The values, traits, skills and objectives all Great Scrum Masters should aspire to

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Welcome to this brief
introduction to myself as SCRUM
Master & Agile Coach
My participatory leadership style
combined with 15 years experience of
the practical application of a variety of
Iterative & Agile methodologies
29/07/2015 Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230

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Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230
OR
Tags: Agile Team Leadership, Agile Project Leadership, Agile Software Development,
Scrum Master, Team Motivation, Workshop Facilitation, Agile Coaching, Self-
Awareness, Co-Creation, The Art of Hosting, Authentic Leadership

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What leadership values, traits
skills, tools and techniques all
GREAT Scrum Masters that seek
to excel should aspire to…
Maximising Customer Value Delivered by
developing high performing joint
business stakeholder-developer teams
that are highly collaborative,
committed & self-organizing

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But before I introduce myself
I’m going to ask you a question…
What character trait/quality is
consistently identified in countless
academic research & field studies as
The one trait of all great leaders?
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No 1 Leadership Trait?
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No 1 Leadership Trait?
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The one trait of all great leaders?
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the art of
understanding yourself, how you
relate to others in the context of
every situation, and how to use
your understanding to attain the
best outcomes.

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Empathy is the precursor to meaningful human
connections and meaningful human connections are at
the root of effective leadership.
You must be able to connect with people to
effectively lead them, and to develop them
as leaders.
It's a skill these leaders have practiced and perfected,
and with good reason. Self-awareness is the
precursor to empathy.
Why is self-awareness so important?

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“General awareness, and especially self-awareness,
strengthens the servant-leader.
Awareness helps one in understanding issues
involving ethics, power, and values. It lends itself to
being able to view most situations from a more
integrated, holistic position.” Larry Spears

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Phil Long
Scrum Master & Agile Coach
Welcome, my name’s Phil Long Aka: ‘the slum
master’ for my penchant for back-packing in
some of the words most deprived black spots
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Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230 11
Favorite Leadership Quote:
I’m going to share with you some of my
lessons-learnt over 15 years delivering full
SDLC enterprise software projects

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“The quality of an intervention
is dependent upon the interior
state of the intervener” - Bill
O'Brien.

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Phil Long
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Favorite Software Quote:

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Phil Long e: phil,long@me.com m: +447963 160 230 14

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Phil Long
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Favorite Agile Quote:

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Phil Long
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Favorite Agile Quote:
2nd Favorite Leadership Quote:

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“As we look ahead into the
next century, leaders will be
those who empower others.”
—Bill Gates

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The Global Business Context: 2015
• We live in what appears to be a rapidly accelerating world…
• Increasing global competition seeded by digital innovation
and grown through investment
• One which values speed to market, instant customer insight,
lean JIT supply chains & rapid, well-informed decision
making.
• But equally businesses and organisations of all kinds are
finding themselves challenged to be more lean to compete
on cost in a global market.
• Its what I call the ‘Need for Speed’ which takes business
digitalization far beyond Web 2.0 sales & service channels.
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Where we are now
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SMAC is the concept that 4 technologies are currently driving innovation in business…and that
it is the synergy created by the 4 technologies working together that creates a competitive
advantage and their convergence is proving to be a disruptive force that is enabling entirely
new business models,

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Where are we going…
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Gartner have predicted that the IoT market will grow to 26 billion units installed in 2020
representing an almost 30-fold increase from 0.9 billion in 2009. Its time has come.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or "things” embedded with
electronics, software, and connectivity. sensors (typically RFID tags) to enable objects to
exchange data with the diverse businesses and consumers and machine to machine
communication. These sensors can both react, store and send information about local
conditions but also enable remote control of numerous devices, The potential aplications are
vast and diverse: from farming to health care, to energy and the smart grid, to the smart home
& onward to the smart city.

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The digitization mega-trend
In summary the ; The challenge for businesses is to face the implications of the
digitization of everything: in particular, the loss of control over the customer
relationship, increased competition and threat of commoditization, and the need to
engage digitally with suppliers, partners and employees in addition to customers..
The pace of technology change is
increasing exponentially and we need to respond to new dew consumer demands with
new business models
The digitization of everything is a step change
even greater than the invention and adoption
of the internet, primarily because of its scale
and pace of change. What we describe today
as ‘digital’ in a few years time will have no
need for the descriptive word. This is why it is
so important to get a head start and learn
while there is still time.
The need to develop a road-map
towards the digitization of
everything that is evolutionary,
flexible, scalable based digital on
product/service innovations that
deliver POC value-addition as quick
as possible.

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These are the business and
technology trends behind the
adoption of agile software
delivery
methodologies…increasing pace
of change and the need for
successful organisations to react
to that change quickly: ‘The Need
for Speed’

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Typically Project Constraints
• Typically Agile Projects are constrained by
budget (Fixed-Price) or schedule (Time-boxed)
• So our number number one priority is to
maximize scope, quality and ultimately the
value delivered to the Customer within these
constraints.
• We do this by focusing on:
– User Centric Product Design (Product Owner)
– Building a high-performing joint team (Scrum
Master)
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I will be focusing on the latter…
The Role of the Scrum Master in building high
performing joint teams
• Values
• Traits
• Skills
• Objectives
• Addendum:
– Agenda(s) & Approaches to key SCRUM Meetings
– Creative Team Brainstorming Process Example
– Stakeholder identification, mapping, priotization and
engagement methodology.
– A typical web solution Scrum Team and its interactions
internally and with stakeholders
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But first…

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A brief history of my career in
software development…
• …and my personal journey
towards participatory/servant
leadership

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1993
Graduate from
Liverpool University
and with the help of
A CDL taught myself
how to program in MS
VB
1994
Junior Software
Developer Developed
a contact centre
solution for
processing card
payment.
1998
Moved on to Technical
Project Lead, Chief
Database Designer &
DBA for a Sybase hosted
data warehouse & BI
system to give near real
time view of the banks
balance sheet & P&L
positions.
1996
Senior Software
Developer for global
software company
developing
multicurrency card
payment systems for
EMEA using Visual
Basic and SQL server.
2000
In at the deep end:
Project Managed the full
SDLC a £1m Oracle/Java
Web Application onshore
and and offshore in
India.
Thepeoplevillage.com
My 20 Year Journey in software
solution delivery:
Phase 1: The ‘deep techie’ years

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2001
Initially a Senior Consultant I
delivered a number of successful
Cornerstone Projects which got
this start-up going, Adopted a
highly collaborative approach to
joint teaming between developers
and customer stakeholders.
2002
Promoted to Director of
Service Delivery
I implemented the
Rational Unified Process –
an Iterative SDLC
combined with joint
teaming between
customer stakeholders
and development teams
2006
As we were growing
exponentially I focused
on Capability
development, developing
a QMS that was
ISO9001:2000 and CMMi
Level 3 certified that
defined the ‘what’
combined with selection
of iterative and agile
SDLC’s on project factors
and customer preference.
2004
Continued to engage new
customers in long-term
collaborative projects for brands
such as moneysupermarket.com,
Lex Vehicle Leasing, The RAC and
UBM
2008
Cashed-in my chips and
exiting the company after
the financial crash saw
our Merger/Acquisition
prospect fall through
My 20 Year Journey in software solution
delivery:
Phase 2 The Arrk Years

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The onshore/offshore challenge
• Arrk was about solving the conundrum how two teams (the onshore customer) and
the offshore (development team) could overcome the distance, time and cultural
barriers and work together as a joint and integrated ‘whole’.
• We employed UK ‘mediators’ that were experts on the facilitation of
communications and the development of an environment condusive to building
high trust, highly committed, highly productive teams that could bridge the
cultural, time and distance divide.
• They were alert to dysfunctional behavior in either party and would intervene to
implement corrective and preventative actions that sought to minimise the
potential for conflict and ‘us and the’ culture of blame forming.
• It was about fostering a culture of A) intensive collaboration B) development of
trust through adherence to total transparency and honesty and personal
connections C) the relentless pusuit of creating customer value D) A
cpmmitment to share the principles, practices, processes, tools and techniques
of our Integrated Delivery Molel with ourcCustomers in a coaching role so they
develop the capability in managing offhore teams directly E) win:win, shared
risk/reward commercial terms based on the principles of Smart Partnering.
Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 23029/07/2015

