@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines Wow. A lot of cognitive bias leading to incorrect assumptions. But as Dave says, it’s our responsibility to deal with them. So let me attempt to do this. 1/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines First of all, I’m not going to try to convince anyone out there who is skeptical about the PMI. I’ll just ask you to be open that the new PMI is different in several ways. First of, @SunilPrashara, our new CEO, is a visionary. I love working for him and he has as big a vision 2/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara as I do, maybe bigger. I haven’t been able to say that about many people. Second, PMI’s recent acquisitions, Disciplined Agile and Net Objectives, are the only two popular approaches that are not based on frameworks and both are method agnostic. This is not a coincidence. 3/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara But let’s get down to brass tacks, so to speak. Disciplined Agile is not assimilating all of the approaches on the page Dave pointed to. Our mandate is to help anyone using those. We can do this because DA and FLEX are based on an integration of 4/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Flow, Lean (including Lean-Management) Theory of Constraints, organizational development, psychology and more. We can wrap all of those methods. While of course we have our brand with Disciplined Agile, our mandate is to help anyone whatever they are using. 5/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Since SAFe and Spotify were mentioned I’ll discuss those a little to illustrate. I’ll start with SAFe. It actually has several good practices that other frameworks don’t attend to. The challenge is its complexity and mindset. That said, many people get a good start with it. 6/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara This is particularly true for companies that have large development groups that aren’t coordinating at all. For them, SAFe unjams things – at least at the start. But there are three dynamics to attend to at scale – 1) management dependencies within a group (in this case Agile 7/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Release Trains), 2) decompose large groups of people in a way that reduces dependencies, 3) be able to coordinate the resulting groups. SAFe only does the first one. This is one of the reasons it starts well only to stagnate later. 8/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara As a former SPC, contributor and gold partner, I know SAFe very well. I’ve never done SAFe “by the book” because it doesn’t really have an Agile or Lean mindset – which I’ve stated many times. Years ago I predicted SAFe would get more complex as it grew, which it has. 9/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara While I am pre-cognitive impaired, I made this prediction based on how SAFe is architected. It’s being based on levels makes the jump from Essential SAFe to portfolio SAFe difficult – not to mention the higher levels of SAFe are more complex than they need to be. 10/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara FLEX is based on the value stream which enables us to take adopters of SAFe from Essential SAFe to a Flow and Lean based approach that has a much simpler portfolio management layer (to use SAFe’s terminology). 11/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara While admittedly SAFe has excellent marketing, it’s popularity (or at least widespread use) is at least partly based on the initial success many people achieve. 12/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Admittedly, they are led to believe their challenges are more due to them than the inherent problems in SAe itself which is why many people try it again and again (same could be said for Scrum, BTW). We are providing them a way out. /13
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara OK, on to Spotify. I’ve always loved the Spotify model. While we (Net Objectives) had nothing to do with its development, we had actually created it on our own in parallel just before they wrote it up. 14/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara This was not a coincidence. The creators of Spotify were using many of the foundational aspects of Lean and Agile we were. Given systems inform behavior it’s should not be a surprise that similar value creation structures (as I like to call them) were created. 15/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara What people marketing Spotify tend to not mention is that it is an approach for a growing company to scale. Not an approach to take a large company and try to scale Agile across it. 16/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Ironically, SAFe and Spotify are the extreme ends of scaling – starting large and organizing into trains Vs being small and growing larger. There are places for understanding what Spotify brings however, as there is with SAFe. 17/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Our contention at Disc. Agile, however, is that there is no one size fits all. By this we don’t mean no one FRAMEWORK, but no one PRACTICE. So we’re not talking about supporting all of those on the picture, as much as we mean we can help anyone using anything on that picture. 18/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara And, we can take what’s good about each of those (and yes, there are some good nuggets in SAFe) and apply them where they are useful. This is why we call DA a toolkit. 19/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara To close, all I think any of us at Disciplined Agile ask is that you all keep an open mind. Talk about what we’re actually doing and see what happens. Not be committed to some mistaken understandings of the past (e.g., IBM/DA/RUP). 20/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara As I said, I believe actions speak louder than words and we’re already taking some action. I’m currently working on two workshops at scale – the Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop and the DA FLEX Playbook for SAFe. 21/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara The first is our stand alone offering for Scale. It is not a framework, but is much more flexible. The DA FLEX Playbook or SAFe enables people who have started with SAFe to do it in a lighter, more Agile and powerful manner without losing their investment. 22/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara I’ll be starting to share more of these with the public on the DA Linked in user group. I think I’ve covered things here. Given the certainty of opinions and assumptions many of the people have on this thread I do not intend to engage further here. 23/
@KavehKalantar @snowded @scottwambler @Mark_Lines @SunilPrashara Please make no assumptions about any non-responses I have. I just ask you watch and see what happens with an open mind 24/24
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