Agile vs.-traditional-roles

4/17/2013

Agile Roles vs. Traditional

Copyright© Agile Transformation Inc.

About Me •Sally Elatta [email protected]

• President Agile Transformation Inc | AgileVideos.com • Leading Agile Transformation Coach, Trainer and Speaker • Background: Java/.Net Software Architect • Certified Scrum Professional, ScrumMaster, IBM, Microsoft • Trained thousands and helped coach dozens of teams on Agile • Agile Expert for PMI.org Learning Community of Practice

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I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really passionate

about transforming individuals, teams and organizations to

doing what they do better. I believe in Servant Leadership as

the way to lead change and create a culture of empowered

collaborative high performing teams.

mailto:[email protected]

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Brainstorming Workshop

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The Traditional Way

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The Agile Way

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Backlog Interested Committed


From Silos to Collaboration

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Characteristics of Agile Teams

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The Leadership Triangle

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Business Vision What? Why?

Process Facilitator

Technical Vision

Release Plan

How

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Agile Roles – Product Owner

Product Owner: responsible for maximizing the business value delivered by the team. ONE person responsible for the backlog and story priority Accepts or rejects work Helps define ‘Done’ Knowledgeable, empowered, engaged! Co-located with team as much as feasible Manages stakeholder and sponsor expectations Motivates team, celebrates success!

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Traditional Project Manager

• Manages the project through developing detailed project plans upfront at the task level.

• Heavy use of project management tools. • Heavy upfront planning, may engage key SMEs and resource managers for estimates and contribute estimates themselves.

• Manages tasks, holds weekly status meetings and may visit team members at desk to find out task status.

• Takes care of addressing any major team issues.

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Traditional Project Manager ..

• Might manage several projects at a time. • Accountable for project success and failure. • May use Command and Control to direct the team on what to work on next and when to get it done by.

• May be involved in the daily decision making related to the requirements, architecture and other aspects of the project.

• More experience with Waterfall development as apposed to Iterative development.

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Agile Roles – ScrumMaster

ScrumMaster: responsible for facilitating the Scrum process and ensuring the team is delivering value. Process Facilitator Helps builds self organizing teams Removes impediments, escalates when needed Helps team inspect and adapt process Empowers the team through Servant Leadership Helps create visible information radiators Protects the team from disturbances

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Agile Roles – The Team

The Team: responsible for turning the product backlog items into increments of value each sprint. Cross-Functional, 7 +-2 Self Organizing, Collaborative Committed Generalizing Specialists Deliver Value in Small Chunks Focused on Customer, Build in Quality

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Information Radiators

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Information Radiators

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Team Role – Solution Lead

Lead: responsible for translating the business vision into a technical vision then supporting the successful execution of the vision. Understands business needs, acts as a consultant and

partner for the business. Collaborates with others to find simple solutions that meet

tactical and strategic business needs. Communicates the technical vision and architecture. Supports the developers through execution by coaching

and direct involvement. Plans ahead and removes technical impediments.

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Sample Architecture Designs

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Agilemodeling.com Copyright © Scott Ambler Agilemodeling.com Copyright © Scott Ambler


Generalizing Specialist

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•A Jack of Many Trades – a Master of a Few. •NOT Generalists! Don’t go from one extreme to the other.

•Willing to help with other tasks to achieve the team’s goal.

•Maintains the quality standards of work. •Example: Analyst who can help with testing.

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Traditional Business Analyst

• Acts as liaison between the business and IT. • Will meet with various stakeholders at the beginning of a project to elicit requirements in detail.

• Requires business to sign off on requirements upfront on the detailed requirements.

• Collaborates on the project heavily upfront then again during testing to validate requirements were met and possibly during development to clarify ambiguity.

• Success measured based on level of details and signoff from customer.

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The Agile BA

• The ‘glue’ between the PO and the Team • A master of Agile Requirements Gathering (writing stories, breaking them down, ordering, writing acceptance criteria).

• Expert on Agile Modeling methods. • Excellent group facilitation skills. • Gathers the details one or two iterations ahead. • Pairs often with team, co-located and dedicated as core member.

