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Changing Roles in AgileUnderstand how roles & responsibilities in traditional organization and management change in Agile/Scrum process framework
Ravi TadwalkarAgile Coach, WD;
Co-founder, “Cisco Internal Coaches Network”;Event Organizer, AgileCamp.org & SVALN
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Agenda
• Agile Roles
• Major Cultural Shifts in transitioning to Agile
– Emergent Requirements ( and UX)
– Emergent design (and testing)
– Tracking & Oversight
• Sample Agile RACI matrix
• Summary
Agile Roles
ScrumTeam Member
(dev & test)
ScrumMaster (SM)
ProductOwner
PO)
Customers(s)
3 main roles:•Product Owner (PO)•Scrum Master (SM)•Scrum team member
Other pertinent roles: •Proxy-PO, •User Experience Lead, •Architect, •Internal Coach/Mentor, •Agile Program Manger, •Functional Manager, and •Agile Product/Portfolio Manager
Shift #1: Emergent Requirements• What is it?
– From waterfall-like “Big Requirements Up Front” (BRUF) to “emergent requirements” to drive just enough architecture.
• Major Impacted Areas – Marketing: Product /Portfolio Management – Usability
• Possible Agile Roles– Product Owner (PO)– Proxy-PO– User Experience Lead– Internal Coach/Mentor
Product Owner (PO)Role:
• Owns the vision and definition of the product.
• Represents the VoC (voice of the customer).
• Ensures that the scrum team(s) work on “right things” from the business perspective.
Recommendation:
• One can break this role down differently based on BU or location
• The subject matter expert (SME) - the one who knows *what* to build the most- becomes the PO. We recommend that you have your marketing guy to help you on evolving product backlog, with the help of other SMEs
• Traditional Product Manager works with the PO
Caveats:
• PO needs to avoid waterfall-like BRUF (Big Requirements Up Front) syndrome and get used to doing “emergent requirements” to drive just enough architecture.
• PO may not scale to cover all scrum teams.
– If PO is not always available to the team for clarification and for acceptance, then the alternative is to have someone take on the Proxy-PO role.
– Sometimes Dev Managers / Technical Leaders can take Proxy-PO role in conjunction with PO.
Proxy-PO
Role:• Assists the PO with story writing, even though PO owns prioritizing
and validating stories along with acceptance criteria.
Recommendation:• Proxy-PO is ideally co-resident with distributed scrum team. • Proxy-PO is needed due to location & band-width issues of PO, • Typically, Director of Product Marketing assigns proxy-PO.
Caveats:• Watch out for tacit information lost in translation between PO &
the Proxy. • Not having Proxy-PO may cause back-ending during iteration.
PO / Proxy-PO Responsibilities
• Observable behaviors:
*Scrum Activities include Sprint Planning, Daily Standup meeting, Sprint Retrospective meeting and Sprint Review/Demo meeting.
Product Owner Behaviors Portfolio
Planning
Sprint 0 Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities
Scrum
of
Scrums
Engages The Customer
Communicates Product Vision
Prioritizes and Grooms Backlog
Participates On Teams
Verbally Clarifies User Stories
Accepts User Stories
Facilitates Demos
Reports Release Status
User Experience Lead
Role:• Owns the vision and definition of the product UX (user experience). • Represents the voice of the end user. • Ensures the scrum team works on “right things” from a usability
perspective.
Recommendation: • Often this role is filled by - preferably local - Interaction Designer. • Sometimes Visual Designer, Product Manager, or Engineer can serve as
Proxy-UE Lead.
Caveat(s):• Watch out for scenarios where Interaction Designers may not scale to
cover all scrum teams. Reason could be waterfall-like BRUF/BDUFsymptom of creating “perfect” UX. Try to make them work with PO in evolutionary mode, for incremental delivery.
UE Lead ResponsibilitiesObservable behaviors:
User Experience Lead Behaviors Portfolio
Planning
Sprint 0 Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities
Scrum of
Scrums
Defines User Experience Concept
Plans UE-related Deliverables
Creates Wireframes, Visual Comps, and
Visual Assets As Part Of Preparing User
Stories To Be Ready For Implementation.
Supports Scrum Team To Deal With Issues
And To Answer UI-related Questions
Partners With PO To Review/Accept
UI-related User Stories
Plans And Runs Usability Studies
Supports Product Owner In Customer
Engagement Activities
Internal Coach/Mentor
Role:• Provide coaching to Scrum Team by observing, consulting and
providing feedback for improvement.
Recommendation:• Typically coaching is performed by very experienced Scrum
Masters/ POs who have been trained by other agile coaches in the internal coaching network.
Caveat(s):• There are well known coaching “traps”- failure modes- via any of
these self-explanatory labels: spy, seagull, opinionator, admin, hub, butterfly, theoretician and nag.
• These failure modes are results of ego or partial attention.
