Q1. Hi Israel, we first chatted about 3 years ago (I think) when I helped shepherd your agile2006 experience report. I remember being very impressed at the time with the approach you took to converting to agile. Could you tell us a little about your team, about your team's pre-agile life, and what lead up to your decision to embrace agile?
When I joined BMC Software in summer 2004, I was not too certain about the “Other duties as assigned” line item in my job description. Within a few short weeks it became very clear: “other duties” meant doing quick psychotherapy for the endless stream of strangers who came to my office to complain about the software I was responsible for. I did not need to ask the classic question “How did you feel about the software bug?!” – I was proactively advised how the person calling upon me – every person! - felt about it... Some actually reverted to Hebrew (my native tongue) in order to make doubly certain I did not miss any nuance of their disappointment, dismay, despair, anger and anguish. A distinguished industry analyst actually described my challenge as “Israel, you need to cross a chasm of Biblical proportions”…
The view of my role as a resident psychoanalyst was soon dwarfed by an acute feeling of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, everyone and his grandmother were complaining about software problems. On the other hand, my staff members, and their staffs, and many other individuals whom I met in the business unit seemed quite competent and dedicated. I could not reconcile the gap between good developers, testers and product management professionals on the one hand and unsatisfactory results on the other hand. More and more I felt like one foot in cold water, the other foot in hot water.
After scratching my head for a period of time, I reached a very simple conclusion: good people who do not achieve satisfactory results must be using the wrong methodology and/or lacking adequate tools. A quick investigation revealed the business unit was choking in rigid Waterfall practices. I found the diagnostic clue I needed – severe case of chronic Waterfall addiction punctuated by acute outbursts around release dates. My true mission, I concluded, was to turn the guys into recovered Waterfallics. My initial impression of my role as a resident psychoanalyst turned out after all to be quite accurate…
Vetting the radical idea of Agile/Scrum turned out - much to my surprise - to be a piece of cake. I think there were four main reasons for the ease with which Scrum was wholeheartedly adopted by the business unit, as follows:
1.
I was reporting to an exceptional executive and human being – Mary Smars. While Mary was not an expert in Scrum, she possessed this rare combination of pragmatic common sense, wisdom of life, patience and ability to trust people in a deep manner. To this very day I believe these are the four requisite virtues to look for in an Agile executive.
2.
I was blessed to have numerous competent colleagues who rallied around Agile. Walter Bodwell, Becky Strauss, Paul Beavers, Michael Cote, Roy Ritthaler, Glenn Jones, Chet Henry, Igor Bergman, Mike Lunt, Melody Locke and many others enabled effective diffusion of Scrum through the organization. They ensured the business unit was entirety galvanized around Scrum, had the required know-how at each and every level and operated cohesively across multiple sites.
3.
We invested a lot in top notch consulting. The Rally Software A team - Dean Leffingwell, Ryan Martens, Jean Tabaka, Hubert Smith and Michele Sliger - spent a ton of time with our teams, ensuring we do Scrum right from the very beginning.
4.
We were willing and able to learn and improve every step of the way. I am still not 100% certain how we so naturally evolved to be a learning organization. My hunch is that unbeknown to us we all shared the philosophy so eloquently expressed by Alexander Pope:
“Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth; but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.”
A couple of months after we started Scrumming, I met with one of the teams to brainstorm about their Scrum experience. I was most pleasantly surprised how well things were working for them and expressed my deep appreciation to the team. One of the developers said “Israel, you do not understand – we have been dreaming about doing Agile!” To my naïve question “What stood in your way of so doing?” I got the real life answer “Your predecessor would not let us…”
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