These slides are from a talk that I gave to the Tampa Bay Agile Meetup on August 19, 2014. The talk was titled "Mastering Agile Practices to Build High Performing Teams". http://www.meetup.com/tampa-bay-agile/events/193898502/ Description: You've read the books. You already know what your Agile team SHOULD be doing. Your Daily Standup meeting should be short and sweet. Your deployments should be automated. Your Sprint Retrospectives should inspire improvement. So if you know what to do, why aren't you doing it? The short answer is because Agile is hard. It takes real discipline and leadership to master even the most basic practices. Many teams have committed to adopting Agile, but they just don’t know how to get to the next level. In this talk, I will share my real world experiences from years of coaching high performing Agile teams. I will discuss the key practices that must be mastered for a team to become great. Additionally, I will identify useful measurement techniques so that teams know if they are improving.

1. Mastering Agile Practices
to Build High Performing Teams
Tampa Bay Agile Meetup
Steven Granese
Agile Coach & Consultant
Custom Software Development
8/19/2014
Steven.Granese@tribridge.com
www.sgranese.com
@sgranese

2. Mastering Agile
Practices
Building High-
Performing Teams
TRUST

3. How Does Mr. Miyagi Establish Trust?
COMMITMENT
“First, make sacred pact. I promise - teach
karate. That my part. You promise - learn. I
say, you do. No questions. That you’re part.”
HABITS
“Wax On. Wax Off.
Breathe.”
DISCIPLINE
Repeat habits while
keeping commitment

4. A little about me….
• Psychology
• Organizational Change for Tech
• Business / Computer Science
Education
• Developer (CF, PHP, .Net)
• Director of Technology
• Manager of Development
• Software Consultant
Experience
Agile
since
2009!

5. Tribridge at a Glance
Nearly 600 team members
averaging 20 years of experience
in consulting and industry
15 years of profitability
One of Microsoft’s top partners –
Microsoft Dynamics Worldwide
Partner of the Year 4 times in 6
years (2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013)
Largest Microsoft Dynamics
customer base in North America
Big Five quality delivered through
practical methodologies and
intimate customer relationships
Received Ernst &Young
Entrepreneur of the Year award

6. TODAY’S AGENDA
• Team Formation Model
• Trust and Commitment
THEORY
• 10 Agile Practices
• Identify Top Habits and
Measureable Results
PRACTICAL

7. Storming
Forming
Norming
Performing
- Power struggles
- “Me”
- Fear and excitement
- Play it safe
- Engagement
- “You and Me”
- Shared goals
- “We”
COMMITMENT,
DISCIPLINE AND
TRUST

8. FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMING

9. Erick Fleming
Your boss may not TRUST you.

11. CODER
DEVELOPER
CRAFTSMAN
• Can read and write code
• Cannot build sustainable
applications by himself
• Can design/build solutions
• Often delivers bugs
• Focuses on technical
limitations
• Takes pride and ownership
• Rarely delivers bugs
• Focuses on users / business
• Trusted
Mike
Aaron
Linda
(Craftswoman)

12. Pyramid
of Agile
Practices
PERFORMING
NORMING
STORMING
FORMING
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

13. User Stories
The Language of
an Agile
Organization
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

14. The Art of Writing Good User Stories
WHO WHAT
As a <user/role>, I want to <goal/desire>
so that <reason | benefit>.
WHY
I-N-V-E-S-T
HOW

15. User Stories – Examples
As a user, I want to my
view grades online so that
I can view them.
As a student, I want my
grades to appear on the
left side of the screen
with Helvetica font.
As an undergraduate
student, I want
electronic notification
of my grades so that I
don’t have wait until I
return to campus to
know if I passed last
semester’s courses.
Unclear Value
Can’t Negotiate
Valuable

16. User Stories Habits
1. Story format also used by
non-development teams
2. Start high level with
valuable why’s
3. Improve story title and add
details over time

17. Design Analysis
Design vs.
Documentation
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

19. Design = Thinking
Documentation =
Recording Thoughts

20. Before
Sprint
During
Sprint
End of
Sprint
DESIGN
Think & Make
“How” Decisions
Test and Adjust
Decisions
DOCUMENTATION
Document Final
Decisions
• Acceptance
Criteria
• Prototypes
• Process Flows
• Graphics
& UI Layout
• Test Cases
• Code
• Rough
Documentation
• Valuable
Documentation

21. Design & Analysis Habits
1. Collaborative Design
2. Prototyping
• Feature-level: Demonstrate value to
business
• Story-level: Communicate
requirements to team
3. Documentation delivered with code to
avoid documentation debt

22. Daily Standup
Keystone Habit
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

23. All tasks
visible
Each
person
moves
own
cards
Time
limit

24. Daily Standup Habits
1. Meeting occurs everyday, on-time, no
matter who shows up.
2. Everyone is prepared. Everyone talks.
3. No discussion of “how”.
4. Issues are assigned and resolved quickly.