• Generalizing Specialist. 20

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Process Diagram: Alternative Paths

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UI Flow - Sample

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Scott Ambler www.AgileModeling.com

http://www.agilemodeling.com/

4/17/2013


Traditional Developer • Engaged on the project after planning and requirements are

completed. Designs the system in detail upfront. • Reads requirements documentation and goes through BA for

additional clarification from customer. • Driven by documented requirements, not test cases as they don’t

exist yet. • Mostly works independently to get assigned tasks completed.

May or may not write automated unit tests. • Success is usually measured based on getting coding completed.

Testing is the concern of the testing team. • Mostly works on ‘Front end’ ‘Business logic’ ‘Data logic’ areas of

specialty. 23


The Agile Developer

• Engaged from the beginning of the project. Helps during planning, backlog creation, sizing, ordering and dependency identification.

• Uses Test Driven Development, focused on passing the acceptance tests for each story and getting it to ‘DONE’.

• Heavy focus on automated unit testing, continuous integration, automated builds, use of mock data and design patterns.

• Focused on getting a full slice of a story ‘DONE’ not partial completion. Frequent code check-ins

• Pair often with other team members including customers. • Eliminates technical debt, builds quality in. • Core team member, dedicated, co-located. • Generalizing Specialist.

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Collaboration and Pairing in Action!

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Traditional Tester

• Part of a separate testing group that is usually engaged towards the end of the project.

• Requires complete documentation on requirements in order for them to develop test cases.

• Works closely with the developers to clarify requirements.

• Tests everything at the end. Tries to break the system and find system defects.

• Success is measured based on % of tests covered. 26

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The Agile Tester

• Engaged early during the project, part of the core team. • Participates in requirements gathering and acceptance test

writing with PO early. • Defines additional system tests for each story. Prioritizes

testing based on business value with a focus of getting a Story to ‘Done’.

• Performs testing iteratively throughout the project. • Automates testing to create a suite of repeatable

regression tests. Tracks defects by story. • Core team member, dedicated, co-located. • Proactive about removing testing impediments. • Generalizing specialist.

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Sample Acceptance Test Cases

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“A customer can pay for shopping

cart items using a credit card”

Test with VISA, MasterCard and American Express (pass)

Test with Diner’s Club (fail)

Test with bad and missing 3 digit codes (fail)

Test with expired cards (fail)

Test with a purchase amount over the card limit (fail)

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Traditional Sponsor and Business Stakeholder

• Projects may have one sponsor, usually higher in the organization chart, funds the project but is not involved in the details.

• Multiple business stakeholders are involved to provide input and requirements.

• Often, there is no one decision maker. • Engaged at the front of the project and then towards the end. • Usually receive weekly status reports from PM on how the project is doing and if any issues need their attention. (Red, Green)

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Agile Roles – Sponsor and Stakeholders

Sponsor and Stakeholders are responsible for helping the product owner align the team deliverables with the overall company needs. Engage closely with Product Owner to help define needs, impacts and desired outcomes. Attend team demos and provide feedback. Be available to answer questions. Respect the Agile rules. Remove impediments. Recognize the team’s accomplishments.

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Traditional Manager Role

• Task management, prioritization and assignment for resources in their functional unit.

• Resource allocation on projects. Determining capacity, availability and who can be allocated to each project.

• Team development, career mentoring, one on one coaching. • Focused on growth of functional unit. • Leadership style maybe directive or empowering dependent on background.

• Establishing standard tools and processes for specific area.

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Agile Roles - Management

Focus on People Development and Process Improvement instead of Task Mgmt and Fire Fighting.

Limit resource shifting/multitasking. Help by removing impediments. Empower the team through Servant Leadership. Provide the team with tools they need. Challenge the status quo by moving away from

‘This is the way we’ve always done it’. Collaborate with other managers and business

customers to break down silos. Lead a Community of Practice or a cross-functional

stable team.

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Multi-Team View

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Program Plan

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YOUR Questions?

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Agile vs.-traditional-roles