creating high performing leaner agile teams

Copyright © Morphilibrium

Presented at Agile Cambridge 2012

Building High Performing Agile Teams Incrementally…

Presented by Naveed Khawaja Carl Bruiners



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@morphilibrium

In.morphilibrium.com

www.morphilibrium.com

Bio – Carl Bruiners Originally a techie who became a

frustrated Development Manager

Has been on a Agile education journey

Companies range from SME’s to large Corporations

Strong passion & experience for taking on 'problem’ projects / teams

Loves automation

Most Valuable

Agile Player UK

Agile Coach or

Mentor of the Year



Unconscious Incompetence

Conscious Incompetence

Conscious Competence

Unconscious Competence

Maslow

Where we want to be…

Maturity



The basics



http://scalingsoftwareagilityblog.com

Waterfall



User Story Lifecycle Customer focused…



The perfection lament

~ Malcom Bane

If you wait until you do

everything for everybody

instead of

something for somebody

you will end up

not doing

anything for anybody



Values

Principles

Practices

BEING

DOING

Values, Principles and Practices



Activity 1 Duration: 10-12 minutes

The Tower Project

[Iteration 1]



Agile Manifesto We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping

others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals & interactions

over

processes and tools

Working software

over

comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration

over

contract negotiation

Responding to change

over

following a plan

Agile Manifesto with Dude’s Law

𝑽𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆 = 𝑾𝒉𝒚

𝑯𝒐𝒘



Transformation – Poorly planned Organisational change



Wed

• Show & Tell • Sprint Retrospective

• Story Kick-Offs

• Sprint Planning • Pre-Sprint Planning define

• Backlog Grooming • User Story Writing

• Daily Scrum

On-going iterative activities throughout the sprint

Thu Fri Tue Thu Fri Tue Mon Wed Thu Fri Tue Mon Mon Wed

The heartbeat - Ceremonies

Create a trusting environment

Empower teams to help guide product direction

Trust team estimations

Continued trust when a Sprint doesn’t work out

sov·er·eign·ty

1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign

state.

2. Royal rank, authority, or power.

3. Complete independence and self-government.

4. A territory existing as an independent state.

5. A group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.



Communication and Collaboration is key

Ideally co-located teams

Enabling teams to keep in constant contact by utilizing any and all communication methods (Face to face, VC, Telephone, Email, IM, Task Walls)

Business representation throughout the delivery process

Daily updates



What is a high performing team



Disciplined execution vs continuous innovation



What a good (Agile) team looks like

Constant business engagement

Customer delivery focused

Diverse

Flexible

Energized

Constantly seeks ways to improve

Meets their commitments more often than not



You Others

Responsibility

Obligation

Justify

Shame

Blame C Avery

Challenge = Opportunity



Everything instead of something

Quarterly Pseudo Releases

(Mini-Waterfall)

Quarterly Releases & Continuous Deployment

Portfolio Prioritization

Value Based Portfolio

Planning

Well controlled/ negotiated / prioritized/

Cost of Delay over Delivery

Requirements conundrum

Backlog volatile yet prioritized

Collaborative progression - WIP Limits - Kick-Offs

- Wall of Shame

Agile Improvements



Communication Pseudo colocation

without BA

Colocation with BA & open casual

discussion space with dedicated focus

timeslots

Functional Team Structure

7 plus minus 2 without BA

7 plus minus 2 with BA

Prescriptive processes with little

value

Disciplined execution with

value & flexibility

Disciplined execution & Continuous Innovation

Agile Improvements



Activity 2 Duration: 10-12 minutes

The Tower Project

[Iteration 2]



Tips to helping you become a high performing team



Embrace Continuous Improvement

Change of pace should be measured – a steady cadence can lead to disappointment

Don’t wait for your retrospectives to encourage CI, introduce constant Team Kaizens



No two teams are equal

Don’t compare, instead play to their strengths

Move your team members around to create your strongest teams

Don’t cross compare team velocities

Move team members around to cross pollinate



Vision

Backlog

Releases

Iterations

Portfolio Vision

Programme 1

Release 1

Iteration 1

Iteration 2

…

Iteration n

Release 2

…

Release n

Iteration 1

Iteration 2

…

Iteration n

Programme 2

Release 1

…

Iteration n

Release 2

…

Release n

…

Iteration n

…

Programme n

Visual to reality



Is limiting what my partner can buy a bad thing? – PO Management

Be sensible limit the PO’s choices – if you say you can theoretically put a man on the moon, be prepared to be asked to do so.



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Legend:

Incoming

Remaining

Completed



Backlog management -MMFS / MVP

Always create a Minimal Viable Product / Minimal Marketable Feature Set



Managing your task board (& don’t forget your WIPs).



Have you kicked off your story yet?



BA

UX

Dev

QA TT

…and continuous team effort gets us the gold

A streamline kick off…



In Sprint test debt / avoid mini-waterfall



Continuous Delivery… Its easy… but

Continuous Integration?

Test Automation?

Software Configuration?

Automated Deploy?

ACDT – Automated Continuous Delivery & Test



Defects Defects,

TDD earlier pain

TDD & BDD Earlier Pain

-Defect fast tracking -Cycle time controls

- Class of service (SLAs)"

Defects



Using class of service Standard service class

Classes should be dictated by the business costs

Various class types should be created under the standard service class. For example;

A – Under $10000 impact if delayed

B – Under $5000 impact if delayed

C – Under $1000 impact if delayed

D – Under $100 impact if delayed

E – BAU

The prioritization of the Stories is driven by the Standard Service Class Types

A Story will change service types as it gets closer to its delivery date; i.e. a C type after 5 days would be escalated to a B type and therefore more further up the priority stack. Impact delay would be determined at the point of a story being added to the Task Wall, this will help Stories move up the priority stack as it gets closer to its delivery date.



Stop escaping defects

Do not use average defect throughput as a stick to beat your teams with

Defects discovered that are not legacy deal with within you current Sprint

£58 p/d

10 incoming defects p/w

2 days per defect to fix



How the cost of removing defects increases over time



“Done is better than perfect!” • Gauge multi-tasking

• Manage comfort level

• Systems impact visibility

• Propose time bound analysis activity

• Ask for the definition of value



Fail fast and learn from the mistakes



Embrace TDD / BDD sooner rather than later

Retro-fitting TDD / BDD into your work process is far more painful than the initial pain of getting setup at the beginning



Lean everything out…

Constantly seek ways to improve your processes

Waste is not always obvious – Don’t be afraid of change

There is no such thing as perfection



Agile is not an Arm’s Race

Simple Agile = Beautiful Agile

Don’t run before you can walk

Embrace Pragmatic Continuous Improvement



This presentation was delivered at Agile Cambridge 2012

Held at Churchill College, Cambridge

from Sep 27-28, 2012

Presented by Naveed Khawaja

Carl Bruiners



@morphilibrium

slideshare.net/morphilibrium

in.morphilibrium.com

blogs.morphilibrium.com

@cbruiners

in.carlbruiners.com

blog.carlbruiners.com



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This presentation was inspired by the works of many people, and we cannot possibly list them all. Though we did our very best to attribute all authors of texts and images, and to recognize any copyrights, if you think that anything in this presentation should be changed, added or removed, please contact me at [email protected]




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