This document discusses building high performing agile teams. It provides tips on embracing continuous improvement, managing backlogs and task boards, conducting effective story kickoffs, addressing defects early, embracing test-driven development, and constantly seeking to improve processes through lean principles. The presentation was given by Naveed Khawaja and Carl Bruiners and provides advice based on their experience helping organizations adopt agile practices.

1. Building High Performing Agile
Teams
Incrementally…
Presented by
Naveed Khawaja
Carl Bruiners

2. Assessment
Strategy
Coaching
j
v
a
a
h
d
e
a
e
a
K
w
N

3. Bio – Carl Bruiners
 Originally a techie who became a
frustrated Development Manager
 Has been on a Agile education
journey
 Companies range from SME’s to
large Corporations
 Strong passion & experience for
taking on 'problem’ projects / teams
 Loves automation
Agile Coach or Most Valuable
Mentor of the Year Agile Player UK

4. Where we want to be…
Maturity
Unconscious Conscious Conscious Unconscious
Incompetence Incompetence Competence Competence
Maslow

5. The basics

6. Waterfall
http://scalingsoftwareagilityblog.com

7. Customer focused…
User Story Lifecycle

8. The perfection lament
If you wait until you do
everything for everybody
instead of
something for somebody
you will end up
not doing
anything for anybody
~ Malcom Bane

9. Values, Principles and Practices
Values
BEING
Principles
Practices
DOING

10. Activity 1
Duration: 10-12 minutes
The Tower Project
[Iteration 1]

11. Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping
others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals & Working Customer
Responding to
interactions software collaboration
change
over over over
over
processes and comprehensive contract
following a plan
tools documentation negotiation
Agile Manifesto with Dude’s Law

12. Transformation – Poorly planned
Organisational change

13. The heartbeat - Ceremonies
• Show & Tell
• Pre-Sprint Planning • Sprint Retrospective • Sprint Planning
define
Wed Thu Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Mon Tue
On-going iterative activities throughout the sprint
• Story Kick-Offs
• Daily Scrum • Backlog Grooming
• User Story Writing

14. Create a trusting environment
 Empower teams to help guide product direction
 Trust team estimations
 Continued trust when a Sprint doesn’t work out
sov·er·eign·ty
1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign
state.
2. Royal rank, authority, or power.
3. Complete independence and self-government.
4. A territory existing as an independent state.
5. A group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.

15. Communication and Collaboration is key
 Ideally co-located teams
 Enabling teams to keep in constant contact by utilizing any
and all communication methods (Face to face, VC,
Telephone, Email, IM, Task Walls)
 Business representation throughout the delivery process
 Daily updates

16. What is a high performing team

17. Disciplined execution vs continuous
innovation

18. What a good (Agile) team looks like
 Constant business engagement
 Customer delivery focused
 Diverse
 Flexible
 Energized
 Constantly seeks ways to
improve
 Meets their commitments more
often than not

19. Challenge = Opportunity
Responsibility
Obligation
You Others
Justify
Shame
Blame
C Avery

20. Agile Improvements
Quarterly
Everything Quarterly Pseudo
Releases &
instead of Releases
Continuous
something (Mini-Waterfall)
Deployment
Collaborative
Requirements Backlog volatile progression
conundrum yet prioritized - WIP Limits
- Kick-Offs
- Wall of Shame
Well controlled/
Value Based negotiated /
Portfolio
Portfolio prioritized/
Prioritization
Planning Cost of Delay
over Delivery

21. Agile Improvements
Colocation with BA &
open casual
Pseudo colocation
Communication discussion space with
without BA
dedicated focus
timeslots
Functional Team 7 plus minus 2 7 plus minus 2
Structure without BA with BA
Disciplined Disciplined
Prescriptive
execution with execution &
processes with little
value & flexibility Continuous
value
Innovation

