Agile EE 2010

Alena Lavrinenko&

Tanya Mezentseva

Quick look on Agile methodologies:

Scrum is a framework for managing projects or, more generally, work. It is iterative and incremental, which means that it asks a team to work for a short period of time (a “sprint” or “iteration”) and then demonstrate real stuff (a product increment) that matters to the end-product at the end of each sprint.

Extreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology which is intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements. As a type of agile software development, it advocates frequent "releases" in short development cycles (timeboxing), which is intended to improve productivity and introduce checkpoints where new customer requirements can be adopted.

Kanban system is generally easy to understand, simple to visualize and comparatively easy to set-up. “Use one, make one” is the simplest form of this method.

Distributed teams Reasons to go distributed:

No local talent available Customers elsewhere Specific skills elsewhere Round the clock team Great people move

Invalid reasons: Cheaper workforce No office space Desire to be “global”

How to make work easier in DTRespect each otherBe honestGet to know your remote peersShare bad and good thingsSTOP – managers here, subordinates thereSTOP – meeting overdose

VisualizationWhich information needs to be shown?

Type of charts• Sprint Burn down chart• Product burn down chart• Task board• Visual board• Domain chart• Challenge board• Territory chart

Product burn down chart

P u r p o s e : Product progress visibilityA d v a n t a g e s : Immediate reflection of the real deadlineD is a d v a n t a g e s : Immediate reflection of the real deadlineA u d ie n c e : EverybodyW h o l ik e s i t t h e m o s t : High Management

Task BoardTask

Effort

Owner

P u r p o s e : Content visibilityA d v a n t a g e s : Immediate understandingD is a d v a n t a g e s : Lack of overall visibilityA u d ie n c e : EverybodyW h o l ik e s i t t h e m o s t : Scrum team

Example

Extreme task boards

Example

Example

Domain Chart

Challenge Board

P u r p o s e : Problem visibilityA d v a n t a g e s : (Immediate) understanding what bothers the teamD is a d v a n t a g e s : Sometimes you find out strange things about the team…A u d ie n c e : EverybodyW h o l ik e s i t t h e m o s t : Middle Management

•Free drawing of the problems•The team does the drawing

Summary

Common problems in team working:

MisunderstandingLonely wolvesProblems reticence

SOLUTION!

Scrum Games!

Break from the usual routineHave some fun

Learning in a snap!More EFFICIENT

Self empowerment

Split into pairs

One is the BOSS and one is the EMPLOYEE

The BOSS needs to walk the EMPLOYEE as many

steps as s/he can using the words: left, right,

backward, forward

Same requirement but the team is empowered

Pushing 40 As the team count till 40 as fast as you can

No specific order is allowed

Only one team member says a number

Start from the beginning if you fail

Team vs. individual Form a circle

Choose one person on the other side

Round I: Exchange places with him

Round II: Now think is a group…

6 hats brainstorming

Each person in the table choose a hat Make sure you have all the hats Start debating about ideas

Summary Only cohesive team can be hyper productive team Fun is prerequisite to creativity

Overtime is not 9th hour but is the time in when you feel you do not want to work anymore

THANKS!!!

QUESTIONS?