Agile Presentation SeriesThe Agile PM

Joe WagnerUltimate Software

Problem StatementWhy Address Agile Project Management

Process Variation:Lots of variation across the teams regarding the role of the PM relative to agile development.Some PM’s play scrum master role in iterations with Development / QA others defer this role to the BA.

Best Practices: Provide industry best practices around the roles/responsibilities of a PM on an Agile project. Begin to think about future processes at Ultimate Software.

Presentation Goals

Provide a best practices presentation on a solid PM/Agile Model

Gather a Focus Group who are tasked with providing feedback on agile processes

Presentation Scope: Provide industry best practices on Agile Project Management, to drive thought into how each of the teams are currently structured. Best Practices - No clearly defined best practice, best practices are company specific.Focus on individuals who are familiar with the agile delivery model.Provide PM practices base upon theory, and possible improvements. Call out good examples used in Ultimate Software.Highlight how agile practices can be used for development, third party and operational projects.Providing the best case scenario, presentation assumes the Scrum Master and the team is on one project.

Call Out Continuous Improvement Opportunities:We focus on sprints but we need to focus on growth, working agreements and team process improvements in each iteration.

IntroductionAlways Good to Start with Agile Principles

Changing Project Manager Role Changing Role from Command & Control to Facilitative

Project Manager Role = Adaptive LeadershipProject Types = Hybrid Framework Model using features of SCRUM, Kanban, TDD etc…Servant Leadership – Project Manager needs to employ a number of skills and techniques aimed at developing and facilitating the agile project team:

Create an environment of personal safety.Mentor team members on the agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, XP, Lean, FDD, TDD).Facilitate (not control ) team meetings.Guide the team on value based decisions.Remove obstacles & shield the team from outside influence.Adapt and embrace change.Lock down an iteration to prevent unapproved scope changes.Adaptive actions: Based upon team reflective workshops or retrospectives, add iterations, reduce features or

add team members

Agile Project Management Best Practices, Knowledge Areas and Process Grid

Old Focus = Command & control, uninspired taskmaster who controls a master plan of documents & checklistsNew Focus = Engaged, facilitative leader & collaborative visionary, who inspires the team, adapts to change, promotes team work, champions the project and removes obstacles to progressComplex Adaptive System (CAS)Project phases are the same, manner of accomplishing them different.See Handout

Project Manager Focus Drives increased project knowledge, eliminates risk, ensures understanding among team

Agile Project Manager SkillsetBest Practice – Uses framework knowledge to be effective

Agile Project Managers must to be versed in the following frameworks to lead an agile team:

LeanScrumKanbanExtreme Programming (XP)Test Driven Development (TDD)Feature Driven Development(FDD)Agile Modeling – Values, Principles and Processes to create models for SW DevelopmentGenerally Accepted SDLC Software Development Foundations

Agile Project Manager SkillsetApply Best Practices of Lean to Run Effective Projects

Seven Principles: Eliminate WasteBuild Quality InCreate KnowledgeDefer CommitmentDeliver FastRespect PeopleOptimize the Whole

Agile Roles & ResponsibilitiesBest Practices are to define necessary roles & gain resource commitments, define individual responsibilities based on project, team size and scope.

Typical Core Agile Project Roles Include:

StakeholdersA person, group or organization that has direct or indirect stake in the project

Product OwnerClient owner who participates in Kick-offs, closures, as well as provides feedback

Project ManagerScrum Master, manages planning, delivery, issues and removes roadblocks, backlog owner

Business Analyst:Drives requirements elicitation, user stories, definition of done, backlog owner

Systems Analyst: Supports & Builds Environments, Interfaces, Configuration

ArchitectResponsible for overall system architecture and development quality and processes

DeveloperParticipates in design, creates unit tests, builds and delivers code

Tester & Test Lead (QA)Dedicated testers assigned to each trackResponsible for organizing and planning testing efforts

Client Proxy (Subject Matter Expert)Helps teams clarify requirements and run issues to ground

Team Formation Best Practice - Define the rules of engagement to cultivate the team

General Rules:Teams are Self- OrganizingEveryone participates - Participatory Decision MakingRespect DifferencesAttack issues, not peopleEveryone has an equal voiceEveryone has a valuable contributionHonor confidentiality and privacy within the teamDefine the Artifacts and ceremonies the team will incorporate

Accept that no two teams are the same

How do you effectively from the team:Personal interaction, Drive-By discussions, Getting to know the players, styles motivationsTransparencyClarity of foundation & expectationsTrusted partner to remove roadblocks

Definition of Done Best Practice - Define the End State Upfront

Done, Done = Ready for release.Use Conditions of Satisfaction and TDD to define done.Teams that do not define their "exit criteria" for each work unit will never get real closure on work in progress.Failure to define done - Leads to endless cycles of revisions that are really scope changes but are not labeled as so because of misperception, causing delays, overruns, and a demoralized team.

