Advanced course discussing the stages of Agile teams and the various expectations & management tactics during each stage.

1. Managing Agile Teams – 300 series Brian Blanchard – Chief Architect/CIO, HyperVize

2. Agenda Agile Basics The Agile Management Conflict What do Agile Teams need? How do we manage self organizing teams? Tools that can make our jobs easier

3. Which is worse? Herding Cats is hard work! Herding pigs is deadly! We give them Sharp tusks! And encourage them to charge us

4. Are we insane or sadistic?!!Why would we do this?!! No, We’re just dedicated to building teams We remove management overhead & interference We capitalize current strengths We grow individuals strengths The team grows and increases in value

5. What’s a pig?

6. Define the Agile Management Conflict

7. What’s a self organized team Team of 6 – 8 individuals Amongst them are all the skills needed for a project: Arch, Coding, DB, Design, QA, etc… Everyone is accountable regardless of skillset Notice there is no leader

8. Properties of traditional management Everyone has a place – Get there now! Managers job: Check for completion Check for completion Check for completion Yell at people for not being done

9. The Agile Management Conflict Old Way We’re accountable We manage We work together We solve problems We police ourselves Agile Way You do A job I manage I tell you when to work together I solve problems I police you

10. Mitigating the management conflict Mitigate by changing priorities, approaches, & tactics. Develop healthy team members Then, meet the needs of the team Next, meet the needs of manager(s) Finally, meet the needs of customer* (*Internal or External customers)

11. Why isn’t the customer first? Customers are happy when desired features are delivered in a timely manor. This can only happen if the manager is leading the team correctly. The manager can’t lead an unhealthy team effectively. You can’t have a healthy team without healthy people working in a healthy environment. This all starts with motivation and basic needs / skills.

12. Develop Healthy Team Members

13. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

14. Needs of a self-organized team member Physiological: Caffeine, food, reasonable hours Safety: Sufficient resources (PC, Apps, Desk, etc…), Corporate Stability Belonging: Heard, Accepted by the group Esteem: Respected, Challenged, Trusted

15. Needs of a developer Self-actualization: The Ultimate Goal Team members are free to create, solve problems, and accept consequences When these needs are met, people can become motivated

16. Meet the needs of the team

17. Bruce Tuckman – 1965 Doing principals Performing Norming Forming Storming

18. What do Agile Teams need? Understand the objective & drivers to understand the needs. Agile Manifesto paraphrased Ship good code Maintain transparency to customers Respond to change rapidly Value individuals & interactions Performing Norming Forming Storming

19. Forming the team – Value Individuals & Interactions Clear a path – Remove barriers to success Identify skills, weaknesses, growth objectives of individuals Compile teams with all needed skills Preserve individuality Equalize Super Stars & get everyone talking Encourage interactions as a team Respect us as a team of individuals Hold us accountable to commitments to each other

20. Storming – Respond to change Lead the way Set basic rules Point us in the right direction Help us discover new problems Teach us to discover them ourselves Protect our voice as a team and individuals Let us solve all of the problems Encourage interactions within the company Respect our role in the project & the company Hold us accountable to commitments to each sprint

21. Norming – Maintain transparency to customers Keep us focused Guard the team – Help us stay on course Help us focus on the goals and problems Let us see the fruits of our labor Respect our relationship/duty to the customer Encourage interactions with the customer Hold us accountable to customer commitments

22. Performing – Ship Good Code Stay out of the way Don’t hold us back Coach us – Don’t tell us Provide training & growth opportunities Create new opportunities to interact Require retrospectives Respect our ability to think, reason, & create Encourage us to grow our skills & talents Hold us accountable to commitments

23. The two faces of management Public facing activities Meet the teams needs Celebrate successes Address team failures Point out areas to grow Talk openly & with purpose Private facing (1-on-1) activities Maintain the environment Manage failures Practice subtle control & influence techniques Complete them quietly & move on

24. Meet the needs of the manager(s)

25. The team has what they need,What about me? We have bosses & clients too. Our bosses want results not good feeling methodologies As managers we are accountable for: Keeping productivity high Meeting deadlines Keeping costs low Ensuring the product meets satisfaction levels

26. Keep Productivity High Are you producing motion or motivation? Desire creates motivation Fear & rewards creates motion

27. What do developers desire? The same things as everyone else A safe environment Show stability by enforcing normal schedules Respect Let everyone have time to talk To be heard & recognized Stop digs, insults, & rumors quickly To know they made a difference Make sure the team sees the results – Good or Bad To know they are valued Demonstrate & encourage honest feedback in each sprint wrap up Create team awards for each sprint, let the team do so

28. Geeks like geeky things Learning, gadgets, & toys are the greatest desire of most developers Be creative and fun with motivation Wii is the best investment for any IT team Nerf gun fights are ok – sometimes mandatory R&D is a special treat – use it to motivate If you want a fun, open team you should have a fun, open office

29. Why all of the fun? Fun creates interaction & unites teams Stress & fear create rifts Coding is stressful People fear failure People who are stressed and afraid underperform Stress & fear should be managed & controlled Get to know you team so you can know when to reduce unhealthy stress & fear

30. Keep Productivity High Accountability & Deadlines create more than enough natural, healthy fear based motivation Let the team participate in setting deadlines Start every meeting with a quick review of the deadline & objective Start every team with a sense of accountability If you live accountability & deadlines productivity will improve as will deadlines

31. WARNING!!!!!Meeting deadlines You will fail Your team will fail It takes time 2 – 8 sprints to determine a teams ability to produce. Get corporate buy in when starting Start with small measurable “sub-projects” Learn the teams groove

32. Keep Costs Low Cost in a healthy self organizing team is simple In a crucible everyone wants more money in exchange for their pain When employees are happy, challenged, & growing reasonable pay adjustments are acceptable Watch spending on games, interactions, & learning

33. Product Quality Quality & customer satisfaction begin on day 1 Make sure Architecture, QA, Design, & Product management are represented in your initial team Hold developers accountable for the quality of code. Peer reviews, refactoring, community ownership

34. Tools to make it easier

35. Manual Tools Daily Stand up Sprint meetings Time boxing clock BS flags Scrum Wall Stories/tasks in sprint Burn down rate Architecture / Storyboard wall Often a whiteboard for developing stories or parts of product architecture

36. Manual Tools Sprint & Project retrospectives Review success, failure Awards for the sprint Examples: High on hog – Stuffed pig for someone who hogs up time Superhero – Action figure for best idea Super-villain – Evil action figure for the biggest mistake Bar of soap – Dirtiest code review Be creative – Let the team decide what to award These will be displayed proudly on peoples’ desks

37. Pigs can stink - Scrum Smells Detection List Loss of Rhythm Talking Chickens Missing Pigs Persistent Signatures ScrumMaster Assigns Work The Daily Scrum is For the ScrumMaster Specialized Job Roles Testers will not integrate with Team Reluctance to estimate Backlog Items Is It Really Done Nothing Ever Changes Around Here No One Wants to Attend Retrospectives Executive Pressure Missing Sprint Commitment Technical Debt Not Acting Like a Team No Engineering Practices Lack of progress Backlog fail Feature definition fail Enforcement fail

38. TFS 2010 Integrated support for Scrum methodology Integrated reports Visibility for team, customers, & your boss(es) Central repository for stories, tasks, & impediments

39. Progress Dashboard

40. Test Dashboard

41. Bug Dashboard

42. Quality Dashboard

43. Build Dashboard