Agile Ceremonies Explained: Purpose, Participants and Tips

Takeaways - Next Steps
1. Takeaways
○ Use Ceremonies to Answer the Big 3 Questions
○ Pre-Refinement and Backlog Refinement
○ Having a Healthy Backlog (Velocity x 2)
○ Story Slicing and Splitting (Vertical versus Horizontal)
○ Setting Sprint Goals and Sprint Demos
○ Do more finishing than starting (Set WIP limits)
2. Next Steps
○ Story Refinement Workshop (Session 2)
○ Define/Refine the Team Norms and Working Agreement Stories
○ Webinar “Other Topics” - Based On Your Votes and Feedback
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Are We Working On
the Right Things?
Are We Doing the Work
the Right Way?
Are We Getting Work
“Done”?

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Value Based Karma Points

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Scrum (Product, Customer, New Dev) Kanban (Specialized, Operations)
Board / Artifacts Board, backlogs, burn-downs, radiators Board only
Ceremonies Daily stand up, Sprint Planning Sprint Review, Sprint
Retrospective, refinement
Daily Scrum, review/retrospective on set frequency and
planning ongoing
Iterations 1-4 week Sprints Continuous flow
Estimation Modified Fibonacci, t-shirt, relative sizing Same/similar size, Class of Services
Teams Must be cross-functional Can be specialized
Roles Product Manager/Owner, Scrum Master, Team Kanban Lead, Team + Needed Rol,
Teamwork Collaborative as needed by User Story/Epics Swarming to achieve goals
WIP (Work In Progress) Controlled by Sprint Content Controlled by Workflow State
Changes Should wait for the next Sprint Planning Added as needed on the board (to do) based on WIP
Product Backlog List of Prioritized and Estimated Stories Just in Time Work Items, Dependency Tickets
Impediments Dealt with Immediately Avoided
Metrics Burn Down, Velocity, Predictability, Bug Leakage,
Forecasting
Flow Efficiency, Backlog Age, Cards Blocked, Flow
Efficiency, Open Time, Cycle Time, Throughput (Card
Count)

Product Manager
Squad Leadership
(Shepherd the Team)
Engineering/QA Team
Voice of the
Customer
Sprint Planning
<Sprint Goals>
Sprint Goals should align with Stories (not
task/subtask) that will be determine what you will
show during your sprint review/demo
User
Stories
Designer

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Roles
Artifacts
Ceremonies
Timeboxing
● Development Team
● Product Manager
● Squad Leads (Team)
● Stakeholders / UX Design
● User Stories, Story Maps, Spikes,Technical Stories, Refactors
● Product Backlog
● Sprint Backlog
● Increments/Sprints
● Daily Stand Ups
● Sprint Planning
● Sprint Review
○ Show &Tell (Demos)
● Sprint Retrospective
● Backlog Reﬁnement - 2 to 3 per Sprint
● 15 minutes daily Scrum
● 2 Week Sprint
● Monthly Sync with Stakeholders
● Quarterly Review - Roadmap Look Ahead
● Sprint Reﬁnement/Planning approx. 4 hours for 2 week Sprint
● Sprint Review - 2 hours for 2 week Sprint
● Sprint Retrospective - 1-2 hours for 2 week Sprint
● Work In Progress (WIP) Limits
● Data Driven Planning (LeadTime, CycleTime,Velocity, Burndown)

Daily Stand Up
Retrospective
Planning
Refinement
Review (Demo)

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Look Ahead
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10

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Feature/MVP

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Minimum Viable Product - Prioritize What’s Important

Story Mapping
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www.deltamatrix.com/horizontal-and-vertical-user-stories-slicing-the-cake/

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It Is Up To You …. What Would You Like to Learn About Next?
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Definition of Done Definition of Ready Backlog Refinement Acceptance Criteria and
Testing
Incremental Design &
Development
Kanbanflow Kanban Board Planning Poker
Story Mapping Story Splitting Healthy Backlog Story Pointing and Sizing
Healthy Team Assessment -
Team Norms
Stretch Goals vs Carryover Metrics - Predictability &
Forecasting
Dependency Management

Takeaways - Next Steps
1. Takeaways
○ Use Ceremonies to Answer the Big 3 Questions
○ Pre-Refinement and Backlog Refinement
○ Having a healthy Backlog (Velocity x 2)
○ Story Slicing and Splitting (Vertical versus Horizontal)
○ Setting Sprint Goals and Sprint Demos
○ Do more finishing than starting (Set WIP limits)
2. Next Steps
○ Story Refinement Workshop (Session 2)
○ Define/Refine the Team Norms and Working Agreement Stories
○ Webinar “Other Topics” - Based On Your Votes and Feedback
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Additional Information
Ceremonies - Purpose, Participants, Tips
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The Mindset Behind the Ceremonies
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The Agile Framework Enablers
Vision/Value-Led
Data Driven
Embrace Learning
Fail Fast, Learn Fast
Safe Environment
Cross Functional
Iterative -
Progressive
Elaboration