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Arrk Website (Author Phil Long 2004)
Collaborative Joint Teaming
• “we work in a way that emphasises business goals, open communication
and collaborative team working. Our transparent engagement style
and obsession with exceeding our Customer’s expectations enables us to
drive innovation and cultivate win-win, long standing collaborative
partnerships.
• “We build teams of passionate, highly-motivated people and share
knowledge directly with each other, rather than through hierarchies.
We unite under a shared vision and are driven by achieving a
common goal”
• “We try out and share ideas, information and work. The way we
work is founded upon sound ethical principles and trust. We make
knowledge accessible to everyone and operate with total honesty
and transparency.”
• “A pervasive sense that those involved, both Arrk Group and the
Customer’s staff, operate as One Team with a shared purpose and
destiny.”
www.arrkgroup.com/how-we-do-it/collaborative-innovation/

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Arrk Website (Author Phil Long 2004)
Integrated Global Delivery
• “From the founding of Arrk we have always been a hybrid UK/Indian company, jointly
managed and structured as a single horizontally integrated organisation.
• “Single vision, single values, single culture, single management, single quality systems”.
• “Our Indian and UK teams work side-by-side (often ‘two-in-a-box’) to deliver services to
our Customers.”
• “Onshore ‘brokers’ add limited value…these structural issues and friction are simply
subcontracted further down the supply chain”
• “Our pioneering Integrated Global Delivery Model…features:
– “An expert UK customer engagement, consultancy and delivery management capability that is
able to rapidly empathise and interpret customer objectives and requirements and ensure
benefits are realised. Our UK team’s…cultural empathy enable them to ‘bridge the divide’, by
facilitating communication, and ‘break the ground’, especially in new engagements…where they
also play a role in coaching Customers in successful offshore engagement.
– An empowered offshore delivery management and technical services capability that
understands how to successfully deliver software services using integrated mixed Indian and UK
teams often located at multiple global sites.
– We share the principles, practices, processes, tools and techniques behind successful
Integrated Global Delivery with our Customers in order to build these capabilities in our
Customer’s organisations”
http://www.arrkgroup.com/how-we-do-it/integrated-global-delivery/

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Collaborative Joint Teaming
Onshore Customer & Offshore Development Team
Customer Stakeholder & Core Scrum Team
• So my understanding of the value of collaborative joint teaming was born
under a different context but is very similar to the joint core SCRUM and
business stakeholder teams we try to build in ‘Agile Joint Teaming’.
• A lot of the principles are the same: total honesty and transparency, lack
of hierarchy, fostering direct unmediated conversations.
• As is the role of a facilitator of direct, open communication, team
building, coaching, mediating and continual improvement, where success
can be measured by the extent to which their own role becomes
progressively redundant,
• But I also see an Agile Coach who recognizes the cultural organisational
level impediments that are preventing the organisation from yielding the
full benefits of software development agility.
• And furthermore the opportunity to shift the broader organisational
culture towards one which embraces the development of agility in all
aspects of organisational strategy, innovation and decision making:
• User-centric product design, cross-functional-collaborative-self-organizing
teams, ‘holistic’ thinking, and small but rapid steps with feedback and
learning built in towards an adaptable vision.

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Arrk 2002
• Arrk was about solving the conundrum how how two teams (the
onshore customer) and the offshore (development team) could
work together as an integrated ‘whole’.
– A focus on forming collaborative teams as a catylyst to innovation
and value additon to the client “we work in a way that emphasises
business goals, open communication and collaborative team
working. Our transparent engagement style…enables us to drive
innovation and cultivate win-win, long standing collaborative
partnerships.
– We build teams of passionate, highly-motivated people and share
knowledge directly with each other, rather than through
hierarchies. We unite under a shared vision and are driven by
achieving a common goal.
– “We try out and share ideas, information and work. The way we
work is founded upon sound ethical principles and trust. We make
knowledge accessible to everyone and operate with total honesty
and transparency.”

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2009
Designed and Implemented best
practice in Project Portfolio
Management: analyzing the
financial and non-financial
benefits of over 100 projects
saving the bank £200m§§
2010
Went to Study a
Master’s in Strategic
Leadership towards
Sustainability which
has a strong emphasis
on developing &
exploring our
leadership capacities.
My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery:
Phase 3 Developing my Participatory Leadership style
and becoming and Agile Evangelist
Masters in Strategic
Leadership towards
Sustainability

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Masters in Leadership in Complexity

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Phil Long e: phi.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230
Otto Sharmer’s Theory U proposes that the quality of the results
that we create in any kind of social system is a function of the
quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the
participants in the system operate from. That place is in the blind
spot of our everyday experience. We can observe what we do and
how we do it. But the quality of the source (or inner place) from
which we operate in “the Now” tends to be outside the range of
our normal observation, attention, and awareness. Otto started
referring to it as Theory U and “presencing.” Presencing is a blended
word combining “sensing” (feeling the future possibility) and
“presence” (the state of being in the present moment): presencing
means “sensing and actualizing one’s highest future possibility—
acting from the presence of what is wanting to emerge.”

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Going down the U: “Observe, observe, observe.” Stop
downloading and totally immerse yourself in the places of most
potential, in the places that matter most to the situation you are
dealing with.
At the bottom of the U: “Retreat and reflect, allow the inner
knowing to emerge.” Go to the places of stillness where knowing
comes to the surface.” So the key question is: How can we become
part of the story of the future rather than holding on to the story
of the past?
Going up the U: “Act in an instant.” Explore the future by doing.
Develop a prototype. A prototype explores the future by doing
something small, speedy, and spontaneous; it quickly generates
feedback from all the key stakeholders and allows you to evolve
and iterate your idea.

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Phil Long e: phil,long@me.com m: +447963 160 230 40
The moment we commit ourselves to going on this journey we start to
encounter our three principal enemies: the voice of judgment (VoJ:
shutting down the open mind), the voice of cynicism (VoC: shutting down
the open heart), and the voice of fear (VoF: shutting down the open will).
• Open heart: The capacity to redirect attention and to use one’s heart
as an organ of perception (“seeing with the heart”); to shift the place
from which your perception happens to the other or to the
field/whole; to access our sources of EQ (emotional intelligence).
• Open mind: The capacity to suspend judgment and to inquire; to see
something with fresh eyes; to access our sources of IQ (intellectual
intelligence).
• Open will: The capacity to let-go of one’s old identities and intentions
and tune into the future that is seeking to emerge through me or us;
to let-go of our old self and to let-come our emerging authentic self.

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What is the Art of Hosting Conversations
that Matter?
The Art of Hosting is an approach to
leadership that scales up from the personal
to the systemic using personal practice,
dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of
innovation to address complex challenges.

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The Art of Hosting is a highly effective way
of harnessing the collective wisdom and self-
organizing capacity of groups of any size. Based
on the assumption that people give their energy
and lend their resources to what matters most to
them – in work as in life – the Art of Hosting
blends a suite of powerful conversational
processes to invite people to co-create and take
charge of the challenges facing them.

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Our Group thesis
http://www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf/all/21e8a0418502eb8ec12578be00480a8f/$file/BTH2011Pearlman.pdf

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My instinct towards fostering
collaboration was crystalized
into a participatory leadership
style that believed that if we
could harness the EQ, IQ & SQ
of the group we could co-create
optimal solutions to complex
problems.

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2009
Designed and Implemented best
practice in Project Portfolio
Management: analyzing the
financial and non-financial
benefits of over 100 projects
saving the bank £200m§§
2010
Went to Study a
Master’s in Strategic
Leadership towards
Sustainability which
has a strong emphasis
on developing &
exploring our
leadership capacities.
My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery:
Phase 3 Developing my Participatory Leadership style
and becoming and Agile Evangelist
Masters in Strategic
Leadership towards
Sustainability
2012
Returned to Arrk as a
troubleshooting PM to see
how I could apply by values
of participatory leadership
to Agile software solution
delivery. Experimented with
different methodologies a
developed a methodology
selection guide based on
project risks, constraints &
opportunities,
2011
Studies the One Planet
MBA at Exeter University
Business School. Also
developed my collaborative
leadership skills as well as
developing core Business
Management knowledge.
2015
A brief sojourn in
environmental consulting
but I resigned after 5
months as the role was
not what I had expected
and I had lost faith their
business model.

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My own values, traits, skills
and software development
project delivery
experience & knowledge

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Key values & aspirations
Phil Long
Scrum Master
Participatory
Servant Leadership
The servant-leader shares power,
puts the needs of others first and
helps people develop and perform as
highly as possible.
Transformational
Change
Delivering transformational change by
building capability in orrganisations,
teams, others and self.
Authenticity
Open and approachable, A straightforward and
honest communicator who doesn’t put on a
public image. Builds trust with teams &
stakeholders of all levels of seniority.
Positivity/Optimism
Enthuses, inspires, encourages and
communicate passion to others.
Cultivate hope,
Wonder and Gratitude.
For me leadership is about
facilitating ‘conversations
that matter’ to change our
worldviews, shift what we
think is possible, and how we
can co-create the change we
seek by working together.
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Participatory Leadership Challenge
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Ph i L o n g
S c r u m M a s t e r
T R A I T S / Q U A L I T E S
Resilient: Ability to
remain calm and
composed in
unexpected, high
pressure situations.
Collaborator, Facilitator
& a Mediator always
looking for the win:win
solution
Highly Adaptable: to
rapidly changing
events & priorities.
Sense of Humour, don't
take myself to seriously.
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Self-Aware: Through
personal reflection and
peer feedback
Committed & results
oriented: to personal,
project, team and
organizational goals.

