The values, traits, skills and objectives all Great Scrum Masters should aspire to

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Welcome to this brief introduction to myself as SCRUM Master & Agile

Coach

My participatory leadership style combined with 15 years experience of the practical application of a variety of Iterative & Agile methodologies

Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 230

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OR

Tags: Agile Team Leadership, Agile Project Leadership, Agile Software Development, Scrum Master, Team Motivation, Workshop Facilitation, Agile Coaching, Self-Awareness, Co-Creation, The Art of Hosting, Authentic Leadership

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What leadership values, traits skills, tools and techniques all

GREAT Scrum Masters that seek to excel should aspire to…

Maximising Customer Value Delivered by developing high performing joint business

stakeholder-developer teams that are highly collaborative, committed & self-

organizing

18/04/2023 Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 230

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But before I introduce myself I’m going to ask you a question…

What character trait/quality is consistently identified in countless

academic research & field studies as The one trait of all great leaders?

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No 1 Leadership Trait?

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No 1 Leadership Trait?

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The one trait of all great leaders?

Self-awareness Self-awareness is the art of

understanding yourself, how you relate to others in the

context of every situation, and how to use your understanding

to attain the best outcomes.

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Empathy is the precursor to meaningful human connections and meaningful human connections are at

the root of effective leadership.

You must be able to connect with people to effectively lead them, and to develop them

as leaders.

It's a skill these leaders have practiced and perfected, and with good reason. Self-awareness is the

precursor to empathy.

Why is self-awareness so important?

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“General awareness, and especially self-awareness, strengthens the servant-leader.

Awareness helps one in understanding issues involving ethics, power, and values. It lends itself to

being able to view most situations from a more integrated, holistic position.” Larry Spears

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Phil Long Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Welcome, my name’s Phil Long Aka: ‘the slum master’ for my penchant for back-packing in some of the words most deprived black spots

Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 230 11

Favorite Leadership Quote:

I’m going to share with you some of my lessons-learnt over 15 years delivering full SDLC enterprise software projects

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“The quality of an intervention is dependent upon the interior state

of the intervener” - Bill O'Brien.

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Favorite Software Quote:

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Phil Long e: phil,[email protected] m: +447963 160 230 14

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Favorite Software Quote:Favorite Agile Quote:

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Favorite Software Quote:Favorite Agile Quote:

2nd Favorite Leadership Quote:

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“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” —Bill Gates

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The Global Business Context: 2015

• We live in what appears to be a rapidly accelerating world…

• Increasing global competition seeded by digital innovation and grown through investment

• One which values speed to market, instant customer insight, lean JIT supply chains & rapid, well-informed decision making.

• But equally businesses and organisations of all kinds are finding themselves challenged to be more lean to compete on cost in a global market.

• Its what I call the ‘Need for Speed’ which takes business digitalization far beyond Web 2.0 sales & service channels.

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Where we are nowSMAC is the concept that 4 technologies are currently driving innovation in business…and that it is the synergy created by the 4 technologies working together that creates a competitive advantage and their convergence is proving to be a disruptive force that is enabling entirely new business models,

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Where are we going…

Gartner have predicted that the IoT market will grow to 26 billion units installed in 2020 representing an almost 30-fold increase from 0.9 billion in 2009. Its time has come.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or "things” embedded with electronics, software, and connectivity. sensors (typically RFID tags) to enable objects to exchange data with the diverse businesses and consumers and machine to machine communication. These sensors can both react, store and send information about local conditions but also enable remote control of numerous devices, The potential aplications are vast and diverse: from farming to health care, to energy and the smart grid, to the smart home & onward to the smart city.

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The digitization mega-trend


In summary the ; The challenge for businesses is to face the implications of the digitization of everything: in particular, the loss of control over the customer

relationship, increased competition and threat of commoditization, and the need to engage digitally with suppliers, partners and employees in addition to customers..

The pace of technology change isincreasing exponentially and we need to respond to new dew consumer demands with

new business models

The digitization of everything is a step change even greater than the invention and adoption of the internet, primarily because of its scale and pace of change. What we describe today

as ‘digital’ in a few years time will have no need for the descriptive word. This is why it is

so important to get a head start and learn while there is still time.

The need to develop a road-map towards the digitization of

everything that is evolutionary, flexible, scalable based digital on product/service innovations that

deliver POC value-addition as quick as possible.

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These are the business and technology trends behind the adoption of agile software delivery

methodologies…increasing pace of change and the need for successful organisations to react to that change quickly: ‘The Need for Speed’

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Typically Project Constraints

• Typically Agile Projects are constrained by budget (Fixed-Price) or schedule (Time-boxed)

• So our number number one priority is to maximize scope, quality and ultimately the value delivered to the Customer within these constraints.

• We do this by focusing on:– User Centric Product Design (Product Owner)– Building a high-performing joint team (Scrum

Master)Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 230 24

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I will be focusing on the latter… The Role of the Scrum Master in building

high performing joint teams• Values• Traits• Skills• Objectives• Addendum:

– Agenda(s) & Approaches to key SCRUM Meetings– Creative Team Brainstorming Process Example– Stakeholder identification, mapping, priotization and

engagement methodology.– A typical web solution Scrum Team and its interactions

internally and with stakeholders

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But first…

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A brief history of my career in software

development…• …and my personal journey

towards participatory/servant leadership

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1993Graduate from Liverpool University and with the help of A CDL taught myself how to program in MS VB

1994Junior Software Developer Developed a contact centre solution for processing card payment.

1998Moved on to Technical Project Lead, Chief Database Designer & DBA for a Sybase hosted data warehouse & BI system to give near real time view of the banks balance sheet & P&L positions.

1996Senior Software Developer for global software company developing multicurrency card payment systems for EMEA using Visual Basic and SQL server.

2000In at the deep end: Project Managed the full SDLC a £1m Oracle/Java Web Application onshore and and offshore in India.

Thepeoplevillage.com

My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery:

Phase 1: The ‘deep techie’ years


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2001Initially a Senior Consultant I delivered a number of successful Cornerstone Projects which got this start-up going, Adopted a highly collaborative approach to joint teaming between developers and customer stakeholders.

2002Promoted to Director of Service Delivery I implemented the Rational Unified Process – an Iterative SDLC combined with joint teaming between customer stakeholders and development teams

2006As we were growing exponentially I focused on Capability development, developing a QMS that was ISO9001:2000 and CMMi Level 3 certified that defined the ‘what’ combined with selection of iterative and agile SDLC’s on project factors and customer preference.

2004Continued to engage new customers in long-term collaborative projects for brands such as moneysupermarket.com, Lex Vehicle Leasing, The RAC and UBM

2008Cashed-in my chips and exiting the company after the financial crash saw our Merger/Acquisition prospect fall through

My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery:

Phase 2 The Arrk Years

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The onshore/offshore challenge• Arrk was about solving the conundrum how two teams (the onshore

customer) and the offshore (development team) could overcome the distance, time and cultural barriers and work together as a joint and integrated ‘whole’.

• We employed UK ‘mediators’ that were experts on the facilitation of communications and the development of an environment condusive to building high trust, highly committed, highly productive teams that could bridge the cultural, time and distance divide.

• They were alert to dysfunctional behavior in either party and would intervene to implement corrective and preventative actions that sought to minimise the potential for conflict and ‘us and the’ culture of blame forming.

• It was about fostering a culture of A) intensive collaboration B) development of trust through adherence to total transparency and honesty and personal connections C) the relentless pusuit of creating customer value D) A cpmmitment to share the principles, practices, processes, tools and techniques of our Integrated Delivery Molel with ourcCustomers in a coaching role so they develop the capability in managing offhore teams directly E) win:win, shared risk/reward commercial terms based on the principles of Smart Partnering.

Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 23018/04/2023

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Arrk Website (Author Phil Long 2004)

Collaborative Joint Teaming• “we work in a way that emphasises business goals, open communication

and collaborative team working. Our transparent engagement style and obsession with exceeding our Customer’s expectations enables us to drive innovation and cultivate win-win, long standing collaborative partnerships.

• “We build teams of passionate, highly-motivated people and share knowledge directly with each other, rather than through hierarchies. We unite under a shared vision and are driven by achieving a common goal”

• “We try out and share ideas, information and work. The way we work is founded upon sound ethical principles and trust. We make knowledge accessible to everyone and operate with total honesty and transparency.”