Scope of Topics - User Story Workshop
● User Story Refinement (DOR, DOD)
● Relative Sizing - Estimating
● Dependency Management
● Velocity/Capacity Planning/Historical Baselining
● Work In Progress/Kanban Flow Management
● Metric Predictability, Forecasting
● Stretch Goals versus Carryover
● Team Confidence
● Healthy Backlogs (3 x Velocity)
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Daily Stand Ups (15 Minutes)
Purpose: For the team to share their accomplishments and to
raise any concerns.
Participants: Team members including Product Manager, UX
Designers, Testers (All others should be "invited") but ideally
limit it to the immediate team members.
Tips: (1) Talk about What you “accomplished” yesterday and
today (2) Ask for help or offer help (if available) (3) If you don’t
have any impediments offer an “insight” (new information to
share) (4) Stand Up is an opportunity to knowledge share with
your team members, it’s not meant to report a status to
managers.
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Daily Stand Ups - Continued
● Set up “sit downs” or “side bars” if a topic needs to be discussed.
● Everyone contributes. i.e. - new team members can share “what
they learned yesterday”, “what they plan to learn today”, and any
challenges.
● Leadership share metrics (i.e share burn up, burn down, lead
time, cycle time at least ) and let the team decide if they need to
make any adjustments.
● At the end of each stand up, the team can establish a unique
close out (i.e. bang a gong, say a cheer “go team”, “all for one”) or
do a thumbs up (to indicate we feel we are in sync/on schedule
or a Fist of Five vote on progress toward sprint goals).
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Backlog Refinement (1 - 4
Hours/Sprint)
Purpose: For the team to share and collectively identify what belongs in a
user story and to help find the gaps. The outcome is refined user stories
that are ready to be assigned to a sprint to be worked.
Participants: Team members including Product Manager, UX Designers,
Testers (All others should be "invited" as needed).
Tips: (1) A healthy backlog should have 2 - 3 sprints worth of stories in
the ‘ready’ state (2) The team should have an established Definition of
Ready (DOR) and Definition of Done (DOD) (3) Pre-Work or
“Prefinement” helps cut down long refinement and planning meetings. (4)
The task/subtask are not the focus, they should only be a part of the
discussion to help clarify the Level of Effort.
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Backlog Refinement - continued
1. Raw stories should have rough acceptance criteria and the team
should have a period of time to preview and submit questions.
2. Refinement sessions are used to reconcile and capture the
agreed upon acceptance criteria.
3. When the team feels the AC is “good enough” then the team
votes on the relative size. During sizing it may become
necessary to vertically split/slice stories.
4. Business value can also be defined (optional).
5. Other Backlog Items (Refactor, Technical /Non-Functional
Stories, Spikes) may also come out of the Refinement Session.
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Sprint Planning (1 Hour w/ Refinement)
Purpose: Is to define and commit to what can be delivered in the sprint.
The outcome is consensus on a commitment to the current sprint and a
forecast for the next two sprints.
Participants: Team members including Product Manager, UX Designers,
Testers (All others should be "invited" as needed).
Tips: (1) A prerequisite is that spikes have been resolved, the stories have
been estimated and the dependencies have been negotiated (2) Planning
has two parts: Part 1 - the Product Manager/Owner collaborates with the
team to outline the objective and goals; Part 2 - the team comes up with a
plan (3) Conclude the meeting with a Fist of Five to ensure there is team
consensus (4) Look ahead to determine that the backlog is “healthy,”
schedule refinement activities to get or keep the backlog healthy.
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Sprint Review (1 Hours with Demo)
Purpose: Is an opportunity for the team to demo the sprint
accomplishments. The outcome is to determine if the solution is on
track and to get feedback to incorporate into future backlog items.
Designers, Testers (Product Managers should Invite stakeholders)
Tips: (1) Display the Sprint Goals and then completely demo the
committed stories. (2) Encourage and capture feedback -
continuous improvement is a part of Agile (3) Demos do NOT have
to be polished (do not spend more than 1 hour prep) - It’s a
work-in-progress in line with Progressive Elaboration (4) Spike
outcomes/results/research conclusion.
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Sprint Review (1 Hour with Demo)
● At the conclusion of the demo, discuss (a) Is the solution on
track (functionality, scope and timeline)? (b) Have we reach
our objective/goal - are we done? Is it shippable / ready
for release? (c )Should we release this portion of the
solution? (d) What is the next most important thing with
the highest value functionality? (e) The team discusses and
reorders the backlog priorities based on any new
changes/enhancements.
● Remember to always target the least amount to achieve
the maximum value. Expect some stories to be descoped.
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Spontaneous Demos / Show and Tell
● Spontaneous Demo - throughout the sprint iterations the
development team should share impromptu/spontaneous demos to
share stories in progress to help ensure they are on the right track
and that the criteria has been correctly interpreted. The bigger or
more complex the story the more impromptu demos should be held.
● Sprint Demos - at the end of the demo this should include
stakeholders.
● Quarterly Show & Tell - this is typically to show a shippable
end-to-end part of the solution which includes work from multiple
teams/squads, domains and shared services. This is usually open for
all domains.
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Sprint Retrospective - 1 - 2 Hours
Purpose: This ceremony is used to discuss how well the plan
and approach to the team’s Way of Working (WOW) went as
well as how to continuously improve upon it.
Designers, Testers (All others should be "invited" as needed)
Tips: (1) It’s important to look for healthy and sustainable
Ways of Working. (2) The Way of Working should align with
the Agile Manifesto Values and Principles.
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Sprint Retrospective “Extended” Agenda
➔ Look Back with Data Driven Informatics
◆ Velocity, Burn Down, Carryover, Committed/Completed, WIP
◆ Value Delivered
◆ Unplanned Work, Bug Fix/Quality Indicators
◆ Lead Time, Turn Around Time/Cycle Time, Hold Time
➔ Look Ahead (You can do this as part of the Planning)
◆ 2 - 3 Sprint Feature Preview/Updates
◆ 2 - 3 Month New Epic/Initiative Preview
◆ Market Trends/Customer Analytics/Targets and Predictions
◆ Technical Debt
➔ Team Health (Monthly/Quarterly) - Team Building (Ice Breaker)
➔ Areas of Improvement - First Ask: What did we improve since the last
retrospective?
➔ Then go into the (Start, Stop, Continue) or What Went Well, What Didn't Go Well....)
➔ Action Items - Assigned and Target Date
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Agile Ceremonies Explained: Purpose, Participants and Tips

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