Can we be Agile?

Taking our team to the next level

The Basics

Context

• Definition of goals & teams
  • What projects are we delivering on?
  • Project Stakeholders
• Lobbying for process buy-in
  • Who will need convincing?
• Business Case
• Risks & Challenges
  • Can Agile work in the context of our current PM structure?
  • This could take a few iterations to get right

Flow

• Dev team work intake/rejection criteria (Product Owner)
• Acceptance criteria (Feature Lead)
  • What does it mean to be done/how do we know a feature is finished?
• Delivery/Release Frequency

Points To Remember

• An iteration is a contract amongst the team
• Our process generates data that be channeled to stakeholders
• Retros are as much about team dynamics as tech
• Story points are meaningless...until they aren't

Meetings

Type & Frequency

1. Standup - Daily
2. Retro - 1/iteration
3. Backlog Grooming - Weekly, regardless of iteration length

Structure

• Identify possible participants, err towards fewer until motivated by customer need.
• Spec time boxes for meetings.
• What standing meetings will Agile processes replace?

Ground Rules

• Standup happens every day, except during sprint planning
• Standup happens on time, waits for no one
• All Agile process meetings can and should be remotely accessible by default

Team

Identify Roles

• X-Func. teams vs departmental teams

• Bridging current team structure to form feature teams

• Scrum master

• Product Owner

• Retro Leader (fixed or rotating)

Ground rules

Let's create some, and add to them as needed

Examples

• Emergencies can usually wait until next iteration
• No meetings without an agenda

Tools

Proposed Tools

1. Trello

• Cards
• Assignment
• Card Movement
• Points
• Edit vs. Read Only

2. Card flow, perennials, archive
3. What about Jira?
4. Iteration Metrics

• Retro Notes
• Backlog accounting

6. Metrics review, reporting

Retro

If there's time

A Brief History Of How We Got Here

A retro that brings us to the current day

• What's working?
• What isn't?
• How do you feel about the way things are going?

Sprint Planning

• Populate the backlog
• Name our first iteration
• Break out first iteration's tasks
• Prioritize & Assign Points
• Capture expected metrics

Let's go kick some ASS!