1. Agile Predictability

2. A Little About Me
• Internal Agile Coach at Rally Software
• 8 years as a Software/ Web Developer
• 7 years as a Scrum Master and Coach
• 1 Year as a Project Manager / Product Owner
• Kanban board @ home

3. Assumptions
• Some experience with agile teams and
adoptions
• Understand Scrum metrics (velocity,
burndowns, etc.)

4. To Start, A Story …

5. The journey
“It is better to travel well than to arrive”
- Buddha
“Life’s a journey, not a destination”
- Aerosmith

6. What I Believe

7. Understand The Value of Teams

8. Understand Why to Use Relative Sizes

9. Understand Metrics and When/Why to
Use Them

10. So That …

11. Teams

12. Teams :: Cross-Functionality
• Vertical Slices
Story 1 Story 2
GUI
Business Logic
Database

13. Teams :: Cross-Functionality
• Deliver Features

14. Teams :: Cross-Functionality
• The bottleneck, a DBA story

15. Teams :: Form-Storm-Norm-Perform
• All teams go through this

16. Teams :: Form-Storm-Norm-Perform
• EVERY change in the team resets them

17. Teams :: Form-Storm-Norm-Perform
• Team America

18. Teams > Sum of Their Parts

19. Relative Sizing

20. Relative Sizing :: Exercise Time!

21. Relative Sizing :: Exercise Time!
• How many weeks would it take your team to
build an e-commerce site from scratch?
– Use fingers to indicate how many weeks
– Raise them high so I can see them

22. Relative Sizing
• We (people) are bad at
ESTIMATING, especially TIME

23. Relative Sizing
• But we’re very good at comparing things!

24. Relative Sizing
• In Scrum (generally):
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13

25. Relative Sizing
• Another Way:
[XS,] S, M, L [, XL]

26. Relative Sizing w/ Teams
• With stable teams, we get even better at this!

27. Relative Sizing w/ Teams
• Without stable teams, we have to reset our
sizes when we change the team EVERY time

28. Metrics
• OR: Using the right tool for the job

29. Metrics :: Exercise Time!

30. Metrics :: Dot Game
• Get in Teams of 7 People
– 4 Developers
– 1 QA
– 1 Product Owner / Project Manager
– 1 Customer (optional)
• Let me know when you’re ready

31. Metrics :: Dot Game
• Round 1
– Batches of six (6)
– No talking between stations
– QA Folks, let me know when the first batch is
done with QA

32. Metrics :: Dot Game

33. Metrics :: Dot Game
• Round 2
– Batches of one (1) – “single piece flow”
– No talking between stations
– Acceptance Criteria!!!
– QA Folks, let me know when the first sticky is
done with QA

34. Metrics :: Dot Game

35. Metrics :: Little’s Law
WIP
CT = -------
TP

36. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together

37. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together

38. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together

39. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together

40. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together

41. Metrics :: Bringing it All Together
What questions do these metrics answer?
• Throughput = When we will pull the next work
item
• Cycle Time = When we will deliver that work
item once it’s pulled

42. What I Believe

43. One Last Ask

44. So That …

45. To End, A Quote
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to
failure is trying to please everybody”
- Bill Cosby

47. Questions?