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Agile Facilitation

How to use facilitation on practiceBy Svetlana Mukhina

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Introduction

Svetlana MukhinaICAgile ICP, ICP-ATF, ICP-BVA, PSM I, CSPO

Agile and Career Coach at Luxoft Agile Practice

Experience: 12+ years in IT, Project and department management, Computer Linguistics, Technical Writing, Quality Assurance

Interests: Project management, Agile transformation, Career and performance coaching, Psychology

Hobbies: Horse riding, music, poker, travelling

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Session Plan Learning objectives

What is facilitation and who is facilitator Agile Facilitator

Designing a Meeting Warmup to brake the Ice Brainwriting to gather ideas World-café to explore opinions Five and fist to evaluate opportunities Pro-Con analysis to make a decision Meeting minutes to summarize and define next steps

Facilitating Group Dynamics Recommended materials and further education

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Facilitation, Facilitator, Agile Facilitator

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Definition of Facilitation

Facilitation is a set of activities that helps a group of people to understand their common objectives and assists them to achieve it within a  reasonable time box and without destructive confrontations. 

Facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan how to achieve these objectives; in doing so, the facilitator remains "neutral" meaning he/she does not take a particular position in the discussion

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Facilitation and Facilitator Manual and automated mode

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Facilitation and Facilitator Stop working

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Facilitation and Facilitator Self-organizing flow

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Agile Team Facilitator Treasure Agile Values

Follow Agile Principles

Master Facilitation Techniques

Team Facilitat

orAgile Guard

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Designing a Meeting

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Meeting Structure Designing the flow

warmup brainwriting

world-café

five-to-fist

pro-con analysis

meeting minutes

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Warmupto Brake the Ice

What• Short informal sharing of personal facts.

e.g. about your weekend

Why

• In order to find out more about the people you work with and to create open atmosphere

When • On Monday, before standup, Planning,

Product Backlog Refinement session

Time• 5 min for a team of 8-10 people

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Warmup

Gather your team A team member come in front and says

what she/he did during the weekend If anyone did something similar this

person/people come to the speaker and hive him/her high-five

Then the next person does similar actions, in turn all team members should share their weekend experience

Use on practice Tip: use warm-up while waiting all

participant to join the meeting

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Brainwriting To gather ideas

What• Brainwriting is used to gather ideas on individual basis

Why• In order everybody think about the question/problem and has a

chance to contribute a solution

When

• When it is necessary to gather all opinions and ideas for discussion. Whenever you see that only a few participants are active, while you need all the team to be involved

Time• 10 min for a team of 8-10 people

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Brainwriting

Define a case for opinion gathering, e.g. necessity of auto-tests on the project (possible improvements for next Sprint, responsibilities with Scrum team, etc.)

Provide stickers and pens to the group Ask everybody to write 2 pro and 2 contra

opinions on auto-testing. One opinion per a sticker

Gather ideas or ask participants to put ideas to “ideas box”

Use on practice Tip: In case someone has problem with ideas

generation, ask them to focus on the task and avoid doing side-activities (mobile use, whispering with neighbors). Ideas will come for sure, if remain thinking on the issue. There can be more and less productive periods during brainwriting.

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World-CaféTo Explore Opinions

What

• The technique is used to explore various ideas in groups during a reasonable time-box

Why

• It helps to get familiar with lots of ideas and enrich your understanding of the issue

When

• In case there are lot’s of options to explore or one, but very complex option

Time • 20 min for a team of 12-14 people

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World-Café

Define a topic for discussion In our case it is necessity of auto-testing on the project

Ask participants to form group of 3-5 people Each group discuss the topic

In our case people share their pro/con ideas Each group has 4-5 min for discussion When you say “Go”, people switch tables, remaining one of

them to welcome the coming group. The host should be chosen by participants on voluntary basis

Continue the exercise till all groups are at default tables, give them 5 min more to share the ideas they heard with their host

Use on practice

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Five-to-FistTo Evaluate Opportunities

What • It is a group voting procedure

Why• To understand distribution

of voices for/against idea in a team

When • Whenever a evaluation is necessary

Time • 1-5 min. depending on quantity of evaluating items

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Five-to-FistUse on practice

Speak aloud some idea/suggestion In our case it is a benefit or disadvantage of auto-

testing for the project Ask participants to vote for it using fingers Write down voting results for the idea

E.g. auto-testing will reduces manual work, 3 people voted with 4 fingers, 1 with fist (zero), 3 with 2 = 18

Calculate the champion In our case the biggest disadvantage and the best

benefit

Tip: use this approach to see the distribution in voices, when there is no 100% “yes” and “no” answers.

