agile house flash build

Flash BuildsMaking Awesome Happen

Agile House is an agile consulting, training and coaching partnership dedicated to helping organizations maximize their potential through implementation of agile and lean principles and practices

Copyright 2014 Agile House LLC 2

Agile House & the Author

Dwayne StromanAgile House Partner, SAFe Program Consultant,

Certified Scrum Master, Agile Coach 26 year veteran of the development trenches Passionate about all aspects of agile, especially

geared towards engineering and lean practices Avid motorcycle nut (Racing, Riding, Repairing)

[email protected]


Our Definition of Done Understand what a

Flash Build is (and is not)

Understand when to use a Flash Build

Learn how to organize a Flash Build

What is a Flash Build?


1-2 day event to accomplish something Awesome

Scrum in a bottle

“Team for a day” approach

All that’s good about agile, wrapped up into a single day

Flash Build Basics

Build something cool and useful in a short time period

Teach agile mindset without ever saying ‘Agile’

Jumpstart a project that is stuck or stalling out


Flash Build Benefits


End Of Day Goal Just enough and continuous planning Mini-Scrum

◦ Product Ownership◦ Feature backlog◦ Story Selection◦ Standups◦ Demo◦ Retrospectives

Stakeholder demo

Flash Build Components


Roots in Flash Mob concept Consolidation of other ideas into a

repeatable process Flash Build Chemistry is the recipe

Our hope is that others will use this tool and continue to make it better.

Where did this come from?


High impact feature with immediate value Technologists and SME’s are spread thin Need to jumpstart a project When ‘Agile’ is a bad word

When to use


Flash Builds add great value when the core constraint is getting the right people committed long enough to solve the problem


Typical Flash Build Schedule

Time Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day

8:45 am Technology Presentation (if needed)

9:00 am Planning Game

9:30 am Sprint 1

10:45 am Standup12:00 pm Demo/Retro /Lunch / Re-plan

1:30 pm Sprint 2

2:45 pm Standup4:00 pm Demo

4:30 pm Retro/Wrap-up

End of Day Goal - Examples

Need to quickly reproduce dev environments◦ Build a way to spin up development VM’s on the fly

Marketing needs a better way to know what our online customers are doing

◦ Build reporting to provide KPI’s of customer email preferences

Need to quickly replace underlying database technology◦ Give me a working proof of concept of this technology

Need to dramatically improve quality and consistency◦ Build an automated test framework

Our stakeholders are coming to see this feature at the end of the day


End of Day Goal - Product OwnerTime Event

8:00 am Intro and Explanation

8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1

10:45 am Standup

12:00 pm Demo/Retro /Lunch / Re-plan

1:30 pm Sprint 2

2:45 pm Standup

4:00 pm Demo



Select a Product Owner for each table Create an End of Day Goal

◦ Use something real from the PO’s current work environment

◦ Help the Product Owner state this goal in End of Day language – make it obtainable

◦ Ask clarifying questions and make suggestions and corrections as needed to make it realistic

◦ Make sure that the goal requires working functionality (e.g. don’t just answer a question)

Exercise – End of Day Goal

Timebox: 10 minutes


Sharing time


What do we as a team need to know before we start?

What technologies are we targeting? What are the technology constraints?

Technology PresentationTime Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation

8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1

10:45 am Standup

12:00 pm Demo/Retro /Lunch / Re-plan

1:30 pm Sprint 2

2:45 pm Standup

4:00 pm Demo



Games have Rules Needed Features

◦ User Story format - Invitation to a conversation◦ Yellow post it’s

Determine dependencies and risks across teams◦ What are the cross dependencies? – pink post its◦ Synergies?◦ Collaboration Ops?◦ Risks? - purple post it’s

Prioritize Plan first Sprint (morning session) Team Creation (don’t get bogged down)

Planning GameTime Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1


1:30 pm Sprint 2




As a team (your table) you are going to do high level planning for the Product Owners End of Day goal Working functionality is target and knowledge

gained should be a valued byproduct Stories or tasks, but stick to the “Invitation to

a conversation” mantra Keep MVP in mind, this will go out the door

tomorrow Don’t ignore quality

Exercise - Planning

Timebox: 10 minutes


Sharing time


Execute (Do, Test, Review, repeat)◦ Take one task at a time◦ Collaboration with PO and other teams is vital

Standup◦ Are we on track?◦ Need to re-plan?◦ Adjustments to process?

Prep for demo◦ Dedicated time, no extra feature work◦ Review the demo portions with each other

Sprint 1Time Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1


1:30 pm Sprint 2




Demo and feedback - (not optional!)◦ PO (if no stakeholders present) provide directional

feedback Retrospect

◦ What did we learn?◦ Changes to the plan?◦ Are we building something consumable?

Lunch◦ Try to keep everyone in the room for more

collaboration◦ Allow ‘Hackathon’ mentality during lunch

Replan◦ At the board◦ Ensure cross team collaboration and synch

Demo, Retro, Lunch, ReplanTime Event

8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1


1:30 pm Sprint 2




Same format as Sprint 1◦ Execute (Do, Test, Review, repeat)◦ Standup◦ Prep for demo◦ Is it consumable?◦ 2 minute warning – Stakeholders on their way!

Demo and feedback - (not optional!)◦ Stakeholders mandatory◦ Yea or Nay on release to the wild

Sprint 2Time Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1


1:30 pm Sprint 2




Did we meet our End of Day goal? What knowledge did we gain? Strengths we discovered? Weaknesses we uncovered? Changes to our next Flash Build? Action Items – Who will deploy, clean up,

market, etc

Flash Build RetrospectiveTime Event8:00 am Intro and Explanation8:15 am Goals and Objectives – End Of Day



9:30 am Sprint 1


1:30 pm Sprint 2




At Target, we received these comments “What we got done today we had estimated

as 18 weeks of work” “We got way more done, and this is more

fun!”

First Flash Build produced a working version of a service management system, subsequent FB’s produced other working components

First hour of first FB solved the 800 lb. gorilla problem

Does this work?


Like any tool, Flash Builds can be overused or misused Every day use is overkill and will lessen the

effect of the tool Don’t use as a crutch to cover up your

team’s day to day issues Don’t use as an excuse to avoid forming the

right team

When not to use


Understand what a Flash Build is (and is not)

Understand when to use a Flash Build

Learn how to organize a Flash Build

Goals of this training met?


Questions?

End of training

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