• “A pervasive sense that those involved, both Arrk Group and the Customer’s staff, operate as One Team with a shared purpose and destiny.”

www.arrkgroup.com/how-we-do-it/collaborative-innovation/


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Arrk Website (Author Phil Long 2004)

Integrated Global Delivery• “From the founding of Arrk we have always been a hybrid UK/Indian company,

jointly managed and structured as a single horizontally integrated organisation.

• “Single vision, single values, single culture, single management, single quality systems”.

• “Our Indian and UK teams work side-by-side (often ‘two-in-a-box’) to deliver services to our Customers.”

• “Onshore ‘brokers’ add limited value…these structural issues and friction are simply subcontracted further down the supply chain”

• “Our pioneering Integrated Global Delivery Model…features:– “An expert UK customer engagement, consultancy and delivery management capability

that is able to rapidly empathise and interpret customer objectives and requirements and ensure benefits are realised. Our UK team’s…cultural empathy enable them to ‘bridge the divide’, by facilitating communication, and ‘break the ground’, especially in new engagements…where they also play a role in coaching Customers in successful offshore engagement.

– An empowered offshore delivery management and technical services capability that understands how to successfully deliver software services using integrated mixed Indian and UK teams often located at multiple global sites.

– We share the principles, practices, processes, tools and techniques behind successful Integrated Global Delivery with our Customers in order to build these capabilities in our Customer’s organisations”

http://www.arrkgroup.com/how-we-do-it/integrated-global-delivery/


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Collaborative Joint TeamingOnshore Customer & Offshore Development Team

Customer Stakeholder & Core Scrum Team• So my understanding of the value of collaborative joint teaming was

born under a different context but is very similar to the joint core SCRUM and business stakeholder teams we try to build in ‘Agile Joint Teaming’.

• A lot of the principles are the same: total honesty and transparency, lack of hierarchy, fostering direct unmediated conversations.

• As is the role of a facilitator of direct, open communication, team building, coaching, mediating and continual improvement, where success can be measured by the extent to which their own role becomes progressively redundant,

• But I also see an Agile Coach who recognizes the cultural organisational level impediments that are preventing the organisation from yielding the full benefits of software development agility.

• And furthermore the opportunity to shift the broader organisational culture towards one which embraces the development of agility in all aspects of organisational strategy, innovation and decision making:

• User-centric product design, cross-functional-collaborative-self-organizing teams, ‘holistic’ thinking, and small but rapid steps with feedback and learning built in towards an adaptable vision.


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Arrk 2002

• Arrk was about solving the conundrum how how two teams (the onshore customer) and the offshore (development team) could work together as an integrated ‘whole’.– A focus on forming collaborative teams as a catylyst to innovation and

value additon to the client “we work in a way that emphasises business goals, open communication and collaborative team working. Our transparent engagement style…enables us to drive innovation and cultivate win-win, long standing collaborative partnerships.

– We build teams of passionate, highly-motivated people and share knowledge directly with each other, rather than through hierarchies. We unite under a shared vision and are driven by achieving a common goal.

– “We try out and share ideas, information and work. The way we work is founded upon sound ethical principles and trust. We make knowledge accessible to everyone and operate with total honesty and transparency.”


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2009Designed and Implemented best practice in Project Portfolio Management: analyzing the financial and non-financial benefits of over 100 projects saving the bank £200m§§

2010Went to Study a Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability which has a strong emphasis on developing & exploring our leadership capacities.

My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery: Phase 3 Developing my Participatory Leadership

style and becoming and Agile Evangelist

Masters in Strategic Leadership towards

Sustainability


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Masters in Leadership in Complexity


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Otto Sharmer’s Theory U proposes that the quality of the results that we create in any kind of social system is a function of the quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the participants in the system operate from. That place is in the blind spot of our everyday experience. We can observe what we do and how we do it. But the quality of the source (or inner place) from which we operate in “the Now” tends to be outside the range of our normal observation, attention, and awareness. Otto started referring to it as Theory U and “presencing.” Presencing is a blended word combining “sensing” (feeling the future possibility) and “presence” (the state of being in the present moment): presencing means “sensing and actualizing one’s highest future possibility—acting from the presence of what is wanting to emerge.”

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Going down the U: “Observe, observe, observe.” Stop downloading and totally immerse yourself in the places of most potential, in the places that matter most to the situation you are dealing with.At the bottom of the U: “Retreat and reflect, allow the inner knowing to emerge.” Go to the places of stillness where knowing comes to the surface.” So the key question is: How can we become part of the story of the future rather than holding on to the story of the past?Going up the U: “Act in an instant.” Explore the future by doing. Develop a prototype. A prototype explores the future by doing something small, speedy, and spontaneous; it quickly generates feedback from all the key stakeholders and allows you to evolve and iterate your idea.

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40 Phil Long e: phil,[email protected] m: +447963 160 230

The moment we commit ourselves to going on this journey we start to encounter our three principal enemies: the voice of judgment (VoJ: shutting down the open mind), the voice of cynicism (VoC: shutting down the open heart), and the voice of fear (VoF: shutting down the open will).• Open heart: The capacity to redirect attention and to use one’s heart

as an organ of perception (“seeing with the heart”); to shift the place from which your perception happens to the other or to the field/whole; to access our sources of EQ (emotional intelligence).

• Open mind: The capacity to suspend judgment and to inquire; to see something with fresh eyes; to access our sources of IQ (intellectual intelligence).

• Open will: The capacity to let-go of one’s old identities and intentions and tune into the future that is seeking to emerge through me or us; to let-go of our old self and to let-come our emerging authentic self.

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What is the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter?The Art of Hosting is an approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges.


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The Art of Hosting is a highly effective way of harnessing the collective wisdom and self-organizing capacity of groups of any size. Based on the assumption that people give their energy and lend their resources to what matters most to them – in work as in life – the Art of Hosting blends a suite of powerful conversational processes to invite people to co-create and take charge of the challenges facing them.

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Our Group thesis

http://www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf/all/21e8a0418502eb8ec12578be00480a8f/$file/BTH2011Pearlman.pdf

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My instinct towards fostering collaboration was crystalized into a participatory leadership style that

believed that if we could harness the EQ, IQ & SQ of the group we could co-create optimal solutions to complex problems.

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2009Designed and Implemented best practice in Project Portfolio Management: analyzing the financial and non-financial benefits of over 100 projects saving the bank £200m§§

2010Went to Study a Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability which has a strong emphasis on developing & exploring our leadership capacities.

My 20 Year Journey in software solution delivery: Phase 3 Developing my Participatory Leadership

style and becoming and Agile Evangelist

Masters in Strategic Leadership towards

Sustainability

2012Returned to Arrk as a troubleshooting PM to see how I could apply by values of participatory leadership to Agile software solution delivery. Experimented with different methodologies a developed a methodology selection guide based on project risks, constraints & opportunities,

2011Studies the One Planet MBA at Exeter University Business School. Also developed my collaborative leadership skills as well as developing core Business Management knowledge.

2015A brief sojourn in environmental consulting but I resigned after 5 months as the role was not what I had expected and I had lost faith their business model.


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My own values, traits, skills and software development

project delivery experience & knowledge

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Key values & aspirations

Phil LongScrum Master

Participatory Servant LeadershipThe servant-leader shares power, puts

the needs of others first and helps

people develop and perform as highly

as possible.

Transformational Change

Delivering transformational change by

building capability in orrganisations,

teams, others and self.

AuthenticityOpen and approachable, A straightforward and

honest communicator who doesn’t put on a

public image. Builds trust with teams &

stakeholders of all levels of seniority.

Positivity/OptimismEnthuses, inspires, encourages and

communicate passion to others.

Cultivate hope,

Wonder and Gratitude.

For me leadership is about facilitating ‘conversations

that matter’ to change our worldviews, shift what we

think is possible, and how we can co-create the change we

seek by working together.

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Participatory Leadership Challenge


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P h i Lo n gS c r u m M a s t e rT R A I T S / Q U A L I T E S

Resilient: Ability to remain calm and composed in unexpected, high pressure situations.

