Whether you've been working on an agile team for 6 months, or 6 years, the same obstacles tend to arise to trip us up over and over. Maybe your retrospectives feel more like a funeral and no one is participating anymore, your daily stand-ups have bloated into 25 team member status meetings, or your QA team is falling farther and farther behind the agile developers and feel like they’ll never catch up with their testing backlog. These are the kinds of issues I see all of the time. They lower team morale, lead to abandoned transformation initiatives, and ultimately your product and customers suffer because of it. But there’s a better way! As an agile coach and consultant, I have worked with dozens of teams to stop the bleeding, strengthen their relationships, mature their processes, and help them grow into high functioning agile machines. And to be clear, I’ve made mistakes as well! I’d like to share with the audience my own experiences and lessons-learned, including both what succeeded and what failed in hopes to lead you down the path to getting your own team “unstuck”.

1. Angela Dugan, Polaris Solutions
ThatConference 2017

3. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

4. Talk about the common challenges faced by agile teams
I’ve worked with
Share some of the tells I’ve noticed of when things have
“gone off the rails”
Review some ways to brush off the dirt and get back in
there
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

5. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com
TFSWhisperer.com
@OakParkGirl

6. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

7. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

8. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

9. Agile software development describes a set of
principles for software development under which
requirements and solutions evolve through the
collaborative effort of self-organizing cross-
functional teams.
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

11. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

12. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

13. commitment
discipline
meaningful collaboration
adaptive planning
experimentation
permission to fail
continuous improvement
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

14. TRUST AND
TRANSPARENCY
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

15. No wonder agile is so freaking hard!
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

16. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
So why does
every agile
team eventually
go off the rails?

17. VersionOne - 10th Annual State of Agile Report

18. 1. Expectations management
2. Quality
3. Communication breakdown
4. Lack of ownership
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

19. EXPECTATIONS MANAGEMENT

20. EXPECTATIONS
SMELLS

21. 1. Create safe spaces for sharing status, issues,
feedback
2. ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER!
3. No assumptions based development / testing
4. Review progress with the PO/Stakeholders as early
and often as possible

22. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
QUALITY

23. QUALITY
SMELLS

24. 1. Ask clarity questions early in the process
2. Document decisions made in-flight
3. Examine the process to determine why quality wasn’t
delivered
4. Review outcomes often, so that divergences are
caught early

25. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
C
O
M
M
U
N
I
C
A
T
I
O
N

26. COMMUNICATION
SMELLS

27. 1. Remove artificial boundaries between people
2. Encourage the team to get to know one another
3. Listen to what your team mates are saying and NOT
saying
4. Accept mistakes as readily as successes (maybe
more!)

28. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl
O
W
N
E
R
S
H
I
P

29. OWNERSHIP
SMELLS

30. 1. Implement a fist of five approach to validating team
commitments BEFORE committing
2. Make sure everyone on the team feels empowered to
solve problems
3. Make sure everyone on the team has permission to fail
4. Take ownership of the big picture, not just your part in it
5. Reward team success, not individual success*

31. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

32. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

33. Set the stage
Gather Data
Generate Insights
Decide What to Do
Close the Retro
http://www.slideshare.net/estherderby/agile-retrospectives-4976896
What went well
What sucked
How can we do
better?

34. Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

35. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter:
@OakParkGirl

36. Participants drive the agenda
Pick a theme
Gather and vote on topics to cover
Drive topics through a Kanban process
Participation is optional
Small investment (1 – 2 hours per week), HUGE rewards

37. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

38. Fail Forward: https://www.admittingfailure.org/
Lean Coffee: http://leancoffee.org/
Drive: The Suprising Truth about What Motivates People:
https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-
Motivates/dp/1594484805
Coaching Agile Teams: https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Agile-Teams-
ScrumMasters-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321637704/
Agile Retrospectives: https://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-retrospectives
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

39. Email: Angela@PolarisSolutions.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan
Slideshare.NET: http://www.slideshare.net/angelabinkowski
Twitter: @OakParkGirl, @ChicagoALM, @TeamPolaris
Blog - http://www.tfswhisperer.com/
Chicago Agile and DevOps Meetup - http://www.polarissolutions.com/events
Polaris Solutions website - http://www.polarissolutions.com/
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

40. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl