agile house flash build
DESCRIPTION
Presentation from ScrumDay Twin Cities 2014TRANSCRIPT
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
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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)
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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?
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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
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Flash Build Benefits
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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
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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?
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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
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Flash Builds add great value when the core constraint is getting the right people committed long enough to solve the problem
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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
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End of Day Goal - Product OwnerTime Event
8:00 am Intro and Explanation
8:15 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 Standup
12:00 pm Demo/Retro /Lunch / Re-plan
1:30 pm Sprint 2
2:45 pm Standup
4:00 pm Demo
4:30 pm Retro/Wrap-up
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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
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Sharing time
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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
8:45 am Technology Presentation (if needed)
9:00 am Planning Game
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
4:30 pm Retro/Wrap-up
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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
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
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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
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Sharing time
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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
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
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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
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
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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
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
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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
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
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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?
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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
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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?
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Questions?
End of training