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51Software Devlopment skills,
experience and knowledge
Adaptive
Software PM
Enterprise
Architecture
Web Development
Technolgies
Web Team
Resourcing
Diverse Business
Domain Knowledge
15 years experience delivering software development projects (mainly web) in a fast changing
environment through Predictive and more recently Adaptive Software Project Management
methodologies. Wide Experience of Various Iterative & Agile SDLC Methodologies (including
RUPs, Kanban, Srumban, Scrum, TDD & ATTD).

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Adaptive
Software PM
Enterprise
Architecture
Web Development
Technolgies
Web Team
Resourcing
Diverse Business
Domain Knowledge
Enterprise Architecture Trends relevant to businesses now (e.g. SMAC, SaaS, NoSQL data
stores) and future trends (e.g. Web 3.0, The Internet of Things and data Integration trends
moving away from ETL and traditional middleware solutions to SOA over ESBs and
ultimately Data Virtualization).

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53Software Development skills,
Adaptive
Software PM
Enterprise
Architecture
Web Development
Technolgies
Web Team
Resourcing
Diverse Business
Domain Knowledge
Web Development Software MVC Frameworks including .NET and various open
source frameworks including Java MVC based (e.g. Jbos, Spring, Angular,
Backbone) Server side scripting (e.g.PHP Zend framework) and client side
Javascript/AJAX Libraries (e.g. J Query)

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Adaptive
Software PM
Enterprise
Architecture
Web Development
Technolgies
Web Team
Resourcing
Diverse Business
Domain Knowledge
Deep understanding of the roles required in a enterprise web development application teams
from Requirement Engineers, Data/Technical Architect, graphic designer, UX Research & Design,
Front End Oriented Web Developers, Middle Tier Logic Developer and backend SQL/API
developers & DBAs. Usability and Functional Testers.

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Adaptive
Software PM
Enterprise
Architecture
Web Development
Technolgies
Web Team
Resourcing
Diverse Business
Domain Knowledge
Having worked most of my career as a consultant I have a broad and deep
understanding of many different business domains from Financial Services to ISV’s and
everything in between.

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My skills & capabilities of as Scrum
Master?
• Self-Awareness
• Trustworthiness
• Fairness
• Active deep listening
• Broad & Open-minded
• Sensitivity to people
• Sensitivity to situations
• Commitment
• Positivity
• Holistic Big Picture View
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• Proactive Initiations
• A sense of urgency
• Unassuming behavior
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Capacity to motivate
• Capacity to coach/mentor
• Capacity to facilitate co-
creation
• Capacity to mediate

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How do these values, traits
and skills translate into my
Objectives of a Scrum Master?

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My Objectives
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Act with integrity, honesty & authenticity when communicating
or making decisions: lead by example and ‘model the way’.
My Objectives
“Integrity is honesty carried
through the fibers of the being
and the whole mind, into
thought as well as into action
so that the person is complete
in honesty. That kind of
integrity I put above all else as
an essential of leadership”

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My Objectives
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Be a ‘participatory/servant leader’ who puts the needs of the
team first. moderates and facilitates team interaction as team
coach, mentor & motivator.

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“Show others what is required rather than
simply telling them, leaders should coach their
team members toward a more collaborative,
committed work environment”
"[If you] control people to do certain things in
certain ways, you're not going to get the level
of engagement that you're looking for.”
"Coaching is about helping the people you lead
recognize the choices they have in front of
them. People will [then] take a great deal of
ownership over the direction of the project."
Why coaching is effective in Software
development team leadership

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Maintain a commitment to developing self, people, team and
situational awareness and sensitivity
My Objectives
Develop self-awareness through
practices such mindfulness, self-
reflection or peer feedback
Develop People Sensitivity
Paying attention to
everyone you deal with
every day. Stop taking
them for granted and
exercise insights, intuition,
perception, empathy to
gain insight into other
peoples characters and
motivations.
Team Dynamics
Sensitivity
Observe team
functional &
dysfunctional team
behaviors
Situational Sensitivity
Develop innate "feel" for
situations, cultures, and
events that and pay
attention to developing
‘whole systems’ awareness.

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My Objectives
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Develo a highly collaborative way of working both within the
core development team and with its business stakeholders.

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My Objectives
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Identify, map, engage and gain the commitment of key
stakeholders to give their valuable time to the project.
See Addendum C for example of stakeholder engagement process
Stakeholders
Core Team

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Meaningful participation leads to a
sense of involvement that evokes a
feeling of influence that generates
psychological ownership that results
in COMMITMENT
Why is the building of a
collaborative committed, joint
team so important?

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Commitment & Collaboration

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Two key Agile Principles

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Provide a dedicated Team Room for the Core
Scrum Team co-located near their stakeholders
My Objectives

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If collocation is not possible distributed SCRUM Joint Teaming
can work but adopting modern communication technologies like
a video conferencing suite is essential at all sites
My objectives

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Engaging Commitment through
empowerment, delegation and
being an enabler of self organizing
teams

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My objectives
Empower and coach the core team to reach its full potential by applying
boundary defined delegation and mutually agreed PDPs including hard
technical skills and personal self-development capacities such as committing
to practices which cultivate self-awareness
My objectives
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How to empower effectively: The art of
clear goal & boundary setting in delegation.
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RED: This task is relatively high risk and high impact and
you’re not skilled enough for me to delegate. Rather I will
take responsibility for the task, you will shadow me, and I
will coach/mentor you.
AMBER: I will delegate responsibility task (within defined
boundaries & clear goals) provided we discuss and agree your
preferred approach up front, you consult with me regularly,
and the WIP Work-Product available for review at any time.
GREEN: I will fully delegate responsibility this task to
you, as a have full confidence in your capability to take
complete ownership of task on your own.
I remain Fully Accountable no matter
what I have delegated

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My objectives
29/07/201
Help teams to grow by enabling them through feedback and relection to
develop their own self-awarness and thus be able to define their own
group growth pathways. The ultimate test of success for a Scrum Master is
that their role has become redundant because the team have reached a
level where they are self-organising not just about today, but their future
team growth.

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HIGHLOW
HIGHLOW
01
02
03
04
0506
SKILL
WILL
These are the project
advocates you need to
empower
EMPOWER
Mentor and coach ...
experiement with
delegation..
GUIDE
Try to identify and
challenge blocking
behavior
UNBLOCK
Try to breakdown
resistance by
demonstrating passion
for the project goals &
exuding positivity
ENTHUSE
Agree a skills
devlopemnt plan,
including
menotoring and
coaching.
DEVEOP
With this resitor
quadrant you
have no choice
but to direct,.
DIRECT
My objectives
Map core team skill-will matrix and apply appropriate
commitment engagement techniques & PDPs

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To foster a culture of self-organisation
My Objectives
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5
But why….?

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79
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5
My experience with Agile in software
development projects has made me a
believer in Theory Y: Cross-functional and
self-organized teams basically work better
than top-down directed teams, if they have
the skill and the will or to put in another way
the capability, morale and commitment.
“A leader is best when people barely know he
exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu

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80
Leadership in Complexity
“Complexity requires participation,
collaboration and listening together; it
requires all stakeholders to be in the same
room. We need to ask powerful questions of
one another and there needs to be a
willingness to experiment. From the apparent
disorder, a unique and powerful practice
emerges that everyone involved can be an
ambassador for.” Gill Evans 2014
29/07/201
5

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J o i n e d - u p
Te a m i n g
Collaborative, Commited,
Co-located, Cross
Functional, Self-Organizing
Teams Deliver Results!
30% 70%
Customer
Stekaholers
Core Scrum
Team

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5
Facilitate ‘conversations that
matter’ to remove obstacles and
improve team performance
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through
argument, debate, and doubt to distill a solution everybody can understand.”

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My Objectives
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5
Facilitate Conversations that matter: 90% of the my time is spent
facilitating conversations within my team or between by team & it’s
stakeholders.

