Scrum in a Suit - Coach Reveals All

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2 comments

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+ guest893d4 10 months ago
Glad to hear!

Good luck with the potential client :-)

Sandy
+ guest81ab6c 10 months ago
Sandy,

Thank you for this presentation!

I will be using some of the information I learned with a potential client today!

Michael

Notes on slide 1

- Sandy Mamoli + thanks for coming!- I am a scrum coach - means 2 things: - parents not know what do for a living- working sw within 30 days

conventional - say who I am- have worked on agile projects for the last 6 years (4 in Europe (CPH, AMS, STO), 2 in Wgtn)- currently: agile coach for ACC, mix. of scrum master/product owner for NZOS- prior: SE global web team, several s/w vendors + web agencies Europe, Fronde, Modica- several roles- Scrum

- SE+ ACC - with occasional anecdote from NZOS- Chosen to focus mainly on SE & ACC: - very diff setups/different environments (one local govt entity, other global mobile phone manufacturer)- very diff backgrounds/history - very diff stages of agile adoption/maturity (ACC: ca. 7 months, SE: 6 years)

SE as organisation: - core business phone- primary drivers: consumer driven, time to market focus- worked from beginning- open to taking risks

- Worked on global website => 74 languages, 2 online shops, web and mobile, user generated content- design/branding driven, technically complex, (Akamai, interfaces, billing)- budget: 1mio NZD - 6 mio, duration: 3 months - 1 year- did 6-10 projects for SE- no in-house devt - 3 vendors (worked for 2 of them), 3 countries - waterfall

- okay until system grew too complex and got out of hand:- CIP 3.0 disaster => LOTS OF PAIN => needed to do somethingChose scrum- pilot project - after 1 year: 4 teams in 4 countries working on same project - textbook scaling of scrum (1 backlog)- across entire organisation

- very different kind of organisation- local govt entity: process, historylegal requirements regarding security, privacy etc, how to work with vendors (e.g. RFP)- by definition - different attitude to risk- not as time to market driven - slower decision making process than SE

- currently running our first pilot project, running for approx. 8 months- Online forms: project that brings paper forms online - in-house development, team of 7 people (mix of contractors and permanents) - no one has tried scrum before

- Drivers similar but pain not as great as SE - want to get sw into prod faster (short deliveries), good way manage budget & time risk - history- Pilot project = success - production cycle currently approx. 30 days, business gets value from sw built- now have great team, personally hope that the ACC will introduce scrum across the entire organisation

What is Scrum? - Agile framework to manage and control development work - one of the flavours- Key: Empirical in nature, change is inevitable - (42% of requirements ALWAYS change, scrum embraces it - mechanisms to deal with it)

- iterative & incremental: 2 -4 wk iterations => produce working software- working s/w: Working software is the primary measure of progress - no ppts (ROI)- docs: still exist but usually months writing documents (phases, waterfall ideal world)- business value: although embrace change, acknowledge uncertainty/upfront - manage risk by implementing high value first (waterfall illusion)- short feedback loops (demo - collect feedback, visible/transparent, lightweight docs, face to face)- teams: 7-9 people, cross functional - 1 team of BA, PM, graphic designers, etc

FRAMEWORK (BASICS) : - Backlog: requirements: prioritised work queue - product backlog (features/user stories)- sprint backlog - todo list for sprint, committed, estimated (team!) - SHARED- 2-4 week iterations - sprints - same length! (right for you, new -> 2 wks), cancel- deals with change: control chaos => prod bl can change, sprint bl = committed and frozen- Product demo: shippable - DONE, why, go live- Daily standup - 3 questions- Retrospective: learn and adapt!- continuous planning

Scrum roles: - PO: represents voice of the customer, right things- Team: actual problem solvers and designers generalising specialists, team responsibility- Scrum Master: makes sure the process is followed - people are running scrum experienced SM conducts planning meeting, daily scrums, sometimes demo, retrospective removes impediments - team can work at full capacity, protects team from disturbance/interference partly coaches team in running scrum

