agile cambridge 27th september 2012

Building High Performing Agile TeamsIncrementally…

Presented byNaveed Khawaja Carl Bruiners

Naveed Khawaja

Agile & Lean TransformationContinuous InnovationDisciplined Execution

Culture ChangeMotivation

Productivity

Assessment

Strategy

Coaching

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 LifecycleCustomer focused…

The perfection lament

If you wait until you do

everything for everybody

instead of

something for somebody

you will end up

not doing

anything for anybody

~ Malcom Bane

Values

Principles

Practices

BEING

DOING

Values, Principles and Practices

Activity 1Duration: 10-12 minutes

The Tower Project

[Iteration 1]

Agile ManifestoWe 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 comprehensiv

e documentatio

n

Customer collaboratio

n over

contract negotiation

Responding to change

over following a

plan

Agile Manifesto with Dude’s Law

Transformation – Poorly planned Organisational change

Wed

• Show & Tell• Sprint Retrospective

• Story Kick-Offs

• Sprint Planning• Pre-Sprint Planningdefine

• Backlog Grooming• User Story Writing

• Daily Scrum

On-going iterative activities throughout the sprint

Thu Fri Tue Thu Fri TueMon Wed Thu Fri TueMonMon

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·ty1. 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

JustifyShameBlame

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 2Duration: 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

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.

Nu

mb

er

of

Item

s

Rem

ain

ing

Date

Sp

rin

t 34

En

d

Sp

rin

t 35

En

d

Sp

rin

t 36 E

nd

Sp

rin

t 37 E

nd

Sp

rin

t 38 E

nd

Legend:Incoming RemainingCompleted

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?

Kicked-Off

BA, UX &

TT

DevQA

BAUX

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

DefectsDefects, TDD earlier pain

TDD & BDD Earlier Pain-Defect fast

tracking-Cycle time

controls - Class of service

(SLAs)"

Defects

Using class of serviceStandard 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/d10 incoming defects p/w2 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

Want to know more?

Naveed Khawaja

@morphilibrium

in.morphilibrium.com

blogs.morphilibrium.com

www.morphilibrium.com

naveed@morphilibrium.com

slideshare.morphilibrium.com

Carl Bruiners

@cbruiners

in.carlbruiners.com

blog.carlbruiners.com

www.carlbruiners.com

carl@carlbruiners.co.uk