Overview

The Twin Cities LeSS Meetup leadership team graciously extended an opportunity for me to discuss my experience coaching a LeSS-like transformation within a division of a multi-national networking hardware company. The event listing can be found here. The recorded Zoom meeting and relevant pre-read handouts are available below.

Video

Case Study Diagrams/Pre-Read

The pre-read handout contains a complete copy of every figure and associated caption in my case study so far, as well as some useful introductory context.

Presentation Transcript

I have manually created an edited transcript file for YouTube’s closed captions. With all the deep thoughts, and false starts, the manually edited closed captions make it a little easier to follow the dialogue.

You can also download the manually edited transcript. You can skim the transcript to discover the parts you find most interesting, and use the video index below to quickly find the relevant portions of the video.

Video Index

00:00:00 - Event Banner

00:00:12 - Introduction

00:03:56 - Overview

00:52:33 - Discussion Starts

00:52:48 - Question (Julian): How did this team structure evolution tie in with the training of the BIOS teams?

00:55:52 - Question (David): What were the motivational factors that made you appreciate James’s approach with LeSS? What problems or team dysfunctions did you see?

01:04:39 - Question (Joel): I’m curious what kind of training teams get before they change into a LeSS-like way of working?

01:12:17 - James discusses the importance of avoiding the contract game. (Tangent related to the training question.)

01:16:23 - Jerry comments on the importance of leadership buy-in.

01:18:24 - James and Mitya discuss leadership failures affecting the case study.

01:21:15 - Question (Samuel): Were there any key economic elements that could have been more directly connected to the adoption?

01:26:56 - Question (James): Was there any element of Mitya’s relationship with the hardware VP that impacted the political cover we enjoyed.

01:27:55 - Question (Samuel): What could have been done to establish a more direct connection to product management?

01:30:39 - Question (Julian): What might be done differently with the communications with, or around the new SVP/GM?

01:35:38 - Question (Vladimir): In what way was it a struggle to get the new VP on board? What was the new VP looking for?

01:56:14 - Question (Joel): How do I respond to a manager who is seeking to micro-manage a Scrum team?

02:04:21 - Question (Joel): Exploration of the “adoption vs transformation” spectrum.

02:08:15 - Question (David): Were there any metrics that you set out with?

02:13:00 - Question (Joel): Did the project eventually get completed, or did the whole product line fail?

02:13:39 - Question (Vladimir): What measurements were used to determine success and progress as well?

Synopsis

Join James and his mysterious co-presenter as they present highlights from a LeSS-Huge adoption effort at a large networking and server hardware company. After a quick walk-through of the case study excerpts, James and his co-presenter will focus on participant questions inspired by the extensive diagrams available in the pre-read content.

Colorful information rich context for the discussions is being provided in the many graphics found in the pre-read content. Nuances regarding challenges from executive management changes, clever requirement area boundary definitions, complex engineering challenges, and the political dynamics of a multi-national engineering organization can all be seen in the figures and captions provided in the pre-read content.

Zoom Chat Log

Samuel Brisson: the LeSS site has some general notes on the feature team adoption map - https://less.works/less/adoption/feature-team-adoption_map I like how James’ case study interprets this for the teams they were working with in context of the product

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: I think domains like firmware where it’s believed agile isn’t appropriate ought to be challenged - in some cases, I bet there are good reasons and in others, I’d bet there’s potential to work incrementally / feedback-driven / etc. but it just hasn’t been tried / given a chance.

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: Interesting to see HW VP more onboard than SW VP

Samuel Brisson: Joel, I agree - adaptiveness is a ‘keystone’ that seems to unlock so many other aspects of high value delivery

Bill Asch: HW VPs get the cost of rework… (my personal experience at Intel…9+ years)

David Nielsen: Logging questions and comments, keep them coming!

Julian Johnson: How did this team structure evolution tie in with the training to Bios Teams, specifically in helping to resolve “a few key team dysfunctions”?

David Nielsen : Q1:How did this team structure evolution tie in with the training to Bios Teams, specifically in helping to resolve “a few key team dysfunctions”?

Samuel Brisson : For Mitya: In retrospect, were there any key economic elements of this product that the Adoption strategy could have connected to more directly as a part of the product / tech team partnership?

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: I’m curious what kind of training teams get before they change into a more Less-like way of working. I’m currently using Seattle Scrum Company’s video-based training to train very basic Scrum concepts, am assuming coaches and POs get training but I’m less (pun) sure about what kind of training to offer for Devs. 3-day LeSS practitioner training sounds like a big ask.

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : Yes, and …

Samuel Brisson: Larman’s Laws of Organizational Behavior

Julian Johnson: What might be done differently with the communications with, or around the new SVP/GM? Wondering if there any retro on if any incremental steps that could’ve been taken up each layer of the org chart.

David Nielsen: https://less.works/trainers/craig-larman-as-a-trainer-8/courses

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : We’re going to get about 50 people through 3-day LeSS training w/Michael James next month - including our CEO, directors, managers, POs, PMs, coaches, etc.

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : That’s about 30% of our company

Jerry Lopez : That is EXCELLENT!!!!!!

Samuel Brisson: @Joel - huge win! that’s a big deal

Jerry Lopez: MJ is an awesome guy. Really like him.

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : about 60% have finished his Scrum Training Series

Jerry Lopez : You are on track to something great.! Well Done!!

Walt Paulson : That is a GREAT first step to get a large mixed group!!!

David Nielsen : Q3: For Mitya: In retrospect, were there any key economic elements of this product that the Adoption strategy could have connected to more directly as a part of the product / tech team partnership

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : I’d like to explore the “adoption vs transformation” spectrum - James’ comments about the change sounded kind of…abrupt

David Nielsen : Q4: (Julian) What might be done differently with the communications with, or around the new SVP/GM? Wondering if there any retro on if any incremental steps that could’ve been taken up each layer of the org chart.

Vladimir Bushin : and what actually happened when a new VP came?

Vladimir Bushin: not everybody believed in Scrum?

Vladimir Bushin: what new VP was looking for?

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: I think that’s the hardest part of the job — winning the hearts and minds of hard-headed managers (I’m using that term instead of ‘leadership’ intentionally).

David Nielsen: Q5: (Joel) I’d like to explore the “adoption vs transformation” spectrum - James’ comments about the change sounded kind of…abrupt

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: Regarding retaining/empowering the SW VP, I’m reminded of this quote: “”We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein

Jeff Hove: Did the project eventually get completed, or did the whole product-line fail?

Nissa Eberly: Hi All need to jump. Thank you.

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: Feature lead times

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: blood / effort = priority

Vladimir Bushin : was there something measured routinely every sprint besides number of bugs and velocity?

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA : Cost of delay > bug-free quality

Vladimir Bushin: how frequently have you released a new version to production?

Joel Robinson - Redmond WA: they’re still in business because they didn’t do all those things :-)

Vladimir Bushin: great session, thank you so much!

Vladimir Bushin: thank you for sharing your experience and helping us learn

Jeff Hove: Very interesting. Thanks.

Walt Paulson: Outstanding conversations!!! Thanks

Recorded Case Study Presentation