Agile PM Execution & Control – Time boxesBest Practice = Adaptive Planning - Order relies on prioritized time boxes

1. Roadmap - The Dream, Vision, Strategic Program Plan of Organizational Goals2. Release Plan - Feature Sets which represent a logical component of the overall solution

3. Iteration Plan - Sprint or Iteration

4. User Stories - work effort for a specific feature or component5. Tasks – Decomposed user stories

Agile PM Execution & Control – Feedback CyclesBest Practice - Facilitate Recurring Project Feedback & Artifact Cycles (Clarity):

1. Release Planning Meetings / Kick-Off**2. Sprint / Iteration Planning Meetings3. Sprint

4. Daily Standup / Scrum

5. Sprint / Iteration Review6. Retrospective (Sprint / Iteration / Project)

Obtaining CommitmentBest Practice - Soft vs. Hard Commitment

Multiple Commitment Types: External Resource - Negotiate external commitmentsTeam Iteration - Obtain team commitments of what stories to add to iterationStakeholder

Add commitments to roadmaps, iteration plans, user stories

Setting the Stage - ShowmanshipBest Practice - Project Kick-Off Meeting

Once the team is formed and the project started, the PM must coordinate a kickoff to:

Communicate with the larger business audienceEstablish the ground rulesHave the project vision presented by the customer / proxyReview the high level business caseDocument the key featuresCommunicate all project setup, planning, release and iteration proceduresFormally establish team commitment

Defining the IterationBest Practice - Iteration Types & Prioritization

Iteration TypesTraditionalPlanningRequirementsHardening (Release)Handoff (Formal Documentation)QA TestingDefect RepairHybrid (Large percentage of time for non-development work)

Co-LocationBest Practice – Define Tool & Methods for Communication

Develop methods to address non-co-located teams: 40% of Ultimate’s staff is remote and multiple locations drive virtual teams (not ideal).Project manager will have to develop methods for which project to reduce the risk of non collocated teams.Provide shared access to plans, status, next steps, and other project planning and management tools. In teams that must be geographically separated, then tools for conducting virtual meetings such as conference call phones, instant messaging, shared electronic documents and tools are leveraged to minimize the distance and separation.

BacklogsBest Practice – Define & Manage the Various Backlogs

Product BacklogSprint / Iteration Backlog

Define Ownership between BA & PM on Project

Creating the JIRA Instance / ComponentDiscipline in designDevelop Dashboards for Team UsePrioritization at agreed to intervalsPrioritize ChangeManage - Ensure stories are ready for development and have COSAt Planning Meetings define the stories to pull into the iterationTracking stories to closure - Work

with Testers to close storiesDefine velocity tracking methods

Remove ImpedimentsBest Practice – Take Action from Standup

Ensure continuous project progress by: Blockers - Addressing obstacles preventing progress.Holding one off with team members violating team commitments.Addressing scope creep and violating SME’s or Product Owners.Refactoring stories as necessary.Mitigating Fractional Assignments – Highlight commitment of resources assigned to multiple projects.

Block calendar time post standup to address impediments

Risk ManagementBest Practice – Track and Enhance Visibility of Risks

Agile Risk Management Processes: Eliminate risks through daily meeting.Track risk log – Review at iteration reviews.Call for a spike to gain knowledge on a specific question.Define probabilities of risk occurring and mitigate.Develop risk burn down charts***

CommunicationsBest Practice – Facilitate Opportunities to Communicate

Tools Employed: PPM & Project Status Reports to Executives.Meetings: Daily meeting, sprint review, retrospectives, reflective workshops,

brainstorming.Osmotic Communication through co-location.Backlogs – Release Backlog, Iteration Backlog.Organizational Readiness Meetings.Team Retrospective Meetings: Improvements What went well / what to improve / what to find out

Release PlansBest Practice – Get to market sooner

Project Managers participate and drive the release to the customer

MVP - Use Time boxes to plan smaller deliverables.Use time boxes to manage scope.Facilitate release planning sessions.Participate in organizational readiness.Define communications / engage Communications Team to assign a Writer: Yammer, Chatter, LinkedIn, Email, BlogEnsure all release action items and org readiness tasks are completed.Define rollback plan and release risks to mitigate.Plan post live testing.Plan Go-No-Go Decisions.Plan & Communicate Go Live Command Center.

Improvement Opportunities: Best Practices - Information Radiators / Tools / Artifacts

• Team Structure - the basic "who's on the team", including contact information.

• High level plan, Mid Level Plan - The overall project milestones, and the key iterations and release dates, with the anticipated objectives or deliverables for each.

• Roles and Responsibilities - A RACI style chart with the internal and external roles and the person on the team who is responsible.

• Story Board - The stories for this iteration, what is complete, in-progress, and not started.

• Client Deliverables - This may seem straight forward, but a reminder as too what we as a team are trying to deliver.

• Client Phase Exit Criteria - What are we marching toward to complete the current phase and achieve signoff.

• Story Stack - The scope of the project.

• Meeting Agenda - The standard daily team stand-up meeting has a strict, short agenda so we can complete it within 15 minutes.

• Issues and Next Steps - The whiteboard list of next steps, dates, owners, to be checked during each team meeting.

• Risks - The whiteboard list of risks, impact, and mitigation that needs to be taken (with owner).

• Recognition Awards - Some place to call out great work by the team or individuals.

• Ground Rules - The team derived rules for respecting each other.

Questions / Next StepsNext Steps:

Gather FeedbackFormally Define Agile PM ProcessesChris will collect specific process improvement items to add to the Agile Process Team

Thank You for Attending Today’s Presentation!!!