Essential Patterns of Mature Agile Teams

TC
Half‐day Tutorial
6/3/2013 8:30 AM

"Essential Patterns
of Mature Agile Teams"

Presented by:
Bob Galen
RGalen Counsulting Group, LLC

Brought to you by:

340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

Bob Galen
RGalen Consulting

Bob Galen is an agile coach at RGalen Consulting and director of agile solutions at Zenergy
Technologies, a North Carolina-based firm specializing in agile testing and leading agile
adoption initiatives. Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups
on topics related to software development, project management, software testing, and team
leadership. He is a Certified Scrum Master Practicing (CSC), Certified Scrum Product Owner
(CSPO), and an active member of the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Bob published Scrum
Product Ownership–Balancing Value from the Inside Out, which addresses the gap in guidance
toward effective agile product management. Contact Bob
at bob@rgalen.com or bob.galen@zenergytechnologies.com.

Essential Patterns of
Mature Agile Teams

Bob Galen
President & Principal Consultant
RGCG, LLC
bob@rgalen.com

Introduction
Bob Galen
Somewhere ‘north’ of 30 years experience ☺
Various lifecycles – Waterfall variants, RUP, Agile, Chaos…
Various domains – SaaS, Medical, Financial Services, Computer
,
,
,
p
& Storage Systems, eCommerce, and Telecommunications
Developer first, then Project Management / Leadership, then
Testing
Leveraged ‘pieces’ of Scrum in late 90’s; before ‘agile’ was ‘Agile’
Agility @ Lucent in 2000 – 2001 using Extreme Programming
Formally using Scrum since 2000
Currently an independent Agile Coach (CSC – Certified Scrum
Coach, one of 50 world-wide; 20+ in North America)
at RGCG, LLC and Director of Agile Solutions at Zenergy Technologies

From Cary, North Carolina
y,
Connect w/ me via LinkedIn and Twitter if you wish…
Bias Disclaimer:
Agile is THE BEST Methodology for Software Development…
However, NOT a Silver Bullet!

Copyright © 2013 RGCG, LLC

2

First, let’s explore…
What are the basics of “Agility”
What would be indicators (patterns) of Agile maturity?
What about Agile immaturity?
Let s
Let’s rank order some of them; I.e. what do you think are
the more impactful patterns in either direction?


3

The SCRUM Framework
Do we need to review it?


4

Three Common
Meta-Patterns
Achieving Agile Maturity
Many teams seem to have a false sense of over-maturity
Teams become complacent or plateau; often regressing over time
Can you have too much self-direction?

Simplicity of the ‘Methods’
“doing Agile” is easy; “being Agile” is much harder and continuous
Organizations, teams, and individuals often wait till the last minute to ask
for help
Internally - retrospectives are the key; Externally - get a ‘compatible’
coach
h

Culture seems to be the largest “failure factor”
Scrum can be quite disruptive; Kanban can be less so…
All-in vs. incremental? Salesforce.com as a commitment model?
Generally, how do we handle the term… Commitment?

5

“Doing” Agile vs.
“Being” Agile?
One debate in the agile community surrounds agile maturity. A way
of characterizing it surrounds
Doing Agile – focusing towards is tactics, ceremonies, and techniques
vs.
Being Agile – focusing towards team mindset, leadership mindset,
behaviors, organizational adoption, etc.

As an entry exercise, can we brainstorm aspects of Doing vs. Being
to capture how you view the differences?
The Mature Patterns workshops sort of crosses both, with an
emphasis towards the Being-side of the equation.


6

Outline
Maturity Patterns
1.
2.
2
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Truly Emergent Architecture
Aggressive R f t i
A
i Refactoring
Pursue Ruthless KISS
Behaving Like a Team
Truly Collaborative Work
Lean Work Queues
Performing Extraordinary
Facilitation
8. Quality on ALL Fronts
9. Testing is Everyone’s Job
10. Active Done-Ness
11. Stopping the Line
12. Investing in Serious CI

13. Product Ownership takes a Village
14. Pervasive Product Owners
15. The Nuance of a Healthy Backlog
16. Righteous Retrospectives
17. The Power of Complete
Transparency
18. Doing More than Thought
Possible
19. Emphasize Strength-Based
19 E h i St
th B
d
Teams
20. Congruent Agile Measurement


7

For each pattern…
workshop discussions
For sets or groups of patterns, we’ll pause and discuss the patterns
in small groups
Looking for examples where you’ve seen the pattern in operation
and have a story to tell
OR
Examples where you’ve seen related anti-patterns in operation and
have a counter-story to tell
Either way, we’ll be looking for group-based discussion around the
ways and means of achieving agile maturity


8

Technical


9

#1) Truly Emergent Architecture

Comfortable with on-the-fly
de-composition;
de composition;
no BDUF!

