This document summarizes a seminar about continuous improvement in agile practices. The seminar introduced agile values and principles like transparency, inspection and adaptation. It covered techniques for continuous improvement like retrospectives and emphasized learning from experiences to constantly improve. Attendees participated in a retrospective exercise to discuss what went well and possibilities for future seminars to become more effective.

1. Continuous improvement in practiceAgile Mëtteg – June 17th, 2010

2. OBJECTIVES & AGENDAObjectivesThis session will give you a quick overview of agile values and principles. It will then focus on a key aspect (continuous improvement) and provide you with practical examples and techniques to help your team learn and become more efficient.AgendaIntroduction of Agile PartnerThe attendeesIntroduction to the values of Agile Software Development Overview of Scrum and Lean principles Continuous improvement and agile retrospectives Techniques and tips for conducting retrospectives Q&A June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice2

3. AGILE PARTNER SERVICESIS users ServicesCustom Software Development & MaintenanceOur core business to answer customer needsIS servicesThanks to our expertise we can support IT team to reach their productivity & quality objectives (Assessment, Coaching, Support, Training, Resource delegation…)IS SolutionsTake benefit from commercial or Open Source platform to answer as quick as possible to specific needsIS users servicesWe can support Product & Services owners to work closely with the IT team (Assessment, Coaching, Support, Training, Resource delegation…)14Software Development & SoftwareMaintenance2ISSolutionsIS ServicesAgilityAgility123AgilityJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice334

4. Let’s get acquaintedJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice4

5. PRESENTATION OF THE ATTENDEESWho are you ?What is your role ?What do you know about agility ?What are your expectations ?June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice5

6. AGILITY – IT’s a mindsetJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice6

7. THE THREE PILARSTRANSPARENCY to share a vision and create visibilityensures that aspects of the process that affect the outcome must be visible, agreed and shared to those managing the outcomes.INSPECTION to react rapidlyThe various aspects of the process must be inspected frequently enough so that unacceptable variances in the process can be detected.ADAPTATION to respond more accurately to the needsAn adjustment must be made as quickly as possible to minimize further deviation if one or more aspects of the process are outside acceptable limits, and that the resulting product will be unacceptable June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice7Source: SCRUM GUIDE By Ken Schwaber, May, 2009

8. THE 4 VALUESExtract from Manifesto for Agile Software Development:Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a planJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice8Source: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

9. LEAN SW DEV: 7 PRINCIPLES 1. Eliminate WasteFocus: Is the task useful to reach the objectives 2. Build Quality In Focus: Quality is a day to day attitude 3. Create Knowledge Focus: Learn from experiences to be more efficient after 4. Defer Commitment Focus: Take decision as soon as you have relevant information 5. Deliver Fast Focus: Reduce lead time to correct defect 6. Respect People Focus: Prefer to work as a Team instead of as a Group 7. Optimize The WholeFocus: Evaluate / Measure Value stream to optimize on right levelSource: Poppendieck.LLC June 17th, 20109Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice

10. ADAPTATION vs. ANTICIPATIONSource: Succeeding with Agile: Software Development using Scrum, Mike Cohn , Addison-Wesley, 2009June 17th, 201010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice

11. Overview of Scrum and KANBANJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice11

12. SCRUMTeamScrum MasterProduct OwnerJune 17th, 201012Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice

13. WHEN TO USE SCRUMScrumperformshereSource: Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics by Ralph Stacey in Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle.June 17th, 201013Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice

14. KANBAN – LEAN INITIATIVEJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice14Source: Kanban and Scrum making the most of both – Henri Kniberg & Mathias Skarin

15. WHEN TO USE KANBANOptimize a organization in terms ofperformance of the organizationquantity of valuable work delivered cycle time to deliver workEncourages discussion about improvements and action to take because itprovides transparency into the process and its flowexposes bottlenecks, queues, variability and wasteJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice15

16. Continuous improvement and agile retrospectivesJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice16

17. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESSJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice17Based on the principles of the Deming CycleIncorporate the principle to take benefit of the lessons learned