Collaborator, Facilitator & a

Mediator always looking for the win:win

solution

Highly Adaptable: to rapidly changing events & priorities.

Sense of Humour, don't take myself to seriously.

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Self-Aware: Through personal reflection and peer feedback

Committed & results oriented: to

personal, project, team and

organizational goals.

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51Software Devlopment skills, experience and knowledge

AdaptiveSoftware PM

Enterprise Architecture

Web Development Technolgies

Web Team Resourcing

Diverse Business Domain Knowledge

15 years experience delivering software development projects (mainly web) in a fast changing environment through Predictive and more recently Adaptive Software Project Management methodologies. Wide Experience of Various Iterative & Agile SDLC Methodologies (including

RUPs, Kanban, Srumban, Scrum, TDD & ATTD).

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AdaptiveSoftware PM



Web Team Resourcing


Enterprise Architecture Trends relevant to businesses now (e.g. SMAC, SaaS, NoSQL data stores) and future trends (e.g. Web 3.0, The Internet of Things and data Integration trends

moving away from ETL and traditional middleware solutions to SOA over ESBs and ultimately Data Virtualization).

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53Software Development skills, experience and knowledge

AdaptiveSoftware PM



Web Team Resourcing


Web Development Software MVC Frameworks including .NET and various open source frameworks including Java MVC based (e.g. Jbos, Spring, Angular, Backbone) Server side scripting (e.g.PHP Zend framework) and client side

Javascript/AJAX Libraries (e.g. J Query)

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AdaptiveSoftware PM



Web Team Resourcing


Deep understanding of the roles required in a enterprise web development application teams from Requirement Engineers, Data/Technical Architect, graphic designer, UX Research & Design,

Front End Oriented Web Developers, Middle Tier Logic Developer and backend SQL/API developers & DBAs. Usability and Functional Testers.

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AdaptiveSoftware PM



Web Team Resourcing


Having worked most of my career as a consultant I have a broad and deep understanding of many different business domains from Financial Services to ISV’s and

everything in between.

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My skills & capabilities of as Scrum Master?

• Self-Awareness• Trustworthiness• Fairness• Active deep listening• Broad & Open-minded• Sensitivity to people• Sensitivity to situations• Commitment• Positivity• Holistic Big Picture View


• Proactive Initiations• A sense of urgency• Unassuming behavior• Flexibility and adaptability• Capacity to motivate• Capacity to coach/mentor• Capacity to facilitate co-

creation• Capacity to mediate

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How do these values, traits and skills translate into my

Objectives of a Scrum Master?

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My Objectives


Act with integrity, honesty & authenticity when communicating or making decisions: lead by example and

‘model the way’.

My Objectives

“Integrity is honesty carried through the fibers of the being and the whole mind, into thought as well as into action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential of leadership”

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My Objectives


Be a ‘participatory/servant leader’ who puts the needs of the team first. moderates and facilitates team interaction

as team coach, mentor & motivator.

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Phil Long e: phil,[email protected] m: +447963 160 230

“Show others what is required rather than simply telling them, leaders should coach

their team members toward a more collaborative, committed work

environment”

"[If you] control people to do certain things in certain ways, you're not going to get the

level of engagement that you're looking for.”

"Coaching is about helping the people you lead recognize the choices they have in front of them. People will [then] take a great deal of ownership over the direction

of the project."

Why coaching is effective in Software development team leadership

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Maintain a commitment to developing self, people, team and situational awareness and sensitivity

My Objectives

Develop self-awareness through practices such mindfulness, self-reflection or peer feedback

Develop People SensitivityPaying attention to everyone you deal with every day. Stop taking them for granted and exercise insights, intuition, perception, empathy to gain insight into other peoples characters and motivations. Team Dynamics

SensitivityObserve team functional & dysfunctional team behaviors

Situational SensitivityDevelop innate "feel" for situations, cultures, and events that and pay attention to developing ‘whole systems’ awareness.

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Enable Collaboration

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My Objectives


Develo a highly collaborative way of working both within the core development team and with its business

stakeholders.

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My Objectives


Identify, map, engage and gain the commitment of key stakeholders to give their valuable time to the project.

See Addendum C for example of stakeholder engagement process

Stakeholders

Core Team

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Meaningful participation leads to a

sense of involvement that evokes a

feeling of influence that generates

psychological ownership that results

in COMMITMENT

Why is the building of a collaborative committed, joint

team so important?

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Commitment & Collaboration

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Two key Agile Principles


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Co-location

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Provide a dedicated Team Room for the Core Scrum Team co-located near their

stakeholders

My Objectives

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If collocation is not possible distributed SCRUM Joint Teaming can work but adopting modern communication

technologies like a video conferencing suite is essential at all sites

My objectives

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Engaging Commitment through empowerment, delegation and

being an enabler of self organizing teams

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My objectives


Empower and coach the core team to reach its full potential by applying boundary defined delegation and mutually agreed PDPs

including hard technical skills and personal self-development capacities such as committing to practices which cultivate self-

awareness

My objectives

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How to empower effectively: The art of clear goal & boundary setting in

delegation.


RED: This task is relatively high risk and high impact and you’re not skilled enough for me to delegate. Rather I will take responsibility for the task, you will shadow me, and I will coach/mentor you.

AMBER: I will delegate responsibility task (within defined boundaries & clear goals) provided we discuss and agree your preferred approach up front, you consult with me regularly, and the WIP Work-Product available for review at any time.GREEN: I will fully delegate responsibility this task to you, as a have full confidence in your capability to take complete ownership of task on your own.

I remain Fully Accountable no matter what I have delegated

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My objectives


Help teams to grow by enabling them through feedback and relection to develop their own self-awarness and thus be

able to define their own group growth pathways. The ultimate test of success for a Scrum Master is that their role

has become redundant because the team have reached a level where they are self-organising not just about today, but

their future team growth.

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HIGHLOW

HIG

HLO

W

01

02

03

04

0506

SKIL

L

WILL

These are the project

advocates you need to

empower

EMPOWERMentor and coach ...

experiement with

delegation..

GUIDETry to identify and

challenge blocking

behavior

UNBLOCK

Try to breakdown

resistance by

demonstrating passion

for the project goals &

exuding positivity

ENTHUSEAgree a skills

devlopemnt plan,

including

menotoring and

coaching.

DEVEOP

With this resitor

quadrant you have

no choice but to

direct,.

DIRECT

My objectives Map core team skill-will matrix and apply appropriate

commitment engagement techniques & PDPs

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To foster a culture of self-organisation

My Objectives

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But why….?

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My experience with Agile in software development projects has made me a

believer in Theory Y: Cross-functional and self-organized teams basically work

better than top-down directed teams, if they have the skill and the will or to put in another way the capability, morale

and commitment. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,

they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu

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Leadership in Complexity

“Complexity requires participation, collaboration and listening together; it requires all stakeholders to be in the same room. We need to ask powerful questions of one another and there needs to be a willingness to experiment. From the apparent disorder, a unique and powerful practice emerges that everyone involved can be an ambassador for.” Gill Evans 2014


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J o i n e d -u p

Te a m i n g Collaborative, Commited, Co-located, Cross Functional, Self-Organizing Teams Deliver Results!

30% 70%


Customer Stekaholers

Core Scrum Team

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Facilitate ‘conversations that matter’ to remove obstacles and improve

team performance

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to distill a solution everybody can understand.”

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My Objectives


Facilitate Conversations that matter: 90% of the my time is spent facilitating conversations within my team or between by team & it’s

stakeholders.

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Facilitate Core SCRUM Team Meetings and when in doubt always consult the team before jumping in with you own

solution.

My objectives


See Addendum A for agendas and approaches to specific SCRUM Meetings

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Facilitate and transparently track the removal of impediments at the project, team and oragnisational

level.

My Objectives

While Root Cause Analysis (RCA) (See Retrospective Meeting approaches in Addendum) might identify the root cause of a problem a solution may not be so apparent, so we can use a creative brainstorming technique. (See Addendum B of an example of a brainstorming process).

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“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Ask the team first. Remember the ScrumMaster’s goal is to help develop a team who look to themselves for

answers, resolution, and decisions.

