Creating And Sustaining An Agile Culture Sm

Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.Copyright 2010

SkillsMatter June 16, 2010

Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.

My experience comes …As a QA Manager, Tester, Coach

Working on agile teamsCoaching and training

Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc. 3

1. What is Agile? (one slide)

2. What is organizational culture?

3. Why is culture important?

4. Sustaining agile across the organization

5. Sustaining agile within the team


• A set of principles rather than a particular model

o Priority is customer satisfaction

o Delivery of valuable software, frequently

o Welcome changing requirements

o Continual collaboration and feedback

o Supportive environment

o Continuous improvement

o Simplicity

o Technical excellence

Source: www.agilemanifesto.org



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• Defined by itso Values

o Norms

o Assumptions

• Social System

• Collective Beliefs

• Visible Artifactso Icons

o Rituals

o Vocabulary


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• Leadership

• Design of an organization

• Decision making process

• Sub-cultures

• History of an organization

• Personal values


• What is visible?

• Individual contribution

• Rewards and recognition

• Customer focused?

• Reactive vs.. responsive?

• Is it a learning organization

• Values, beliefs, mission statements


• Top-down communication channels

• Extensive meetings

• Structured project management practices

• Micro-management practices

• Office layout


It’s relatively simple for one team to adapt to agile, make the values’ their own, and follow the principles.


1. How to spread the existing development agile culture to the rest of the organization?

2. How to sustain the agile culture within the development team?

Two aspects …..


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• Q1: How to spread the

existing development agile

culture to the rest of the

organization?


13

1. Lack of executive sponsorship

2. Dysfunction at the management level

3. Heavy processes in place

4. Outside influences

5. Balance of pressures

6. Deadlines

Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lincioni


• Understand the agile principles

• Support your teams

• Don’t break up the band .....

• Think what problem you are trying to solve◦ Reports? Metrics?

◦ Audits

◦ Quality Models

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• Team expresses courage◦ They say no to the stakeholder for the overall

benefit of the product

• Team’s declared velocity is less than you would like

• Team asks for help when they are trying to improve

• Team looks for simplicity

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17Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.

Q2. How to sustain the agile culture

within the development

team?


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1. Misunderstandings

2. Sustainable pace

3. Too much collaboration

4. Boring ….


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• Reinforce values, practices

• Swap team members with other teams

• Pair only ‘x’ hours a day

• Spikes

• Gold card

• Investigation of tool upgrades

• Recognition


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• Retrospectives

• Education

• Understanding of Metrics◦ What you are trying to measure & why

• Business Vocabulary – visit client sites

• Change Agents

• Questioning techniques

Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.


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1. There is no silver bullet

2. It takes perseverance to change, but more to sustain

3. Organizational culture has a impact on the survival of agile team

Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.

And always, strive for quality!

photoshd.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/13/


• Lean Software Development, (all 3 books), Mary & Tom Poppendieck

• Succeeding with Agile, Addison Wesley 2009, Mike Cohn


Now Available

Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory

www.agiletester.ca

My contact info

www.janetgregory.ca

http://janetgregory.blogspot.com/

[email protected]

http://www.janetgregory.ca/

mailto:[email protected]

Credit: Max F Williams – flickr.com

Questions…

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Creating And Sustaining An Agile Culture Sm