Product Development using Agile Teams: What? Why? How?

Empowering teams to deliver solutions to tough
customer problems via collaboration, frequent
delivery and discovery

Brad Jeffrey Neiman Adam Yuret
Agile Coach Consultant
NeīMan Technical Services Context-Driven Agile
Brad.Neiman@gmail.com Adam.Yuret@gmail.com

OUTCOME

To Empower you to bring Agile to your Product
Development Team.

05 March 2013 Agile Prod Dev: What? Why? & How? 2

TALKING POINTS
 What?
 Definition
 Road to Agile
 Values

 Why?

 How?
 3 Roles
 4 Ceremonies
 3 Artifacts


1. Definition
2. Road to Agile
3. Values


Definition
Agile:
To Effectively deliver Frequent Value  End-User/
Customer,
 at a Sustainable Pace,
 while Adapting to Change.


Agile-Scrum Process


Road to Agile

• Lean Manufacturing
 Deming  Toyota
Quality (Value) is impossible if people are
afraid to
tell the truth. – W. Edward Deming

• Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikojuro Nonaka
 “The New New Product Development Game”
 Harvard Business Review – Jan/Feb 1986
 Iterative & Collaborative
 Fuji-Xerox, Honda, Canon


AGILE Values

HIGHER LOWER
Individuals & Interactions processes & tools
Working product comprehensive documentation
Collaboration negotiation
Responding to Change following a plan


 Agile vs. Waterfall


Agile vs. Waterfall
ELEMENT AGILE WATERFALL
Timing of Delivery Incrementally All at once, at end
Risk of Meeting Needs Low High
Responsiveness Flexible Stiff
Waste Low High
Teamwork Collaborative Siloed
Atmosphere Exploratory Perfectionist

 Deliver & Learn as we go vs. Waiting for Perfection


1. Practicing
• 3 Roles
• 4 Ceremonies
• 3 Artifacts

2. Path


3 Roles*
ROLE CORE FUNCTION/ PROPERTIES
Product Prioritizer Surrogate/ Connection to End-User & Customer
Manager • Prioritize Work
• Responsible for Value/ Profitability of Product
• Defines Features
Scrum Master* Facilitator Facilitate team working effectively & disciplined
manner
• Removes barriers
• Shields Team from external Interferences
TEAM Doers Determines how long/ effort to complete work
(Stories, Tasks, etc)  actually do work
• Cross-functional (7+/-2 members)
• Self-organized

*NOTE: Scrum Master *must* be a peer to Team – facilitator (alongside), NOT
director  allow team to be self-generating.

4 Ceremonies
CEREMONY FUNCTION CONTEXT/ SPIRIT
Planning Priories work to be done in Clarity, Completeness & Feasibility
Sprint [Value(End-User)]

Stand-Up Check-up on Heart-beat of Communication over Status
(“scrum”) project
Review & Demo • Clear – accomplished What’s So
• Feedback from End-User/
Customer/ Stakeholder
Retrospective Continuous Improvement Growth
[Vital Few over Trivial Many]


PLANNING*
Spirit: Clarity, Completeness & Feasibility

 Timing: Long- vs. Short- term

 Estimating: Story vs. Tasks
 Story (relative sizing) – def’d by PdM
 Task – def’d by Team

 Prioritizing


User Story*

 AS A <End-User>,
 I WOULD LIKE TO <Action>,
 SO THAT <Value>


STAND-UP
Spirit: Communication over Status

Act of standing-up  team: concise & focused

Elements:
 DONE?
 Next?

 Slowdowners? (#1)
 Sync-Ups?


REVIEW & DEMO*
Spirit: What’s So

Audience: End-Users, Customers, Stakeholders

1. PdM: presents project
2. Team: demos features “done” to End-User
3. All: discuss Obstacles & Learning
4. Team: show Quality
5. PdM: collects feedback

6. CELEBRATE!


RETROSPECTIVE
Spirit: Learning

Reflect:
 Slowdowners  Improve
 Worked Well  Amplify
 Learned  Lessons take forward

 2-3 Activities/ Experiments  improve: implement &
monitor


3 Artifacts
 Product Backlog/ Freezer
 Managed by PdM

 Sprint Backlog
 fixed once Sprint starts*, if new  Prod. Backlog

 Burndown Chart
 Indicate progress fulfill Sp. Backlog


SUMMARY: 3-4-3
 3 Roles
 Product manager
 Scrum Master
 Team

 4 Ceremonies
 Planning
 Stand-Up
 Review & Demo
 Retrospective

 3 Artifacts
 Product Backlog
 Sprint Backlog
 Burndown Chart


End-Game
Path
People: Individuals  cohesive Team
Work: Large Chunks  Single-Piece Flow
Delivery Many Sprint  Single Sprint

