Great Big Agile : An OS for Agile Leaders

Big Agile leaders need an empirical, "high-trust" model that provides guidance for scaling and sustaining agility and capability throughout a modern technology organization. This book presents the Agile Performance Holarchy (APH)―a "how-ability" model that provides agile leaders and teams with an operating system to build, evaluate, and sustain great agile habits and behaviors. The APH is an organizational operating system based on a set of interdependent, self-organizing circles, or holons, that reflect the empirical, object-oriented nature of agility. As more companies seek the benefits of Agile within and beyond IT, agile leaders need to build and sustain capability while scaling agility―no easy task―and they need to succeed without introducing unnecessary process and overhead. The APH is drawn from lessons learned while observing and assessing hundreds of agile companies and teams. It is not a process or a hierarchy, but a holarchy, a series of performance circles with embedded and interdependent holons that reflect the behaviors of high-performing agile organizations. Great Big Agile provides implementation guidance in the areas of leadership, values, teaming, visioning, governing, building, supporting, and engaging within an all-agile organization. What You’ll Learn • Model the behaviors of a high-performance agile organization • Benefit from lessons learned by other organizations that have succeeded with Big Agile • Assess your level of agility with the Agile Performance Holarchy • Apply the APH model to your business • Understand the APH performance circles, holons, objectives, and actions • Obtain certification for your company, organization, or agency Who This Book Is For Professionals leading, or seeking to lead, an agile organization who wish to use an innovative model to raise their organization's agile performance from one level to the next, all the way to mastery Front Matter ....Pages i-xxi Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 The API Is Broken (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 3-17 Front Matter ....Pages 19-19 Performance Circle: Leading (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 21-40 Performance Circle: Providing (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 41-53 Performance Circle: Envisioning (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 55-68 Performance Circle: Crafting (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 69-84 Performance Circle: Affirming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 85-95 Performance Circle: Teaming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 97-108 Front Matter ....Pages 109-109 Acceptance Testing (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 111-112 Agile Agreement (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 113-115 Agile Digs (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 117-118 Agile Partner Assessment (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 119-120 All Hands Raised (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 121-122 Arc of Conversation (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 123-125 Automated Build (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 127-128 Backlog Grooming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 129-131 Best Practices Board (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 133-134 Big Room Planning / Release Zero (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 135-137 Brainstorming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 139-141 Burn Down Chart (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 143-145 Confirmation (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 147-148 Continuous Deployment (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 149-150 Continuous Integration (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 151-152 Class, Responsibilities, Collaborators (CRC) Cards (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 153-154 Daily Stand-Up (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 155-157 Definition of Done (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 159-161 Definition of Ready (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 163-164 Dot Voting (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 165-166 Epics (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 167-168 Evaluation (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 169-170 Frequent Releases (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 171-172 Gemba Walks (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 173-174 Gemba Kaizen (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 175-176 Goal, Question, Metric (GQM) (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 177-179 Incremental Development (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 181-182 Kamishibai (Board and Cards) (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 183-185 Kanban Board (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 187-188 Kano Model (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 189-190 Lean Coffee (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 191-192 Mob Programming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 193-194 Obeya Room (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 195-196 Open Space Technology (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 197-198 Pair Programming (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 199-200 Peer Reviews (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 201-202 Planning Poker (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 203-204 Product Backlogs (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 205-207 Product Scenarios (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 209-210 Project (Team) Chartering (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 211-213 Prototyping/Spike (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 215-216 Release Planning (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 217-218 Retrospectives (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 219-222 Review (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 223-224 Roles and Accountabilities Game (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 225-226 Scrum of Scrums (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 227-228 Scrum Wall/Scrum Board (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 229-230 Self-Selection/Self-Subscription (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 231-232 Spike (Design Spike) (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 233-234 Sprint (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 235-237 Sprint Demo (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 239-240 Sprint Planning (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 241-243 Stakeholder Identification and Management (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 245-246 State of the Team (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 247-248 SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 249-252 Team Agreement (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 253-254 Team Estimation Game (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 255-257 Team Room Set-Up (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 259-260 Technical Debt (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 261-262 Test-Driven Development (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 263-264 Three Diverse Humans (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 265-266 Training (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 267-268 Unit Testing (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 269-270 Velocity (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 271-272 Visual Information Management (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 273-275 Front Matter ....Pages 277-277 Using the Agile Performance Holarchy (Jeff Dalton)....Pages 279-300 Back Matter ....Pages 301-335 "This book presents the Agile Performance Holarchy (APH)-- a "how-ability" model that provides agile leaders and teams with an operating system to build, evaluate, and sustain great agile habits and behaviors. The APH is an organizational operating system based on a set of interdependent, self-organizing circles, or holons, that reflect the empirical, object-oriented nature of agility. As more companies seek the benefits of Agile within and beyond IT, agile leaders need to build and sustain capability while scaling agility-- no easy task-- and they need to succeed without introducing unnecessary process and overhead. The APH is drawn from lessons learned while observing and assessing hundreds of agile companies and teams. It is not a process or a hierarchy, but a holarchy, a series of performance circles with embedded and interdependent holons that reflect the behaviors of high-performing agile organizations. Great Big Agile provides implementation guidance in the areas of leadership, values, teaming, visioning, governing, building, supporting, and engaging within an all-agile organization."--Page 4 of cover