Sharing experiences for a successful agile project initiation from the trenches. The recipe.

1. Agile project kick-off from the trenches /// Sharing Experiences | 2014-02-17 | Page 1
Agile project kick-off
from the trenches
The recipe

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About the chef
George StamosGeorge Stamos
Agile/Lean coach and trainer at Intracom Telecoms S.A.Agile/Lean coach and trainer at Intracom Telecoms S.A.
george.m.stamos@gmail.comgeorge.m.stamos@gmail.com

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Recipe background
Agile project initiation should contain
all activities needed to start the project
with confidence.

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Recipe background
It should provide the team
and the stakeholders all the needed
“startup” information.

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Masters voice
Before we start

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Successful agile
project initiation
Main Course

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Main Ingredient

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Discipline
Is doing what you know
needs to be
DONEeven when you don’t want to do it

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Required ingredients
Cooking in a Scrum kitchen
›Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development team
›Optionally selected & identified feature stakeholders
›Kick-off meeting
›Project vision, goal(s) and business value
›Stakeholder management
›Stakeholder alignment
›Collaboration tools
›Continuous integration
›Bug and improvement tracking system
›Team competence gap analysis
›Risk management

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Preparation time
One to three days

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Execution time
Two days

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The kitchen
› Scaling & Distributing
Scrum where
distributed teams may
work in parallel with
dependency reduction
and sync

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Equipment,
Environment and Tools
› Brief high-level feature presentation
› Presentation of the preliminary feature time-plan/anatomy
› Shared Working agreements
› Shared US-DoD, Q-criteria, Release-DoD
› Preliminary version of the feature backlog
› A lot of time-boxes
› Versioning system
› Continuous integration platform
› Bug tracking tool
› Collaboration and communication tools
› Stakeholder map or value network

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About the main ingredients

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Product owner (CHEF)
› Why?
– The key to a successful agile software development project (recipe)
› How?
– 0.5oz of eagerness to discover new ideas
– 0.5oz of exploring Product Ownership
– 0.5oz of willingness to help their teams to grow
– 0.5oz of ability and willingness to try new things and experiment
– 0.5oz of willingness to foster innovation
› What?
– 10g of being able to understanding PdOs role
– 10g of being able to call the business decisions that needs to be taken
– 100g of responsibility for the product backlog
– 80g of being able to produce a concise and accurate release plan
– 10g of being able to motivate the team
– 100g of being to listens to all stakeholders

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Scrum master (SOUS-CHEF)
› Why?
– The coach of the Development Team, Product Owner and Organization to
follow Scrum values, practices, and rules.
› How?
– 2 tbsp. of being able to explain Scrum to the organization
– 2 tbsp. of being an expert on the Scrum process
– 2 tbsp. of being able to handle the fact that a SM has no authority
– 2 tbsp. of being able to help the team to improve its engineering practices
– 2 tbsp. of being able to works on his/her Scrum impediment list
› What?
– Pinch of Facilitating (helping all roles and functions to collaborate closely)
– Pinch of Coaching, (to high productivity and to expand Scrum in the
organization)
– Pinch of “Shielding” (for the team and educating others outside the team
about how the team is working)
– Steer everything to remove impediments for the team

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Development team
(Le commis de cuisine)
› Why?
– The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organizing teams
› How?
– 1.5oz of authority over the sprint
– 1.5oz of empowerment
– 1.5oz of commitment to work at sprint planning
– 1.5oz of responsibility
– 1.5oz of continuous improvement
› What?
– 100g of knowledge from a-z on how to build the feature
– 100g of cross functional team working as possible on one product backlog
at a time
– 100g of transparency (Be careful, hiding undone work will ruin your recipe)
– 100g of continuous engineering practices improvement

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Kick-off meeting
› Why?
– The best opportunity for a Product Owner to energize his or her team.
During this meeting, the Product Owner can establish a sense of common
goal and start understanding each individual.
› How?
– A strong and clear agenda
– Review project vision and goals
– Establish key priorities and concerns
– Establish candidate releasable
– Decide what to do first
› What?
– Project business value
– Stakeholder alignment
– Continuous integration
– Team competence gap analysis
– Risk management

