Have you been a software developer in the past and turned your attention to other things, only to lose your edge as a developer? Or perhaps you never had the opportunity to learn how to develop software? This talk will present some ideas and experiments that have helped teams to build their technical skills that can be introduced, regardless of level of technical expertise you may have. You may also learn more about the teams and organisation, along with a few extra things! Presented at the Global Scrum Gathering in Vienna, Oct 2019.

1. Think You Can't Help the
Team with Technical
Excellence? Think Again!
Dino Zafirakos
@dinozaf

2. What will be
covered
•The need for technical
excellence
•Coaching with code
•Build trust with code
•Find impediments with
code

4. Agile Fluency
Model
www.agilefluency.org/

5. Benefits for the organization
Release
often
Lower
defects
Cheaper
and faster
Job
satisfaction

6. Code as a coaching medium
Zero
context
Curiosity Open
questions
Listen

7. Things to try
•Offer, don’t inflict
•Pairing/mobbing
•Just be a sounding board
•Reflect to the team
•Can you understand the
code?

8. Build trust with code
Empathy Show care Take
seriously
Open up

9. Things to try
•Experiment with the team
•“Can you show/teach
me?”
•Facilitate
•Find passionate people
•Internal open spaces

10. Find impediments with code
Go to the
work
Visualize Share
findings
Find
patterns

11. Things to try
•Visualize the
worst/riskiest N parts
•Showcase impact of
policies or decisions
•Discover how the current
structure influences the
team

12. These books might help

13. These books might help
The 4 Key Metrics:
• Lead time
• Deployment frequency
• Mean time to restore
• Change fail percentage

14. These books might help
Techniques to find:
• Complex spots
• Consequences of change
• Impact of change

15. Questions?

16. Conclusion
•Technical excellence is
important
•We can use code as a
basis for coaching
conversations
•Discussing code can help
build trust
•Digging into code with
others can help surface
impediments

17. Think you can’t help
your teams with
technical excellence?

18. How are you going to
help your teams with
technical excellence?

19. Think You Can't Help the
Team with Technical
Excellence? Think Again!
Dino Zafirakos
@dinozaf