Neil Potter Presentation

© Copyright 2009-2015 The Process Group. All rights reserved. 1Version 2.3www.processgroup.com
10 Leadership Practices to Lead Agile Teams
It Doesn't Have to be Like Oil and Water!
Neil Potter
The Process Group
neil@processgroup.com
www.processgroup.com
This presentation: processgroup.com/agile-leadership-potter-v2p3.pdf

Agenda
•  Oil and water - typical symptoms
•  Starting point – a common goal
•  10 leadership practices:
1.  Focus on results; use practices to manage time, money and risk
2.  Maximize the benefits of Agile / Scrum – why did you select it?
3.  Employ commitment by involvement
4.  Empower teams
5.  Map Agile to contract deliverables and Waterfall (if needed)
6.  Define appropriate release plans, estimates, risks, dependencies, deadlines
7.  Deal with ugly burndown data
8.  Set priorities - none, too many, too often, just right
9.  Use retrospective data
10. Set a great example – use Agile yourself
•  Summary and Q&A

Intro. to Neil
•  Degree in Computer Science
•  Certified Scrum Master
•  Certified CMMI appraiser/trainer
•  Certified 6-Sigma Green Belt
•  Developer & project manager – Texas Instruments (’85-’91)
•  Consultant – The Process Group (1990-current)
•  Ex-developer, consultant since 1990
•  Focus on improving project & organizational
results world-wide
•  Teach new skills (Scum, requirements, PM, CMMI..)
•  Fix project & organizational problems
•  Stitch process stuff together (Scrum, CMMI,
PMBOK, ?) into team workflows

Oil and Water - Typical Symptoms
•  Management frustrated with unpredictable
release dates:
– Can’t predict revenue
– Projects drag on 2 weeks at a time with no end
in sight (prediction vs. discovery)
– Customer needs are discovered continually -
can’t pin a set of features to a revenue goal
– Expend more $ than earned
– Test resources, defect repairs and support costs
increase
All while payroll is a steady & very large expense
Total disconnect between developing software and running
the business. Best promise: “We’re Agile – it will work out!”

5-Minute Exercise
3 mins: In groups of 3-4 discuss:
– 1. What 2-3 leadership behaviors inhibit Agile?
– 2. What 2-3 things describe YOUR oil vs. water challenge
»  That is, where do leadership and team members disagree?
2 mins: discuss publicly

Starting Point – A Common Goal
•  Communicate the overall goal:
– Make team members, Scrum
Masters, Project/Program
Managers (PM) aware of the
overall goal, not just the next
sprint goal
– Includes:
»  Customer needs
»  Deadlines, competition
»  Quality expectations
»  Budget and/or profit goals
»  Resource constraints
Goal
In the best organizations, the PM is responsible for the overall goal.
The whole team understands and works towards the overall goal.
Goal?
Goal?
Goal?
Goal?

10 Leadership Practices

1. Focus On Results
Add practices to achieve the goal
Goal
• Goals uncover problems
• Additional practices solve problems
• Frameworks house practices
ProductBacklog
Test
Sprint Retrospective ReleasePlanning
SprintPlanning
You might need to add:
•  Drywall
•  Plumbing
•  Doors
•  Windows?
•  Risk management
•  CM
•  Design
•  Quality assurance
Remember: Scrum is a framework, not the end goal

2. Maximize the Benefits of Agile / Scrum
Don’t ditch Agile, fix what is broken
•  You adopted Agile because:
– Early user feedback on features?
– Requirement changes can be incorporated earlier?
– Work is chunked, tracked and visible?
– Team & communication
•  Keep Agile and improve common issues:
– Work goes on for ever with no sellable release defined
– User story mumbo-jumbo: “As a developer I would like to
write code to sort XYZ data”
– No documentation to communicate / remember requirements,
concepts and decisions
Don’t allow your initial Agile benefits to be down-graded into chaos

3. Commitment by Involvement
•  Betty Crocker cake, 1952
– Withheld the powered egg in the cake mix
– Cook adds fresh eggs to make it “their cake”
•  Communicate TENTATIVE goals:
– Teach teams how to plan ACHIEVABLE options
•  Seek feedback from team:
– What is possible?
– What is risky?
– What are the options: delivery, cost, features
etc.?
•  Select at least 2 options (plan A and plan B)
Teams will do everything they can when committed by involvement.
Otherwise you have an uncommitted eye-rolling team.