My Objectives

While Root Cause Analysis (RCA) (See Retrospective Meeting approaches in Addendum) might identify the root cause of a problem a solution may not be so apparent, so we can use a creative brainstorming technique. (See Addendum B of an example of a brainstorming process).

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How to facilitate stimulating, creative and productive group conversations

• Plan structure in advance• Use a mix of ice-breakers, energizers, data-analysis, root cause

problem anlalysis, and creative brainstorming games & tools – See Addendum B

• Be-present and encourage active listening• Listen for recurrent themes• Be a collaborator & a mediator always looking for the win:win

solution but don’t be afraid of conflict.• Challenge, and ask difficult questions or ‘out’ the elephant in the

room.• Demonstrate you value everyone's contribution equally• Always end with a next steps, action plan with owners and

timescales• This is a great ‘facilitator's toolkit’ -

http://oqi.wisc.edu/resourcelibrary/uploads/resources/Facilitator%20Tool%20Kit.pdf


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Be prepared with a suitcase of techniques, tools, patterns, games where SCRUM has intentionally left gaps in the

process so that the Scrum Master & Team can select their preferred.

My Objectives

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Demand adherence to value–adding processes while

adopting lean principles to the elimination of waste to enable

continual improvement in team efficiency.

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Enforce SCRUM principles, aspects and processes: using checklist of SCRUM processes and best practice

Sprint Retrospective

SprintPlanningMeeting

1-4Week

Product Owner The Team

ProductBacklog

SprintBacklog

12345678

Insert textInsert textInsert textInsert textInsert textInsert text

Insert textInsert textInsert textInsert textInsert textInsert text Insert text

Insert text

Inputs from Customer, Team, Managers, Execs

Scrum Master

My Objectives

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Scrum Principles


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Empirical Process Control


“The empirical model of process control provides and exercises control

through frequent inspection and adaptation for processes that are imperfectly defined and generate unpredictable and unrepeatable

outputs.” – Wikipedia

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Empirical Process Control


Using empirical process control requires three basic elements: transparency, inspection, and adaptation:

• Transparency ensures that all the elements a process is openly observable.

• Inspection is the activity of taking that observation enabled by transparency and critically evaluating how

work flows through the process.• Adaptation takes the insights gleaned from that inspection

as a basis for making incremental ongoing improvements to the process.

• With this model as cross-functional teams interact, they not only do the work, they think and dialog about how they do the work. Built into the cycle of

transparency, inspection, and adaptation is this ongoing mental prompt for the group to ask itself, “Now why is it we are doing things this way?”

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My Objectives ‘End of SPIRNT KPI’s’ such as :

Team velocity - Number of story points done in a given SprintDone success rate - Percentage of story points that have been Done versus those

committed at the Sprint Planning meeting.Estimation effectiveness - Number or percentage of deviations between estimated

and actual time spent on tasks and User StoriesAcceptance/Rejection Ratio – Number of deliverables accepted (meet Acceptance

Criteria) vs those rejected.EVA – a complex but valuable measure of actual performance vs planned – appropriate

where the value of user stories can be quantified.

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Sprint Retrospective:

2-4 Hours

My objectives Continually improve team productivity and quality of deliverables through

observation of metrics and team behavior, and using a variety tools, games and

techniques to innovate in processes, tools, technology and ways of working.

My objectivesSee SPRINT Retrospective Meetings in the Addendum A for more detail on approaches to retrospective meeting and Appendix B for an example of a

creative brain-storming18/04/2023


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Phil Long e: [email protected] m: +447963 160 230My objectivesSee SPRINT Retrospective Meetings in the Addendum A for more detail on approaches to retrospective meeting and Appendix B for an example of a

creative brain-storming18/04/2023


Think Big, Act Small, Fail Fast & Learn Faster

My Objectives

TOP TIP: Make new mistakes not old ones.

Sometimes if I spot dysfunctional behavior I

don’t challenge it straight away but leave it so the

team experiences a deeper learning from the

experience of failure.

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My Objectives


Foster a culture where feedback flows in all directions and is an accepted, expected and valued feature of the way we work together.

My Objectives

Product Owner availability (phone, office hours, attendance in Daily Scrum)

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Master the Art of Simplicity and apply lean principles by constantly challenging the value of tasks, meetings and work-products to maximise

the amount of work not done.

My Objectives

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Applying Agile development to the quest for architectural,

evolution, emergent design, coding best practice and test

driven development.

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Use Sprint Iterations to enable emergent design but allow time for refactoring in every sprint to avoid build up of

technical debt.

My Objectives


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My ObjectivesChampion technical excellence by adopting best practice

in software design, ensuring peer code review to promote simple and readable code and making sure adherence to Non-Functional Requirements such as

security, extensibility and scalability are included the Definition of DONE.

“Continuous attention to technical excellence and good

design enhances agility.”

- The Agile Manifesto

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My Objectives

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Champion Continuous Integration & Test Driven Development at the Unit, Acceptance and Usability Level so that a Regression

Test Pack can be built up and all the functional and usability testing is not left to the end of the sprint.

Peer Code Review Unit & Acceptance Testing

Automated UnitTesting Tool

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My Objectives


Champion Continuous Integration & Test Driven Development at the Unit, Acceptance and Usability Level so that a Regression

Test Pack can be built up and all the functional and usability testing is not left to the end of the sprint.

Peer Code Review Unit & Acceptance Testing

Automated UnitTesting Tool

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Automated Testing Tools can never entirely replace the skill of an experienced functional tester carrying out Exploratory testing

Also end user usability test….is a must…. See slides on integrating your UX research, design implementation,

verification and validation into your sprint cycle.

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Enabling Group Flow by guarding the team from outside distractions,

demonstrating positivity, building team self confidence and encourage a

culture of open-minded active listening.

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing

what they can accomplish. —Sam Walton

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My Objectives


Hold the team to account to their commitments by writing down a working agreement which the development team (ideally with key

stakeholders) develops together and is placed in a prominent area of the Scrum Team Room.

My Objectives

"Update the status on the Scrum board regularly."

"Be on time for the stand-up."


"Update the status on the Scrum board regularly."


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Agree a Definition of Done (DoD)

My Objectives


• All Design and Code have been Peer Reviewed,• New Feature Unit, Acceptance, & Usability Tests Passed.• Validate Conformance to Non-functional Requirements.• Code has been refactored to remove duplicate, messy

or poorly designed code• Associated content or lookup data has been loaded in

UAT.• Potentially releasable to production if the Minimum

Marketable Feature Set has been met.• Else the product increment is deployed in UAT.

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My Objectives


Build real personal connections with my team a by being a ‘more human’ leader and demonstrating, vulnerability, positivity, purpose, empathy, compassion, humility and

love

My Objectives

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My ObjectivesMaintain a ‘can do’, positive outlook at all times and

enthuse and inspire the team by commutating passion for delivering the project vision and goals.

My default setting is to be a cheerleader over a critic and I

don’t let perfect get in my way.

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My Objectives


Foster the conditions for your team to get into and maintain a state of group flow

Does each team member exhibit these conditions to achieving group flow:• Know what to do (clear set of self and team goals) and how to do it • Confident that their perceived high skills can meet the perceived high challenge • Know how well they are doing (by others providing clear and immediate feedback)• Are free from distractions & can concentrate on the task• Feel in control while at the same time remaining flexible, listening closely, and always

being willing to defer to the emergent flow of the group• Are ‘deep listening’ to one another, exhibiting genuinely unplanned responses which

are “Yes, and…” so that ideas builds on each other.• Are constantly engaging in spontaneous conversations outside of structured meetings• Trust that genius will emerge from the group, not from any one member.

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My Objectives


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Foster the conditions for your team to get into and maintain a state of group flow

In group flow, each person’s idea builds on the ones that their partners just contributed.

Small ideas build together and and an innovation emerges

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My objectives Cultivate a culture of active, deep listening and open-

mindedness to each other’s ideas.

“Frankly, I had never thought of listening as an important subject by itself. But now that I am aware of it, I think that perhaps 80 percent of my

work depends on my listening to someone, or on someone else

listening to me.”18/04/2023


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In a self-organizing team the key to participatory leadership today is

influence, not authority.

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My ObjectivesUse your rational, social and emotional powers

of influence to direct teams towards optimal functional performance, shift mindsets and persuade

others.