Foundation
 Trust & Teamwork
 Cross-functional training & working
 Support enable Frequent Delivery


FURTHER READING
TITLE AUTHOR(S) USE
Planning eXtreme Beck & Fowler Team Level, Scrum Masters, Product Owners
Programming (XP)
New New Product Takeuchi & Origination of Scrum, article from Harvard
Nonaka Business Review
Development Game
Personal KanBan Benson & Effective methods for managing your own work
DeMaria Barry & deep dive into use of KanBan (sign-board)

The Goal Goldratt & Cox Fundamentals of Lean through storytelling

Lean Startup Ries MVP/ search for product fit to customer pain

Innovator’s Solution Christensen & Process of innovation in organizations
Raynor
Innovator’s DNA Dyer, Gregersen Behaviors for innovation on personal level
& Christensen (inventor CEO of innovative co)

80/20 Principle Koch Key to Effectiveness: Focus on Vital Few over
Trivial Many

QUESTIONS?

AGILE Values
HIGHER LOWER
Individuals & Interactions processes & tools
Working product comprehensive documentation
Collaboration negotiation
Responding (& Adapting) to Change following a plan

OUTCOME

To Empower you to bring Agile to your Product
Development Team.


THANK YOU!

Brad Jeffrey Neiman Adam Yuret
Agile Coach ?President
NeīMan Technical Services Context Driven Agile
Brad.Neiman@gmail.com Adam.Yuret@gmail.com


PRINCIPLES: 1 of 2
# PRINCIPLE DETAIL
1 Early & Con’t Highest Priority: satisfy customer  Early &
Delivery Continuous Delivery of Valuable S/W

2 Harness Change/ Welcome Changing Requirements, even late in
Adaption development – Harness Change/ Adaption
for Competitive Advantage
3 Deliver Freq Deliver Freq working S/W– preference to
Shorter Timescale
4 Biz + Dev: Work Business + Developers must Work DAILY –
DAILY throughout Project

5 Motivated Build Projects around Motivated Individuals.
Individuals – they Give them Environment & Support they need
& Trust them to get Job DONE.
Need & Trust
6 Face-to-Face Most Efficient & Effective method of conveying
Info to & w/in Dev Team is Face-to-Face
conversation

PRINCIPLES: 2 of 2
# PRINCIPAL DETAIL
7 Working SW Working SW: primary Measure of Progress
8 Sustainable Sustainable Dev – Sponsors, Developers & Users –
Development able to Maintain Constant Pace Indefinitely
9 Tech Excellence & Good Continuous Attn to Tech Excellence & Good
Design Design enhances Agility
10 Simplicity: Work NOT Simplicity – Art of Max amount of Work NOT done
done – essential [“know what to say No to” Islands of Profits
in Sea of Red]
11 Self-Organized Teams Self-Organized Teams  Best Architectures, Req’s
& Designs
12 Regular Retrospectives Regular Intervals – Team Reflects: how to become
more Effective, then Tunes & Adjusts Behavior
Accordingly. [Continuous Improvement]


Scrum Process


PLANNING
 Theme of Sprint: establish

 Definition of Ready (to plan)

 Definition of DONE: Define/ Review

 Identify:
 Obstacles/ Risks
 Dependencies
 Conditions of Satisfaction (tests, inspection, et. al.)

 Max_Capacity(Team-member): 5 hrs/ day  slack be creative,
problem solve, adapt
 Tasks: << 16 hours (1~4)


PHASES  TEAM COHESION+
PHASE THEME WHEN [months]
1. Forming Collection of Individuals 2-3
2. Storming Disagreement & Competition 4&5
3. Norming Group Cohesion 6&7
4. Performing You’ve Got TEAM!

• Process  Team:
• Stuck
• Regress
 PATIENCE is ESSENTIAL!

CHALLENGES
FROM TO
“Following a Plan” “Converging on Value”
“Activity-based” “Feature-based”
Estimation=Commitment Estimation: guess – indication for priority of
Features
Balance high-degree of Uncertainty w/ Needs of Business
Perceptions of Agile Development


Challenges of the Sprint Review
• Team demonstrates work that is not “Done”
• Team has not shown data indicating how they managed
themselves
• Team does not demonstrate the product from a user/value
perspective
• Team does not accept feedback well; gets defensive
• Product Owner is surprised at Sprint Review
• Stakeholders not available for Sprint Review
• Team uses powerpoint to demonstrate software functions
• Team does not show product quality metrics
• Feedback is not going into Product Backlog for consideration
• Great review, but nobody knows where the project is


Product Development using Agile Teams: What? Why? How?

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Product Development using Agile Teams: What? Why? How? (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Product Development using Agile Teams: What? Why? How?

Editor's Notes