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85
Facilitate Core SCRUM Team Meetings and when in doubt always
consult the team before jumping in with you own solution.
My objectives
29/07/201
5
See Addendum A for agendas and approaches to specific SCRUM Meetings

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86
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Facilitate and transparently track the removal of impediments
at the project, team and oragnisational level.
My Objectives
While Root Cause Analysis (RCA) (See
Retrospective Meeting approaches in
Addendum) might identify the root
cause of a problem a solution may not
be so apparent, so we can use a creative
brainstorming technique. (See
Addendum B of an example of a
brainstorming process).

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5
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Ask the team first. Remember the ScrumMaster’s goal is to
help develop a team who look to themselves for answers,
resolution, and decisions.
My Objectives
While Root Cause Analysis (RCA) (See
Retrospective Meeting approaches in
Addendum) might identify the root
cause of a problem a solution may not
be so apparent, so we can use a creative
brainstorming technique. (See
Addendum B of an example of a
brainstorming process).

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How to facilitate stimulating, creative
and productive group conversations
• Plan structure in advance
• Use a mix of ice-breakers, energizers, data-analysis, root cause problem
anlalysis, and creative brainstorming games & tools – See Addendum B
• Be-present and encourage active listening
• Listen for recurrent themes
• Be a collaborator & a mediator always looking for the win:win solution
but don’t be afraid of conflict.
• Challenge, and ask difficult questions or ‘out’ the elephant in the room.
• Demonstrate you value everyone's contribution equally
• Always end with a next steps, action plan with owners and timescales
• This is a great ‘facilitator's toolkit’ -
http://oqi.wisc.edu/resourcelibrary/uploads/resources/Facilitator%20Too
l%20Kit.pdf
29/07/201
5

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89
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Be prepared with a suitcase of techniques, tools, patterns,
games where SCRUM has intentionally left gaps in the process so
that the Scrum Master & Team can select their preferred.
My Objectives

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90
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5
Demand adherence to value–
adding processes while adopting
lean principles to the elimination
of waste to enable continual
improvement in team efficiency.

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Enforce SCRUM principles, aspects and processes: using
checklist of SCRUM processes and best practice
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
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My Objectives

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Scrum Principles
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5

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93
Empirical Process Control
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5
“The empirical model of process
control provides and exercises control
through frequent inspection and
adaptation for processes that are
imperfectly defined and generate
unpredictable and unrepeatable
outputs.” – Wikipedia

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Empirical Process Control
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5
Using empirical process control requires three basic elements:
transparency, inspection, and adaptation:
• Transparency ensures that all the elements a process is
openly observable.
• Inspection is the activity of taking that observation
enabled by transparency and critically evaluating how
work flows through the process.
• Adaptation takes the insights gleaned from that inspection
as a basis for making incremental ongoing improvements
to the process.
• With this model as cross-functional teams interact, they not only do the work,
they think and dialog about how they do the work. Built into the cycle of
transparency, inspection, and adaptation is this ongoing mental prompt for the
group to ask itself, “Now why is it we are doing things this way?”

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95
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5

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My Objectives
‘End of SPIRNT KPI’s’ such as :
Team velocity - Number of story points done in a given Sprint
Done success rate - Percentage of story points that have been Done versus those
committed at the Sprint Planning meeting.
Estimation effectiveness - Number or percentage of deviations between estimated and
actual time spent on tasks and User Stories
Acceptance/Rejection Ratio – Number of deliverables accepted (meet Acceptance
Criteria) vs those rejected.
EVA – a complex but valuable measure of actual performance vs planned – appropriate
where the value of user stories can be quantified.
29/07/201
5
Sprint Retrospective:
2-4 Hours
My objectives
Continually improve team productivity and quality of deliverables through
observation of metrics and team behavior, and using a variety tools, games and
techniques to innovate in processes, tools, technology and ways of working.
My objectives
See SPRINT Retrospective Meetings in the Addendum A for more detail on approaches
to retrospective meeting and Appendix B for an example of a creative brain-storming
29/07/201

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5 Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230My objectives
See SPRINT Retrospective Meetings in the Addendum A for more detail on approaches
to retrospective meeting and Appendix B for an example of a creative brain-storming
29/07/201
Think Big, Act Small, Fail Fast & Learn Faster
My Objectives
TOP TIP: Make new
mistakes not old ones.
Sometimes if I spot
dysfunctional behavior I
don’t challenge it straight
away but leave it so the
team experiences a deeper
learning from the experience
of failure.

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98
My Objectives
29/07/201
Foster a culture where feedback flows in all directions and is an accepted,
expected and valued feature of the way we work together.
My Objectives
Product Owner availability (phone, office
hours, attendance in Daily Scrum)

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99
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5 Phil Long e: phil,long@me.com m: +447963 160 230 99

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100
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5 Phil Long e: phil.long@me.com m: +447963 160 230 100
Master the Art of Simplicity and apply lean principles by
constantly challenging the value of tasks, meetings and work-
products to maximise the amount of work not done.
My Objectives

101
101
29/07/201
5
Applying Agile development to
the quest for architectural,
evolution, emergent design,
coding best practice and test
driven development.

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102
Use Sprint Iterations to enable emergent design but allow time
for refactoring in every sprint to avoid build up of technical debt.
My Objectives
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5

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103
My Objectives
Champion technical excellence by adopting best practice in
software design, ensuring peer code review to promote simple
and readable code and making sure adherence to Non-
Functional Requirements such as security, extensibility and
scalability are included the Definition of DONE.
“Continuous attention
to technical excellence
and good design
enhances agility.”
- The Agile Manifesto

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My Objectives
29/07/201
Champion Continuous Integration & Test Driven Development at the Unit,
Acceptance and Usability Level so that a Regression Test Pack can be built up
and all the functional and usability testing is not left to the end of the sprint.
Peer Code Review Unit & Acceptance Testing
Automated Unit
Testing Tool

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105
My Objectives
29/07/201
Champion Continuous Integration & Test Driven Development at the Unit,
Acceptance and Usability Level so that a Regression Test Pack can be built up
and all the functional and usability testing is not left to the end of the sprint.
Peer Code Review Unit & Acceptance Testing
Automated Unit
Testing Tool

106
106
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5
Automated Testing Tools can never
entirely replace the skill of an
experienced functional tester
carrying out Exploratory testing
Also end user usability test….is a must…. See slides on
integrating your UX research, design implementation,
verification and validation into your sprint cycle.

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107
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5
Enabling Group Flow by guarding the
team from outside distractions,
demonstrating positivity, building team
self confidence and encourage a
culture of open-minded active
listening.
Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem
of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing
what they can accomplish. —Sam Walton

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My Objectives
29/07/201
Hold the team to account to their commitments by writing down a working
agreement which the development team (ideally with key stakeholders)
develops together and is placed in a prominent area of the Scrum Team Room.
My Objectives
"Update the status on the Scrum boa
regularly."
"Be on time for the stand-up."
"Update the status on the Scrum board
regularly."

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Agree a Definition of Done (DoD)
My Objectives
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5
• All Design and Code have been Peer Reviewed,
• New Feature Unit, Acceptance, & Usability Tests Passed.
• Validate Conformance to Non-functional Requirements.
• Code has been refactored to remove duplicate, messy or
poorly designed code
• Associated content or lookup data has been loaded in UAT.
• Potentially releasable to production if the Minimum
Marketable Feature Set has been met.
• Else the product increment is deployed in UAT.

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110
My Objectives
29/07/201
Build real personal connections with my team a by being a ‘more
human’ leader and demonstrating, vulnerability, positivity,
purpose, empathy, compassion, humility and love
My Objectives

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111
My Objectives
Maintain a ‘can do’, positive outlook at all times and
enthuse and inspire the team by commutating passion for
delivering the project vision and goals.
My default setting is to be a
cheerleader over a critic and I
don’t let perfect get in my way.

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112
My Objectives
29/07/201
Foster the conditions for your team to get into and maintain a
state of group flow
Does each team member exhibit these conditions to achieving group flow:
• Know what to do (clear set of self and team goals) and how to do it
• Confident that their perceived high skills can meet the perceived high challenge
• Know how well they are doing (by others providing clear and immediate feedback)
• Are free from distractions & can concentrate on the task
• Feel in control while at the same time remaining flexible, listening closely, and always
being willing to defer to the emergent flow of the group
• Are ‘deep listening’ to one another, exhibiting genuinely unplanned responses which
are “Yes, and…” so that ideas builds on each other.
• Are constantly engaging in spontaneous conversations outside of structured meetings
• Trust that genius will emerge from the group, not from any one member.

