TE

 
Half-­‐day  Tutorials  
Tuesday,  November  5th,  2019  8:30  AM  

Creating  a  High-­‐Performance  Agile  

Team  
Presented  by:  

Mary  Thorn  and Bob Galen

Vaco  

Brought  to  you  by:  

888-­‐-­‐ 268-­‐-­‐ 8770  ·∙·∙  904-­‐-­‐ 278-­‐-­‐ 0524  -­‐  [email protected]  

https://agiledevopseast.techwell.com/  
  

Bob  Galen  
 
Bob  Galen  is  an  agile  practitioner,  trainer  &  coach  based  in  Cary,  NC.  In  this  role,  he  
helps  guide  companies  and  teams  in  their  pragmatic  adoption  and  organizational  
shift  towards  Scrum  and  other  agile  methodologies  and  practices.  He  is  a  Principal  
Agile  Coach  at  Vaco  Agile,  a  leading  business  agility  transformation  company.  He  is  
also  President  and  Head  Coach  at  RGCG  a  boutique  agile  coaching  firm.  Bob  
regularly  speaks  at  international  conferences  and  professional  groups  on  topics  
related  to  software  development,  project  management,  software  testing,  and  team  
leadership.  He  is  a  Certified  Enterprise  Coach  (CEC),  CAL  I  trainer,  and  an  active  
member  of  the  Agile  &  Scrum  Alliances.  He’s  published  three  agile-­‐centric  books:    
Three  Pillars  of  Agile  Quality  and  Testing  in  2012,  Scrum  Product  Ownership,  3rd  
Edition  in  2019,  and  Agile  Reflections  in  2012.  He’s  also  a  prolific  writer,  blogger,  
and  podcaster.  Bob  may  be  reached  directly  at  [email protected]  or  networking  via  
LinkedIn  
 
 
 

Mary  Thorn  
 
During  her  more  than  twenty  years  of  experience  with  financial,  health  care,  and  
SaaS-­‐based  products,  Mary  Thorn  has  held  VP,  director,  and  manager-­‐level  positions  
in  various  software  development  organizations.  A  seasoned  leader  and  coach  in  
agile  and  testing  methodologies,  Mary  has  direct  experience  building  and  leading  
teams  through  large-­‐scale  agile  transformations.  Mary’s  expertise  is  a  combination  
of  agile  scaling,  agile  testing,  and  DevOps  that  her  clients  find  incredibly  valuable.  
She  is  also  chief  storyteller  of  the  book  The  Three  Pillars  of  Agile  Testing  and  
Quality  and  an  avid  keynote  and  conference  speaker  on  all  things  agile  and  agile  
testing.  
Creating a High-Performance
Agile Team

Bob Galen & Mary Thorn

Agile Coach & Agile Practice Lead
Vaco
 MARY THORN

Mary is the Agile Practice Lead at Vaco - Agile in Raleigh,

NC.

During her more than 20 years of experience with financial,

healthcare, and SaaS-based products, Mary has held VP,
Director, and Manager level positions in various software
development organizations.

A seasoned Leader and Coach in agile and testing

methodologies, Mary has direct experience building and
leading teams through large scale agile transformations.
Mary’s expertise is a combination of agile scaling, agile
MARY THORN testing, and DevOps that her clients find incredibly valuable.
[email protected]

She is also Chief storyteller of the book The Three Pillars

of Agile Testing and Quality, and avid keynote and
conference speaker on all things agile and agile testing.

2
Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC
 BOB GALEN

Principle Agile Coach at Vaco Agile in

Raleigh, NC
Agile Trainer & Coach at
RGalen CG

• Somewhere “north” of 30 years experience

• Wide variety of technical stacks and
business domains
• Roots of a software developer
• Senior/Executive software development
BOB GALEN leadership for 20+ years
[email protected] • Agile “Coach of Coaches” and Leaders
• Deep XP, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban
experience since late 1990’s
• From Cary, North Carolina; husband,
father, grandfather, and dog lover
3

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Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC
Agile Leadership & Coaching
PDF eBooks, free copies

https://leanpub.com/agilereflections https://leanpub.com/agilereflections
foragileleaders foragilecoaches

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 4

First, let’s explore…

n What are the basics of “Agility”

n What would be indicators (patterns) of Agile maturity?

n What about Agile immaturity?

n Let’s rank order some of them; I.e. what do you think are the more
impactful patterns in either direction?

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“Doing” Agile vs.
“Being” Agile?
n One debate in the agile community surrounds agile maturity. A way
of characterizing it surrounds
q Doing Agile – focusing towards is tactics, ceremonies, and techniques
vs.
q Being Agile – focusing towards team mindset, leadership mindset,
behaviors, organizational adoption, etc.

n As an entry exercise, can we brainstorm aspects of Doing vs. Being

to capture how you view the differences?

n The Mature Patterns workshops sort of crosses both, with an

emphasis towards the Being-side of the equation.