- 2 obvious questions: - Difference SM - coach? / If I have SM - do I need a coach?- SM = part of team, coach is not- SM - responsible for project, coach - responsible for process- every team has a SM, only new to intermediate teams have coaches - SM - duration of project, Coach - temporary - Temporary upskilling of team- Leaves when team is ready (5-9 months - depending on team, situation) - 1 to 3 months full time/then less

- High level a coach’s objectives are ...- Source of knwlge: sessions, training, questions, offer help - Reinforce good & challenge bad: VERY important to sit with the team, watch the - guide the, steer them - similar to sports coach - Make sure the team learns - without telling them what to do => sometimes has to - Create a well performing team- Sure run scrum: - Know when scrum is the problem, exposes a problem, not working because not doing it right(ex. sit with team - ACC: restarted 2 times - SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY)

I conduct meeting: choose user stories/features -> team can make commitment to achieve Discuss features & what is included in them, write down on sticky notes what is involved in achieving the featureduration (experienced) - one of the most difficult things - depends on quality of blACC: dragging along (5hrs) -> unprepared!/backlog not in shape => coach: show importance, help getting in shape, timeboxed, BA not willing/able to learn, stopped the beginning of next sprintSE: not enough dialogue with PO - developer heaven (test automation) -> should also be prioritised by PO (capacity)SE + ACC: developers making things too complicated -> PO in the room (at least SME)

- Help SM prepare Task Board and Sprint backlog: make our plan for next sprint visible to ourselves and everyone else

Explain task board: contains features/user stories + tasks, tasks are moved from one status to next until the user story is done => daily scrum people pick =>everyone knows what everyone is working onChallenges:- add/change/delete tasks- (task refactorings - think can’t change)- tasks (less than 1 day) -> tasks too big often (you don’t know when you’re off)Excel/Rally/V1 + board=> excel tool - keep some history (ACC: when did we start working on this form?)=> danger => SE: tasks on floor (3M ones)

- important metric sprint burndown- burndown of how much work is left to do, updated on daily basis- one of most important metrics for a scrum coach- perfect line: they’re lying - not possible :-) - above -> why? (actions?)- below -> why? (already prepare if)

Back to my day - after lunch- Overhearing team members discuss whether a story is done if it’s not tested - something where I need to step in as one of the fundamental principles- potentially shippable increments -> to manage risk, quick releases - we know what is done at the end of a sprint is really done -> say: dev okay but not tested = don’t know how much work is left (80% trap) -> all we really know is binary (done/not done)team does this end up with technical debt -> slowly - erodes system

- After the discussion I have convinced the team that the concept is done and leads us to look at the root cause why we ended up with an untested story in the first place- TEAM: never enough time for testing:- starting too many user stories at the same time - we were still stuck in our job roles where a tester tests, a developer develops etc

- ACC task board when this happened (same problem at SE) - several sprints ago, not happening anymore- 5 user stories, 4 of them work in progress => everyone starts new stories - all finishing at the same time - tester shooting herself in the end, even if everyone helps: high risk, how much work left?- testing seen as tester’s job -> should happen is: team responsibility -> challenge if poeple can help with 1st story

Most difficult things siloed job roles- people for years in siloed roles (not only testing) - all of a sudden required to change => not easy, acknowledge it - sports muscle memory - lot of my work => role boundaries -> team responsibility => “helping” => primary job role/secondary (something really good, something else reasonable) - very slow process (SE: have tester go away for 1 week, but easier SE than ACC)- PM/BA/Testershave most difficulties

- Stand-up: - gather around task board- most things come up which I have to deal with later during the day - smells, problems- challenges: - not answering 3 questions - going on about things - get them to focus- working on things not on the board, doing the same task for 3 days in a row- talking to SM or coach - feels like status update- work assigned by SM

- Backlog work: 15%- not done: focusing on functionalithy- made it a feature on the story board- user stories are an art and require experience!- huge trouble SE: beginning no BAACC: did not do it - forced them

- user stories/features we just made sure were on the product backlog - we need to have an idea of how big in terms of effort/complexity/time they are- important for PO to prioritise- important to know for project planning

- assist team in process where we size features (assign story points = sizes) to feature- TEAM estimates- find people have most problems with that - concept of story points- graphic designers (NZOS) => forced, then just timeboxed with agreement to tell (learn over time OR new designer)END OF MY DAY - LEADS ME TO ...