Internal Coach/Mentor Responsibilities
• Observable behaviors:Agile Coach Behaviors* Sprint 0 Scrum
Activities Scrum of Scrums
Formal Commit
Portfolio Planning
Evangelizes Agile
Effectively Trains Others In Agile Principles and Practices
Provides Subject Matter Expertise On Best Practices
Applies Product and Organizational Knowledge
Enforces Agile Principles
Holds Team Accountable
Communicates Effectively
*Internal Agile Coaches can be: - Team-level Agile Coaches, where they will be specialized in coaching Scrum Teams, or - Program-level Agile Coaches, where they will be focused on Portfolio Planning, stage-gates such as formal Commit, Scrum of Scrums, and Sprint 0.
Shift #2: Emergent Design (testing)
• What is it? – Design will emerge as functionality is being
delivered incrementally
• Major Impacted Areas– Architecture
– Development
– Test
• Possible Agile Roles– Architect
– Scrum Team Member (Dev & Test)
– Internal Coach/Mentor (Team Level player-coach)
ArchitectRole:
• A technical expert who works with the Scrum Team and Product Owner to ensure technical alignment and success of the product.
Recommendation
• The traditional architect/ Technical Lead role usually maps to the architect in agile.
Caveat(s):
• Architect needs to avoid waterfall-ish BDUF (Big Design Up Front) syndrome to get used to doing “emergent design” for just enough architecture.
• Architects should be present in daily stand ups to understand blockers and post-meeting get into a solutioning mode
Architect Responsibilities-
• Observable behaviors:
*Architects may also be Scrum Team Members or Proxy-Product Owners.
Architect Behaviors* Portfolio
Planning
Formal
Commit
Sprint 0 Scrum
Activities
Scrum of
Scrums
Provides Mentoring
Support Product Owner, eg. So That
Stories Are Implementable
Drives Refactoring
Provides Clear Architectural
Direction
Supports Mid- and Long Range
Roadmapping
Provides Subject Matter Expertise
Ensures Strong, Most Appropriate,
Development Methods Are Followed
Insures Implementation Supports
Testability, Scalability, Performance,
Security, etc.
Scrum Team Member -
Role:• A dedicated cross-functional team member that may be in a QA,
DOC, DEV, or UE job function focused on completing user stories.
Recommendation:• Engineers in existing team (QA, DOC, DEV, or UE) structure usually
map to Scrum team member role.
Caveat(s):• For some BUs, cross-functional team formation may not happen, so
there are some combinations possible e.g. “marketing + DEV”, where DEV does testing.
• Some scrum team members are shared across teams, e.g. DBA.
Scrum Team Member Responsibilities-
• Observable behaviors:
*Swarming is working in small cross-functional groups to rapidly complete high priority tasks.
Scrum Team Member Behaviors Portfolio
Planning
Sprint 0 Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities
Scrum
of
Scrums
Cross-trains/Mentors Team
Members
Estimates Tasks Accurately
Takes On New Unfamiliar Tasks
Decomposes User Stories Into
Tasks
Swarms* With Other Scrum Team
Members
Provides Timely Status To The
Team
Participates Actively In The Team
Makes And Meets Commitments
Shift #3: Tracking & Oversight
• What is it ? – Tracking work pending vs. % complete
• Major impacted Areas– Program Management– Handling Impediments– Management by Objectives
• Possible Agile Roles– SM– Agile Program Manger– Functional Manager– Internal Coach/Mentor (Team Level)
Scrum MasterRole:
• A servant leadership role that is responsible for enforcing agile values and practices at team level
• SM ensures that scrum team is fully functional, productive and focused on the goal.
Recommendations
• Anyone - properly trained - can potentially fill this role.
• For SM role, you may want to find a person who knows *how* to “Get Things Done” with excellent facilitation skills, someone who can get the best out of team to work on what PO specifies. This is very much like an architect/lead that the team looks up to for design decisions/facilitation.
Caveat(s):
• Keep in mind that a Functional Manager in this role may struggle with the shift to servant leadership.
• SM does not assign tasks and needs to move away from “command & control”
• SM sets up the team for failure if s/he does not track burn down charts and/or CFDs
SM Responsibilities
• Observable behaviors:
*Scrum Activities include Sprint Planning, Daily Standup meeting, Sprint Retrospective meeting and Sprint Review/Demo meeting.
Scrum Master Behaviors Portfoli
o
Plannin
g
Sprint 0 Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities *
Scrum
of
Scrum
s
Trains Team Members
Removes Impediments
Runs and Facilitates Scrum
Meetings
Protects Teams From
Distractions
Enforces Agile Principles
Holds Team Accountable
Provides Status
Works With Product Owner To
Assure Readiness To Sprint
Agile Program Manger
Role:• A member of the Program Management Office (PMO) who works with product
owner, scrum masters and others (as identified by the organization) to ensure that:– the program executes according to the overall program plan, – the program stays within the committed boundaries (resources, schedule, content, quality)
and goals as defined in the commit process
Recommendations:• Agile Office is different from a traditional PMO and is required for organizational
transformation and sustenance. Here is experience report from Agile 2011 event.• Agile Program Manager leads the creation of Agile Office.
Caveat(s):• It can be challenging to update project plans (Gantt charts) based on team’s
burndown data. • It’s reasonable to try to attain match between scrum team’s release plan and PMO
level program/project plan. Trying to match program plan with sprint plans at the detailed level will not be productive.
