laura delnevo - winning your clients' trust with agile project management
TRANSCRIPT
DrupalCamp BrightonWinning clients’ trust
Successful Agile project management Cameron & Wilding , 18. 06. 2016
@ytulauratambien( This is my very bad choice for a Twitter ID … And yes , it’s from the Pedro Almodóvar movie : Y Tu Mama Tambien )
@cameronwilding( Yes , this is a much sensible choice of Twitter ID )
Talk OverviewSince embracing Agile Scrum project management methodology, winning clients’
trust has become smoother across our accounts. Along the years, I have noticed a
few patterns of success across these projects, with clients such as the Imperial
War Museums, the Telegraph Media Group, Sage Publications, and The
Economist. The underlying common denominator of success being happy,
satisfied and returning customers.
Agenda● A bit about me and C&W
● Quick Agile overview
● Winning Clients’ Trust - Patterns
○ Culture: What we stand for
○ Scrum Workflow
○ Effective Communication
○ Scrum Ceremonies
○ Budget Management
● Winning Clients’ Trust - Case studies
○ Sage Publications - Workflow review
○ The Economist - Backlog grooming
○ The Telegraph - Team re-alignment
● The Golden Rule
A bit about me and C&W
A bit about me● 9 years in the digital industry
● 6 years focus on open source
technology
● 2+ years Agile
● Italian #StayIn
Cameron & Wilding● Drupal specialist since 2006
● Team of 20 people, London HQ
● Professional, passionate, friendly
● Award Winning
● Drupal 8, web and App dev, UX design,
strategy consultancy...
● Agile project management and coaching
● Experience in travel, media, publishing, third
section, finance, arts
“ Great team, great clients,
great work ”
Quick Agile overview
The Agile Manifesto
Individuals & interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Winning Clients’ Trust: Practices
Culture: What we stand for
● Open and honest
● Under promise, over deliver
● Great team, great clients, great work
● Great communication
● Professional and friendly
Scrum Workflow [1/2]
● Jira sprint boards are always up to
date, ensuring transparency over the
progress
● Tickets include detailed user stories
with refined acceptance criteria
TO DO IN PROGRESS PEER REVIEW IN TESTING DONE
local / dev local / dev local & test / dev candwtest / QA candwtest / QA
Assigned to the dev at the start of the sprint
Dev implement peer review feedback as priority
2 devs peer review, code only
Functional testing: all ACs are met
Stories that have passed testing are ready here
Prioritised top to bottom
Dev starts working on story
Once code is approved merge to candwtest
If yes, story is closed with a comment
Stories in this column, are merged, passed testing, realise tagged
Flagged stories that didn’t pass testing are back here at the top of the queue
Quick testing: dev makes sure all ACs are met
Once merged, dev tags the user story on Jira against its release
If not, story is flagged and sent back to the dev with a comment
Dev completes dev specs
Dev completes QA instructions before assigning ticket to QA team
If ACs are met, but we realise we wanted something different a new story is raised in the backlog
Effective Communication [1/2]
● Instant BUT streamlined communication
● Fast feedback loop
● Encourages collaboration
● Whole team = no “middle man”
● Reduce misunderstanding(-s)
● Be assertive, confident but collaborative
Effective Communication [2/2]
● Keep your personal touch
○ Be genuine
○ Down to earth
○ Be fun
● It’s not always easy
○ Disagree
○ Admit mistakes
○ Encourage feedback
“The quality of the work they produced was outstanding, and the project was run with
great humour and with the spirit of one big team.
I would not hesitate to recommend the Cameron & Wilding team, who have been a real
joy to work with”
Jeremy Ottevanger, Technical Web Manager
Imperial War Museums (IWM)
Scrum Ceremonies [1/2]
● Sprint backlog grooming [Jira]
● Sprint planning
● Daily scrums
● Sprint demo
● Sprint retrospective
Scrum Ceremonies [1/2]
● Clients prepare for meetings, as it’s us (grooming)
● Be informative when sharing information (stand ups)
● Facilitate meetings
○ cut off off-topic conversations
○ assign owners to actions (retrospectives)
○ review and monitor agreed actions/mitigation points, before the end of the sprint
“Your clients time is precious... as it’s yours”
Budget Management [1/2]
● Budget tracking
● Budget forecasting (team availability)
● Reporting, we’re always in control:
○ sprint reports
○ release reports
○ timesheets
“Their excellent project management - which is an example of how a third party
company should report about the "health" of a project - their developers’ passion for
high quality code and the "openness" of their management were key in our
successful relationship”
Emilio Vacca, Director of Mobile
The Telegraph Media Group (TMG)
Budget Management [2/2]
Winning Clients’ Trust: Case studies
● Agenda
○ Agile improvements
○ Sage Jira board & workflows
○ Team roles & responsibilities
● Attendees
○ C&W
○ Sage UK
○ Sage India
○ Sage US
○ 3rd parties
● Goal
As all new teams we need a common
understanding of
[1] how to best work together and
[2] roles & responsibilities of each team
member
in order to run smooth, more integrated and
collaborative sprints
Sage Publications - Workflow review [1/2]
Agile improvements already in place
○ What is a user story, and what is not ○ Working with sprint goals ○ Backlog grooming and preparation
The Economist - Backlog grooming ● The backlog grooming meetings are a product backlog refinements
● Writing user stories and prioritisation happens ahead (!!) of the session
● It helps keeping the backlog clean and orderly
What happens during the backlog grooming sessions? We
○ Discuss the top items on the product backlog by asking questions
○ Refine user stories by translating the answers in additional Acceptance Criteria
○ Estimate user stories
○ Look deeper into the backlog to do longer-range planning (2 sprints)
The Telegraph - Team re-alignment ● Your knowledge of the product is built here, its intricacies, its history
● You are aware why certain decisions are taken
● You pro-actively contribute to shape the product
● You ensure user stories are clear for you / your team
○ It’s not only about the devs !
When you have a good backlog session, the rest of your time is focus time,
as the majority of your Qs have been answered already
The Golden Rule
Flexibility ● There’s no just ONE way to do things
● Adapt your work style
● Be receptive
● Observe
● Keep an open mind
Thank you !
C&W TWITTER @cameronwilding C&W EMAIL [email protected]
C&W WEB www.cameronandwilding.com C&W LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/company/cameron-&-wilding/
LAURA TWITTER @ytulauratambien LAURA EMAIL [email protected]
VALENTINO ROSSI FAN CLUB … only kidding !