Sprint #0’s as appropriate
Backlogs contain learning
activity – Research Spike
stories
Should demonstrate
architectural evolution in
Sprint Reviews


Architects work in “slices”
Perhaps ‘skewed’ a bit forward from
other teams
Deliver architecture from within the
Scrum teams
Publish system metaphors,
guidelines, big picture views – to
keep everyone focused on goals
10

#2) Aggressive Refactoring
It’s easy to refactor on new
work or greenfield project…so
clearly do that.
But what about hairy, old,
y,
,
fragile code?

Aggressive refactoring
Put it on your Backlogs
Justify / explain it in business
terms

Remember the relationship to
automation – making
refactoring effective & FearLess

11

#3) Ruthless KISS
Getting LEAN deep into your
cultural DNA
Fight complexity
People & Collaboration over
Process & Tools
Fight Gold-plating developing
(Just Enough) of
EVERYTHING!

Deliver small increments (Just
in Time) and pay attention to
feedback
Continuously engage your
Product Owner

12

Teaming


13

#4) Behaving Like a Team
Includes the Scrum Master and
Product Owner
Developing trust
Congruent feedback
Getting the “Elephants” on the
table
Asking for help; helping each
other

Spending personal time
together

Strengths & weaknesses;
adjust t each; maximizing &
dj t to
h
i i i
minimizing

Passionate debate; Healthy
conflict

Succeeding or failing – as a
team


14

#5) Truly Collaborative Work
Co-located teams
Avoiding Scrummerfall-like
dynamics
Stages and gates within the
team
Long queues with hand-offs

Comfortable pairings
(across the team); Triad
Listening to each other;
mutual respect, honor
experience

15

#6) Lean Work Queues
Limiting WIP
Fewer things “in process” and
small tasks
Visible workflow
Kanban is interesting variant of
the ‘correct’ team behavior

Blending roles – individuals
doing more themselves and
handing off less
Swarming!

Think in terms of reducing &
eliminating WASTE

16

Kanban
Iteration-less Production


17

#7) Performing Extraordinary Facilitation
Grooming meetings
Discussions are at the “right
level”
Win-win discussions

Everyone on the team
facilitates
Off-line action setting
Planning meetings

Teams get options on the table
and pick best solutions
Craftsmanship
Technical debt

18

Quality & Testing


19

#8) Quality on ALL Fronts
Leaving behind the notion of
“Testing in quality…”
Professionalism within the team
Doing the right things…doing
things right

Self-inspecting; self-policing
Just enough quality
Quality has a cost and should
be
b variable b
i bl based on your
d
context

Focus on Craftsmanship and
Professionalism

20

#9) Testing is Everyone’s Job
Willingness on the part of the
whole-team to pitch in for
testing
All types even manual
types,
Extending it to test automation
Never letting tests break
Building in testability

Listening to test estimates as
part of work estimation
Understanding functional and
non-functional testing
Root Cause Analysis as a team

21

#10) Active Done-Ness; Readiness
Actively create and automate
Acceptance Tests on a Story or
a Feature basis
Customer heavily involved with
y
definition
Not functional tests

Have established a view to
multiple levels of Done-Ness
Work - Done
Story Acceptance
Sprint Goals
Release Criteria & Goals

Think in terms of traditional
Entry, Exit, and Release criteria

22

Levels of Criteria
Activity

Criteria

Basic Team
Work Products

Done’ness criteria

User Story or
Theme Level

Acceptance Tests

Sprint or
Iteration Level

Done’ness criteria

Release Level

Release criteria

Example
Pairing or pair inspections of code prior to check-in; or
p
p
g
development,, execution and passing of unit tests.
Development of FitNesse based acceptance tests with the
customer AND their successful execution and passing.
Developed toward individual stories and/or themes for sets
of stories.
Defining a Sprint Goal that clarifies the feature
development and all external dependencies associcated with
p
a sprint.
Defining a broad set of conditions (artifacts, testing
activities or coverage levels, results/metrics, collaboration
with other groups, meeting compliance levels, etc.) that IF
MET would mean the release could occur.


