingness and building agile knowledge include the following:
- Agile educational activities. There is a willingness to take training and attend sessions to ramp up the teams toward the processes and practices they will be applying. As time goes on, education may include agile Q&A sessions and agile sharing sessions.
- Agile process and practices deployment. If using Scrum, there is a willingness to actively apply the Scrum events such as Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.
- Agile values and principles behavior. Team members exhibit the behaviors that bring the principles to life, such as self-organizing teams, simplicity, reflection, technical excellence, and collaboration.
- Team collaboration. An Agile mindset means that no one succeeds unless everyone succeeds. Each team member willingly learns a secondary skill that can help the team complete a task or story. This may include a developer learning to run tests or tester participating in code reviews.
Although this is not a comprehensive list, the key is for you to articulate what areas can help you evaluate the levels of willingness needed for your agile transformation. For example, you may add individual Agile Principles to the list to determine willingness toward each. Once you have drafted this list, it is important that you share it with the teams within the organizational scope of your agile implementation. This evaluation of willingness begins the discussion that helps you understand their level of willingness.
Evaluate and Increase Team Willingness
Evaluating team willingness is a subset of the inspect-and-adapt model. To know what to adapt, conduct an inspection, or in this case evaluate team willingness. Then you know where you are and have a better understanding of how to improve.
Instead of a formal evaluation, it may be better to use a combination of observation techniques and discussion with team members as you introduce Agile. For example, as an Agile Deployment Lead, Agile Coach, or Scrum Master, observe an Agile Team when they take training and when they participate in the agile events. Such evaluation should be done discreetly and privately. It is only meant to gain an understanding of willingness so you can adapt along the way with the goal of improving willingness. More important, this evaluation becomes a risk indicator of whether there is willingness for a successful agile transformation.
You should consider each person on the team according to his or her willingness. The key is to find those who are more positive about Agile (Champions, Workhorses, Bandwagon Jumpers) and those who are more negative (Cowboys, Deceivers, and Deniers). This distinction can help you determine the best course of action to improve willingness.
On the positive side, provide those whom you recognize as Agile Champions the opportunity to gain more experience. They are already on your side, so make them your strong ally to help you improve willingness among other team members. Some approach Agile as Bandwagon Jumpers. They know enough to align with the trend within the company, but may know very little about Agile. Help them understand the benefits of Agile and provide them with working experience. The Workhorses already have a bit of agile experience. Give them more ownership opportunities. See if they would like to be groomed as Scrum Master or Agile Coach. The ownership opportunities will give them some leadership responsibilities within an agile context.
On the negative side, ask those whom you recognize as Cowboys if they are willing to get more serious about Agile. If so, provide them the opportunities to participate more fully. For Deniers, it can be beneficial to listen to the reasons they dismiss Agile. That input can help you work with them (if they are willing) to gain experience to at least become a Workhorse. Deceivers may be hard to identify because they may be initially exhibiting the characteristics of a Workhorse or Bandwagon Jumper. Continue to keep your eyes open. Over time, they may expose themselves. Keep in mind that even with your efforts, you may not be able to influence these latter three types into becoming willing members of the team.
In some cases, a team member might be willing to apply Agile Principles but unclear about what they are supposed to do. You may need to proceed with further education.
Breakfast of Champions
As a company approaches Agile, executive support and team willingness should be evaluated. The evaluation provides a platform for determining and initiating actions to increase support and improve willingness. Having support from executives and willingness from team members can be the difference between a successful or failed agile deployment. Whether it is an executive or team member, ultimately the goal is to create Agile Champions who are willing to support the agile deployment.