•  Set achievable (but big) goals – not doomed for failure:
– Explain what is absolute and cannot change
– Don’t fabricate goals, “It must be done in 90 days” (to keep
you guys focused)
•  Give them responsibility (and reward):
– Don’t take the reward after their hard work!
– Be humble and help the team
•  Provide positive feedback:
– People work better when they feel better. (They are bitter,
disengaged and expend minimal effort when they don’t!)
4. Empower Teams
Show you understand them - resolve their issues NOW so they can
focus – become a Super Hero

5. Map Agile To Contract Deliverables
& Waterfall (if needed)
70% Requirements
30% Other (Requirements, Design, Code, unit Test, system Test, acceptance Test?)
Req Design Unit TestCode Sys. Test Accept. Test
70% R
30%
70% R
30%
70% D
30%
70% D
30%
70% C
30%
70% C
30%
70% C
30%
40% T
60%
50% T
50%
60% T
40%
70% T
30%
80% T
20%
90% T
10%
100% T
0%
Sprint
Waterfall
Scrum
You explain!

6. Define Appropriate Release Plans
Don’t be scared of release plans. Add practices to manage them.
Need to add practices?
þ Effort / story points
þ Release plan
☐ Master schedule
☐ Stakeholder coordin.
☐ Risk management
Deliverable 5Deliverable 4Deliverable 3
Deliverable 2
Deliverable 1
Deliverable 7
A sellable release
When can we deliver / sell?
Help your teams scale up PM practices

7. Deal With Ugly Burndown Data
•  Scrum does a great job of uncovering stinky issues:
– Technical challenges
– Supplier qualifications
– Little planning or estimation
– Priorities changing so fast that nothing is completed
ReviewBacklog
SprintPlanning
Analysis
Design
Code
Test
SprintRetrospective
SprintReview

Observation / Causes
•  They won’t catch up – graph has no trend downwards.
•  The data wreaks “Replan” – but no one does.
•  Common underlying issues:
– Scope creeps continually with no evaluation of changes.
– Team priorities are changed every week, so little gets finished.
– Management does not agree among themselves what is
important – so everything is.
Management doesn’t like the situation (too painful) and ignores it.

8. Set Priorities
None, too many, too often, just right
Risk
Too many, too often:
•  Everything started, nothing finished
•  Quality problems
•  Burnout
None:
•  Risk of wrong focus
•  Customer needs not met
•  Team drifting along
Just right:
•  Deliverables are met with
expected quality
Target in
here
somewhere

9. Use Retrospective Data
•  Got challenges?
•  Scrum gives you great data:
– Retrospectives, velocity, test results
•  Are you using the data?
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
Retrospective /
progress /
quality data
Retrospective /
progress /
quality data
Retrospective /
progress /
quality data
Organized
Data
•  Improve the process
•  Improve the tools
•  Train teams
•  Encourage (and
insist) teams to
improve
•  Giving them time,
guidance
•  Monitor the results

10. Set a Great Example
Use Agile Yourself!
User Story Story Points Tasks Estimate
(Ideal
Time)
Sprint
Big todo 1 21 1
Big todo 2 34 1
Big todo 3 55 1
Big todo 4 42 2
Big todo 5 13 2
Big todo 6 20 2
Big todo 7 20 2
Big todo 8 20 3
Big todo 9 42 3
Big todo 10 35 3
110points95points97points

5-Minute Exercise
•  In groups of 3-4 discuss:
– What 2-3 changes will you recommend back at the work
place to:
»  Help your Agile teams be Agile
»  Meet management needs?

