Leading Scrum TeamsAgile Success Tour – Minneapolis MN

“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than theScience of Management says is possible” – Collin Powell

Luis Eduardo Colón (lcolon@cds-global.com) Director of R&D - CDS Global US

About…

2400 employees All countries have a local IT Division

US IT Division: 240 people About 90 operations, 150 development Agile Alumni (as of Jan 2011)

▪ 7 scrum teams, 45 CSMs, 30 CSPOs▪ 20 trained Agile Managers

Research & Development Groups▪ Doing scrum since 2008

Dedicated Product & Project Management Many PMI certified PMs

We manage in excess of 138 million active subscribers for 460 publishers and product clients in the US, CA, UK and Australia

Why Agile?

For your business… More products out, more quickly Quality baked in Build trust with business teams Showcase your use of best

practices It helps you avoid…

Everything becoming a big project IT getting in the way of progress Technical debt

For your people… Developer quality of life

▪ They pull their own work▪ Better communication (devs, PO)▪ Sustainable pace▪ Addresses their fears, like unfair

deadlines Manager quality of life

▪ All the above, plus..▪ Self-directed teams▪ More of a leader, less of a

manager

Dogfooding

What I did to become an Agile manager:1. Became a CSM with the team

2. Learned how the team did SM

3. Became a CSPO

4. Mentored and coached others to be better PO’s

5. Focused on being an Agile manager, and NOT being either an SM or PO

6. Now: helping others be better managers

What not to do…

An agile manager leads people, does not direct them▪ You don’t tell them how to do their jobs▪ Don’t manage tasks (the SM does that), or assign them (the

team does that)▪ Don’t decide what to do or what should be the priority (the PO

does that) Never make promises on behalf of your team

▪ They make the commitments, and decide how to make them You don’t hire (or change the team) quickly, or fire

slowly

Results

1. 50 sprints, 100 weeks, have never missed a commitment

2. Code coverage: 96% or higher (LAMP stack)

3. Can do everything with open source development tools

4. Even for teams without CI, testing down from 40% of the work to 20%

Lessons Learned (1/2)

Best ways to support teams Provide Air Cover Remove Impediments

Don’t be the SM or PO A “Jack of all trades” never masters a single trade

It is NOT Pure Agile if you don’t have CI Automated tests, builds, regression If you can’t…10% automated coverage in critical modules is

better than zero

Lessons Learned (2/2)

Naysayer Patterns… But my team is too small But we have a help desk / SLA We have a cross-product pooled team Its just the hot thing now, I’ll wait for the next…

There’s always something to improve… Learn from others Improve individual skills Get a better direction, more focus on the value

Self fulfilling prophecy… If you believe it will work, it will If you believe it will fail, it will

Thank You :)

“Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. […] Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that future, and inspires them to make it happen despite obstacles.” – John Kotter

Luis Eduardo Colón (lcolon@cds-global.com) Director of R&D - CDS Global US