Facilitation Foundations

Transcription

1 Facilitation Foundations Improving the Quality of Agile Meetings V. Lee Henson CST 1

2 Improving the Quality of Agile Meetings 2

3 V. Lee Henson CST Certified Scrum Trainer ADDIE Training Professional Agile Coach & Trainer Author of Agile Mentor Newsletter (Published Monthly) Author of The Definitive Agile Checklist Inventor of Rapid Release Planning Former Chairperson of the Scrum Alliance Certification Advisory Board Information Technology / Psychology Background Copyright 2011 AgileDad Licensed for Classroom Use to Davisbase LLC. 3

4 What Are We Trying To Solve? The 3 most common downfalls of meetings are: 1. The meeting has no purpose or planned Agenda 2. The incorrect participants are invited or not invited 3. The meeting goes exactly as planned, without positive results 4

5 The 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 & Interactions over processes & tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. ~The Agile Manifesto - 5

6 Agile vs. Plan Driven 6

7 Scrum vs. Waterfall 7

8 The Why Behind the What: Teams struggle when they have a Vision with no strategy to get there Meetings can quickly dissolve when the right parties are not engaged and attend with a purpose Once the vision and strategy are clear, the needed meetings fall into place 8

9 Forming - Storming Forming represents building of the team The Forming Stage is Important as team members get to know each other and gel Storming occurs when the team addresses how they will function both independently and as a group Storming may be painful, but is necessary for the team to be successful 9

10 Norming - Performing Norming happens when teams adjust their behaviors and begin to work together as a cohesive unit Motivation increases across the team as a result of Norming Not all teams reach the Performing stage At this point teams are able to handle both conflict and decision making without direct supervision 10

11 Get a Tool Kit! 11

12 Meeting Rules Every Agile meeting should have a purpose and goal Prior to holding a meeting, all key participants should be invited The agenda for the meeting should be distributed prior to the meeting The meeting goal & agenda should be distributed prior to the meeting All resources should be reserved and prepared for the meeting The meeting facilitation toolkit should be well stocked and ready to go The team should establish and post effective meeting rules 12

13 Meeting Rules Continued The meeting goal and objective should be presented The time-boxed agenda should be presented The rules should be posted and all should be reminded to take heed If at any time a discussion begins that is not part of the agenda, the topic should be added to a running list for later discussion If the meeting ends and the goal has not been reached, arrange for a subsequent meeting at a later time (do not go over time in hopes of solving an issue) Once conclusive results have been reached, record all risks, assumptions, and action items Insure that all list items have a party responsible to address each topic outside of this meeting Post the results in a visible place for all to see 13

14 Fist To Five Team makes decisions, ScrumMaster only guides the decision process A ScrumMaster seeks consensus within the team, a quick way to do this Consensus = I can live with and support that. Fist to five: 5 = wild, unbridled support 4 = this is a fine idea, wish I d thought of it 3 = I can live with and support it 2 = I have reservations I d like to think about 1 = I am very opposed; we shouldn t move forward 14

15 Fist To Five

16 What About Business Priority? We all know the business has a 3 point ranking scale for priority of backlog items: High, Really High, or Really Really High. The business needs to use tools to help them understand that not everything can be of the highest priority. Two websites to assist with priority: With the understanding that we would not be doing the work if it were not important, which items have the greatest urgency? Can we arrange them into High, Medium, and Low categories? 16

17 Time vs. Relative Complexity Let s paint the room! How many hours will it take? Why all of the different answers? Have any of you painted before? Compared to something else you have painted, would it be easier to determine how difficult it would be to paint the room? Is it easier to reach consensus? 17

18 Planning Poker - Does It Work? 18

19 Let s Use a T-Shirt Size... Smaller Than XS = a Task. Extra Small = 1 Small = 2 Medium = 3 Large = 5 Extra Large = 8 Larger than XL = an Epic 19

