agile practices from a standing start

Agile practices from a standing startHow do we get agile engineering practices into a team?

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forming agile teamswhat do you look for in a team as a manager, as an agile team member and as a customer


forming agile team has different, often conflicting objectives,

depending on your point of view


“A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.”

Michael WinnerBritish Writer and Film Director


"What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis."

W. Edward Deming


characteristics of an agile team

• cross-functional • 7±2 people• co-located


poll how many agile teams meet the scrum characteristics?


cross-functional teamsthe team includes all the skills necessary to deliver the end product (from concept to cash)


every team will have its specialists working together to

deliver an end product


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scaling - too many people or too big a product

sometimes you can’t because of:



different technologies, products, backlogs





limited availability of specialists, e.g. architect





limited availability of specialists, e.g. architect

then you need to1. manage

dependencies2. create

knowledge



specialists exist on the team, but every team member pitches in

to help when necessary


a result of self-organization, not cross-functionality


optimum (agile) team size is 7±2 people

The Ringelmann effect refers to a combination of social loafing and coordination losses


the Ringelmann effect

The more people Ringelmann added to a group, the greater the decline in personal effort. Three people pulled at only 2.5x the average individual effort, and eight people pulled at a force equal to the combined individual effort of only four people.


social loafing (and coordination losses)

increase with team size


the perfect size is...


co-located vs. virtualmany aspects of distributed teams are still unclear


global market in labourmeans distributed or virtual teams are here to stay in many businesses today


many agile practices work just great with distributed teams


agile practices support distributed teams

“Teams in which leaders periodically gathered information about others and revealed information about themselves performed better than teams in which members did not do this.”

Suzanne WeisbandAssociate Professor


significant risk factors for virtual teams

• Insufficient knowledge transfer• Lack of project team cohesion• Cultural or language differences• Inadequate technical resources,

i.e. hardware, processing availability

• Resource inexperience with company and its processes

• Loss of key resource(s) that impact the project

• Hidden agendas impact the project

Project Risk Differences BetweenVirtual and Co-Located Teams, Reed & Night


emerging agile practices from a standing start


drive collaboration across the team



done means coded and tested



done means coded and testedlimit WIP (the number of open stories)



done means coded and testedlimit WIP (the number of open stories)build habit of predictable delivery


capture learnings in definition of done





always keep a future-state DoD on the table




always keep a future-state DoD on the tableuse retrospective to tighten DoD often




always keep a future-state DoD on the tableuse retrospective to tighten DoD oftenautomate compliance with DoD if possible


search out champions and enthusiasts







challenge and remind team of desired state





challenge and remind team of desired statewatch for signs of interest across team





challenge and remind team of desired statewatch for signs of interest across teamgive credit for success, accept blame for failure


create pilots owned by the team





automate user interface testing through macros

quick to set up, brutal to maintain but plants the seeds of benefit very fast


support manual testers with automation

once developers are dragged into manual testing, test automation appears quickly


implementation of CI and static code analysis

get basic CI in place immediately an automated test is ready


automate acceptance tests for BDD

help developers own step definitions so that testers can provide tests prior to coding


refactoring legacy code touched by new stories

add to definition of done and give plenty of visibility to any and all examples, however small


thank you

[email protected]: dave.sharrockfollow us on: @agile42

follow me on: @davesharrock

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

Henry Ford


Dave Sharrock

email: [email protected]: @davesharrockskype: dave.sharrock

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