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Preparation phase

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Preparation phase
Scope & Vision
› Start with WHY first
› What do we want to accomplish
› Imagine what the product will be like when it is
‘finished.’
› Describe this finished state and publish it.
› Explain the business value and opportunity exist
for your product to your audience
› Use an elevator pitch concept (see next slide)

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Preparation phase
Elevator pitch
› The elevator pitch must answer six questions:
– What is the project
– Who is your target customer or user profile
– What problem does your product solve
– How does your product solve the problem
– Who is behind the project
– What makes your product special
› Tips
– Must be short (30 to 60 seconds)
– Easy to understand
– Must have a hook to attract your audience
– Must be convincing

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Preparation phase
Stakeholder
management & alignment
›The process

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Preparation phase
Stakeholder
management & alignment
›The Tool
–Stakeholder Map
–Value Networks
› Meddlers (Free Exercise)
–Other?

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Preparation phase
Collaboration tools
Focus on your needs
›Collaboration comes in all shapes and sizes. Meaningful
collaboration may be what your group is seeking.
Basics
›Project and team member calendar
›To-Do Lists
›Announcement and discussion boards
›Knowledge management tools
›Instant messaging
›Social networking

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Preparation phase
Continuous integration
Master’s voice
Continuous Integration is a software development practice
where members of a team integrate their work frequently,
usually each person integrates at least daily - leading to
multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by
an automated build (including test) to detect integration
errors as quickly as possible.

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Preparation phase
Continuous integration
Disciplines
–Continuous Build
–Continuous Testing
–Continuous Documentation
–Continuous Feedback
–Continuous Inspection
–Continuous Deployment

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Preparation phase
Continuous integration
› Maintain a Single Source Repository
› Automate the Build
› Make Your Build Self-Testing
› Everyone Commits To the Mainline Every Day
› Every Commit Should Build the Mainline on an Integration
Machine
› Keep the Build Fast
› Test in a Clone of the Production Environment
› Make it Easy for Anyone to Get the Latest Executable
› Everyone can see what's happening
› Automate Deployment

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Preparation phase
Continuous integration
Popular CI tools
–Bamboo
–TeamCity
–Hudson
–LuntBuild
–QuickBuild
–Apache Continuum
–Cruise (Control)
–Anthill pro

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Preparation phase
Bug tracking system
To provide a clear centralized overview of development
requests (including both bugs and improvements) and their
state.
›Popular tools
– Bugzilla
– Jira
– Mantis
– Trac
– And the ones you already use

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Preparation phase
Competence gap analysis
› Identify the Needed Skills
– What is the team mission?
– What are the team’s business goals?
– What processes and procedures are currently in place?
– What critical skills are needed to be able to perform the mission and
meet the goals?
› Analysis and data collection
– Develop job profiles and identify critical skills needed for the job role
– Identify employees’ competencies and skill levels
– Review current position for future needs
– Take the time to develop a list of competencies that most clearly
and accurately describe what is needed to do the work
› Share information gathered

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Preparation phase
Risk Management
Set-up the process to anticipate risks that might affect the project
schedule or the quality of the software being developed, and then take
action to avoid these risks
›Risk Categories
– Project risks
– Product risks
– Business risks
›The process
1.Risk identification
› Identify possible project, product, and business risks.
1.Risk analysis
› Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks.
1.Risk planning
› Make plans to address the risk, either by avoiding it or minimizing its effects on
the project.
1.Risk monitoring
› You should regularly assess the risk and your plans for risk mitigation and
revise these when you learn more about the risk.

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Execution phase

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Execution phase
Call to kick-off meeting
› Organizer notes
– Need for meeting
– Meeting purpose
– Time
– Meeting length
– Participants
– Equipment
– Agenda
– Pre-meeting preparation
› Participant notes
– Review purpose, agenda,
participants, timing
– Confirm participation
– Meeting preparation
– Start your individual
preparation
– Check for open action points

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
Facilitator notes
› Organizer notes
– Start on time
– Welcome participants;
Repeat purpose
– Remind of roles
– Go through the agenda and
the expected outcome
– Keep notes and time
– Facilitate the discussions
– Maintain focus and pace
– Keep planned brakes
› Participant
– Be on time
– Participate actively
– Support the meeting facilitator

