1. Blending Agile
Approaches
#ALI2019 - Paddy Corry

2. A team’s agile approach
emerges with experimentation
and learning
Key Point

3. Who am I?
•Software developer since 2001
•Agile development teams since 2006
•Scrum master since 2012
•Spent 2 years teaching in Changzhou,
China

5. Story
Context
“Can’t you just tell us the
answer?”
Experiment: change context
Hypothetical no win situation

6. Learning

7. Edgar Dale

8. Sharon
Bowman’s
6Trumps
“Training
From the Back
of the Room”
https://bowperson.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/SixTrumpsArticle220
101.pdf
MOVEMENT TALKING PICTURES
WRITING SHORTER DIFFERENT

9. Jay Cross: Emergent Learning
Discovery
over
curriculum
Learning over
training
Just in time
over just in
case

10. The Agile Part

11. The Agile Manifesto
“Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive
Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven
Development, Pragmatic Programming, and others”
Jim Highsmith
http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html

13. Scrum is a
starting point
for many
Agile teams
VersionOne’s 12th Annual State of
Agile Report
https://explore.versionone.com/state-of-agile/versionone-12th-annual-
state-of-agile-report

14. Scrum is
designed a
certain
way…
“In complex work we [look] at emergent
practices, that evolve as we learn and
gain feedback.”
Nigel Baker
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/agilifying-agile-coaches-2-6-nigel-baker/

15. ScrumTeams need
more practices to
emerge with
experimentation
• Engineering practices / Software craftmanship
• Scaling
• Estimation
• Fit between roles and scrum teams
“How we do these things” is up to us

16. Henrik Kniberg blended Scrum and XP in 2007:
"Instead of best practices, what we need
to know are good practices and the
contexts in which they were successful."
Mike Cohn (foreword)
https://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches-2

17. Prescriptive approaches are not the goal
"imposing
methods on
people is an
absolute
travesty"
Martin Fowler
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/agile-2018

18. AgileTeams

19. Kaizen:
Self-improvement
Courage
Kairyo:
Experimentation
External improvements
Jun Nakamuro
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kaizen-lost-translation-jun-nakamuro-1/

20. Agile
Coaching
•The ‘stances’ of agile coaches all
relate to learning
•Teaching, facilitating, mentoring
and coaching
•How teams do this is up to all of us
https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/08/competencies-agile-coaching

21. AgileTeams can influence the ‘mushy stuff’
Culture, values, environment
Building organisations that we would want to work in

22. …back to the story
What happened with the experiment?

24. “Solutions may not always scale. But
the processes by which we
experiment, learn, and adapt can.”
AleemWalji – CEO Aga Khan Foundation USA

25. Thank you for your time!
Twitter: @paddycorry
Search: Serious Scrum
on Medium