20 Understanding MoSCoW: MoSCoW = more than a Russian Capital Must Have Should Have Could Have Would Like Every iteration should have a mix of the above types of items. Stake holders LOVE the Would Likes. The Product Owner drives the product backlog and creates the rank order based heavily on the MoSCoW ratings. 20

21 Create Five Stories Think about what you have learned about user stories Take a few moments to create five Story Cards that look like the ones we have created so far: 1) Make 5 cards each with a title & description. (Bonus points for using roles & personas in the description.) 2) Take the 5 cards and give them each a priority. (Remember, this is from the business perspective.) 3) Take the 5 cards and give them each a MoSCoW rating. (Remember, this is from the customer perspective.) 4) Next, take the 5 cards and give them a T-Shirt size based on relative complexity & scope. 5) Finally, take the 5 cards and place them in stack rank order. Be certain to take all 3 corners into consideration when placing them in order. 21

22 The Formula Here is the formula for correct placement of stack rank order of your backlog items. Address risk by performing the items with the highest complexity earlier working towards the lower complexity items later in the process: Must Have Would Like High Priority H-M-L 1) All Must Have High Priority items should be considered first and foremost. Must Have Medium Priority 2) Be certain to get at least one Would Like in every sprint. Next should be one Would Like High Priority item. Must Have Low Priority 3) Next should be the Must Have Mediums and Must Have Lows. Should Have H-M-L 4) The Should s go next from High to Low Priority. Could Have H-M-L 5) Finally, place the Could s from Highest to Lowest Priority. Note: Dependencies trump priority & moscow rating. All states are stack ranked from highest to lowest risk unless the velocity of the Sprint does not afford this as an option. Team velocity always prevails. 22

23 Rapid Release Planning Checklist ü Product Vision Statement ü Product Roadmap ü Release Themes ü Release Timeline ü Important Dates in Release ü Team Identification ü Prioritized Product or Release Backlog ü Team Velocity (or capacity) ü Technical gotchas and dependencies that we know already

24 Release vs. Sprint Planning Attendees Lowest level of work breakdown Release Planning Team, SMEs and product owner required. Managers/ customers optional. User stories Iteration Planning Team, SMEs and product owner required. Managers/ customers optional. Tasks Estimates Provided in Points, t-shirt sizes, or duration (weeks) Hours Output of meeting Release plan (= high level plan for multiple iterations) Iteration plan (= detailed plan of tasks for one iteration) 24

25 Rapid Release Planning Instructions: 1) Print out all of the story cards you hope to be included in the release leaving off the product owner t-shirt size. (After all, we would not want to influence the team.) 2) Place all of the cards in a large box, bucket, or basket. 3) Invite all of the teams participating in the release to be part of the rapid release planning session to gather around a large table. 4) Explain that in a moment you will be dumping out all of the cards. The team will have a preset amount of time to find a card they all agree is small in scope. 5) Once the team has identified a small benchmark item, explain they will have a preset amount of time to place all of the remaining cards in columns on the wall listed as small, medium, and large relative to the first item and to each other. 6) If a team member picks up a card they are uncertain about, have them return the card to the table for other team members to review. 25

26 Rapid Release Planning Instructions: 7) If an item is smaller than small, make a column for extra small. If the item is larger than large make a column for extra large. 8) If an item is placed in the wrong column on the wall, feel free to move it. Any card can move except for the initial small benchmark item. 9) For the final few seconds, I command silence and have the team carefully study as many items on the wall as they can in an effort to allow for any final adjustments to be made. 10) Once the time expires, I excuse the team for an extended lunch and ask the product owners to stick around for a while so we can do a quick comparison. 11) Any items with no disparity or with only one column of difference in either direction between the product owner and the team is a good enough estimate. The team will get better at estimating as they go and product owner will have a lot fewer items for additional review. The teams estimate in this case is the final one. 26