Q&A

References
•  Implementing Scrum (Agile) and CMMI Together. Process Group Post newsletter, March
2009. http://www.processgroup.com/pgpostmar09.pdf
•  Adding Practices to Scrum to Achieve Your Goals (and comparison with CMMI Level 3):
http://www.processgroup.com/pgpostapr2013.pdf
•  Articles: http://processgroup.com/agilescrum/
•  Potter, N., Sakry, M., Making Process Improvement Work - A Concise Action Guide for
Software Managers and Practitioners, Addison-Wesley, 2002.
•  Scrum Guide: http://www.scrum.org/scrumguides/ (Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland)
•  Scrum definition: http://www.scrumalliance.org/
•  Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed, Boehm and Turner, Addison-
Wesley, 2003
•  Succeeding with Agile, Mike Cohn, Addison-Wesley, 2009
•  Managing The Development Of Large Software Systems, Dr. Winston W. Royce
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf
•  Example CMMI Level 5 Scrum story:
–  http://jeffsutherland.com/SutherlandScrumCMMIHICSS2008.pdf

Comparison to CMMI (Summary)
•  Some requirements
•  Some design
•  Coding
•  Some test
•  Some lessons learned
•  No
•  Most Requirements Management
•  Most Project Planning
•  Most Project Monitoring/Control
•  Most Measurement Analysis (effort
and progress)
In Scrum? Level 3 coverage -
very dependent on
how YOU define
the phases
Approx. 47% coverage of Level 2
Ref.: processgroup.com/pgpostmar09.pdf

CMMI, Scrum, PMBOK
3 Defined
2 Managed
1 Initial
Process AreasLevel Focus
Risk
Rework
Quality
Productivity
Integrated Project Management (IPM)
Risk Management (RSKM)
Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR)
Requirements Development (RD)
Technical Solution (TS)
Product Integration (PI)
Verification (VER)
Validation (VAL)
Organizational Process Definition (OPD)
Organizational Process Focus (OPF)
Organizational Training (OT)
Requirements Management (REQM) (Scrum)
Project Planning (PP) (Scrum)
Project Monitoring and Control (PMC) (Scrum)
Measurement and Analysis (MA) (Scrum)
Configuration Management (CM)
Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA)
Supplier Agreement Management (SAM)
Causal Analysis and Resolution
Organizational Performance Management
5 Optimizing
4 Quantitatively
Managed
Organizational Process Performance
Quantitative Project Management
4. Project Integration
Management
5. Project Scope
Management
6. Project Time
Management
7. Project Cost
Management
8. Project Quality
Management
9. Project Human
Resource
Management
10.Project
Communications
Management
11. Project Risk
Management
12.Project Procurement
Management
13.Project Stakeholder
Management

Scrum with CMMI & PMBOK
ò ò ò
REQM REQMREQM
PP / IPM
PMBOK
4-13
(plans,
estimates)
IPM (planning w/ assets, data, program-level tracking)
RSKM (risk management)
OT (planned training program)
OPF (process improvement focus)
OPD (process asset creation / update)
DAR (tradeoffs using criteria)
PMC (progress tracking and corrective action)
MA (objectives & measures)
CM (baselines & versions)
SAM (supplier selection & management)
PPQA (process & product check)
PMBOK 4-13
Green = Maturity Level 2 PAs
Blue = Maturity Level 3 PAs
Burgundy = PMBOK Section
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
PlanningBacklog
REQM / RD
PMBOK 5 Requirements (RD)
Design (TS)
Code (TS)
Test (VER)
Integrate (PI)
Test (VAL)
Release
Requirements (RD)
Design (TS)
Code (TS)
Test (VER)
Integrate (PI)
Test (VAL)
Release
Requirements (RD)
Design (TS)
Code (TS)
Test (VER)
Integrate (PI)
Test (VAL)
Release

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