AGILE - publicmays/IBM GitHub Wiki

Sample of Agile Practices

• social contract
• retrospective
• portfolio wall
• planning poker
• stand up
• discovery & value stream mapping
• backlog management
• issue bulls-eye
• mood marbles
• story cards
• showcase
• burndown charts

Principles

• begin w/ clarity about outcomes
• listen, iterate, learn & course correct
• self directed teams unleash innovation

Social Contract

Behaviors we want to practice

• Character & Competence Expectation
• team owns social contract
• Meetings
• Unacceptable
• Fun
• Planning
• Learning
• Interpersonal
• Work

Agile won't fill skill gaps

Walls - Visualize the work

1. Cost
2. Time
3. Scope
4. People
5. Risks & Issues
6. Quality
7. Customer Satisfaction
8. Dependencies

Portfolio Wall - Visualize the Work

• Awaiting discovery approval
• Awaiting discovery resources
• In discovery
• Awaiting delivery approval
• Awaiting delivery resources
• In delivery
• In final deployment
• Done

A buffet of Practices - Agile, Lean & Design Thinking

The practices are like a buffet - laid out to allow people to pick what suits their scenario

Leadership Practices

• Visual walls
• Backlog prioritization (business value)
• Team structuring & management
• Managing the funnel
• Role Rotations
• Strategy pattern

Collaboration Practices

• Work assignment & distribution

• Retrospectives

• Stand-ups

• Think 40

History of Agile

• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Testing
• Deployment
• Maintenance

Triple Constraints - Agile vs. Waterfall

Agile & Documentation

• We don't use documentation to achieve shared understanding
• We discuss, and then document shared understanding

Do not underestimate the complexity of communication

• Total # of potential communication channels is n(n-1)/2
• Example : 8(8-1)/2 = 28 Communication Channels

3 patterns that cover all work

• program execution
• strategy & governance
• operations execution
• practices are all different

Each pattern follows 5 phases

• Agile is a way of working based on a set of values & principles
• 3 key agile values

1. trust
2. respect
3. openness
4. courage

• 1st principle is to begin w/ clarity of the outcome and let it guide every step along the way
• listen, iterate, learn & course correct are basics of principle

Challenges of today

• too much work
• pressure to delivery
• disengaged teams
• missed targets
• sub-optimal results

Resource constraints - Law of the Minimum theory

• growth is controlled not by the total of resources available, but the scarcest resource

• agile will help expose those gaps very quickly and it's a leadership role to help fill those gaps

• team exposes those gaps, need to worry about executing & doing the work

• leader needs to solve those gaps

Theory of Constraints

• every org has at any given point in time at least one constraint which limits the system's performance relative to its goal

• Leaders bring in water (resources, people, money)

• Leaders remove boulders (don't overburden)

• allowing work to be pulled by the teams

• pulling work is much more efficient than to be pushing work

• Slow down to do more!

• backlog

• in progress

• done

Myth of Multitasking

• AKA switchtasking
• multitasking is worse than a lie

Doing the right work + Doing the Work Right = Client Value

• Leaders must prioritize the work

Key Characteristics

• Matching governance model
• small batch size
• single prioritized funnel of work
• pull work to match WIP limit
• small, stable, cross-functional
• teams are loosely coupled and tightly aligned
• a lot of bigger programs
• loosely coupled - leaders are getting them what they need, the resources
• clarity of outcome is clear for multiple teams (tightly aligned)
• keep teams interlocked

Agile for Leaders

• organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal

• 1st - identify the goal

• usually just give the team another project

• inspire purpose

• looking at strategy

• tightly planning 1 iteration, loosely looking at one iteration down

• your customers learned more

• clarity of purpose & clarity of outcome is all the way down to the lowest level

Use agile practices to cascade strategy

Group Level

• vision / mission
• objectives / goals
• strategy
• plan

Business Unit Level

• Vision
• objective / goals
• strategy
• plan

Support functions HR/Fin/IT/Legal/etc

• Vision / Mission
• Objectives / Goals
• Strategy
• Plan

Operational Team Level

• Vision / Mission
• Objectives / Goals
• Strategy
• Plan

Quiz

• in order to do more you have to throttle the fun
• Doing the right work + doing the work right
• total cycle time can be improved if you reduce the work in progress

Strategy Pattern

Use to craft & execute organizational strategy

• mobilize
• understand
• explore / strategize
• build / test / implement
• manage / evolve

A. Where are we now?

• business model canvas

• key partners

• key activities

• key resources

• value propositions

• market factors

• root cause analysis

• SWOT

Program Pattern

• use to launch and execute programs & objects
• get from an idea to execute

Idea

• strategic initiative - problem
• new requirement - opportunity
• enhancement

Discover

• understand strategies

Deliver

Discovery Practice

• Agile lifecycle of delivery

• iteration planning

• daily standups

• work

• showcase

• retrospective

7 Rules of Successful Teams

1. Don't
2. Don't treat remotes as if they were locals
3. Don't treat locals as if they were remote
4. Latitude hurts, longitude kills
5. Don't always be remote
6. Invest in the appropriate tools & environments
7. Establish standards & agreements

Agile Pitfalls

• wrong physical environment
• lack of proper tools
• funnel not managed

Leaders

• wrong leadership - command & control instead of servant leadership

• lack of a clear shared purpose & strategy

• lack of trust

• lack of training or inaccurate material

• no access to coaching

• Should use agile in a high risk project? You want to realize risk as quickly as possible in those 2 iterations

• react to them fast

• Think40 LT3469