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My Objectives
29/07/201
Foster the conditions for your team to get into and maintain a
state of group flow
In group flow, each person’s idea builds on the
ones that their partners just contributed.
Small ideas build together and and an
innovation emerges

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114
My objectives
Cultivate a culture of active, deep listening and open-
mindedness to each other’s ideas.
“Frankly, I had never thought of listening
as an important subject by itself. But now
that I am aware of it, I think that perhaps
80 percent of my work depends on my
listening to someone, or on someone else
listening to me.”
29/07/201

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115
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5
In a self-organizing team the key to
participatory leadership today is
influence, not authority.

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My Objectives
Use your rational, social and emotional powers of
influence to direct teams towards optimal functional
performance, shift mindsets and persuade others.
29/07/201
It all begins with self-awareness. What’s your dominant style? Do you assert,
convince, negotiate, bridge or inspire?
Asserting: you insist that your ideas are heard and you challenge the ideas
of others
Convincing: you put forward your ideas and offer logical, rational reasons to
convince others of your point of view
Negotiating: you look for win:win compromises and make concessions to
reach outcomes that satisfy your greater interest
Bridging: you build relationships and connect with others through listening
understanding and building coalitions
Inspiring: you advocate your position and encourage others with a sense
of shared purpose and exciting possibilities

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117
My Objectives
Be highly adaptable to rapidly changing events & priorities
and demonstrate your resilience by remaining calm and
composed in unexpected, high-pressure situations.
29/07/201

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118
My Objectives
29/07/201
Guard the team from external influences/distractions, and
coach them to be-assertive in guarding themselves.
My Objectives

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119
Be sensitive to team dynamics and potential sources of
dysfunction in the team such as:
My Objectives
• personality friction
• self-serving behavior
• people not willing to accountable
• wandering commitment
• interpersonal conflict
• artificial harmony masking ideological, political or
personality based conflict
• the fear of being vulnerable with team members
preventing the building of trust within the team
29/07/201

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My Objectives
29/07/201
Encourage a high-trust environment where team
members feel comfortable with showing vulnerability
My Objectives
• Build team trust by ‘modeling the way’: demonstrating your
own vulnerabilities
• Acknowledge the value of all contributions equally
• Challenge dysfunctional team behavior - Call your peers on
actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the
overall good of the team
• Ask difficult questions & ‘Out’ the elephant in the room
• Encourage a high-trust environment where team members
who willingly admit to their mistakes, weaknesses or needs for
help to each other are acknowledged and praised

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Ensure Daily Information Radiators up kept updated so by
the Core Team so that performance is fully transparent
My Objectives

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29/07/201
Encourage Holistic Integral Work/Life Balance so that
sustainable pace is maintained to avoid team stress & burn-out
My Objectives

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123
So We are joined at the hip
29/07/201

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Same Objective, Different Focus
The Product Owner & Scrum Master have differing focuses but work hand
in glove on towards their common goal: Deliver Maximum Value with a limited resources
Product Owner
Mamises value through developing
‘Persona’ & ‘Epic(s)’, maintaining a
Prioritized Product Backlog. Supporting
the User Story creation process and
rejecting/accepting deliverables based
on the agreed Acceptance Criteria.
Scrum Master
Maximies the peformance of my CORE
Team – Quality, Efficiency,
empowerment, commitment &
collaboration so they have the skills
and the will to deliver and become a
self-organizing team and reach their
highest potential
Product Focused
Voice of the Customer
Build the Right Product
ccStakeholder Focused
Joint Team Collaboration
Core Team Focused5
0
%
Voice of the Team
Build the Product Right
Internally Focused
Joint Team Collaboration
5

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My objectives
Instead encourage the
Product Owner to promote
joint teaming by
facilitating collaborative
joint teaming by pairing
up stakeholders with
scrum team members in
the joint effort of
decomposing user stories.
The Product Owner should
generally speaking not be a real
business stakeholder but have
skills in facilitating User Story
decomposition. In other words a
functional business analyst.
29/07/201
Don't let the Product Ownder become an intermediary between
stakeholders and the scrum team.
On the other hand avoid Proxy
Product owners who have to defer
all their decision making to the
real product owner.

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127
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5

128
128
29/07/201
•(Legal/SM/PPO/CTO,CPS, CLegal, CPS,CIO) Fianalise contract terms (IN-PROGRESS)
•(SM/PPO, CFFac, CPS) Agree A Co-location Stategy & Set Up A Core Scrum Team Room (TODO)
•(CPS,PPO) Formulate & Articulate Project Vision (DONE)
•(CPS, PPO,SM) Create Business Case & Benefits Realization Plan (DONE)
•(CPS, SM, PPO) Identify & Map Key Stakeholders (IN-PROGRESS)
•(CPS, SM, PPO, CFac) Form Collaborative Joint Team – ‘Half Day ‘Getting to know ice-breaker’ (TPTS)
•(SM, PPO, BA, UXRDT, CPS, KSH) Initial Persona(s) & EPICS Stakeholder Workshop -1 day offsite (TPTS)
•((PPO, SM,,BA, CPS, CFO, KSH) Value Based Prioritization to create a Prioritized Product Backlog
•(TA,UXRDT, DBA, PPO, DA&EAI,CPS,CTL) Priotiise & define standard for the Non-Functional Requirements
{esp. Security/Availability/Extensibility/Flexibility/Maintainability/Performance/Capacoity
(Load)/Scalability/Recovery) – HOW TO TEST? TO BE INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF DONE.
•(DA&EAI) Initial Identification of relevant data sources & data integration strategy
•(TA,DA&EAI,DBA,DEV,PPO) Initial Hardware & Software Architecture Selection (SWOT Comparison)
Notably which has the flexibility to evolve and scale over time & has lowest TCO
•(PPO, SM,DEV) Initial Release plan ‘guestimate’ of number of sprints ewquired to ewlease MVP 1.0
•(CPS, SM, PPO, DEV, KSH) Intial ‘Looking Ahead’ Risk Planning)
Rapid Start Initiation Phase
LEGAL, AGREE A CO-LOCATION STATEGY & SET UP A CORE SCRUM TEAM ROOM, USER RESEARCH &
PERSONA CREATION, HIGH LEVEL SCOPING, MOSCOW PRIORITISATION & MMF RELEASE PLANNING, GUI
OPTIONS DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE TESTING, DATA SOURCE ANALYSIS, DESIGN & INTRGTATION
STRATEGY, PRIORITISATION OF NFRs, TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE SELECTION, RISK PLANNING
WORKSHOP

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•(Legal/SM/PPO/CTO,CPS, CLegal, CPS,CIO) Fianalise contract terms (IN-PROGRESS)
•(SM/PPO, CFFac, CPS) Agree A Co-location Stategy & Set Up A Core Scrum Team Room (TODO)
•(CPS,PPO) Formulate & Articulate Project Vision (DONE)
•(CPS, PPO,SM) Create Business Case & Benefits Realization Plan (DONE)
•(CPS, SM, PPO) Identify & Map Key Stakeholders (IN-PROGRESS)
•(CPS, SM, PPO, CFac) Form Collaborative Joint Team – ‘Half Day ‘Getting to know ice-breaker’ (TPTS)
•(SM, PPO, BA, UXRDT, CPS, KSH) Initial Persona(s) & EPICS Stakeholder Workshop -1 day offsite (TPTS)
•((PPO, SM,,BA, CPS, CFO, KSH) Value Based Prioritization to create a Prioritized Product Backlog
•(TA,UXRDT, DBA, PPO, DA&EAI,CPS,CTL) Priotiise & define standard for the Non-Functional Requirements
{esp. Security/Availability/Extensibility/Flexibility/Maintainability/Performance/Capacoity
(Load)/Scalability/Recovery) – HOW TO TEST? TO BE INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF DONE.
•(DA&EAI) Initial Identification of relevant data sources & data integration strategy
•(TA,DA&EAI,DBA,DEV,PPO) Initial Hardware & Software Architecture Selection (SWOT Comparison)
Notably which has the flexibility to evolve and scale over time & has lowest TCO
•(PPO, SM,DEV) Initial Release plan ‘guestimate’ of number of sprints ewquired to ewlease MMF 1.0
•(CPS, SM, PPO, DEV, KSH) Intial ‘Looking Ahead’ Risk Planning)
Rapid Start Initiation Phase
LEGAL, AGREE A CO-LOCATION STATEGY & SET UP A CORE SCRUM TEAM ROOM, USER RESEARCH &
PERSONA CREATION, HIGH LEVEL SCOPING, MOSCOW PRIORITISATION & MMF RELEASE PLANNING, GUI
OPTIONS DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE TESTING, DATA SOURCE ANALYSIS, DESIGN & INTRGTATION
STRATEGY, PRIORITISATION OF NFRs, TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE SELECTION, RISK PLANNING
WORKSHOP
TIME BOXED TO SIX
WEEKS FROM
TOLDAY

