 Leading Agile Teams

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Acknowledgments Chapter 1 - The Road Ahead
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Why You Should Buy This Book

When I was in grade school, I was deeply suspicious of animal fables. I
found it very unsettling to read about their barnyard bargaining—the
shadowy back-and-forth between cats, dogs, swans, rats, and foxes. Why
were they always negotiating?

“Will you sing me a song for a slice of cheese?” Or “could you give me a
ride so I can cross the river?”

I remember wondering why our four-legged “friends” were always

colluding in our absence.

But after many years, one of the old stories stuck with me. I'm reminded
of it when I work with agile teams.

In the fable, there was a small village with a marauding cat harassing the
local mice. The mice convened a meeting to solve the problem. They
floated some good ideas in the meeting. Finally, the mice settled on
attaching a bell to the cat's collar. That way they could run anytime they
heard the cat's distant jingling.

It was a brilliant idea. It was the perfect plan. The mice congratulated
themselves on a job well done. But just as they were closing the meeting, a
mouse stood up and raised its paw. “That's a terrific idea,” the mouse said,
“but whose job is it to put the bell on the cat?”

This book is for the team whose job it is to put the bell on the cat.

Big changes are decided in executive meetings. But they're started, driven,
and implemented by teams. The teams are where your transformational
changes will sink or swim. There will be a lot of legwork, a lot of
grassroots effort to push the ball forward.

Many of the meetings you'll endure will be with coworkers and mid-level
managers. Most agile teams do not have the authority to overrule key
decision makers. That means you won't be able to force any changes.
There will be a lot of explaining and a lot of compromise.

Certain key tenets of agile are a sharp departure from how most
organizations operate. Is your company ready for self-organized teams?
Will you be able to throw away your Gantt charts and scheduled
milestones? Are the project managers ready to cede some control? That
will be your bell to hang.

This book will show you how to align agile methods to your organization.
At the same time, you'll see how to stay true to the agile values. It is a
practical guide for your bottom-up organizational change.

This book takes the team's perspective of starting agile. It is written

specifically for the developers, project managers, product owners, and
ScrumMasters who struggle with shoehorning agile into a traditional
organization. These are the people who will do most of the legwork in
getting agile up and running. Even teams with executive support still have
to drive grassroots efforts to make agile fit.

The way your team works today may not be the same way it works in a few
years. Some decisions will have long-term consequences and others are a
good compromise in order to find a more agile way of working. This book
will help you identify these forks and make suggestions on the best course
to follow.

There are many books on agile methods. Some of these go into the details
about specific practices. Others are a good introduction to the agile
approach. What many of these books have in common is that they're
about the how. They have an engineer's perspective on how to apply agile
practices. They're about the steps you need to follow to be more agile.
Their assumption is that if you build a great process, the benefits will
follow.

A practical approach is important, but there isn't enough on the reasoning

and pitfalls in making a large-scale organizational change. Most agile
teams also need an understanding of the why. They need to see the
benefits of making this large-scale transformation. This will help the team
stay motivated. It will also give them the tools they need to explain agile to
the rest of the organization.

You'll see a similar pattern throughout the chapters. Each agile practice
will follow three steps. You'll see how you do it, then why you do it.
Finally there's a tie into how this practice fits into a larger organization
change.

Included in this book are many of the files you'll need for the meetings.

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There's an introduction to the agile slide deck. You'll have
spreadsheets for your first product backlog. There is a sample chart for
reporting. There's even an example agile project charter. These will be
your tools to convince your coworkers. These slides and reports will help
show why agile is an improvement over the status quo.
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 One theme you'll see throughout this book is that transforming to agile is
hard but doable. It's a bit like trying to get into better physical shape. The
rules are simple. You should eat less and spend time at the gym. What's
tricky is the strategy and tricks for changing your mindset. Agile really is a
new way of thinking about your work.

You'll be much happier with agile if you take the time to plan the change.
It isn't like spreading magic dust—a little sprinkle, everyone smiles, and
then you're agile. It's a long, hard push.

Most organizations change with the grace of a turning cruise ship. Each
day you hope to move the ship a little bit forward. I hope this book will
help you set the direction and give you the support you need to get there.

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Find supporting files on http://www.dougenterprises.com/
(http://www.dougenterprises.com/)

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Acknowledgments Chapter 1 - The Road Ahead

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