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
Facilitator notes
› Organizer notes
– Finish in time
– Summarize results/decisions
– Agree upon actions
– Collect feedback,
improvements
– Thank the participants
– Clean-up the room
› Participant
– Support consensus
– Make notes on own actions
– Suggest improvements
– Clean-up own area

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
› Present and share
–Scope & Vision of the feature
–Feature’s business value
–Brief high-level feature presentation
–Presentation of the preliminary feature time-plan
–Other useful feature related information

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
› Agree on your way of working (what?, who?, when?)
– Collaboration tools
– Continuous integration strategy and tools
– Bug & improvement tracing tools
– Communication tools
– Risk management handling
– On working framework i.e.:
› Time box length
› Planning session
› Review/Demo
› Improvement meeting
– Quality Assurance activities
– User story Definition of Done
– Release Definition of Done

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
› Stakeholder management
– Identify Stakeholders
› Consider those who have...
- The ability to impact your project
- The ability to enhance your project (SMEs)
- The ability to slow down your projects (e.g., teams or groups
you depend on)
- The ability to remove impediments
- The ability to lead opinions
- The ability to facilitate the change

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
› Stakeholder management
– Analyze Stakeholders
› The stakeholder map
What is it?
•Provides a framework for
managing stakeholders
based on interest and
influence
•Y-axis sometimes labeled
“Power”
•X-axis sometimes just
labeled “Interest”

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Execution phase
Kick-off meeting
› Stakeholder management
– Prioritize Stakeholders
› Stakeholders may
- Find faults
- Delay approvals
- Provide little support
- Be overly controlling
- Reassign resources
- Sway opinions in a negative direction
- Start a competing project
- Pull the plug!
› Ask for their expectations
› Provide yours
› Agree on a clear communication strategy
Set the frequency
•One-on-one conversations
•Standing meetings
•Project events – Workshops
•Reports
•other?

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Execution phase
Competence gap analysis
Do the exercise
› Identify the Needed Skills
– What is the team mission?
– What are the team’s business goals?
– What processes and procedures are currently in place?
– What critical skills are needed to be able to perform the mission and
meet the goals?
› Analysis and data collection
– Develop job profiles and identify critical skills needed for the job role
– Identify employees’ competencies and skill levels
– Review current position for future needs
– Take the time to develop a list of competencies that most clearly
and accurately describe what is needed to do the work
› Share information gathered

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Execution phase
Risk Management
Have your first session
Set-up the process to anticipate risks that might affect the project
schedule or the quality of the software being developed, and then take
action to avoid these risks
›Risk Categories
– Project risks
– Product risks
– Business risks
›The process
1.Risk identification
› Identify possible project, product, and business risks.
1.Risk analysis
› Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks.
1.Risk planning
› Make plans to address the risk, either by avoiding it or minimizing its effects on
the project.
1.Risk monitoring
› You should regularly assess the risk and your plans for risk mitigation and
revise these when you learn more about the risk.

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Execution phase
Project backlog
Present
–Preliminary presentation of the project backlog
–Minimum marketable features
–Product Milestones
–Release plan
›Exercise
–Draw project release plan
›Tools
–Story Mapping
–TreeMap
–Enhanced Burndown Chart with Epic Bars

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Note from the chef

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Note from the chef
Do not forget
›Have an engaged team
›Be informed of the team’s progress
›Receive good-faith estimates
›Be educated on technical and architectural
factors that impact estimates
›Be informed of feature’s risks
›Receive Lean/Agile training and coaching

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Note from the chef
but
›Remain engaged from the definition to the
completion of your feature
›Provide ongoing feedback and support
›Define and clarify requirements
›Collaborate with the Product Owner
›Contribute to the growth of a trusting Agile
environment

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Note from the chef
Managing expectations
›Be prepared for questions from those not
familiar with Agile
–“What do you mean you can’t commit to
what I’m getting six months from now?”
–“Can you squeeze it in? It’s really small.”
–“Why are you wasting time on architecture
and refactoring?”

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Note from the chef
What is needed
›Patience
›Setting the right expectation
–on scope
–and timing
›Prioritize right
›Allocate feature resources and budget right
›Be able to justify your decisions
›Continuous planning and risk assessment

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Note from the chef
And . . .

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