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It all begins with self-awareness. What’s your dominant style? Do you assert, convince, negotiate, bridge or inspire?Asserting: you insist that your ideas are heard and you challenge the ideas

of othersConvincing: you put forward your ideas and offer logical, rational reasons to

convince others of your point of viewNegotiating: you look for win:win compromises and make concessions to

reach outcomes that satisfy your greater interestBridging: you build relationships and connect with others through listening

understanding and building coalitionsInspiring: you advocate your position and encourage others with a sense

of shared purpose and exciting possibilities

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My Objectives

Be highly adaptable to rapidly changing events & priorities and demonstrate your resilience by

remaining calm and composed in unexpected, high-pressure situations.

18/04/2023


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My Objectives


Guard the team from external influences/distractions, and coach them to be-assertive in guarding

themselves.

My Objectives

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Be sensitive to team dynamics and potential sources of dysfunction in the team such as:

My Objectives

• personality friction• self-serving behavior• people not willing to accountable • wandering commitment• interpersonal conflict• artificial harmony masking ideological, political

or personality based conflict• the fear of being vulnerable with team

members preventing the building of trust within the team


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My Objectives


Encourage a high-trust environment where team members feel comfortable with showing

vulnerability

My Objectives

• Build team trust by ‘modeling the way’: demonstrating your own vulnerabilities

• Acknowledge the value of all contributions equally• Challenge dysfunctional team behavior - Call your peers

on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the overall good of the team

• Ask difficult questions & ‘Out’ the elephant in the room • Encourage a high-trust environment where team

members who willingly admit to their mistakes, weaknesses or needs for help to each other are acknowledged and praised

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Ensure Daily Information Radiators up kept updated so by the Core Team so that performance is fully

transparent

My Objectives

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Encourage Holistic Integral Work/Life Balance so that sustainable pace is maintained to avoid team stress &

burn-out

My Objectives

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So We are joined at the hip

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Same Objective, Different FocusThe Product Owner & Scrum Master have differing focuses but work hand

in glove on towards their common goal: Deliver Maximum Value with a limited resources

Product OwnerMamises value through developing

‘Persona’ & ‘Epic(s)’, maintaining a

Prioritized Product Backlog. Supporting

the User Story creation process and

rejecting/accepting deliverables based

on the agreed Acceptance Criteria.

Scrum MasterMaximies the peformance of my CORE

Team – Quality, Efficiency,

empowerment, commitment &

collaboration so they have the skills

and the will to deliver and become a

self-organizing team and reach their

highest potential

Product Focused

Voice of the Customer

Build the Right Product

ccStakeholder Focused

Joint Team Collaboration

Core Team Focused50% Voice of the Team

Build the Product Right

Internally Focused

Joint Team Collaboration


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My objectives

Instead encourage the Product Owner to

promote joint teaming by facilitating

collaborative joint teaming by pairing up

stakeholders with scrum team members

in the joint effort of decomposing user

stories.

The Product Owner should generally speaking not be a

real business stakeholder but have skills in facilitating User Story decomposition. In other words a functional business

analyst.


Don't let the Product Ownder become an intermediary between stakeholders and the scrum team.

On the other hand avoid Proxy Product owners who have to

defer all their decision making to the real product owner.

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•(Legal/SM/PPO/CTO,CPS, CLegal, CPS,CIO) Fianalise contract terms (IN-PROGRESS)•(SM/PPO, CFFac, CPS) Agree A Co-location Stategy & Set Up A Core Scrum Team Room (TODO)•(CPS,PPO) Formulate & Articulate Project Vision (DONE)•(CPS, PPO,SM) Create Business Case & Benefits Realization Plan (DONE)•(CPS, SM, PPO) Identify & Map Key Stakeholders (IN-PROGRESS)•(CPS, SM, PPO, CFac) Form Collaborative Joint Team – ‘Half Day ‘Getting to know ice-breaker’ (TPTS)

•(SM, PPO, BA, UXRDT, CPS, KSH) Initial Persona(s) & EPICS Stakeholder Workshop -1 day offsite (TPTS)

•((PPO, SM,,BA, CPS, CFO, KSH) Value Based Prioritization to create a Prioritized Product Backlog

•(TA,UXRDT, DBA, PPO, DA&EAI,CPS,CTL) Priotiise & define standard for the Non-Functional Requirements {esp. Security/Availability/Extensibility/Flexibility/Maintainability/Performance/Capacoity (Load)/Scalability/Recovery) – HOW TO TEST? TO BE INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF DONE.

•(DA&EAI) Initial Identification of relevant data sources & data integration strategy•(TA,DA&EAI,DBA,DEV,PPO) Initial Hardware & Software Architecture Selection (SWOT Comparison) Notably which has the flexibility to evolve and scale over time & has lowest TCO

•(PPO, SM,DEV) Initial Release plan ‘guestimate’ of number of sprints ewquired to ewlease MVP 1.0

•(CPS, SM, PPO, DEV, KSH) Intial ‘Looking Ahead’ Risk Planning)

Rapid Start Initiation PhaseLEGAL, AGREE A CO-LOCATION STATEGY & SET UP A CORE SCRUM TEAM ROOM, USER RESEARCH & PERSONA CREATION, HIGH LEVEL SCOPING, MOSCOW PRIORITISATION & MMF RELEASE PLANNING, GUI OPTIONS DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE TESTING, DATA SOURCE ANALYSIS, DESIGN & INTRGTATION STRATEGY, PRIORITISATION OF NFRs, TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE SELECTION, RISK PLANNING WORKSHOP

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•(Legal/SM/PPO/CTO,CPS, CLegal, CPS,CIO) Fianalise contract terms (IN-PROGRESS)•(SM/PPO, CFFac, CPS) Agree A Co-location Stategy & Set Up A Core Scrum Team Room (TODO)•(CPS,PPO) Formulate & Articulate Project Vision (DONE)•(CPS, PPO,SM) Create Business Case & Benefits Realization Plan (DONE)•(CPS, SM, PPO) Identify & Map Key Stakeholders (IN-PROGRESS)•(CPS, SM, PPO, CFac) Form Collaborative Joint Team – ‘Half Day ‘Getting to know ice-breaker’ (TPTS)

•(SM, PPO, BA, UXRDT, CPS, KSH) Initial Persona(s) & EPICS Stakeholder Workshop -1 day offsite (TPTS)

•((PPO, SM,,BA, CPS, CFO, KSH) Value Based Prioritization to create a Prioritized Product Backlog

•(TA,UXRDT, DBA, PPO, DA&EAI,CPS,CTL) Priotiise & define standard for the Non-Functional Requirements {esp. Security/Availability/Extensibility/Flexibility/Maintainability/Performance/Capacoity (Load)/Scalability/Recovery) – HOW TO TEST? TO BE INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF DONE.

•(DA&EAI) Initial Identification of relevant data sources & data integration strategy•(TA,DA&EAI,DBA,DEV,PPO) Initial Hardware & Software Architecture Selection (SWOT Comparison) Notably which has the flexibility to evolve and scale over time & has lowest TCO

•(PPO, SM,DEV) Initial Release plan ‘guestimate’ of number of sprints ewquired to ewlease MMF 1.0

•(CPS, SM, PPO, DEV, KSH) Intial ‘Looking Ahead’ Risk Planning)

Rapid Start Initiation PhaseLEGAL, AGREE A CO-LOCATION STATEGY & SET UP A CORE SCRUM TEAM ROOM, USER RESEARCH & PERSONA CREATION, HIGH LEVEL SCOPING, MOSCOW PRIORITISATION & MMF RELEASE PLANNING, GUI OPTIONS DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE TESTING, DATA SOURCE ANALYSIS, DESIGN & INTRGTATION STRATEGY, PRIORITISATION OF NFRs, TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE SELECTION, RISK PLANNING WORKSHOP

TIME BOXED TO SIX WEEKS FROM

TOLDAY

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Use

Release PlanningThe number of sprints required to reach the Minimum Vialble Product will be

estimated in the Release Plan after the initial product prioritiztion

Sprint 0PreparationWho-What-When

Sprint 1Build

Sprint 2-YBuild

Spint XPre-Release

The Proxy Product Owner,& Business Stakeholders

Tehncial/Data/EAI Architects

Designesr/Deveopesr/Unit Testesr

UX Resarch, Design & Usability Test Planner/Tester

Functional Tester(s) ATDD

Decpompose User Stories for SP1

Implement HW & SW Architecture

Design, Develop & Unit Test SP2-Y User Stories

till DONE.Release MVP Product 1.0

Final Refactor, Regression Test and

PROD. Hardening

InitialRelease

Wireframes, user journeys & partilal site

map & U TEST

18/04/2023


User Stories for SP2

Review SP1

Output

Prepare Test Plans for SPRINT 1

Develop & Unit Test‘Steel Wire’

Design, Develop & Unit Test SP1 User Stories till

DONE.

