Life after Agile Transition...What to do with the group that was responsible for the transition

[Frank Rios]

We are Nokia Chicago. We have successfully transitioned our development organization to Agile over the past three years. We are contemplating organizational changes to the group responsible for the care and well-being of this transition. We would like to know how companies with a long track record in Agile have addressed the following questions:

1. Where do the Agile Coaches / Scrum Masters reside within the organization? Should they be a horizontal function or report within a program? Why?
   
2. Have you found a compelling need to retain an organization whose primary purpose is to oversee the care and well-being of the Agile process? If so, what are the key value drivers you've found? 
   
3. Has Agile extended outside the traditional development organizations and if so, to what degree?
   

We are looking for answers to any of the above and appreciate your feedback. We would most appreciate practical application and experience, rather than theory.

[Lanette Creamer]

In the companies I've worked for this has been a non-issue because either those hired were external contractors & coaches KNOWN to be temporary, or they had already been developers and testers working on teams, so they went back to their original job, or if they wanted to be a scrum master they competed against other folks who wanted to & the team picked who would be better. Those who didn't like it organically found other teams.

It would be very odd to me if a company had any "policy" about this. Why not just figure out where they people fit & what they want to do? If they don't fit, say goodbye? Anything else would seem kind of forced and strange. I do understand that some countries have different laws and you don't ever fire or lay people off, but I've never worked there so here in the land of Capitalism, the shareholder trumps an individual wish, so there are layoffs if you don't fit a current need. If you aren't competent, then there are firings. I think unless you really are a bad employee who isn't trying to improve sincerely, layoffs are better if it's due to a companies changing needs.

I also want to personally thank the person who laid me off. I've been more appreciated, paid more, and have even enjoyed learning new things I'd never have had the chance to if they had decided to keep me around due to my sound work ethic even though I didn't fit the culture. I do not miss the bigger public corporation culture at all. I worked last weekend. I'm still working at past 6 my time. However, my boss never asks me to work just for politics. I'm here doing work that actually impacts customers, so I don't resent it. Every job has downsides, so pick those you can deal with. Every old relative used to nod when I told them where I worked. Now they look confused, but it's a better place for me.

Anyone who feels unappreciated, abused, or not allowed to flourish, it is YOUR responsibility to find the right place where you are appreciated for your work. Not all companies are the same. If you have technical talent and are not searching for satisfying work, the waste is on you. You are the only one wasting your talent. If you see someone with talent being wasted, more power to you if you have the courage to set them free. They might amaze you. We also might want to hire them. :)

Thanks,
Lanette

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[Mark Kilby]

Frank:

Short answers to your questions and then some additional ideas:

Your questions:

1. Where do the Agile Coaches / Scrum Masters reside within the organization? Should they be a horizontal function or report within a program? Why?
   

1. Mark: I find horizontal organizations work best.  Much written about why you don't want teams reporting up to a coach or scrummaster.

1. Have you found a compelling need to retain an organization whose primary purpose is to oversee the care and well-being of the Agile process? If so, what are the key value drivers you've found? 
   

1. Mark: Absolutely!  It becomes more than care-n-feeding of agile (see other feedback below)

1. Has Agile extended outside the traditional development organizations and if so, to what degree?
   

1. Mark: Yes!  A well orchestrated transition starts having other parts of the organization start asking if they can leverage the benefits of agile/lean management.  I know several organizations that were successful with agile in engineering and it then extended into product management (including hardware), portfolio managment, sales, marketing, HR and beyond.  Agile/lean principles are not just for software teams though practices may vary for these other parts of the organization.  I'm currently coaching a very large organization that has been transitioning to agile over the last 2 years and is now extending it out to other parts of the organization.

4 other things for you that might help:

First, you might be interested in looking at Stephanie Stewart's blog

http://iamagile.com/

She shares many lessons from her coaching organization at Valpak in Tampa.  They have been on their agile journey for roughly 3 years.  She may be at Agile2013 next week (also a great place to talk to many people about your question).

Second, you might be interested in this recent blog post from Johanna Rothman http://www.icontact-archive.com/n_79QZ4v1pE1G84u0kOqHkKPCwUZYqgV?w=1

Johanna talks about how you need to "sustain the change" and I agree with her point of view.  From my experience working with many organizations, I find that those who have "temp coaches" or part-time coaches with other roles in the org have a hard time keeping the agile movement going.  There will always be people moving in-and-out of the organization, new teams to start up, new organizational changes. An agile/lean coaching organization can not only help new teams stand up, but also help organize new change initiatives.

Third, you may find an article I wrote a few years ago helpful in considering why you might sustain a coaching group - http://www.agileconnection.com/article/agile-coaching-your-agile-company

Fourth, I would recommend looking at some of Jean Tabaka's blogs from 2010-2012 where she shares much about Rally's culture.  They went from having a professional coaching organization that coached internally and externally to standing up their own internal coaching organization because the organization was changing so fast.  The internal coaches do much more than just keep the teams and product development moving.  They facilitate and coach a number of organizational change events.

Hope this all helps.  Happy to speak with you more.  I'll be at Agile2013 next week.

Mark Kilby agile coach and mentor 
Tel: 407-687-3350 | http://markkilby.com

co-founder: agileorlando.com | lean coffee Orlando 

[Tim Ottinger]

Short semi-answers:

1. I've seen them become SMs and POs. Or consultants. Or internal coaches continuing onward. Often they're offered opportunities to move within the company to other teams in other locations.

2. I've seen it continue because the transition continues. Especially if the completed transition is to scrum, and not to Agile. (I consider scrum to be the starter's kit ;-)

3. Lean and kanban have extended well beyond, but they started outside of dev orgs. See Two-Second Lean.

One question: 

What does it mean to have successfully transitioned to agile? All teams are self-improving, self-organizing, continuously integrating and improving? All projects deliver from the first week onward? 
I don't know anyone who is "done becoming agile" but I assume there was some initial 

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[Lisa Crispin]

I was also kinda surprised someone would think they were done transitioning to agile, hopefully they are not done improving! :-> I worked on my last team almost 9 years starting with the initial transition to Scrum. Every so often we thought we were rock stars, then something humbled us. We kept pushing ourselves to find ways to improve, it was really fun. So I can see a role for internal coach type people ongoing.

-- Lisa

Lisa Crispin
Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
Contributor to _Beautiful Testing_ (O'Reilly 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
@lisacrispin on Twitter

[Mark Levison]

Frank - one key thought - I don't think Agile is something you transition to so much as a way of like. Its a form of Kaizen. True Kaizen requires you're always dissatisfied with the current state. With mindset I don't you have a transition team, but an organization improvement team. Their goal is to find the most useful new ideas and bring them inside the organization.

Cheers

Mark

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[Tim Ottinger]

Well, the question of whether a transition is "complete" aside, you have people who are skilled now at measuring, advising, and teaching. I would think that they could easily join the teams, get immersed in testing and coding, and become serious assets wherever they go. Becoming SMs is a reasonable choice, or even being internal coaches, floating from team to team, teaching managers and product owners....