bird freemen starting an agile team...2016 pmi professional development days september2016....
TRANSCRIPT
"Starting an Agile Team -
Evolution or Revolution?"
Scott Bird and Rick Freedman
2016 PMI Professional Development Days
September 2016
Introductions: Scott Bird
• Process Excellence Leader, se2
• 12 years agile experience
• 5 years coaching experience
• 3 agile transformations
Introductions: Rick Freedman
“100 Most Inspiring People in
Project Management”
“Top Thinkers in
Project Management”
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6
Assessment and
Planning
Education
Team Level
Project Level
Portfolio
OngoingOngoing
Enterprise Adoption
Executive
Team Startups
“Big Room Planning”
Agile Portfolio Mngt
Teams
Initial
Kaikaku vs Kaizen
Starting an Agile Team - Revolution
• Getting Ready
– Identify stakeholders
– Structure the team
– Get approval / buy-in
• Agile Bootcamp
– 2-3 days
• Team Kickoff
– 1-2 days
Setting up the Team
• Identify stakeholders
• Get approval / buy-in
• Structure the team
“Agile Bootcamp”
• Introduction to Agile
• 5 Levels of agile
planning
– Vision
– Roadmap
– Release
– Sprint
– Daily
• Roles
• Artifacts
• Ceremonies
• Product Backlog
• User Stories
• Estimating
• Measuring progress
Team Kickoff
• Team Formation
– Product Vision
– Team values
– Working agreements
– Ceremonies and cadence
– Backlog Grooming
– Definition of Done
• Backlog Creation
– User Story Mapping
– User Story workshop
– Estimating
Pro’s and Con’s
• Advantages
– “Immersion” style
learning
– Allows for learning and
experimentation in a safe
environment
– Sets a common baseline
for all teams
• Challenges
– Requires a significant commitment to being “offline” for 3-5 days
– Requires significant training resources
– “Shock” Therapy may trigger additional resistance
• Just like agile delivery, agile adoption is an incremental
project
• Culture is sticky
• Existing process is sticky
• Waterfall mentality is sticky
• Developer personal practices are sticky
• Why advocate iterative, incremental development and not
apply it to adoption?
Starting an Agile Team - Evolution
Why Evolve?
• Respect the unique culture
• Reduce risk
• Avoid wholesale disruption
• Reduce stress and resistance
• Grow agility, don’t buy it
• Inspect and adapt!
Mindset Eats Practice for Lunch!
• Practice or Mindset?
• The Shu-Ha-Ri Fallacy
• Agile is a philosophy, not a physical practice
• No mindset, no agility!
• Honor the practices but focus on
understanding and conscious acceptance
What Does Agile Evolution Look Like?
• Leadership support
• Select the right team(s)
• Select the right project(s)
• Agile mindset training
• Agile practice training
• “Show Up and Throw Up”
• Build the first Scrum Board
Starting the Evolution
• Task-based “thrown up” board
• Sorted and categorized board
• Initial story form
• Initial product backlog
• Prioritized backlog
• Initial estimation: T-shirt sizing
• Sprint planning
• Initial Sprints
Evolving Scrum by Scrum
• Early sprints: focus on training as we go:
• Agile principles
• Agile practices
• Team collaboration
• Incrementally:
• Add planning hierarchy
• Turn tasks into stories
• Migrate from T-shirt to story-point sizing
• Add rigor to planning, review, retro practices
• Drive to consistent velocity
Tracking the Evolution
Practice To Do In Progress Stable Mature
“Show up and throw up” X X X
Scrum Ceremonies and Cadence X X
Sprint Commitment X
User Stories X
Estimating X X
Epics/Stories/Tasks X X
Metrics X
Release/Project Planning X X
Pro’s and Con’s
• Advantages:
• Observe the culture
• Minimize disruption
• Mindset before practice
• Evolve into roles
• Concentric circles
• Visible results
• Inspect and Adapt!
• Challenges:
• Longer adaption
• Slower impact
• Resistance risk
• Backsliding risk
• Agile ‘pockets’
• Varied practices
• Diminishing momentum
Summary
• Evolution / Kaizen
– A more natural approach to adoption
– Longer time frame with increased backsliding risk
– May be a better approach if minimizing disruption is one of the goals
• Revolution / Kaikaku
– Higher impact at a
faster rate
– Creates a higher spirit
of team cohesion
– May intensify
resistance