Execute SP1 U TESTDevelop Specs & Usability Test for SP2

User Stories for SP3

Review SPY

Output

User Stories for SPZ

MMF Product Sign-Off

Review Architectural & NFR Compliance

Architectural & NFRCompliance

Sign-Off

UXSign-Off

UAT Sign-Off

Execute SP2 U TESTDevelop Specs & Usability Test for SP3

Test Plans for SP2

Execute SP1 Tests

Test Plans for SP3

Execute SP2 Tests

Review Architectural & NFR Compliance

Sprint 0 is a ‘practice’ Sprint where the architecture is tested with a ‘steel wire’ development that tests all the components of the architecture and the development

team get into the daily and weekly rhythm of the sprint iteration.

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Initial Requirement Gathering Workshop


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Personas - Epics – User Stories


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Create Epic(s) & Prioritized Product Backlog by value – cost factored by risk

Value-based Prioritization—This principle highlights the focus of Scrum to

deliver maximum business value, from early in the project and continuing

throughout.

Force Rank the User Stories within the MOSCOW categories

MOSCOW categorise the initial list of Epics focusing on the “Must Haves”

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Backlog Ordering over Backlog Prioritization by ROI alone

• The backlog represents the order in which the PBI’s will be implemented and generally speaking ROI is a pretty good indicator of value. However:– Benefits Realization Plans rarely go down to estimating the renenue-streams

of small User Stories– Often stories only add value when they are implemented together as part of

a functional theme.– Some stories will have time constraints embedded in them which will mean

they will only add value if released before a certain data.– There are internal dependencies between User Stories both from a

developer and user functionality perspective?– Wrt factoring in risk I operate by a very simple rule. Attack the high-risk

items before they attack me. This is counter to sprint backlog prioritization which often advocates picking the simplest task first.

– And there may be commercial pressures to deliver certain PBI’s by a certain date or I’ve seen prioritisation by personas


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• Break into small core Scrum Team and Business Stakeholder partnerships to decompose high priority EPICS into the smallest User Story using the INVEST Criteria.

The continuous process of User Story decomposition & distillation

• Don’t forget writing Acceptance criteria- the business rules of the fucntionality perhaps in partnership with the PO, BA or Functional test analysts.

• Communicate decomposed User Stories the the UX and Front End Developers so they can create wireframes of HTML prototypes which enable the User Stories.

• All new user stories to be inserted into the Product Backlog and prioritized by the PO in partnership with the Customer Project Sponsor

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What a User Story Is..

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• A user story describes new or changed functionality that will be valuable to an external stakeholder of a system or software. User stories are composed of three aspects:

• a written description of the story used for planning and as a reminder

• conversations about the story that serve to flesh out the details of the story

• tests that • convey and document the business rules, i.e.

Acceptance Criteria • that can be used to determine when a story is

complete, • and that are almost always automatable and

associated i.e. ATTD tool scripts.

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Acceptance CriteriaNote the importance of each story being accompanied by

acceptance criteria that define the business rules and limit the scope for interpretation (guessing) by the developers

and testers. They may be classed as functional, non-functional, (e.g. page load response time), or related to detecting and handling out-of-bounds error conditions.


The Given-When-Then formula is a template intended to guide the writing of acceptance tests for a User Story:(Given) some context(When) some action is carried out(Then) a particular set of observable consequences should obtain

ATDD tools such as Tools such as JBehave, RSpec or Cucumber encourage use of this template/

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What a User Story is not..,

18/04/2023


• “As a Developer…” Is Not a User Story• Meetings are not User Storie but can be tracked as tasks in your sprint

backlo• Tasks are not user stories but should remain in the sprint backlog –

mixing up User Stories and Tasks (calling them for instance Technical Stories) will mess up your Product Backlog and velocity as an indicator of value delivered.

• The goal of a system is to affect things outside the system and any task which enable that are really from a lean perspective ‘necessary waste”

• Other dev type tasks that are not directly related to delivering something of value to external stakeholders or users can be called “dev items” or “dev time”. Track these dev items totally separately from the Product Backlog, and let the dev team bring them into sprints as tasks as they so choose. They might be related to Infrastructure set-up, team tools maintenance, refactoring or a spike.

• Wherever possible set non-functional requirements as universal constraints in the DoD

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My objectives


• In the CCC technique we talk about the Card, the Conversation and then Confirmation in User Story definition.

• The process is Capture the need on a card and then have conversation with all the stakeholders, develop the story, and create a common vision, interest, and understanding.

• So we must focus on the conversation: invite customers to tell their stories about their challenges, actively listen, clarify and look for root causes.

• So we must focus more on the verbal conversation aspects of User Stories rather than focusing too much attention on “writing” User Stories. Perhaps have the Conversation First the then distill the need at the end by writing it down.

To facilitate conversation that matter about Stories. It’s the quality of the interaction through conversation between two or more minds, not the contents of a card that meets the INVEST criteria that determines if your user stories will be really valuable and compelling descriptions of new or changed functionality that will be valuable to an external stakeholder of a system or software

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Scrum Task Board TemplateCompany name

Stories To Do In Progress Testing Done

This is a sample text. Replace it with your own text.






This is a sample text.











This is a sample text. Replace it with your own.






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The Sprint Task Board


• A good Scrum Master can read the Sprint Task board and know how welll the team are performing:

• How many tasks have the User Stories been broken into?

• Depending where they are in the SPRINT how many of these tasks are/have moved towards DONE?

• Are the tasks being completed in the order of the SPRINT backlog priority?

• Are bugs associated with User Stories also created as tasks and being worked on in priority order to get as many high priority user stories to DONE as possible?

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Integrating UX Research, Design & Testing into your

SPRINT cycle• Conduct Initial User Quantitative and Qualitative User

Research during Initiation Phase to create segmented Personas

• Refine Personas/User Segmentation using analytics and real world end user usability testing during each sprint.

• Keep branding, look and feel flexible to change through CSS

• Deliver Wireframes, User Journeys and partial site maps before each sprint that support User Stories

• Work hand-in-glove with Front End Developers especially on communicating UI dynamics/interactivity


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How to integrate UX requirements in to product backlog

• Product Backlog;s contain a list of functional requirments which may not include UX considerations Futhermore UX work is frequently overlooked during the release and sprint planning.

• Teams often fail to measure the UX impact of their iterative efforts.

• For UX Requirements I like to use a UXI Matrix like that developed by Jon Innes. It has the benefits of:– Reduciced design effort by identifying duplicate User Stories– Facilitate collaboration between UXDesigners, Front-end and

middle tier developeors.– Track user involvement and other UX metrics– Review UX metrics during sprint retrospectives


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Frist add several UX-related data points to your user

stories:

18/04/2023


• Agendas and approaches to core SCRUM team meetings

Column Name Possible Values Description

Persona Persona’s name Identifies the persona a user story applies to

UX complexity

1 to 5 (or Fibonacci numbers if you’re into that sort of thing)

Estimates design effort separate from implementation effort

Story verified Y/NIs this story fiction or fact? Is it based on user research or customer input?

Design complete Y/N

Is the design coherent enough for development to be able to code it (or estimate how long it would take to code)?

Task completion rates 0 to 100%The percentage of users who have been observed to complete the story without any assistance.

Staffing Resource’s nameWho’s owns the design, at whatever level of fidelity is agreed to.

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Integrate UX into your backlog, sprint planning, tracking, review and

retrospective.