130
Use
Release Planning
The number of sprints required to reach the Minimum Vialble Product will be
estimated in the Release Plan after the initial product prioritiztion
Sprint 0
PreparationWho-What-When
Sprint 1
Build
Sprint 2-Y
Build
Spint X
Pre-Release
The Proxy Product Owner,
& Business Stakeholders
Tehncial/Data/EAI Architects
Designesr/Deveopesr/Unit Testesr
UX Resarch, Design
& Usability Test Planner/Tester
Functional Tester(s) ATDD
Decpompose User
Stories for SP1
Implement HW & SW
Architecture
Design, Develop & Unit
Test SP2-Y User Stories
till DONE.
Release MVP
Product 1.0
Final Refactor,
Regression Test and
PROD. Hardening
Initial
Release
Wireframes, user
journeys & partilal site
map & U TEST
29/07/201
User
Stories for
SP2
Review
SP1
Output
Prepare Test Plans for
SPRINT 1
Develop & Unit Test
‘Steel Wire’
Design, Develop & Unit
Test SP1 User Stories
till DONE.
Execute SP1 U TEST
Develop Specs &
Usability Test for SP2
User
Stories
for SP3
Review
SPY
Output
User
Stories
for SPZ
MMF
Product
Sign-Off
Review Architectural &
NFR Compliance
Architectural & NFR
Compliance
Sign-Off
UX
Sign-Off
UAT Sign-Off
Execute SP2 U TEST
Develop Specs &
Usability Test for SP3
Test Plans for SP2
Execute SP1 Tests
Test Plans for SP3
Execute SP2 Tests
Review Architectural &
NFR Compliance
Sprint 0 is a ‘practice’ Sprint where the architecture is tested with a ‘steel wire’
development that tests all the components of the architecture and the development
team get into the daily and weekly rhythm of the sprint iteration.

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Initial Requirement
Gathering Workshop
29/07/201

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Personas - Epics –
User Stories
29/07/201
1

13329/07/201
5
Create Epic(s) & Prioritized Product
Backlog by value – cost factored by risk
Value-based Prioritization—This principle highlights the focus of Scrum to deliver
maximum business value, from early in the project and continuing throughout.
Force Rank the User Stories within the MOSCOW categories
MOSCOW categorise the initial list of Epics focusing on the “Must Haves”

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Backlog Ordering over Backlog
Prioritization by ROI alone
• The backlog represents the order in which the PBI’s will be
implemented and generally speaking ROI is a pretty good
indicator of value. However:
– Benefits Realization Plans rarely go down to estimating the renenue-
streams of small User Stories
– Often stories only add value when they are implemented together as
part of a functional theme.
– Some stories will have time constraints embedded in them which will
mean they will only add value if released before a certain data.
– There are internal dependencies between User Stories both from a
developer and user functionality perspective?
– Wrt factoring in risk I operate by a very simple rule. Attack the high-
risk items before they attack me. This is counter to sprint backlog
prioritization which often advocates picking the simplest task first.
– And there may be commercial pressures to deliver certain PBI’s by a
certain date or I’ve seen prioritisation by personas
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5

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• Break into small core Scrum Team and Business Stakeholder
partnerships to decompose high priority EPICS into the smallest
User Story using the INVEST Criteria.
The continuous process of User Story
decomposition & distillation
• Don’t forget writing Acceptance criteria- the business rules of the
fucntionality perhaps in partnership with the PO, BA or Functional
test analysts.
• Communicate decomposed User Stories the the UX and Front End
Developers so they can create wireframes of HTML prototypes
which enable the User Stories.
• All new user stories to be inserted into the Product Backlog and
prioritized by the PO in partnership with the Customer Project
Sponsor

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137
What a User Story Is..
29/07/201
• A user story describes new or changed functionality that will be
valuable to an external stakeholder of a system or software. User
stories are composed of three aspects:
• a written description of the story used for planning and as a
reminder
• conversations about the story that serve to flesh out the details
of the story
• tests that
• convey and document the business rules, i.e. Acceptance
Criteria
• that can be used to determine when a story is complete,
• and that are almost always automatable and associated i.e.
ATTD tool scripts.

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Acceptance Criteria
Note the importance of each story being accompanied by
acceptance criteria that define the business rules and limit the
scope for interpretation (guessing) by the developers and testers.
They may be classed as functional, non-functional, (e.g. page load
response time), or related to detecting and handling out-of-bounds
error conditions.
The Given-When-Then formula is a template intended to guide
the writing of acceptance tests for a User Story:
(Given) some context
(When) some action is carried out
(Then) a particular set of observable consequences should
obtain
ATDD tools such as Tools such as JBehave,
RSpec or Cucumber encourage use of this template/

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What a User Story is not..,
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• “As a Developer…” Is Not a User Story
• Meetings are not User Storie but can be tracked as tasks in your sprint backlo
• Tasks are not user stories but should remain in the sprint backlog – mixing up
User Stories and Tasks (calling them for instance Technical Stories) will mess up
your Product Backlog and velocity as an indicator of value delivered.
• The goal of a system is to affect things outside the system and any task which
enable that are really from a lean perspective ‘necessary waste”
• Other dev type tasks that are not directly related to delivering something of
value to external stakeholders or users can be called “dev items” or “dev
time”. Track these dev items totally separately from the Product Backlog, and
let the dev team bring them into sprints as tasks as they so choose. They might
be related to Infrastructure set-up, team tools maintenance, refactoring or a
spike.
• Wherever possible set non-functional requirements as universal constraints in
the DoD

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My objectives
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• In the CCC technique we talk about the Card, the Conversation and then
Confirmation in User Story definition.
• The process is Capture the need on a card and then have conversation
with all the stakeholders, develop the story, and create a common
vision, interest, and understanding.
• So we must focus on the conversation: invite customers to tell their
stories about their challenges, actively listen, clarify and look for root
causes.
• So we must focus more on the verbal conversation aspects of User Stories
rather than focusing too much attention on “writing” User Stories. Perhaps
have the Conversation First the then distill the need at the end by writing
it down.
To facilitate conversation that matter about Stories. It’s the quality of the interaction through
conversation between two or more minds, not the contents of a card that meets the INVEST
criteria that determines if your user stories will be really valuable and compelling descriptions
of new or changed functionality that will be valuable to an external stakeholder of a system or
software

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Scrum Task Board Template
Company name
Stories To Do In Progress Testing Done
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text. Replace it
with your own
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The Sprint Task Board
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5
• A good Scrum Master can read the Sprint Task board and know how
welll the team are performing:
• How many tasks have the User Stories been broken into?
• Depending where they are in the SPRINT how many of these tasks
are/have moved towards DONE?
• Are the tasks being completed in the order of the SPRINT backlog
priority?
• Are bugs associated with User Stories also created as tasks and
being worked on in priority order to get as many high priority user
stories to DONE as possible?

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Integrating UX Research, Design &
Testing into your SPRINT cycle
• Conduct Initial User Quantitative and Qualitative User
Research during Initiation Phase to create segmented
Personas
• Refine Personas/User Segmentation using analytics and
real world end user usability testing during each sprint.
• Keep branding, look and feel flexible to change through
CSS
• Deliver Wireframes, User Journeys and partial site
maps before each sprint that support User Stories
• Work hand-in-glove with Front End Developers
especially on communicating UI dynamics/interactivity
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How to integrate UX requirements
in to product backlog
• Product Backlog;s contain a list of functional
requirments which may not include UX considerations
Futhermore UX work is frequently overlooked during
the release and sprint planning.
• Teams often fail to measure the UX impact of their
iterative efforts.
• For UX Requirements I like to use a UXI Matrix like that
developed by Jon Innes. It has the benefits of:
– Reduciced design effort by identifying duplicate User Stories
– Facilitate collaboration between UXDesigners, Front-end and
middle tier developeors.
– Track user involvement and other UX metrics
– Review UX metrics during sprint retrospectives
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Frist add several UX-related data
points to your user stories:
29/07/201
• Agendas and approaches to
core SCRUM team meetings
Column Name Possible Values Description
Persona Persona’s name Identifies the persona a user story applies to
UX complexity
1 to 5 (or Fibonacci
numbers if you’re
into that sort of
thing)
Estimates design effort separate from implementation
effort
Story verified Y/N
Is this story fiction or fact? Is it based on user research or
customer input?
Design complete Y/N
Is the design coherent enough for development to be
able to code it (or estimate how long it would take to
code)?
Task completion rates 0 to 100%
The percentage of users who have been observed to
complete the story without any assistance.
Staffing Resource’s name
Who’s owns the design, at whatever level of fidelity is
agreed to.