18. Continuousimprovementis not onlyrelated to agility.Examples of techniques used in continuousimprovement to analyzeproblemsencounteredduring a project :The « five WHY »« Project post mortem » review« Fishbone » diagramWho has alreadyused one of these techniques ?June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice18

19. Agile specificitywithScrum : Feedback isaskedregularly, all along the project, and the benefits are for the projectitselfJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice19

20. SCRUM feedback loopsaddresstwo aspects of agile projects :To adapt the product to itsenvironment all along the projectTo adapt the developmentprocess all along the projectAgile retrospectivesonly focus on the developmentprocessJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice20

21. Techniques and tips for conducting retrospectivesJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice21

22. The “best” structure of an agile retrospectiveThe « best » structure for an agile retrospectiveis :Set the stageGather dataGenerate insightsDecidewhat to doClose the retrospectiveJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practiceSource: Agile retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen22

23. BenefitsBenefits for the teamUsingthis structure will help the team do :

24. Understanddifferent points of view

25. Follow a naturalorder of thinking

26. Take a comprehensiveview of the team’scurrentmethods and practices

27. Allow the discussion to go whereitneeds to go, ratherthanpredetermining the outcome

28. Leave the retrospectivewithconcrete actions and experiments for the nextiterationJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice23

29. CASE STUDYLet’s make the retrospective of this seminar !June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice24

30. 1. Set the stage1. Set the stageGoals of the session

31. Agenda of the session

32. Activity to set the stage and prepare all the attendees to be in a participative mode

33. e.g. : « Check-In », asking a question everybodycananswer. « I pass » isallowed.

34. « In one or twowords, what do youthink about thisseminar ? »June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice25

35. 2. Gather data2. Gather dataMake a picture of the iteration

36. Start withevents, metrics and featurescompleted

37. Activity :

38. e.g. : « MadSadGlad » to gather data about feelings and discover the sources of satisfying and unsatisfying times.June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice26

39. 3. Generate insights3. Generate insightsAnalyzewhatcontributed to success

40. Investigate breakdowns and deficiencies

41. Find solutions and additionalpossibilities

42. Analyze pros and cons of eachpossibility

43. Make a list of potentialimprovements

44. Activity :

45. e.g. : « Brainstorming withTalkingToken »+ « Votingwith Dots »June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice27

46. 4. Decide what to do4. Decide what to doPick one or twoexperiments for the nextiteration

47. Transformideasintopriorities and action plans

48. Create new items in the backlog to be sure thattheywillbetakenintoaccount

49. Activity :

50. e.g. : « SMART Goals »June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice28

51. 4. Decide what to do« SMART Goals » :SpecificMeasurableAttainable RelevantTimelyJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice29

52. 5. Close the retrospective5. Close the retrospectiveAskwhatthey have learnedfrom the retrospective

53. Make a retrospective of the retrospective

54. Inspect and adaptalsoapplies to retrospectives

55. Activity :

56. e.g. : « ROTI or Return on Time Invested »June 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice30

57. CONCLUSIONJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice31

58. Learn to learnJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice32Based on the Deming wheel (or cycle)11DThe objective to reachis the creation of added valueThe wheel evolves continuously towards the targetThe spacers are used to consolidate gains and prevent the wheel to come back down PObjective = Creation of valueCA2233Leveraging learning and consolidate the gains

59. AN UNIVERSAL APPROACHJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice33

60. NEXT TRAININGS & CERTIFICATIONSJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice34Complete calendar on: http://www.agilepartner.net/training/training_calendar.html

61. RESOURCESAgile Partner: www.agilepartner.netAgile Interest Group Luxembourg:www.aiglu.orgAgile Alliance: www.agilealliance.orgScrum alliance: www.scrumalliance.orgScrum.orgJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice35

62. CONTACTSThank YouJune 17th, 2010Agile Mëtteg - Continuous improvement in practice36