Continuous self-improvement of software teams is traditionally accomplished through retrospectives, a form of post-mortem held at the completion of an iteration. More often than not, retrospectives begin to fade and the list of action items keeps growing until teams simply succumb to business-as-usual practices. In some cases, teams eventually abandon retrospectives altogether because they feel like a waste of time! Do you feel like your retrospectives are a death march where no one is actively participating? Do the same problems seem to resurface repeatedly in the team's retrospectives? Are your retrospectives ending prematurely or being cancelled in favor of "getting more real work done"? Or maybe you feel great about your agile retrospectives, but just want to learn more about Kaizen... Join Angela as she explains how you can use Kaizen to analyze and improve your retrospectives, regardless of your team’s process. She will begin with a brief review of what a retrospective is and walk through some examples of both healthy and unhealthy retrospective scenarios she has experienced herself. Angela will then explain the concept of Kaizen, the Kaizen process, and how you can leverage a Kaizen process to turn your retrospectives back into the effective continuous improvement tools they are meant to be!

2. Decomposing SAFe
Saturday, April 30th, 2016 at IIT – Chicago
Always FREE!
Registration is OPEN! http://www.chicagocodecamp.com/

3.  I’ll be at the Manager’s Workshop on Monday
 Half-Day Tutorial: Value Stream Mapping and Kaizen in
Agile Retrospectives on April 19th from 1:00pm to 4:30pm
 Deconstruction SAFe – the Scaled Agile Framework in a
Nutshell on April 20th from 1:30pm to 3:00pm
Register for Quest today! http://qaiquest.org/2016/
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

4. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

5. Quick review of Lean and Agile principals
A Look at Agile Retrospectives
Kaizen
Kaizen in Agile Retrospectives
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

6. Specify value
Map the value stream
Establish flow and eliminate waste
Create pull
Continuously improve
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Lean

7. 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!
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Lean

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

9. 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

10. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

11. Quick review of Agile and Lean principals
A Look at Agile Retrospectives
Kaizen
Kaizen in Agile Retrospectives
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

13. 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

14. Process: Agile (kinda)
Team Size: 16 (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 
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Retrospectives

15. 03/04/16 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

16. 03/18/16 Retrospective Notes
Insights:
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)
Action items and owners:
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

17. 04/01/16 Retrospective Notes
Insights:
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)
Action items and owners:
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

18. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

19. Quick review of Agile and Lean principals
A Look at Agile Retrospectives
Kaizen
Kaizen in Agile Retrospectives
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

20. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Kaizan

21. Identify an opportunity
Analyze the process
Develop an optimal solution
Implement the solution
Study the results
Standardize the solution
Plan for the future
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Kaizan

22. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Kaizan
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

23. 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
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

24. Quick review of Agile and Lean principals
A Look at Agile Retrospectives
Kaizen
Kaizen in Agile Retrospectives
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

25. 
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

26. 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
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

27. 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
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

28. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

29. 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)
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirlAngela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

30. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

31. Create a plan to move to your ideal process
a) Action Steps
b) Accountability
c) Timeline
d) Resources
e) Potential Barriers
f) Communications Plan
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

32. 04/05/16 Action Plan
Identify an
opportunity
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

33. 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
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

34. 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
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

35. Email: Angela@PolarisSolutions.com
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/
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl