Jeff Lopez-Stuit

jeff@radoration.com

www.radoration.com

Twitter: jeffl opezstuit

Missionizing YourAgile Team

How do these statements land on you?

“Why We Work Here:

We look forward to a world where children grow strong in communities free of need and full of promise, where peace and justice flourish, and the most vulnerable live in confidence. 

This organization helps transform the lives of children and families in need around the world, and extends assistance to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs, gender, race, or ethnic background.

When you work for this organization, this is the mission for which you’ll be working. It is a mission that motivates us and gives meaning to the work we do every day.”

“The simplest, most heartfelt mission statement you’ll ever see:

Number 1:

We will develop visible, effective, differentiated brands to build shareholder value for clients, long-term relationships for us, and profits for both.

Number 2:

We will all have fun in the process.

Number 3:

There is no number 3.”

“Our mission is to provide everyone from first-time participants to professional athletes with the world’s best sports and fitness equipment, footwear and apparel.

We are dedicated to active lifestyles, sports and wellness.

The passion for sports is at the core of our business. Our primary motive is setting and achieving targets and moving beyond our limits in life, business and technology, enabling people to achieve their highest goals in sports and improve their well-being.”

“Guided by relentless focus on our strategic imperatives, we will constantly strive to implement the critical initiatives required to achieve our vision. In doing this, we will deliver operational excellence in every corner of the Company and meet or exceed our commitments to the many constituencies we serve. All of our long-term strategies and short-term actions will be molded by a set of core values that are shared by each and every associate.”

“The mission of this company is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

missio

The act of sending

agile development(agilis explicatio)

The act of delivering

An agile team can get context for what it delivers from a mission.

A mission can be made visible to an organization by an agile team that delivers working stuff frequently.

Source: World Vision

Source: Derek Wade – derekwwade.com

A great mission can provide the spice that transforms a team from one that delivers features and projects, to one that passionately delivers business value with fire-breathing intensity,

and…………..

… the best way in the world to deliver an organization’s mission is to do it with agile teams

Source: Jonah Kessel - kesselimaging.com

• Ask someone! (start with your Product Owner)

• Visit a web site

• Read at an annual report

• Look at what the competition is doing

• Watch how your customers are behaving. What is their mission?

How do you find the mission statement?

Or, when in doubt…

Self organize!

Why did you decide to work here?

What made you get out of bed andcome to work this morning?

“Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.”

-- Nadia BoulangerComposition

Teacher

Practices for Making a Mission Visible

• Read the mission out loud at the beginning of an activity

• Invite people close to the mission to participate in your review sessions

• Create an information radiator

• Target their use for when the team wants to spice up their work

• Remove them when they no longer get attention

• Context is king. Use what will provide context for the team’s current work.

Skillfully use the mission when the team wants to charge up its work

• Is there a source document related to your mission that can inspire your team to action?

• Examples:• Images of your mission in action• Scientific treatise• Religious and philosophical text• Astounding social science or business

statistics

Turn Up the Heat:Make Sources of Your Mission Visible

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”

- Matthew 10:34-39

"I call this Revolution 2.0. I say

that our revolution is like

Wikipedia, OK? Everyone is

contributing content. You don't

know the names of the people

contributing the content…

everyone was contributing small

pieces, bits and pieces. We drew

this whole picture. We drew this

whole picture of a revolution.

And that picture — no one is the

hero in that picture.”

-- Wael Ghonim,

Google

• The mission provides context to your team for their work, but it’s still the product owner that owns the backlog.

• A team can inspire a product owner (and the backlog) by asking probing questions about the mission.

• Your product owner holds the mission for the team! Help them do their job by delivering inspired working software!

The Product Owner Holds the Mission

• The folder on your table has a mission statement, story cards with your team’s current sprint backlog, and a page with information just for a Product Owner

• Choose a Scrum Master and a Product Owner.

• Review the mission statement and the backlog. Discuss with your Product Owner how the user stories in the sprint backlog relate to the organization’s mission.

• Assignment #1: Create a theme for this sprint that spices up the team’s work with the context provided by the mission

• Assignment #2: Congratulations! The team successfully delivered all of the stories in this sprint. Your executive sponsor has invited some very important people (customers, vendors, or investors) to the review session. With a few bullet points, tell them how what you delivered contributed to the organization’s work toward its mission.

Exercise

• If the mission is hard to find, or isn’t inspiring, maybe the enterprise isn’t up to something big enough

• Your choices:1. Enroll the enterprise in a bigger

possibility, with a bigger mission2. Enroll yourself in creating a bigger

mission somewhere else3. Thank you. I’ll just go back to coding

this feature now.

Mission smells

• Agile teams produce working products frequently.

• An agile team working in the context of a mission makes that mission visible throughout the organization with every completed iteration.

• A team that delivers can make agility a basic nutrient for sustaining the mission.

Agility Makes the Mission Real

• Coach your teams to make their work visible throughout the organization.

• Make your workspace an area where visitors can see the mission at work….with agility!

• Know that you are the ones. It is no accident that you’ve been invited into this team to help them produce results.

• Through your work practicing agility, the mission transforms from a “statement” to something that continously renews itself.

Your mission, if choose to accept it…

A mission gives context to an agile team.

An agile team gives life to the mission.

Thank you!

Jeff Lopez-Stuitjeff@radoration.com