Agile Team Transformation: First Steps

Thang Nguyen

Scrum Master, Coach

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Content

What is agile?

Why do we need agile?

Agile team characteristics

Team transformation

How to do coaching

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What is Agile?

Agile is a set of common values and principles that the

processes and tools have in common

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Agile Values

Individuals and interactions over processes and tool

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

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Why do we need agile?

Speed to market

Quality

Flexibility/Agility

Do the thing right and do the right thing

Continuous Improvement

…

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Agile team characteristics

Self organizing

Empowered

Collaboration

Sharing goal and objectives

Own its decisions & commitment

Consensus driven

Constructive disagreement

Constructive feedbacks

Trust

Motivating team

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Agile team characteristics

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Agile team characteristics

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Team Transformation

Building Trust

Create Open and Support Environment

Implement Feedback Channel

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Building Trust

Practice #1: Communication Openly

◦ One of 12 agile principles: The most efficient and effective

method of conveying information to and within a

development team is face-to-face conversation.

◦ Use face-to-face communication as much as possible

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Building Trust

Practice #2: Transparent information

◦ Single source for information across all members to foster

greater understanding among team members.

◦ The knowledge base should be accessible online in real

time by all locations

Wiki

Shared mailing list and folder

Online project management tools

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Building Trust

Practice #3: Improve personal relationship

◦ Get the team acquainted, and to form stronger bonds, to

socialize after work

◦ Set aside time each week for informal group discussions

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Building Trust

Practice #4: Engineering best practices

◦ Establish a set of common best practices across all team

members.

◦ Scrum Master must facilitate and ensure agreement from

all members.

◦ Reinforce the trust and shared values between team

members.

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Building Trust

Practice #5: No class system

◦ No distinction should be made between team members

◦ With a class system, it will lower the trust relationship

between teams.

◦ The ‘lower’ class will always feel that they are left out.

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Building Trust

Practice#6: Lead by example

◦ Show your people that you trust others

◦ Follow the rule that team defined

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Create Open and Support Environment

Practice#1: Don’t place blame

◦ Mistakes and disappointments happen, and it's easy to

blame someone who causes these

◦ We should give constructive feedbacks on what should be

changed/improved when we get the same problem next

time

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Create Open and Support Environment

Practice #2: Conflict Resolving

◦ Conflicts are an opportunity for growth

◦ Conflicts continue to fester when ignored

◦ Handle conflict sooner rather than later

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Create Open and Support Environment

Practice #3: Working pairing

◦ Pair with another team member which can lead to great

knowledge transfer.

◦ The understanding was much deeper and an immediate

bond was created between the two who paired

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Create Open and Support Environment

Practice #4: Appreciate your team members

◦ Showing appreciation give team members the boost they

need to stay engaged and productive.

◦ Kudos program help to motivate and recognize member

contribution.

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Implement Feedback Channel

Encourage members to give feedback

Coaching people to understand that feedback is the key

for continuous improvement

Individual feedback session in each quarter or

whenever it is needed

Team feedback session one time in each sprint or each

month

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Implement Feedback Channel

Working on feedback:

◦ Prioritize feedbacks to decide what to work on

◦ Offer suggestions and solutions

◦ Put them to improvement backlogs and allocate time to

implement the improvement

◦ Check in for progress

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How to do coaching

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How to do coaching

Coaching Styles:

◦ Coach as Teacher

◦ Coach as Mentor

◦ Coach as Facilitator

◦ Coach as Problem Solver

◦ Coach as Collaboration Conductor

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How to do coaching

Coaching Level:

◦ Individual

◦ Team

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How to do coaching

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How to do coaching

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How to do coaching

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How to do coaching

What should not to do:

◦ Do not clarify what benefits that the team can achieve

◦ Do not understand team project work

Without knowing you, your Agile coach knows you use should

start using stand ups, TDD and pair programming, etc.

◦ Force the team to do something

As a coach, your primary concern should not be

bringing practices into compliance. Your role is to help

the team become more effective

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Q&A

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