chicao code camp 2016 improve your retrospectives with agile kaizen

Chicago Code Camp 2016

SPONSORS

[email protected] Twitter: @OakParkGirl

Decomposing SAFe

Kalahari Resort, Wisconsin Dells, WI

August 8th - 10th, 2016

Early bird pricing ends May 1st

Web: http://thatconference.com/

Twitter: @ThatConference

http://thatconference.com/

Quick review of Agile and Lean principals

A Look at Agile Retrospectives

Kaizen

Kaizen in Agile Retrospectives


Specify value

Map the value stream

Establish flow and eliminate waste

Create pull

Continuously improve


Lean

Japanese term meaning "the real place.“

Lean definition = the place where work is actually being

done or value is being created

Go to where the problem is if you want to have a real

chance of solving it!


Lean

No one knows best what and how to improve than the people closest to the work!

Lean

Iterative development methodology where requirements evolve through collaboration between the customer and self-organizing teams. Agile business approach aligns software development efforts with business and customer needs.

Agile



Kaizen



Stop Doing

Start Doing

Continue Doing


Set the stage

Gather Data

Generate Insights

Decide What to Do

Close the Retro

Retrospectives

Set the stage

Gather Data

Generate Insights

Decide What to

Do

Close the Retro

Process: Agile (kinda)

Team Size: 17 (3 BAs, 8 DEV, 2 AUTO, 3 QA, 1 PO)

Project: Complete rewrite and consolidation of 2 legacy

customer and employee portals into 1 website

Timeline: 2 years and still going strong. Original release

date was supposed to be Dec 1, 2015. NOT so agile


Retrospectives

03/18/16 Retrospective Notes

Insights:

Standups are taking 45 minutes. Too hard to get through everyone’s status (scrum master)

Product owner not approving User Stories before grooming, so team committing to “half-done” stories and end up doing a lot of in-sprint refinement (dev lead)

Vendor shipping rates engine delivered a week late and quality was poor. Team wasted 2 days manually backing out the changes and restoring the old version to environments. (whole team)

Team sometimes waits up to an hour for CI builds to finish. Need another build server and CI environment. (dev lead)

The team carrying an average of 50% of committed stories into the next sprint (product owner)

Action items and owners:

Focus standups on WIP only, avoid stand-up turning into a status meeting - Scrum master

Review agreed upon timelines with vendor, what recourse do we have when things are late or broken? - Product owner

Work with operations team to setup a new CI environment - Dev lead

Retrospectives

04/01/16 Retrospective NotesInsights:

Standups are better. Still taking 30 minutes due to disagreements about story acceptance criteria. (scrum master)

Vendor shipping rates engine delivered on time, but services did not match the documentation so we’ve had a big increase in bugs the past few sprints. (QA lead)

Development team still waiting on new CI environment. (DEV lead)

The team’s had an increasing number of defects overall, many due to misunderstood requirements. The tests QA writes are based on original requirements, but they aren’t notified when requirements change (QA lead)

The team still carrying 50% of committed stories over into the next sprint, many items are rejected during sprint review

due to requirements not being fully met (product owner)


Make sure more time is spent discussing AC during backlog grooming - Scrum master

Meet with vendor to discuss our standing SLA. What recourse do we have for missed milestones? - Product owner

Work with operations team to setup a new CI environment - Dev lead

Retrospectives

04/15/16 Retrospective NotesInsights:

Standups are on track, team doing a great job of focusing on WIP

CI environment is up and running as of late last night!

Developers encountered no issues with vendor code, but still needs to go through QA to be sure (dev lead)

Team moving from Skype to Slack for day-to-day communication (dev lead)

BA team is very waterfall and is still struggling with user story development (dev lead)

Not enough user stories on the backlog for next sprint, never seem ready for approval (Product Owner)

Over 50% of features being rejected in Sprint Review due to defects (Product Owner)

Manual testing required for regression has outgrown available team capacity, we may be missing bugs! (QA lead)


Work with BAs and product owner on agile user story development techniques – scrum master

Focus on reviewing features with PO as soon as complete, don’t wait for Sprint Review – dev team

Recruit sales and marketing folks to assist with manual testing – QA lead

Retrospectives



Kaizen


[email protected] Twitter:

@OakParkGirl


@OakParkGirl

Kaizan

Identify an opportunity

Analyze the process

Develop an optimal solution

Implement the solution

Study the results

Standardize the solution

Plan for the future


@OakParkGirl

Kaizan


@OakParkGirl

Kaizan


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future

A Kaizen burst, also known as a Kaizen blitz, refers to a short burst of activity that solves a problem with intensity and urgency.

Focused activity on a particular process or activity

Goal is to identify and quickly remove waste


@OakParkGirl



Kaizen



@OakParkGirl

04/04/16 Retrospective Themes

Recurring issues:

Too much rework due to incomplete or misunderstood requirements

Operations team is a bottleneck

Quality issues due to lack of automated tests adding risk


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future

This is the starting point for applying lean principles to improving your

process

Improving cycle time

Reducing downtime

Improving quality/reducing errors

Focusing on delivering what the customer wants when they want it


@OakParkGirl


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future


@OakParkGirl

Analyze the current process

Determine what processes, activities, and deliverables to keep

Determine what processes, activities, and deliverables to replace

Collaborate to add new processes or activities to replace waste (if needed)


@[email protected] Twitter: @OakParkGirl


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future


@OakParkGirl

Create a plan to move to your ideal process

a) Action Steps

b) Accountability

c) Timeline

d) Resources

e) Potential Barriers

f) Communications Plan


@OakParkGirl


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future

04/05/16 Action Plan


Analyze the

process

Develop an

optimal solution

Act on the

solution

Study the

results

Share the

solution

Plan for the

future

Action Steps: Start holding proper grooming meetings with the whole team!

Accountability: Product owner and scrum master

Timeline: Next sprint’s Grooming meeting on April 15th

Resources: need to secure the larger conference room

Potential Barriers: sales team meets in that room, can they shift to afternoon?

Communications Plan: SM and PO to send email explaining need for proper grooming meetings. PO will also have f2f conversations to make sure we have “buy-in” from business folks

Make sure the right people attend

Make sure that leadership is aware of your efforts and “has your

back”

Allocate enough time to analyze the important issues

Keep future state and action plan documents someplace visible

to everyone


@OakParkGirl

Agile Kaizen: http://agilekaizen.net/

Agile Retrospectives: https://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-

retrospectives

Lean Change Management: http://www.amazon.com/Lean-

Change-Management-Innovative-organizational-

ebook/dp/B00O580KUI

Kim Scott’s Radical Candor: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-

surprising-secret-to-being-a-good-boss-2015-12


@OakParkGirl

http://agilekaizen.net/

https://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-retrospectives

http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Change-Management-Innovative-organizational-ebook/dp/B00O580KUI

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-surprising-secret-to-being-a-good-boss-2015-12

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan

Slideshare.NET: http://www.slideshare.net/angelabinkowski

Twitter: @OakParkGirl, @ChicagoALM, @TeamPolaris

Blog - http://www.tfswhisperer.com/

Chicago Visual Studio ALM User Group - http://www.chicagoalmug.org/

Polaris Solutions website - http://www.polarissolutions.com/


@OakParkGirl

mailto:[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan

http://www.slideshare.net/angelabinkowski

http://www.tfswhisperer.com/

http://www.chicagoalmug.org/

http://www.polarissolutions.com/

chicao code camp 2016 improve your retrospectives with agile kaizen

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