1.
Agile antipatterns: review
after 10 years of practice
Mikalai Alimenkou
@xpinjection
http://xpinjection.com

2.
Telegram channel
https://t.me/xpinjection_channel

3.
Disclaimer
This talk is based on
personal experience

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My expectations for 2018 10 years ago
Agile unicorn

5.
Reality in many companies/teams
Agile unicorn

6.
Sometimes situation is even worse

7.
To get better
results work
hard and focus
on right things

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#1: Project mindset

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Classical “Iron Triangle”
Value is more important
than scope
Early delivery may bring
additional budget
In iterative process
deadline is continuous

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Scope is not a goal at all

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More Agile “Iron Triangle”

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rocess manager
roject manager
eople manager
roxy manager
…
Side effect in management

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#2. Story Points for Sprint Planning

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May work for “full-full-stack” teams

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Confusing and dangerous for mixed team

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Help Dasha to find out why Sprint failed

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Capacity-driven planning
https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/why-i-dont-use-story-points-for-
sprint-planning
Mike Cohn

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Developers have different focus factor

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Super power with spreadsheets

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To understand
how much work
left you need to
track time

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#3. «Scrum only» evangelism

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ScrumMasters without dev experience
I want
certificate

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Scrum works as a
mirror for the team,
showing issues BUT not
solutions

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Scrum is not a
destination, it is
just a small tool in
your journey to
success

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#4. Zombie retrospectives
What went
well?
What could be
done better?
Action items,
action items…

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The GOOD
The BAD
And action
items…

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To improve
something you
need to find what
to improve first

28.
#5. Plain Backlog

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I just want to
plan the next
release…

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Story Mapping for better structure

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Requirements pipeline with clear DoR
Idea
Presentation
First Review
Business
value metrics
MVP/PoC
extraction
System
Review
Design
approval
Ready for
Development

32.
It is hard to make
good product
decisions without
clear goals

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#6. Kanban is used as just a board

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Fool with a tool is
still a fool

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Summary
• Switch to product MVP-based mindset from projects
• Use capacity-based Sprint planning
• Don’t rely on Scrum only, focus on technical leadership
and delivery practices
• Experiment with retrospectives formats, facilitate team
power
• Visualize requirements structure and workflow
• Use Kanban as effective flow management system
• Be happy unicorn in the rainbow world ;)

36.
@xpinjection
http://xpinjection.com
mikalai.alimenkou@xpinjection.com