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• Agendas and approaches to core SCRUM team meetings

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Integrating UX Research, Design & Testing into your

SPRINT cycle

18/04/2023

Phil Long e: phil,[email protected] m: +447963 160 23018/04/2023

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Addendum A

Agendas and approaches to core SCRUM team meetings


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Backlog Refinement Workshop


Every sprint cycle we have (at least a 2 hour workshop at least once a week) workshop where we take the highest priority EPICS of the top of the Product Backlog and make sure they are broken down into the simplest possible User Story’s ready for the next SPRINT.

This work continues offline most often with the PPO, BA, Tester or Developer working with an SME stakeholder

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• Release Planning Is a process led by the PO to estimate the number of sprints it will take before the next production release based on a logical grouping of functionality by theme and business priorities

• It is a predicative estimate of schedule and thus increasing the range improves accuracy but loses precision.

• It is particularly difficult, but probably most business critical to get right for the initial release where the backlog contains mainly unsized EPICS and the velocity of the SCRUM Team is unknown to estimate the release date of the Minimum Viable Product.

• Because it is highly uncertain, especially at the initiating phase of a project: rather than trying the predict release dates I prefer release ordering: where batches of User Stories can be clubbed together to form a release package based on business priority. But will your business accept and order over a date?

Release Planning – or should that be release ordering

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Acceptance CriteriaNote the importance of each story being accompanied

by acceptance criteria that define the business rule and limit the scope for interpretation (guessing) by the

developers and testers: They can be functional, non-functional, system performance or out-of-bounds defect

handling


The Given-When-Then formula is a template intended to guide the writing of acceptance tests for a User Story:(Given) some context(When) some action is carried out(Then) a particular set of observable consequences should obtain

ATDD tools such as Tools such as JBehave, RSpec or Cucumber encourage use of this template

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• Mid Sprint collaborative meeting between Core Scrum Team & Stakeholders, jointly facilitated by the SM & the PPO

• Purpose is to decompose High Priority Product Backlog EPICs into their smallest possible User Stories which describe thin slices of system functionality that will deliver the User Story.

• The source of information for User Story Development may be augmented by web surveys, interviews and current e-channel products analytics.

• Break into small teams focusing on different EPICs• Define Acceptance Criteria for the User Story• Verify Against the INVEST criteria.• Core Team relatively size each User Story based on effort to

design/develop/test using blind-reveal & negotiate estimating

The Product Refinement WorkshopAt least 2 hour workshop but is a continuous process and may be augmented by the PO, BA, stakeholders SMEs, and indeed, in the

SCRUM collaborative environment anyone in the CORE Scrum team could find then selves slicing stories into their smallest vertical slices

continuously. Could be implemented as weekly or even daily scheduled ‘Story time’ workshops with the Product Owner.

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The Sprint Planning Meeting: Part 1User Story Understanding & Commitment (2

Hours)


• The top priority User Stories and associated Acceptance Criteria that would have already been sized during the ‘Storytime’ Backlog Refinement Meeting are communicated to the team by the PPO & BA(s) the the Core Development/Test Team

• Q & A to clarify functionality, reject User Stories that don’t meet the INVEST criteria & validate original size estimate

• SM, Sprint Dev & Test Team Commit to deliver a certain number of User Stories in the SPRINT based on Story Point Sizes and Team Velocity.

• A sprint goal is written collaboratively with the Product Owner - a short, one- or two-sentence, description of what the team plans to achieve during the sprint.

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The Sprint Planning Meeting: Part 2 Task Identification & Estimating (2 hours)


• Development/Test/UX Team break the User Stories down into Tasks, but do not bother wasting time trying to estimate effort and of these tasks: the important thing is to identify as many as possible and align the SPRINT backlog work schedule with the Prioritized Product Backlog.

• On average only 60% of sprint tasks are identified during the Planning meeting the rest are discovered daily during SPRINT execution.

• Developers select the tasks they are going to work on first in order of priority (where system dependencies allow).

• Functional Testers select the test scripts they will write first based on the User Story Priority & the Acceptance Criteria also serve as specifications for the development team.

• The UX specialist selects the wireframes, user journeys and partial site maps she is going to finalise first based on the same priority.

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Daily Standup (15-30mins)


• Each team member in turn briefs the team on:– What they did yesterday?– What they plan todo today?– What impediments are in their way?

• Promotes a shared vision of SPRINT goals • Shares the micro-decisions on task prioritization• Highlights inter-dependencies between team-member

tasks• SM Updates the Obstacles/Impediment log and may

schedule a facilitated obstacle removal workshop with a sub-set of the team.

• Developers make commitments in front of their peers.

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The Sprint Review


• Core Team Presents what if accomplished during the sprint.

• This take the form of a demo of new features and underlying architecture.

• Informal meeting in which all product stakeholders are encouraged to give feedback.

• Improvement suggestions are noted by the PPO for later prioritization the Product Backlog,

• Formal in that the PPO Accepts/Rejects each User Story in the SPRINT Backlog that reached a DONE state against the Acceptance Criteria.

• Invite the world!

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The Sprint Retrospective My general approach to Retrospectives is to mix it up: RCA Sprint KPIs, RCA

Sprint Problems, Ask the 3 simple question, Ask the 4 Retrospective Questions, Ask Why A lot,

AI, Discuss Team Dynamics & Surface Dysfunctional Team Behavior, Team Building

• Review Progress from previous retrospective improvement action plan• Safety Check – Levels of comfort• Level of Engagement – Explorer, Visitor, Holidaymaker, Prisoner• 3 simple questions - What should we start-stop-continue?• 4 key retrospective questions:

• What did we do well, that if we don’t discuss we might forget? • What did we learn?• What should we do differently next time?• What still puzzles us?

• Ask Why? A lot.• Conduct Root Cause Analysis on KPI’s or issues• Conduct Creative Solution Brainstorming – See Appendix B• Conduct Appreciative Inquiry• Use the Art of Focused Conversations, to breaks the analysis into steps: Objective,

reflective, interpretive, & finally decisional questions (ORID)• Ensure Dysfunctional Team Issues are aired and actions agreed• Decision on improvement actions come last and are summarized with owners and

target dates• Award ‘Team-Player of the SPRINT’ award for the person who embodied SCRUM

values the most (team cohesion oriented)• End with fun Team Building Game.

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End of Sprint KPI Analysis


Key End of Sprint KPI’s:• Team velocity - Number of story points done in a given

Sprint• Done success rate - Percentage of story points that have

been Done versus those committed at the Sprint Planning meeting.

• Estimation effectiveness - Number or percentage of deviations between estimated and actual time spent on tasks and User Stories

• Acceptance/Rejection Ratio – Number of deliverables accepted (meet Acceptance Criteria) vs those rejected.

• Earned Value Analysis – a complex but valuable measure of actual performance vs planned – appropriate where the value of user stories can be quantified.

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• Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of problems which are limiting team productivity or adversely affecting product quality, team commitment, morale, or stakeholder collaboration.

• First get the problem clear: what happened, when, where, why?

• Repeatedly ask: What was the reason? 4-7 levels deep, 2-5 root causes per effect. Cause & Effect Diagram/Fishbone Analysis.

• Brainstorm Solutions to common root causes.• Ask: How can it be can be prevented from

happening again in the future and/or how can we identify it earlier, and limit its impact when it happens again?

• Assign Actions, Owner and Target Date.

Root Cause Analysis


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Risk Management Workshop


Scrum defines risk as ‘uncertain event(s) that could positively or negatively affect the achievement of project objectives’. We adopt a 5 step RM model:1. Risk identification: Using various techniques to identify all

potential risks. using taxonomies, checklists, prompt lists based on typical software project issues.

2. Risk assessment: Evaluating and estimating the identified risks including probability, proximity and impact Including Expected Monetary Value Risk prioritization: Prioritizing risk to be included in the Prioritized Product Backlog.

3. Risk mitigation: Developing an appropriate strategy to deal with the risk. In most situations, responses are proactive or reactive. In the case of a risk, a costed contingency plan may be formulated, which can be used as reactive response a in case the risk materializes.

4. Risk communication: Communicating the findings from the first four steps to the appropriate stakeholders and determining their perception regarding the uncertain events.

