What is making organizations so complex and slow? Why an "enterprise" is an equivalent to "inefficient"? How to de-scale organizations? There is no easy answers. But understanding the internal system dynamics is the key skill here.

1. How to grow a learning
multi-site agile organization
Alexey Krivitsky
agiletrainings.eu

2. Alexey krivitsky
Scrum trainer
Agile coach
Coach for ScrumMasters
Software developer
Free-ride skier
fun
profit

3. flickr.com/photos/89228431@N06

4. flickr.com/photos/varunshiv

5. The earliest large-scale software-
intensive product development
… was the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE)
system.
Created in the 1950s, it involved hundreds of people. One
of the directors of SAGE was discussing why the
programming had gotten out of hand.
He was asked: “If you had it to do all over again, what
would you do differently?”
His answer was to “find the ten best people and write the
entire thing themselves.”

6. large: don’t
multisite: don’t
offshore: don’t
“After many years working in large, multisite, & offshore
development, our key advice?”

7. “After many years working in large, multisite, & offshore
development, our key advice?”
“OK. You’re still gonna do it, so we wrote these books…”

9. flickr.com/photos/johnloo

10. flickr.com/photos/pigpilot

12. axonactive.com

13. www.offshore-challenge.com

16. Transparency
can be scary
“Does Agile stink?
Or is it just me?”
Jon Kern

17. Fast feedback on our performance

18. flickr.com/photos/nazimuddin/
Fast feedback on our organizational agility

19. org chart
1. What is my org optimized for?
2. How are our teams functioning?

20. ideal
scrum team
in vacuum
Team
responsibility
High interest
towards results
Peer
accountability
Decentralized decision
making
Product thinking
Constant efforts on
minimizing cost of change
High process and
progress transparency
High engagement in
product ideaBon

21. “Your Structure is Your Strategy”

22. less.works/case-studies/ericson.html
“Culture Follows Structure”

23. CULTURE
HABITS
BEHAVIORS
ENVIRONMENT

24. Spaghetti code and tech debt

25. Spaghetti ORG and org debt

26. It is not possible to increase agility
of an organization without
understanding its system dynamics

27. BACK-END
FRONT-END teams

30. More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings

31. Uneven flow

32. Workload and RESOURCE management

33. Resource management

34. Resource management

35. Cost optimization

36. And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More management
• More coordination
• More people

37. Out-of-sync development

38. ?
Out-of-sync development
?

39. Work never stops

42. And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More management
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers (instead of work)
• More complex solutions
• More complex dev process

43. Indirection …

44. And More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More management
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers
• More complex solutions
• More complex dev process
• More levels of indirection

45. Motivation is all about …
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose
Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose Purpose

48. Our Intentions
• Developers have sharp focus
• Сode changes are under control
• Architecture is kept clean
• Developers have time for frameworks
• …

49. Technical ORG

50. Tech org
It is a complex system with technical focus.
You need to have a good engineering
background to comprehend and manage it.
⇒ We hire managers with engineering
background.
⇒ They create more complex solutions.

51. More more more More complexity
• More roles
• More meetings
• More management
• More coordination
• More people
• More focus on workers
• More complex solutions
• More complex dev process
• More levels of indirection
• Less business focus
• Less learning

52. Variation: multi-product platform
PLATFORM
CONSUMER PRODICTS

53. Variation: satellite products
BACK-END
REST API
CORE FRONT-END MOBILE APPS

54. EXIT

55. “Feature teams”

56. Team formation workshops
h"p://blog.crisp.se/2015/10/28/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-lego

57. Self-organize into teams
Use your color cards.
Good teams are:
• 4-6 people
• Good mixture of different colors
• Equal number of cold and warm colors

58. Much better
• Less roles
• Less incoordination
• Less indirection
• More transparency
• More cross-site collaboration
• More decentralization
• More business-focus
But…

59. Dispersed teams

60. Collocated component teams
Dispersed feature teams
Vs.

61. Practice “go-and-see”

62. “Learning teams” is new agile

63. Some day…
Collocated Feature teams at each site!

66. How does your organizational
dynamics look like?
What are the structural factors
that affect decision-making?

67. But wait! There’s more!

68. Org structure optimized for value delivery
product managers
managers
users
product teams
collocated, multi-site

69. at scale:
multiple product organizations
managers
product
managers
product
managers
product
managers
???
users
product
teams
users
product
teams
users
product
teams