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9 ways to get started with Agile in
public services
Joe Badman and Kelly Buis
@WeAreBasis
@Dyn_Drwg
We help Public Services tackle messy problems,
co-delivering effective change

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AS A…public servant…I
WANT to understand how to I
can get started with Agile
tomorrow…SO THAT…I can
make quick progress on
complex projects.
Agile is simple to understand, but lots
of people we work with sometimes
find it difficult to get started.
Here are some practices you can try to
help you get started on your Agile
journey. They range from simple
things you can do as an individual, to
more ambitious approaches that will
involve your wider team.
Let us know how you get on!

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Start where you are
Create a backlog of work on an existing project. Work with the person
responsible for the it and agree the most important things to focus on
within the next fortnight - and then get going!
Backlog Sprint backlog To do Doing Done
Work
Work
Work
Work
Work
Work
Prioritised
work
Prioritised
work
Prioritised
work
Prioritised
work
Work
Work

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Make work easy to understand for others using user stories
As a…
I want…
So that…
As a…
I want…
So that…
As a…
I want…
So that…
User stories tell us who we are doing a
particular task for and why we are doing
it. This essential context helps
self-organising teams make better
choices about how to do the work.

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Make work visual using a Scrum board in Trello
Trello works perfectly with Scrum. This article explains all the features you can use
to help you manage your work as an individual or team.

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Use roll calls to share progress and improve communication
If daily stand-ups with your team sound like too much of a commitment at this stage, why not
start with Roll Calls…
Use an existing communication tool (at Basis we use Slack) at the start of the day each team
member shares what they will work on and what their Rest of Life (ROL) looks like.
■ Less time in meetings
■ Improved awareness
of progress
■ Greater sense of
teaminess
■ Improved
accountability

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Review your progress using show and tells
Here’s how it works
in practice…
Here’s what we
learned from
users…
Here’s the impact
the change had…
Does this meet your
expectations?
How might this
better meet the
needs of users?
In show and tells teams to
demonstrate their progress rather
than just talk about it.
This enables teams to gather feedback
from stakeholders on their work and
helps product owners prioritise what
comes next.

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And then discuss how you as a team can improve
Retrospectives create the space for
team’s to reflect on how they are
working together and identify
improvements.
Run one, keep it fun and you’ll find
out why these are essential tools in
enabling Agile teams to do twice the
work in half the time (hat tip to Jeff
Sutherland).
Check out this great example
courtesy of Clyde De’Souza on Miro.
Source: Clyde D’Souza on Miro

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Practice estimations with your team
Estimating the time it will take to get
something done is difficult. As
individuals, we are terrible at this.
Sharing our assumptions in a team is
one way of getting better at
estimations.
Using the fibonacci sequence is a
great way to get clarity on the size of a
piece of work. Everyone shares which
number they think reflects the size of
the work. After hearing people’s
rationale we estimate again and take
the average. In time we learn how
much can be delivered.

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Spotlight sessions on Agile
Your initial experiments with Agile may fail. This is fine!
When working in an Agile way we try to make it safe to
fail. In doing so we learn about what works and what
doesn’t.
Rather than pretend that everything is working great,
why not celebrate failures using a spotlight session.
These are short and snappy sessions you can run as a
team, department or organisation where you share what
went well in the first steps on adopting Agile and also
what went terribly wrong.
Let’s shake off the stigma attached to failing and
celebrate it. There’s no reason this can’t be fun.
For more inspiration check out Corporate Rebels article
on F*~k Up nights.

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Get everyone on the same page at the beginning of the work
At the start of a project it’s useful to be clear on
why you are doing the work in the first place,
who is going to help you and roughly what
needs to be done.
Using a project on a poster can help you to get
everyone on the same page about these things
before you get started (literally).
You’ll soon run out of room in the sprint board
section - time to switch to big wall or a Trello
board!

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All the ideas in one place
If you are the Bingo type, here are all the
approaches we’ve suggested in one place.
If you want to challenge yourself, see if you
can’t complete the whole card.
You can find a link to the full size bingo card in
the source link above.
Source: Basis Getting Started with Agile Bingo