Myths,

Legends &
Monsters

The Quest for the

Grail of Enterprise Agility
François Bachmann, SPRiNT iT
 Who’s talking
François Bachmann
• « The Urban Traffic Parable »
• « The Art of the Retrospective »
(Agile-Alchemist.com)
• Organisational Development Coach since 2004
• Interests:
Systemic Thinking, Complex Adaptive Systems
(like a Jam Session @AgileEE )
What You Should Get
 Your initial situation
• Pilot project « success » 
• Request/need to scale this success
• Existing company

]Out of Scope[
• Introduction to Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, …
• Growing an agile company
 Warnings(1)
Scaling is always complex
 Warnings (2)
Agile is a mindset, an attitude
 plan lots of time for full-fledged adoption
 Starter: A customer myth
« Normal Change » at a Swiss bank

Source: http://itsm.certification.info/normalchg.html
 Myth
A traditional or legendary story
that can contain a moral lesson
Built on Archetypes
Gods, animals, angels, demons, other worlds
Used to justify a social institution
and its way of viewing the world
Source: dictionary.reference.com
Told at ceremonies
(start, transformation, end)
Principal purpose: federate
Myths: project choice / dimension
« Let’s do Agile within a fixed-price contract »

« We apply Agile but only to Development »

« We do ALL our projects with Agile»

 Myths: Roles
ScrumMaster: Thor / Superman /
James Bond / Chuck Norris

« Three Roles is enough for any

company »
 Scrumdamentalism (H.Kniberg)

« In our company, we’re all like a big family»

 Myths: transition
« Just use Scrum of Scrums
and everything will be fine»

« Trust me, in this company we know

what change management is! »

« To really become Agile,

you have to destroy & rebuild from scratch»
 Summary: Myths
• Main purpose:
federate
• Used for
justification
of status quo
• Usually involve
superhumans 
• Reveal values of the company
 Legend
(lat. legenda = to be read)

• Official shape of the rumour

spread during coffee breaks
• « I know someone who… »
• Urban Legend
• Can end both ways
• Finishes with a lesson to learn
Principal purpose: education
 Legend: Company Culture
« My cousin tried to introduce Agile in his
company: it didn’t work at all!
Now I agree that they have a very special
company culture….»

« Actually, our company culture

has always been agile; let’s just change the
terminology and we’ll be fine»
 Customer Legends: Company Culture

• Mediterranean: mix of nationalities

• Web company: resource allocation > flow
 Legends: Organisation
« It seems that this won’t work
in an outsourcing context… »

« Another team in our division used it during

a few months, their productivity dropped…
and they switched back afterwards»

« What about my career plan? »

 Legends: Transition
« A well-planned transition is the cornerstone
of success: plan the work, work the plan»

« Let’s just establish a matrix between the

old and the new roles»
 Legend: Tool

« Company X bought tool Y when

they moved to Agile and the whole
enterprise is now using it.
But how can I convince my management?
 »
Summary: Legends
Purpose:
Institutionalized Learning

« What hasn’t worked in

the past and what were
the consequences »
Advice: are a very efficient
communication tool:
« Worst Practices » or
NotHow-Transfer©
 Monster
(lat. monstrum:
wild beast)

• Impersonates
resistance
• Gatekeeper
• Requires the
hero to go
beyond the
normal plan
 Monsters: Middle Management
« I’ll be the Scrum Master for all teams  »
« I can replace the Product Owner, if needed »
« Well, someone has to assign the developers to projects,
no?!  »

Strengths: network, relationships

Weaknesses: conflicting priorities,
overestimates his potential influence
Fights for: his position and his « power »
 Approach: give him a catalyst role,
actively include in information exchange
 Monster: Project/Process Office
Distinguishing marks: once they understand Agile is not going away,
they will try to govern it and create rules

Strength: power to standardize

Weakness: mechanistic world view
Fights for: being the process master
and force their rules on developers

 Approach:
1) produce their artefacts and
2) when the right time comes: question the value of
these artefacts (not of the Project Office!)
 Monster: Saboteur
Definition:
Person who is involved
but has a hidden agenda
(subversion, obstruction,
disruption, or destruction)

Strength: internal knowledge

Weakness: bottleneck
Fights for: « unofficial » priorities
 Approach: make responsibilities explicit, confront one-on-
one if necessary
 Monster: AgileGuru
Pretends to sell the One And Only Agile

Distinguishing marks:
elitist, likes to fight
(he/she usually wins)

Strength: *very* convinced by his Agile flavor

Weakness: exclusive, tends to work alone
Fights for: his Truth (destroying others)
Approach: recall Agile values, let him show how his
flavor brings them forward
 Summary: Monsters
• Strongholds, Gatekeepers
• Have power & reputation
• Often easier to « turn around »
than to overpower
• Advice: don’t play on their territory!
 Summary
Properties How it’s helpful Suggested approach

Myth Historical, federates and passive-implicit communication,

heroes, illustrates common strategy and long term follow-up
« Best values (world view)
Practices »
Legend « Worst Lessons learnt, active-explicit communication,
Practice » NotHow-Transfer© use & recall in major
retrospectives

Monster Personalized Strong, potential negotiate, convince, align on

objection , ally, when aligned values
Gatekeeper with your cause
Enjoy the Quest, brave knights!
 Thanks!

© Pixar Technologies, Inc.

f.bachmann@sprint-it.ch
FrBachmann