Agile seminar in Palo Alto: Coaching coaching coaching

Last Thursday, Nov 12, (yes, yes, I know, I know... last Thursday was ages ago but I'm still posting this) Serena sponsored an agile panel at the California Café in Palo Alto, within the Stanford Campus, which they called Agile Pigs and Chickens BBQ Silicon Valley. It was a nice event at a good venue and around 50 people attended . Panelists were Roger Brown, Jeff McKenna, Jorge Rodriguez, and John Scumniotales.

The panel had a Q&A format and que questions were case-based mostly. Some of the topics were:

• Dealing with legacy: yes it is possible to start adopting agile while dealing with legacy (most projects do) and a recommendable approach is to start new things agile and to transition legacy as it is revisited.
• Getting started with agile. Recommendation is to start small and grow layers gradually.
• Scalability. Advice was keep it as small and simple as possible and avoid outsourcing, otherwise the task becomes quite challenging
• Web 2.0 and agile. There's a misperception that agile doesn't require discipline and documentation when in fact it requires stakeholders to be continuously on top of their game--without overdoing things--and documentation as well as planning are necessary in agile. It is done differently and more effectively.
• Next challenges: Focus on design, value, outer layers of the organizational onion, creation of companies 100% agile.

One other point that is quite crucial is that agile adoption can be much better if companies have an agile expert coaching then for as long as necessary. This is way too often neglected, with companies assuming that training is sufficient only to go belly up at implementation time. See for example my recent posting on a scrum project gone bad.

Company evaluations from latinamerican customers' perspective

One of the first activities with potential customers is to perform a company evaluation and to present a proposal. My first direct contact with potential customers is often through a presentation on agile-lean and the services I offer. As result, they usually request a quote. I offer them two options: either a rather shrink-wrapped quote or a customized solution that will require a company evaluation. The evaluation has a small cost and 75% of that amount is deducted if they accept my consulting services.

Paying for an evaluation is common practice in the USA and customers actually like a lot the option of the cost deduction. My experience in Mexico has been quite different. Most companies do want an evaluation but are reluctant to pay for it, arguing that it should be part of the bid effort to win a contract. I explain to them that the evaluation goes beyond a small set of questions focused only on a project; it is an in-depth analysis of diverse aspects of the company to understand and determine how agile-lean can significantly improve they way they create their products and services, and it will require two to three days worth of work. Furthermore, the evaluation provides them with information that can help them make better decisions on diverse aspects of the company and its projects. Their point of view remains unchanged and I had instances in which they were happy with the evaluation but didn't proceed with giving me a contract.

An strategy that I started applying recently for such case is do just enough to gather the information to generate a good proposal and report to them the results in a meeting (showing spreadsheet tables and diagrams) but don't give them the document itself. If they see value in it and want it then they have to pay for that service; and if by then they want it more detailed then I proceed to continue the evaluation at a deeper level only if payed in advance.