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Integrate UX into your backlog, sprint planning,
tracking, review and retrospective.
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• Agendas and approaches to
core SCRUM team meetings

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Integrating UX Research, Design &
Testing into your SPRINT cycle
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Addendum A
Agendas and approaches to core
SCRUM team meetings

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Backlog Refinement Workshop
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Every sprint cycle we have (at least a 2
hour workshop at least once a week)
workshop where we take the highest
priority EPICS of the top of the Product
Backlog and make sure they are broken
down into the simplest possible User
Story’s ready for the next SPRINT.
This work continues
offline most often with
the PPO, BA, Tester or
Developer working with an
SME stakeholder

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29/07/201
• Release Planning Is a process led by the PO to estimate the number of sprints it
will take before the next production release based on a logical grouping of
functionality by theme and business priorities
• It is a predicative estimate of schedule and thus increasing the range improves
accuracy but loses precision.
• It is particularly difficult, but probably most business critical to get right for
the initial release where the backlog contains mainly unsized EPICS and the
velocity of the SCRUM Team is unknown to estimate the release date of the
Minimum Viable Product.
• Because it is highly uncertain, especially at the initiating phase of a project:
rather than trying the predict release dates I prefer release ordering: where
batches of User Stories can be clubbed together to form a release package
based on business priority. But will your business accept and order over a
date?
Release Planning – or should that be release
ordering

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Acceptance Criteria
Note the importance of each story being
accompanied by acceptance criteria that define the
business rule and limit the scope for interpretation
(guessing) by the developers and testers: They can
be functional, non-functional, system performance
or out-of-bounds defect handling
The Given-When-Then formula is a template intended to guide
the writing of acceptance tests for a User Story:
(Given) some context
(When) some action is carried out
(Then) a particular set of observable consequences should
obtain
ATDD tools such as Tools such as JBehave,
RSpec or Cucumber encourage use of this template

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• Mid Sprint collaborative meeting between Core Scrum Team &
Stakeholders, jointly facilitated by the SM & the PPO
• Purpose is to decompose High Priority Product Backlog EPICs into their
smallest possible User Stories which describe thin slices of system
functionality that will deliver the User Story.
• The source of information for User Story Development may be augmented
by web surveys, interviews and current e-channel products analytics.
• Break into small teams focusing on different EPICs
• Define Acceptance Criteria for the User Story
• Verify Against the INVEST criteria.
• Core Team relatively size each User Story based on effort to
design/develop/test using blind-reveal & negotiate estimating
The Product Refinement Workshop
At least 2 hour workshop but is a continuous process and may be augmented by
the PO, BA, stakeholders SMEs, and indeed, in the SCRUM collaborative
environment anyone in the CORE Scrum team could find then selves slicing
stories into their smallest vertical slices continuously. Could be implemented as
weekly or even daily scheduled ‘Story time’ workshops with the Product Owner.

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The Sprint Planning Meeting: Part 1
User Story Understanding & Commitment (2 Hours)
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• The top priority User Stories and associated Acceptance Criteria
that would have already been sized during the ‘Storytime’
Backlog Refinement Meeting are communicated to the team by
the PPO & BA(s) the the Core Development/Test Team
• Q & A to clarify functionality, reject User Stories that don’t meet
the INVEST criteria & validate original size estimate
• SM, Sprint Dev & Test Team Commit to deliver a certain number
of User Stories in the SPRINT based on Story Point Sizes and Team
Velocity.
• A sprint goal is written collaboratively with the Product Owner -
a short, one- or two-sentence, description of what the team
plans to achieve during the sprint.

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The Sprint Planning Meeting: Part 2 Task
Identification & Estimating (2 hours)
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• Development/Test/UX Team break the User Stories down into Tasks, but do
not bother wasting time trying to estimate effort and of these tasks: the
important thing is to identify as many as possible and align the SPRINT
backlog work schedule with the Prioritized Product Backlog.
• On average only 60% of sprint tasks are identified during the Planning
meeting the rest are discovered daily during SPRINT execution.
• Developers select the tasks they are going to work on first in order of
priority (where system dependencies allow).
• Functional Testers select the test scripts they will write first based on the
User Story Priority & the Acceptance Criteria also serve as specifications for
the development team.
• The UX specialist selects the wireframes, user journeys and partial site
maps she is going to finalise first based on the same priority.

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Daily Standup (15-30mins)
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• Each team member in turn briefs the team on:
– What they did yesterday?
– What they plan todo today?
– What impediments are in their way?
• Promotes a shared vision of SPRINT goals
• Shares the micro-decisions on task prioritization
• Highlights inter-dependencies between team-member tasks
• SM Updates the Obstacles/Impediment log and may schedule a
facilitated obstacle removal workshop with a sub-set of the
team.
• Developers make commitments in front of their peers.

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The Sprint Review
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• Core Team Presents what if accomplished during the sprint.
• This take the form of a demo of new features and underlying
architecture.
• Informal meeting in which all product stakeholders are
encouraged to give feedback.
• Improvement suggestions are noted by the PPO for later
prioritization the Product Backlog,
• Formal in that the PPO Accepts/Rejects each User Story in the
SPRINT Backlog that reached a DONE state against the
Acceptance Criteria.
• Invite the world!

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The Sprint Retrospective
My general approach to Retrospectives is to mix it up: RCA Sprint KPIs, RCA Sprint
Problems, Ask the 3 simple question, Ask the 4 Retrospective Questions, Ask Why A lot,
AI, Discuss Team Dynamics & Surface Dysfunctional Team Behavior, Team Building
• Review Progress from previous retrospective improvement action plan
• Safety Check – Levels of comfort
• Level of Engagement – Explorer, Visitor, Holidaymaker, Prisoner
• 3 simple questions - What should we start-stop-continue?
• 4 key retrospective questions:
• What did we do well, that if we don’t discuss we might forget?
• What did we learn?
• What should we do differently next time?
• What still puzzles us?
• Ask Why? A lot.
• Conduct Root Cause Analysis on KPI’s or issues
• Conduct Creative Solution Brainstorming – See Appendix B
• Conduct Appreciative Inquiry
• Use the Art of Focused Conversations, to breaks the analysis into steps: Objective, reflective,
interpretive, & finally decisional questions (ORID)
• Ensure Dysfunctional Team Issues are aired and actions agreed
• Decision on improvement actions come last and are summarized with owners and target dates
• Award ‘Team-Player of the SPRINT’ award for the person who embodied SCRUM values the
most (team cohesion oriented)
• End with fun Team Building Game.

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End of Sprint KPI Analysis
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Key End of Sprint KPI’s:
• Team velocity - Number of story points done in a given Sprint
• Done success rate - Percentage of story points that have been
Done versus those committed at the Sprint Planning meeting.
• Estimation effectiveness - Number or percentage of deviations
between estimated and actual time spent on tasks and User
Stories
• Acceptance/Rejection Ratio – Number of deliverables accepted
(meet Acceptance Criteria) vs those rejected.
• Earned Value Analysis – a complex but valuable measure of
actual performance vs planned – appropriate where the value of
user stories can be quantified.

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• Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of problems which are limiting team
productivity or adversely affecting product quality, team
commitment, morale, or stakeholder collaboration.
• First get the problem clear: what happened, when, where,
why?
• Repeatedly ask: What was the reason? 4-7 levels deep, 2-5
root causes per effect. Cause & Effect Diagram/Fishbone
Analysis.
• Brainstorm Solutions to common root causes.
• Ask: How can it be can be prevented from happening again in
the future and/or how can we identify it earlier, and limit its
impact when it happens again?
• Assign Actions, Owner and Target Date.
Root Cause Analysis
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Risk Management Workshop
29/07/201
Scrum defines risk as ‘uncertain event(s) that could positively or negatively
affect the achievement of project objectives’. We adopt a 5 step RM model:
1. Risk identification: Using various techniques to identify all potential
risks. using taxonomies, checklists, prompt lists based on typical software
project issues.
2. Risk assessment: Evaluating and estimating the identified risks including
probability, proximity and impact Including Expected Monetary Value Risk
prioritization: Prioritizing risk to be included in the Prioritized Product
Backlog.
3. Risk mitigation: Developing an appropriate strategy to deal with the risk.
In most situations, responses are proactive or reactive. In the case of a
risk, a costed contingency plan may be formulated, which can be used as
reactive response a in case the risk materializes.
4. Risk communication: Communicating the findings from the first four
steps to the appropriate stakeholders and determining their perception
regarding the uncertain events.