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Pro-con AnalysisTo make a decision

What • Decision-making mechanism

Why• To summarize evaluated

information, to visualize decision-making for all team members

When • Whenever there is distribution in opinions over an idea/issue

Time • 5-10, depending on quantity of items

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Pro-con Analysis

• Auto-testing is executed by tools, so it is faster than a manual approach 16

• It is more accurate and reliable 12

• Anyone can rut auto-tests 12

• Auto-tests can be re-used 11

51

Use on practice

• Investment is required for testing frameworks, cost, time 12

• It can’t help to improve usability 10

• Auto-test should be kept up-to-date on regular basis 18

• It requires accuracy of test data 6

46

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Meeting MinutesTo summarize and define next steps

What• Summary on meeting decisions, way

forward, action items

Why• To summarize decision(s), share

information with all interested parties, integrate meeting results on practice

When • During or at the end of a meeting

Time • 5-10

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Meeting MinutesUse on practice

What Who When

Setup next meeting on our progress with auto-testing implementation Mike by Aug 31

Investigate popular frameworks, present the results Ann by Sep 4

Explore company trainings on auto-testing, share info Olga by Sep 4

Discuss auto-testing experience on other project within the company, summarize it for our team Mike by Sep 08

Identify critical parts of our app to cover in first turn Alex and Ivan By Sep 11

Present our approach on auto-testing to stakeholders Mike By Sep 15

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Meeting Structure The designed flow

warmup brainwriting

world-café

five-to-fist

pro-con analysis

meeting minutes

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Facilitating Group Dynamics

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Group Dynamics

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FORMING

Unclear Goals Low level of commitment Vаgue communication flow

Responsibility is mostly avoided Absence of prominent leaders

Build a common purpose Identify expectations

Encourage for leadership and motivation Inspire to take responsibility

Support contribution and collaboration

Team characteristics Facilitation approaches

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STORMING High level of independence

Communication gaps Misunderstanding

Uncertainty Dysfunctional behavior

Differences and struggles

Reduce toxic communication Invite different opinions and

approaches Recognize tolerance and

loyalty Define ground rules

Develop common goal Involve everyone in

discussion

Team characteristics Facilitation approaches

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NORMING

Confidence and clarity Relevance

Defined communication flow, goals, rules, roles Built relations

Understanding of interdependence

Develop process of information sharing Build feedback loops

Use sharing format frequently to track progress Discuss discipline distribution

Support negotiation and consensus

Team characteristics Facilitation approaches

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PERFORMING Responsibility over tasks and

relations Stable progress and results

High level of proactivity Self-organization and self-

facilitation Collaboration

Retrospect and seek for improvements

Celebrate success Test and question habitual

patterns Evaluate results against

purpose Remember about rules,

processes and focus

Team characteristics Facilitation approaches

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ADJOURNING Lack of interest

Irrelevant goals High level of predictability

and competence Satisfaction

Stability

Increase complexity and unpredictability

Restructure the process Discuss team

dissolving/rotation Transform to

network/community Remember success and

results

Team characteristics Facilitation approaches

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Recommended Materials Greatest book on facilitation, applicable not only for Agile team, it’s #1 to read for

any facilitator -  http://www.amazon.com/Facilitators-Guide-Participatory-Decision-Making-Kaner/dp/0787982660

Retromat – cookbook on Retro facilitation, they provide step-by-step scenarios for Retros facilitation - http://plans-for-retrospectives.com  

Video to learn graphic facilitation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5DJC6LaOCI Post about tools (not techniques) for distributed teams

facilitation http://www.luxoft.com/blog/smukhina/tools-for-collaboration-in-distributed-teams

Video on empathy that is one of the Servant Leader qualities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

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Recommended Materials Recordings and presentations of my webinars on facilitation: How to facilitate product backlog refinement sessionshttps

://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-how-facilitate-product-backlog-svetlana How to facilitate meetings, Scrum events and group discussions https

://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-facilitate-meetings-scrum-events-group-svetlana Agile Team Facilitator Mindset & Behaviour https

://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-agile-team-facilitator-mindset-svetlana Facilitation and Facilitator Stance https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-facilitation-facilitator-stance-svetlana The Power on Visualizationhttps

://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141202230246-48371619-follow-up-on-the-webinar-the-power-on-visualization Designing Meetings for Collaboration https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-required-effective-collaboration-svetlana  Silent voting technique https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140415193826-48371619-easy-way-to-make-a-discussion-

effective Facilitating decision-making and feedback gathering https

://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decisions-valued-feedback-remembered-svetlana

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Way Forward – ICAgile Agile Team Facilitation

ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Team Facilitation 

Description - https://icagile.com/icp-agile-team-facilitation

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