23

#11) Stopping the Line!
Fix your bugs
Ruthless testing; immediate
testing; immediate feedback
g;
Less logging more fixing

Build is broken ?
Fix it!

Need automation for a key area?
Build it!

Need to f t
N d t refactor ugly legacy code
l l
d
that is bug infested?
Refactor it!

Key impediments to your team?
Resolve them!

24

#12) Investing in Serious CI
Build on every check-in
All artifacts – DB code (stored
procedures, structure)
Automated deployments to
environments (real and/or
virtual)

Automation everywhere!
Dashboards
Lava lamps

Serious focus – dedicated team
Tools are only part of the
answer
Develop infrastructure
Continuous refactoring of CI

25

Product


26

#13) Product Ownership takes a Village
Fostering an environment
where the entire team ‘owns’
the Product Backlog
Freely contributes User Stories
Passionate debate on priority,
themes, and release goals

Shared—
Vision & Goals
Business Values
Technical direction

Functional, Technical, and
Product ‘voices’

27

#14) Pervasive Product (Customer) Owners
Can be a ‘team’, but needs a
unified decision-maker
Organizationally ‘sticky’
decisions

Engaged as a team member
Outwardly focused toward the
market & stakeholder demands
Advocate for the team

Engage the customer and
stakeholders
www.leadingagile.com

28

#15) The Nuance of a Healthy Backlog
Considering it a tapestry of
work that is considered in turn:
Architecture & design
Quality & Test Automation
Technical debt, Infrastructure
Bugs
Innovation & creativity

As well, planning
Feature workflow & value
Dependencies & risk
D
d
i
i k
Ultimately deployment

Never ‘done’ grooming; iterative


29

Organization


30

#16) Righteous Retrospectives
For the team!
Remember Norm Kerth’s
“Prime Directive”:
Everyone tried their best
Safe environment

Drives “Continuous
Improvement”
Challenge one other!

Get the “Elephants” out in the
Elephants
open
Be creative – try new things;
take some risks

31

#17) The Power of Complete Transparency
Opening up your stand-ups &
Sprint Planning to everyone
Even sales folks and customers

Rampant Information Radiators
Tell it like it is
Congruent truth-telling
Courage
Success or Failure

Expect organizational
engagement – questions,
suggestions, trade-offs towards
core goals

It is what it is…now how do we
ADJUST towards our GOALS

32

#18) Doing More than Thought Possible
Stretch goals within Sprints
Creative
solutions – not simply following
the Story or Task lists
exploring alternatives with
Product Owner
The Wisdom of Crowds

Iterations that lead towards…
“Good Enough”
Fighting Parkinson’s Law and
Student Syndrome

Supporting – Slack Time
Innovation Time
Creativity thinking
Experimentation
33

#19) Strength-Based Teams
Individuals focus on what they’re
good at; enjoy
While still ‘stretching’ themselves

Notion of Appreciative Inquiry
leveraged in retrospectives
And continuous improvement

Team-building - interview for
complimentary strengths
At scale, consider strengths
When Release Planning – loading
work
Load-balancing teams by skill-set

34

#20) Congruent Agile Measurement
Don’t focus too heavily on
metrics; instead on results
Look for measures
surrounding–
Value Delivered & Customer
Delighted
Quality being Built-In
Team Health & Morale
Productivity & Predictability
y
y

Traditional measures can lead
to Metrics Dysfunction

1-2 measures per area
Focus on trending
Behaviors

Measure bugs for reward…get
more meaningless bugs
Measure LOC for reward…get
more meaningless LOC


35

Workshop
Wrap-up
What were the most compelling
patterns?
What essential patterns did I miss?
Final questions or discussion?

Thank you!

36

Contact Info
Bob Galen
Principal Consultant,
RGalen Consulting Group, L.L.C.

Experience-driven agile focused training,
coaching & consulting
Contact: (919) 272-0719
bob@rgalen.com
www.rgalen.com

Blogs
Project Times - http://www.projecttimes.com/robert-galen/
BA Times - http://www.batimes.com/robert-galen/
Podcast on all things ‘agile’ - http://www.meta-cast.com/


37

Essential Patterns of Mature Agile Teams

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