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Addendum B
Example Brainstorming Process
29/07/2015 Phil Long e: phil,long@me.com m: +447963 160 230

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Example Group Creative
Brainstorming Techniques
• Workshop bank: http://workshopbank.com/creative-
problem-solving
• Mind Tools : http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html
• Inc.com: http://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/10-longtime-
brainstorming-techniques-that-still-work.html
• Art of Hosting: http://www.artofhosting.org/what-is-
aoh/methods/
• Centre for Appreciative Enquiry:
http://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/more-on-ai/the-
generic-processes-of-appreciative-inquiry/
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Addendum C
Stakeholder Engagement Process

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How to engage stakeholders?
• For each technology & business area
affected:
• Identify: listing relevant groups, organizations, and people.
• Analyze: understand stakeholder perspectives, motivations
influence and subject matter/domain knowledge expertise.
• Prioritise: ranking stakeholder relevance, selecting
engagement level and core team key relationships.
• Engage & Commit: Seek a commitment of quality time from
key stakeholders.
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Stakeholder Analysis
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Mapping Stakeholders
Selection of Engagement Approach
• Partnership: Shared accountability and responsibility. Two-way
engagement joint learning, decision making and
actions
• Participation: Part of the team, engaged in delivering tasks or with
responsibility for a particular area/activity. Two-way
engagement within limits of responsibility.
• Consultation: Involved, but not responsible and not necessarily able
to influence outside of consultation boundaries.
Limited two-way engagement: core project team asks
questions, stakeholders answer.
• Push communications: One-way engagement. Project may broadcast
information to all stakeholders or target particular
stakeholder groups using various channels e.g. email,
social-media, webcasts, podcasts etc
• Pull communications: One-way engagement. Information is made
transparently available should stakeholder choose
whether to engage with it.
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Addendum D
Typical Agile Web Development
Team & their key relationship
with product stakeholders

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The Anatomy of a SCRUM Team
• Ideally favor ’Full-Stack’ developers that are not
limited to only back-end, front-end or particular
technology sets so they can share tasks, peer review
and coach each other.
• A supporting cast of specialists can be brought in to
review design, code, test outputs.
• Manage the cross-fertilization of knowledge within the
team to build in redundancy.
• Encourage more junior staff to take up more
challenging tasks with the mentoring of a more senior
member of the team in order to develop skills.
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Anatomy of a Web Developer

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172
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research Design,
& Usability Testing
Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Acceptance Test Lead
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
David Davies
Backend
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer
Typical Core Scrum Team (7 +or- 2)

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PPO & SM Joined at the Hip
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research Design,
& Usability Testing
Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
David Davies
Backend
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer

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Typical Core Team: Requirements
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research
Design, Usability Testing
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
Researching,
Gathering,
Analyzing User
Requirements:
Personas, Epics &
User Stories
David Davies
Backend
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer

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Typical Core Team: Front End Dev
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Bacnd
Developer (PHP)
Dynamic User Interface
Design & Development
Wireframes, User Journeys &
Site Maps Build GUI with
HTML/CSS/JavaScript
David Davies
Backd
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer
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Typical Core Team: App Logic Dev
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
User Stories define
application logic.
David Davies
Backend
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer
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Typical Core Team: Functional Testing
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX Research
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
.
User Story
Acceptance
Criteria Define
Accept Tests
(ATDD)
David Davies
Backend
Data-modeler &
SQL Programmer
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With Cross Team Supporting Cast
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX R&D Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
David Davies
Database Designer &
SQL Programmer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
Paul Simms
Data & EAI
Architect
Sarah Price
Graphic Designer
Michael Crawley
Technical Architect
Ashish Dhoke
DBA/Data Storage
Designer
Tom Price
Social Media Expert
Jasmine Cook
Web Analytics & SEO
Optimization
Guru

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Architect Cross Team Supporting Cast
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX R&D Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
David Davies
Database Designer &
SQL Programmer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
Paul Simms
Data & EAI
Architect
Sarah Price
Graphic Designer
Michael Crawley
Technical Architect
Ashish Dhoke
DBA/Data Storage
Designer
Tom Price
Social Media Expert
Jasmine Cook
Web Analytics & SEO
Optimization
Guru

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UX Design Cross Team Supporting Cast
29/07/201
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX R&D Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
David Davies
Database Designer &
SQL Programmer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
Paul Simms
Data & EAI
Architect
Sarah Price
Graphic Designer
Michael Crawley
Technical Architect
Ashish Dhoke
DBA/Data Storage
Designer
Tom Price
Social Media Expert
Jasmine Cook
Web Analytics & SEO
Optimization
Guru

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Usability Testing With Cross Team Supporting Cast
29/07/201
5
Scrum Master Phil
Long
Kate Wills
UX R&D Expert
Will Reece
Assistant BA
Proxy Product Owner
Cayman Seacrest
Sally Green
Front-End
Web Developer
David Davies
Database Designer &
SQL Programmer
Marco Davenport
Functional
Data Pearlman
Functional
Acceptance Tester
Ton Lu
Front-End
Web Developer
Tim Rear
Middle-Tier/Backend
Developer (PHP)
Paul Simms
Data & EAI
Architect
Sarah Price
Graphic Designer
Michael Crawley
Technical Architect
Ashish Dhoke
DBA/Data Storage
Designer
Tom Price
Social Media Expert
Jasmine Cook
Web Analytics & SEO
Optimization
Guru

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ADDENDUM E
Developing a stronger a deeper Agile culture throughout an
organisation
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183
I have developed Agile
cultures in both my own and
client organsations and
largely go along with the Agile
Alliance definition of Agile
maturity in an organization as
one in which people:
My Objectives

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Adapt a catalyst style of leadership
29/07/201
They thrive by inspiring others without losing the cohesion within the
entire system. Having the courage of your conviction is what ultimately
leads to successful organizational transformation. It takes a lot of strength
to practice Agile at the individual level during a period in which it is not
practiced, and might not even be recognized, at other levels.
This kind of strength is the acid test for the Agile leader & coach. In most
Agile organizations leadership is decoupled from roles, such as
“management” or “architect”. Following Bill Joiner’s definition, that
leadership is “taking proactive action to change something for the better”,
every member of an Agile organization is entitled and expected to be a
leader and a strategist, at least from time to time”.
The Agile coach can model the way by demonstrating and explaining how
the development of a stronger and deeper Agile culture will benefit the
organization.

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Understand the system as a whole
29/07/201
Understand that Organisations are Complex Adaptive Systems
(CAS) that can only be managed effectively by optimising all
parts of the value chain from a holistic point of view.
These organisations collaborate intensely across business
functions to achieve a higher goal and actively fight “us-and-
them” mentality and invest in mutual understanding.
Again an agile coach I have had to challenge “us-and-them”
behavior, set up cross-functional project teams and
encouraged ‘brown-bag-lunch- session where everyone is
invited the hear what another organisational unit does.

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Foster an open communication style
29/07/201
Agile organizations recognize that how we
communicate is more important than what we
communicate.
Agile organizations are self-aware; they create and
invest in communication cultures in which people
collaborate and share.
Agile organizations therefore have set up
unstructured, multidirectional and open
communication paths which enable them to excel in
adapting to the unexpected

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Seek mastery in their respective skills
29/07/201
Members of Agile organizations take humble pride in their
work and seek mastery in their skills, producing great value.
Just as individuals challenge themselves, they challenge their
colleagues to continuously grow and develop.
The quest never ends; there is always a search for becoming
better. This quest for growth in self and others is something I
believe we all share but don’t always act.
It is the Job of the Agile Coach the model the way and inspire
others to adopt simple daily practices to develop their mastery
of their functional skills as well as their universal soft skills
such as ‘self-awareness’.

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Continuous learning from experiments
29/07/201
Any change in the organization is based upon continuous learning
through successful and failing experiments. To do this, Agile
organizations have removed the stigma around failure and turned it into
a positive experience.
Furthermore, the knowledge obtained through both success and
failure is socialized so that the value is amplified to help move the
team rapidly to the solution.
As an Agile coach this is perhaps to hardest cultural trait to shift in an
organisation that is characterised by command and control and zero
tolerance of failure.
They key is to get the leadership to realize that in today’s market
thought leadership and innovation is the only way to differentiate and
prevent your products and services from becoming commoditized.

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Governance that values long-term
business value and adaptation
29/07/201
Governance is based on meaningful, long-term closed
feedback loops leading to effective action.
Governance evolves and adapts based on the environment
in which it exists.
I believe as an Agile coach with the traits of adaptability
coupled with long-term benefits based work prioritization
can influence the governance of an organization.
But it can be challenging in a business world driven by
quarterly VAR targets.
(from Peter Senge’s Definition of a Learning Organisation).

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29/07/201
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The values, traits, skills and objectives all Great Scrum Masters should aspire to

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