Agile Program Manager Responsibilities
• Observable behaviors:
*Program Managers indirectly support the Portfolio Planning process, by providing relevant historical, statistical, and capacity tactical data.
Agile Program Manager
Behaviors
Portfolio
Planning
*
Sprint 0 Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities
Scrum
of
Scrums
Drives The Commit Preparation
Activities
Facilitates The Scrum Of Scrums
Facilitates Escalation and
Removal Of Impediments
Monitors Program Progress
Monitors Compliance With
Corporate and ISO Requirements
Facilitates Agile Commit (aka
“hybrid scrum” stage gate)
Facilitates Creation Of The
Program Plan
Facilitates Communication With
Dependent Groups
Manages External Dependencies
Agile Functional Manager
Role:• Support Scrum Team members to learn, grow and perform, while
maintaining departmental responsibility and accountability for achieving business results.
Recommendation:• Usually Dev & Test Managers fit in this role. Technical directors may
also be good fit.
Caveat(s):• Watch out for the drift back to old command-and-control behaviors
by manager assigning tasks to team rather than team choosing it.• Avoid confusing people management with project management –
the former is done by the functional manager- and NOT latter.
Agile Functional Manager: CAVEATS/ Don’ts
Interesting Readings: • Pete Deemer’s
Manager 2.0: The Role of the Manager in Scrum
• Jurgen Appelo’sManagement 3.0 workouts
• Now You See It: A Peer Feedback System for Scrum Teams
Behaviors that conflict with Agile/Scrum:
• Decide what work needs to be done• Make commitments to management on
behalf of the team• About how much can team do by a certain date
• Assign the work to Team members• Do weekly status update report for
management• Keep track of what everyone on the team is doing• Make sure the Team gets their work done
Agile Functional Manager Responsibilities
• Observable behaviors:
* Agile Functional Managers may have other roles that add additional behaviors that need to be taken into account during calibration.
Agile Functional Manager Behaviors* Portfolio
Planning
Sprint
0
Formal
Commit
Scrum
Activities
Scrum of
Scrums
Provides Mentoring, “T-shaped” Skills
Development, & Career Guidance
Removes Impediments
Protects Teams From Distractions
Recruits and Hires New Team
Members
Evaluates Performance Of Team
Members- using 360 feedback and/or
calibration, etc…
Recognizes and Rewards Teams and
Individuals
Provides Subject Matter Expertise
Holds Teams and Individuals
Accountable For Their Own
Commitments
Creates An Environment Of Trust
Changing Role of Manager in Agile/ScrumCore Responsibilities Transition
StageAdditional Responsibilities
Creates an environment of trust
Removes Impediments
Protects Teams From Distractions
Retains people management responsibilities
Recognizes and Rewards agile behavior in teams and individuals
Holds teams and individuals accountable for their own commitments
Agile Newbie
• Have & set reasonable expectations about transition, i.e. team may stumble in initial phase.
• Budget time, resources for team needs e.g. Agile training, infrastructure.
Agile Practitioner • Introduce Slack to improve effectiveness over efficiency
• May participate in or sponsor Agile transition planning and execution
Agile Innovator • Support innovation by mentoring & coaching
• Foster organizational improvement
• Manage Agile Portfolio (w/ Release Planning)
• Incorporate lean principles in management
• Become member of corporate agile-lean community of practice
Summary: Cultural Shifts in Agile
• Emergent Requirements ( and UX)
• Emergent design (and testing)
• Tracking & Oversight
Summary: Role of Agile Manager in Scrum
Core Responsibilities Transition Stage
Additional Responsibilities
Creates an environment of trust
Removes Impediments
Protects Teams From Distractions
Retains people management responsibilities
Recognizes and Rewards agile behavior in teams and individuals
Holds teams and individuals accountable for their own commitments
Agile Newbie
• Have & set reasonable expectations about transition, i.e. team may stumble in initial phase.
• Budget time, resources for team needs e.g. Agile training, infrastructure.
Agile Practitioner
• Introduce Slack to improve effectiveness over efficiency
• May participate in or sponsor Agile transition planning and execution
Agile Innovator
• Support innovation
• Fosteri organizational improvement
• Agile Portfolio Management
• Incorporate lean principles in management
• Effective coaches of Agile & lean principles
• Become member of corporate agile-lean community of practice
CAVEATS/ Don’ts:
Behaviors that conflict with Agile/Scrum:
• Decide what work needs to be done• Making commitments to
upper management for the team • About how much Team can do by a
certain date
• Assign the work to Team members• Watch out for the drift back to old
command-and-control behaviors by manager assigning tasks to team rather than team choosing it.
• Do weekly status update report for management
• Keep track of what everyone on the Team is doing
• Make sure the Team gets their work done
Interesting Readings: • Pete Deemer’s Manager 2.0: The Role of the
Manager in Scrum• Jurgen Appelo’s Management 3.0 workouts• Now You See It:
A Peer Feedback System for Scrum Teams