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Addendum B

Example Brainstorming Process

18/04/2023 Phil Long e: phil,[email protected] m: +447963 160 230

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Example Group Creative Brainstorming Techniques

• Workshop bank: http://workshopbank.com/creative-problem-solving

• Mind Tools : http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html• Inc.com:

http://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/10-longtime-brainstorming-techniques-that-still-work.html

• Art of Hosting:http://www.artofhosting.org/what-is-aoh/methods/

• Centre for Appreciative Enquiry: http://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/more-on-ai/ the-generic-processes-of-appreciative-inquiry/

http://workshopbank.com/creative-problem-solving



http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html




http://www.artofhosting.org/what-is-aoh/methods/

http://www.artofhosting.org/what-is-aoh/methods/

http://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/more-on-ai/the-




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Addendum C

Stakeholder Engagement Process


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How to engage stakeholders?

• For each technology & business area affected:

• Identify: listing relevant groups, organizations, and people.

• Analyze: understand stakeholder perspectives, motivations influence and subject matter/domain knowledge expertise.

• Prioritise: ranking stakeholder relevance, selecting engagement level and core team key relationships.

• Engage & Commit: Seek a commitment of quality time from key stakeholders.


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Stakeholder Analysis


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Mapping StakeholdersSelection of Engagement

Approach• Partnership: Shared accountability and responsibility. Two-way

engagement joint learning, decision making and actions• Participation: Part of the team, engaged in delivering tasks or with

responsibility for a particular area/activity. Two-way engagement within limits of responsibility.

• Consultation:Involved, but not responsible and not necessarily able to influence outside of consultation boundaries.

Limited two-way engagement: core project team asks questions, stakeholders answer.

• Push communications: One-way engagement. Project may broadcast information to all stakeholders or target particular

stakeholder groups using various channels e.g. email, social-media, webcasts, podcasts etc

• Pull communications: One-way engagement. Information is made transparently available should stakeholder choose whether to engage with it.

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Addendum D

Typical Agile Web Development Team & their key relationship

with product stakeholders


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The Anatomy of a SCRUM Team

• Ideally favor ’Full-Stack’ developers that are not limited to only back-end, front-end or particular technology sets so they can share tasks, peer review and coach each other.

• A supporting cast of specialists can be brought in to review design, code, test outputs.

• Manage the cross-fertilization of knowledge within the team to build in redundancy.

• Encourage more junior staff to take up more challenging tasks with the mentoring of a more senior member of the team in order to develop skills.

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Anatomy of a Web Developer

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Scrum Master Phil Long

Kate WillsUX Research Design, & Usability Testing

Expert

Will ReeceAssistant BA

Proxy Product Owner Cayman Seacrest

Sally GreenFront-End

Web DeveloperMarco Davenport

Functional Acceptance Test Lead

Data PearlmanFunctional

Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer

Tim RearMiddle-Tier/Backend

Developer (PHP)

David DaviesBackend

Data-modeler &SQL Programmer

Typical Core Scrum Team (7 +or- 2)

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PPO & SM Joined at the Hip



Kate WillsUX Research Design, & Usability Testing

Expert




Web DeveloperMarco Davenport

Functional Acceptance Test Lead


Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)

David DaviesBackend


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Typical Core Team: Requirements



Kate WillsUX Research

Design, Usability Testing




Web Developer

Marco DavenportFunctional

Acceptance Test Lead


Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)

Researching, Gathering,

Analyzing UserRequirements:

Personas, Epics & User Stories

David DaviesBackend


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Typical Core Team: Front End Dev








Web Developer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer

Tim RearMiddle-Tier/Bacnd

Developer (PHP)

Dynamic User Interface Design & Development

Wireframes, User Journeys & Site Maps Build GUI with

HTML/CSS/JavaScript

David DaviesBackd


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Typical Core Team: App Logic Dev








Web Developer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)

User Stories define application logic.

David DaviesBackend


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Typical Core Team: Functional Testing








Web Developer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)

.

User StoryAcceptance

Criteria Define Accept Tests

(ATDD)

David DaviesBackend


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With Cross Team Supporting Cast



Kate WillsUX R&D Expert Will Reece

Assistant BA Proxy Product Owner

Cayman Seacrest


Web Developer

David DaviesDatabase Designer &

SQL Programmer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)

Paul SimmsData & EAIArchitect

Sarah PriceGraphic Designer Michael Crawley

Technical ArchitectAshish Dhoke

DBA/Data Storage Designer

Tom PriceSocial Media Expert

Jasmine CookWeb Analytics & SEO

OptimizationGuru

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Architect Cross Team Supporting Cast



Kate WillsUX R&D Expert Will Reece

Assistant BA Proxy Product Owner

Cayman Seacrest


Web Developer


SQL Programmer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)







OptimizationGuru

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UX Design Cross Team Supporting Cast



Kate WillsUX R&D Expert




Web Developer


SQL Programmer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)







OptimizationGuru

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Usability Testing With Cross Team Supporting Cast

18/04/2023



Kate WillsUX R&D Expert




Web Developer


SQL Programmer




Acceptance Tester

Ton LuFront-End

Web Developer


Developer (PHP)







OptimizationGuru

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ADDENDUM E

Developing a stronger a deeper Agile culture throughout an organisation

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I have developed Agile cultures in both my own and client organsations

and largely go along with the Agile Alliance

definition of Agile maturity in an organization as one

in which people:

My Objectives

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Adapt a catalyst style of leadership


They thrive by inspiring others without losing the cohesion within the entire system. Having the courage of your conviction is what ultimately leads to successful organizational transformation. It takes a lot of strength to practice Agile at the individual level during a period in which it is not practiced, and might not even be recognized, at other levels. This kind of strength is the acid test for the Agile leader & coach. In most Agile organizations leadership is decoupled from roles, such as “management” or “architect”. Following Bill Joiner’s definition, that leadership is “taking proactive action to change something for the better”, every member of an Agile organization is entitled and expected to be a leader and a strategist, at least from time to time”. The Agile coach can model the way by demonstrating and explaining how the development of a stronger and deeper Agile culture will benefit the organization.

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Understand the system as a whole


Understand that Organisations are Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) that can only be managed effectively by optimising all parts of the value chain from a holistic point of view. These organisations collaborate intensely across business functions to achieve a higher goal and actively fight “us-and-them” mentality and invest in mutual understanding. Again an agile coach I have had to challenge “us-and-them” behavior, set up cross-functional project teams and encouraged ‘brown-bag-lunch- session where everyone is invited the hear what another organisational unit does.

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Foster an open communication style


Agile organizations recognize that how we communicate is more important than what we communicate. Agile organizations are self-aware; they create and invest in communication cultures in which people collaborate and share. Agile organizations therefore have set up unstructured, multidirectional and open communication paths which enable them to excel in adapting to the unexpected

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Seek mastery in their respective skills


Members of Agile organizations take humble pride in their work and seek mastery in their skills, producing great value. Just as individuals challenge themselves, they challenge their colleagues to continuously grow and develop.The quest never ends; there is always a search for becoming better. This quest for growth in self and others is something I believe we all share but don’t always act.It is the Job of the Agile Coach the model the way and inspire others to adopt simple daily practices to develop their mastery of their functional skills as well as their universal soft skills such as ‘self-awareness’.

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Continuous learning from experiments

Any change in the organization is based upon continuous learning through successful and failing experiments. To do this, Agile organizations have removed the stigma around failure and turned it into a positive experience. Furthermore, the knowledge obtained through both success and failure is socialized so that the value is amplified to help move the team rapidly to the solution. As an Agile coach this is perhaps to hardest cultural trait to shift in an organisation that is characterised by command and control and zero tolerance of failure. They key is to get the leadership to realize that in today’s market thought leadership and innovation is the only way to differentiate and prevent your products and services from becoming commoditized.

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Governance that values long-term business value and adaptation

Governance is based on meaningful, long-term closed feedback loops leading to effective action. Governance evolves and adapts based on the environment in which it exists. I believe as an Agile coach with the traits of adaptability coupled with long-term benefits based work prioritization can influence the governance of an organization. But it can be challenging in a business world driven by quarterly VAR targets.(from Peter Senge’s Definition of a Learning Organisation).

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THANK YOU FOR YOU TIME

Contact me if you are in need of an excellent Scrum Master/Agile Coach in your organisation


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