27 Rapid Release Planning Instructions: 12) If there is more than one degree of separation in the t-shirt size between the product owner and the team, this warrants additional discussion regarding that item. In most cases this limits the number of items requiring additional conversation to a much smaller number. 13) Outliers are marked with moth the team size and the PO size and placed in a separate column for additional discussion. 14) When the team returns, we talk about the outliers for a time-boxed period of five minutes each in an attempt to clarify scope. 15) The teams estimate stands and we move quickly through the items. 16) Before we exit the room, the team takes a sheet of round stickies and identifies any backlog items in the release that have an internal or external dependency. 17) Based on the teams projected velocity, the product owner places items into future sprints to identify any items that could be considered at risk of not making the release. 27

28 Sprint Planning - Six Steps 1) Schedule items into a sprint making certain not to exceed the teams projected velocity. (If you did Rapid Release Planning, this step is done) 2) Review Team member capacity to ensure that people will not be over allocating themselves. 3) Detail Planning - Breakdown the work into tests and tasks. (No estimating or signing up for the work should take place during this step.) 4) Member Planning - Allow team members to sign up for the work they choose and give an estimate in hours as to how long each task will take to complete. 5) Review open issues and impediments that may put any item in the sprint at risk. Replace items as needed with approval from the product owner. 6) COMMIT to the sprint as a team! (Let s do this!) 28

29 Meeting Timeline Guide: Scrum Meetings should be time-boxed according to the number of weeks in the sprint. For example: If you are doing two week sprints, the sprint planning meeting should last no longer than two hours. Three weeks = three hours. Etc. The same holds true for end of sprint meetings. 29

30 The Daily Standup Rules: Daily 15 minute or less meeting Fines go to a reputable charity Same time same place everyday No problem solving * No Electronics of any kind No pen and paper to record Team rules posted on the wall Do not be late... Team stands in a circle Chickens around the outside Chickens follow the same rules Stick to the three questions Always end on time Exceptions for remote teams 30

31 Hold a Daily Standup Many teams regard the daily standup as a less than desirable meeting. These teams have not fully embraced what the standup is intended to do. Today we will hold a daily standup: 1) Eight volunteers will participate in this meeting. Imagine you are a team member developing an e-commerce website. 2) Take a moment to decide what you have been working on and how you will answer the following 3 questions: What have you worked on since we last met? What will you be working on until we meet again? Are there any obstacles preventing you from making forward progress that you cannot solve yourself? 3) The ScrumMaster will facilitate, not drive the meeting. 4) We will try hard to give a solid report in record time. 5) At the conclusion, we will review and discuss improvements. 31

32 Review & Demo Delivered features Incomplete features Verifying Done with the customer/ product owner Maintaining trust with customer by not hiding undone work Team and Customer responds to the delivery The Goal: Collaborative Decision-Making about the emerging product

33 Retrospectives Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project Retrospectives are designed to: Find & fix problems Find and Reinforce team strengths Address both people & technical issues Use tools and practices proven in the real world The retrospective is the perfect chance to inspect and adapt. Teams who perform meaningful retrospectives are consistently better at completing work on time and under budget Ask the 3 questions and record findings

34 Sample Retrospective Agenda What were the major events in our timeline? What can we observe about the flow of events? What were the sprint metrics like? What have we learned about the product as a result of the sprint? What have we learned about the team as a result of the sprint? What worked well in our sprint that we would want to do again? What do we wish we had done differently? What recommendations are there moving forward with our next sprint? Inspect the process not the people. 34

35 Innovation Games These interactive techniques let your customers and prospects help you create the products they want. Understand customer needs, identify product functionality, learn how customers interact with your products, and shape your products future Luke Hohmann has devoted his professional career to creating environments where everyone can work to their fullest creative and intellectual abilities. He is a committed coach, working with every individual and the organization as a whole to achieve greater levels of performance ~

36 You now hold the keys to success! You have been educated and empowered. Visit often and drink from the well! 36

37 Thank You! - - LinkedIn leehenson@gmail.com 37