I could make my life easy by just saying “YES “ ;-)- beginners: definitely benefit I’d say - happy had one when I learned, hope helping ACC- short term upskilling of people-> reduce Risk of doing scrum wrong and failing, risk of your project failing

- simple but not easy - lots of pitfalls, can help you avoid it- can help you disappointment of trying and failing because of not doing it right- takes time!!! (normally approx 3-5 sprints)- start development:- sprint 0, architecture, enough!

scaling - more than one team, not co-located (SE)graphic design + IA for branding driven sites- BUSINESS READY -> not used to getting stuff fast, gets political sometimesNext question -> Where do I get a good scrum coach from?

- not enough experienced scrum coaches, scrum masters in Wgtn- migration?- need to make them - coach/train- forums such as this- choose a non-competing company and ask if you can be a fly on the wall during a planning/stand-up etc

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Scrum in a Suit - Coach Reveals All - Presentation Transcript

Scrum in a Suit - Coach Reveals All
Sandy Mamoli sandy@sprog.co.nz
- Sony Ericsson & the ACC - Scrum in 10 minutes - What does a (good) scrum coach do? - A day in the life of a scrum coach - Do I need a coach?
Sony Ericsson
Why agile? - Higher quality - Lower risk - Time to market - Sustainability
ACC
Why agile? - Time to market: 90 day cycle - Manage budget risk - Manage time risk
Agile framework: Scrum
Key concepts - Iterative and incremental development - Working software - frequent delivery - Priority by business value - Short feedback loops - Small cross-functional teams
Courtesy: Gillian Clark
Scrum roles - Product Owner - Scrum team - Scrum master
Scrum Master Scrum Coach (project) (process) vs.
Scrum Coach: - Be a source of scrum knowledge - Reinforce good practices - Challenge bad practices - Create a well performing team - Make sure they run Scrum
A day in the life of a Scrum Coach Sprint planning meeting Help SM prepare Task Board and Sprint Backlog Discuss “Done” Testers are unhappy - team discussion
A day in the life of a Scrum Coach Sprint planning meeting Help SM prepare Task Board and Sprint Backlog Discuss “Done” Testers are unhappy - team discussion
picture of task board
Burndown chart
A day in the life of a Scrum Coach Sprint planning meeting Help SM prepare Task Board and Sprint Backlog Discuss “Done” Testers are unhappy - team discussion
A day in the life of a Scrum Coach Sprint planning meeting Help SM prepare Task Board and Sprint Backlog Discuss “Done” Testers are unhappy - team discussion
A(nother) day in the life of a Scrum Coach Daily stand-up Assist BA in writing user stories Get remaining product backlog sized
A(nother) day in the life of a Scrum Coach Daily stand-up Assist BA in writing user stories Get remaining product backlog sized
A(nother) day in the life of a Scrum Coach Daily stand-up Assist BA in writing user stories Get remaining product backlog sized
Team estimates
Do I need a coach?
A coach can help you with...
Getting started: - Get Scrum right and reap the beneﬁts - Know when to start development - Write good user stories - Plan & estimate your project - Support & guide your team - Know when NOT to run agile/scrum
Advanced: - Scale your project - Coach and guide your product owner - Write better user stories - Integrate graphic design & IA into scrum
The State of Things Wellington Courtesy: Julian Knap
Thank you! sandy@sprog.co.nz www.nomad8.com