22. Activity 2
Duration: 10-12 minutes
The Tower Project
[Iteration 2]

23. Tips to helping you become a high
performing team

24. Embrace Continuous Improvement
 Change of pace should be
measured – a steady
cadence can lead to
disappointment
 Don’t wait for your
retrospectives to encourage
CI, introduce constant Team
Kaizens

25. No two teams are equal
 Don’t compare, instead play to their
strengths
 Move your team members around to
create your strongest teams
 Don’t cross compare team velocities
 Move team members around to cross
pollinate

26. Visual to reality
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Release 1
…
Vision Release 2
Iteration n
Programme
…
1
Iteration 1
Backlog
Iteration 2
Release n
…
Releases Iteration n
Portfolio
Vision …
Release 1
Iteration n
Release 2
Programme
2
Iterations …
… …
Release n
Programme
Iteration n
n

27. Is limiting what my partner can buy a bad
thing? – PO Management
Be sensible limit the PO’s choices
– if you say you can theoretically
put a man on the moon, be
prepared to be asked to do so.

28. Number of Items Remaining
Legend:
Incoming
Sprint 34 End
Remaining
Completed
Sprint 35 End
Date
Sprint 36 End
Sprint 37 End
Sprint 38 End

29. Backlog management -MMFS / MVP
Always create a Minimal Viable Product / Minimal Marketable
Feature Set

30. Managing your task board (& don’t forget
your WIPs).

31. Have you kicked off your story yet?

32. A streamline kick off…
BA
UX
Dev
QA
TT
…and continuous team effort gets us the gold

33. In Sprint test debt / avoid mini-waterfall

34. Continuous Delivery… Its easy… but
 Continuous Integration?
 Test Automation?
 Software Configuration?
 Automated Deploy?
 ACDT – Automated Continuous
Delivery & Test

35. Defects
TDD & BDD Earlier
Defects, TD Pain
-Defect fast tracking
Defects D earlier -Cycle time controls
pain - Class of service
(SLAs)"

36. Using class of service
Standard service class
Classes should be dictated by the business costs
 Various class types should be created under the standard service
class. For example;
 A – Under $10000 impact if delayed
 B – Under $5000 impact if delayed
 C – Under $1000 impact if delayed
 D – Under $100 impact if delayed
 E – BAU
 The prioritization of the Stories is driven by the Standard Service Class
Types
 A Story will change service types as it gets closer to its delivery date;
i.e. a C type after 5 days would be escalated to a B type and therefore
more further up the priority stack. Impact delay would be determined at
the point of a story being added to the Task Wall, this will help Stories
move up the priority stack as it gets closer to its delivery date.

37. Stop escaping defects
Do not use average defect throughput as a stick to beat your
teams with
Defects discovered that are not legacy deal with within you
current Sprint
£58 p/d
10 incoming defects p/w
2 days per defect to fix

38. How the cost of removing defects
increases over time

39. “Done is better than perfect!”
• Gauge multi-tasking
• Manage comfort level
• Systems impact visibility
• Propose time bound analysis activity
• Ask for the definition of value

40. Fail fast and learn from the mistakes

41. Embrace TDD / BDD sooner rather than
later
 Retro-fitting TDD / BDD into your work process is far more
painful than the initial pain of getting setup at the beginning

42. Lean everything out…
 Constantly seek ways to
improve your processes
 Waste is not always
obvious – Don’t be afraid of
change
 There is no such thing as
perfection

43. Agile is not an Arm’s Race
 Simple Agile = Beautiful Agile
 Don’t run before you can walk
 Embrace Pragmatic Continuous Improvement

44. Want to know more?
Naveed Khawaja Carl Bruiners
@morphilibrium @cbruiners
in.morphilibrium.com in.carlbruiners.com
blogs.morphilibrium.com blog.carlbruiners.com
www.morphilibrium.com www.carlbruiners.com
naveed@morphilibrium.com carl@carlbruiners.co.uk
slideshare.morphilibrium.com