25. Retrospectives
Airing of
Grievances
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

26. START STOP CONTINUE
Facili-tator
Embrace
Conflict
2-3
Goals
GOOD
BETTER
“Builds trust within team”

27. Retrospectives Habits
1. Not allowed -> management,
customers, product owners
2. Safe environment where
everyone can speak their mind
3. Identify and track actionable
improvements

28. Sprint Planning
Making a
Commitment
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

29. Sprint Planning
Story: Electronic Notification of Grades
Task Name Assigned
To
Estimate
(hrs)
Design Mary 4
Test Cases Jason 2
User Interface Mary 8
Backend Logic Samantha 16
SQL Jason 8
Unit Tests Samantha 4
Testing & Bugs 12
Documentation 4
Capacity
3 Team Members
6 Hours / day
10 days
180 hours (total)
Total Task Estimate: 58
Sprint Capacity
>=
Total Task Estimate

30. Sprint Planning Habits
1. Estimate ALL known tasks in hours.
2. Estimate known-unknowns
(i.e. bug fixing)
3. Leave buffer for unknown-unknowns
(i.e. production issues, external
meetings)

31. Sprint Testing
QA vs Testing
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

32. Testing is a mentality. It is the
RESPONSIBILITY
of the entire team.
QA Professionals improve
the quality of a team’s
ability to test.

34. Sprint Testing Habits
1. Test and fix bugs in the
sprint
2. Define test cases before
writing code
3. The entire team tests

35. Sprint Reviews
Team’s Chance
to Shine
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

36. A FLAWLESS Sprint
Review is the best way to
establish TRUST between
a team and its business.
Polished, prepared demo for each
committed story.
All Acceptance Criteria are demoed.

37. Top 10 Ways to Destroy Trust at a
Sprint Review
10) Demo starts
late
9) Team not
prepared
8) Code samples
7) Pace is too fast
6) Spelling Errors
5) Poorly Worded
Dialogs Messages
4) Technical
jargon
3) Resistance to
new ideas
2) Missed
Acceptance
Criteria
1) Bugs

38. Sprint Reviews Habits
1. Occur at the same time, on the same day.
2. Visibly record feedback and new ideas.
3. Entire team is present and given the
chance to present.
4. Measure percentage of stories accepted.

39. Automated
Tests and
Deployments
Fast Feedback
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

40. Automated Unit Tests

41. Automated Builds and Deploys
DEV PC 1
DEPLOY
SERVER
4) Build App
Benefits
1) Repeatable & Fast
2) Reduces Risk
3) Reduces team
friction
SOURCE-CODE
SERVER
BUILD
SERVER
1) Check
-ins
3) Run
Auto-Tests
DEV PC 2 DEV PC 3
5) Deploy
App TARGET
SERVER
2) Get Fresh Code

42. Automated Tests and Deploys Habits
1. Disciplined writing of unit tests for
each story.
2. Fast feedback from Automated
Unit Tests upon code check-in.
3. Automated Deployments occur at
least daily so that testing occurs
daily.

43. Lean & Kanban
Continuous
Delivery of
Value
Disciplined
Iterations
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories

44. Lean Principle:
Code that is not in
production is waste!
Deploy code to production regularly.
Not all production code must be
executed by all users.

45. Continuous Delivery of Value

46. Kanban & Lean Habits
1. Drop the Iterations.
2. Limit work-in-progress.
3. Build software that is
always valuable and
deployable.

47. PERFORMING
NORMING
STORMING
FORMING
Disciplined
Iterations
TRUST
DISCIPLINE
Communication
& Transparency
Continuous
Delivery
Automation
Lean &
Kanban
Tests Deploys
Planning Testing Reviews
Retro-spectives
Daily
Standups
Design &
Analysis
User
Stories
HABITS
COMMITMENT

48. Q&A
Mastering Agile Practices
to Build High Performing Teams
Steven.Granese@tribridge.com
Steven Granese
Agile Coach & Consultant
Custom Software Development
www.sgranese.com
@sgranese