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Outline
Maturity Patterns

1. Truly Emergent Architecture 14. Product Ownership takes a Village

2. Aggressive Refactoring 15. Pervasive Product Owners
3. Pursue Ruthless KISS 16. The Nuance of a Healthy Backlog
4. Behaving Like a Team
17. Righteous Retrospectives
5. Naturally Becoming: T-Shaped
18. Experimentation
6. Truly Collaborative Work
7. Lean Work Queues 19. The Power of Complete
Transparency
8. Opportunistic Pairing &
Swarming 20. Doing More than Thought
9. Healthy Distributed Teams Possible
10. Quality on ALL Fronts 21. Emphasize Strength-Based
11. Testing is Everyone’s Job Teams
12. Active Done-Ness 22. Show a Healthy Respect for
Management
13. Stopping the Line

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For each pattern…
workshop discussions
n For sets or groups of patterns, we’ll pause and discuss the patterns
in small groups

n Looking for examples where you’ve seen the pattern in operation

and have a story to tell
OR
n Examples where you’ve seen related anti-patterns in operation and
have a counter-story to tell

n Either way, we’ll be looking for group-based discussion around the

ways and means of achieving agile maturity

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Technical Patterns

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#1) Truly Emergent Architecture

n Comfortable with on-the-fly

de-composition;
q no BDUF!

n Sprint #0’s as appropriate

n Backlogs contain learning n Architects work in “slices”

activity – Research Spike q Perhaps ‘skewed’ a bit forward from
stories other teams
q Deliver architecture from within the
n Should demonstrate Scrum teams
architectural evolution in q Publish system metaphors,
Sprint Reviews guidelines, big picture views – to
keep everyone focused on goals

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#2) Aggressive Refactoring
n It’s easy to refactor on new
work or greenfield project…so
clearly do that.
q But what about hairy, old,
fragile code?

n Aggressive refactoring

n Put it on your Backlogs

q Justify / explain it in business
terms

n Remember the relationship to

automation – making
refactoring effective & Fear-
Less

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#3) Ruthless KISS

n Getting LEAN deep into your

cultural DNA
q Fight complexity
q People & Collaboration over
Process & Tools
q Fight Gold-plating developing
(Just Enough) of
EVERYTHING!

n Deliver small increments (Just

in Time) and pay attention to
feedback

n Continuously engage your

Product Owner

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#4) Naturally Becoming: T-Shaped

n Core skills and shared skills

q Inquisitive breadth
q X-Training

n All skills are fair game:

q Development
q Testing
q Design & Architecture
q Non-functional (performance,
security)

n Breadth and depth; no

trivialization of any skill (ex:
testing)
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Breakout – Technical Patterns

n Individually, in small groups, or at your table

n Pull together a 3-5 item short list of what YOU believe the KEY
maturity patterns are in this area.

n Perhaps identify things I missed?

n Discuss the WHY behind your decisions. Be ready to explain or

defend your thinking

n Privately, do a “gap analysis” for your teams back home. What

would be 1-2 actions you could suggest/influence to increase team
level maturity?

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Teaming

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#5) Behaving Like a Team

n Includes the Scrum Master and

Product Owner

n Developing trust
q Congruent feedback
q Getting the “Elephants” on the
table
q Asking for help; helping each
other
n Strengths & weaknesses;
n Spending personal time adjust to each; maximizing &
together minimizing

n Passionate debate; Healthy n Succeeding or failing – as a

conflict team

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 #6) Truly Collaborative Work

n Co-located teams

n Avoiding Scrummerfall-like
dynamics
q Stages and gates within the
team
q Long queues with hand-offs

n Listening to each other;

mutual respect, honor
experience

n Caves & Commons

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#7) Lean Work Queues

n Limiting WIP
q Fewer things “in process” and
small tasks
q Visible workflow
q Kanban is interesting variant of
the ‘correct’ team behavior

n Blending roles – individuals

doing more themselves and
handing off less
q Focusing on delivering value

n Think in terms of reducing &

eliminating WASTE

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#8) Opportunistic Pairing & Swarming

n Mob programming
q Minimally trying it as an
experiment

n Opportunistic Pairing
q Dev-to-Dev, Test-to-Test,
Everyone

n 3-Amigo behavior surrounding

the work (stories)
q Story lead
q Shepherding a story to ”Done”

n Everyone participates in the

Sprint Review/Demo
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#9) Healthy Distributed Teams

n It’s not an excuse for bad

behavior
q Overcome the challenges
n Keep the ceremonies active
and engaged
n Whole team engagement
n Product Owner is well-
connected to the team; active
refinement
n Same “rules”
n If you video recorded any
“activity”, it would look the
same as a co-located team

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Breakout – Teaming Patterns

n Individually, in small groups, or at your table

n Pull together a 3-5 item short list of what YOU believe the KEY
maturity patterns are in this area.

n Perhaps identify things I missed?

n Discuss the WHY behind your decisions. Be ready to explain or

defend your thinking

n Privately, do a “gap analysis” for your teams back home. What

would be 1-2 actions you could suggest/influence to increase team
level maturity?

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 21

Quality & Testing

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#10) Quality on ALL Fronts
n Leaving behind the notion of
“Testing in quality…”

n Professionalism within the team

q Doing the right things…doing
things right

n Self-inspecting; self-policing
n Just enough quality
q Quality has a cost and should
be variable based on your
context

n Focus on Craftsmanship and

Professionalism

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#11) Testing is Everyone’s Job
n Willingness on the part of the
whole-team to pitch in for
testing
q All types, even manual
q Extending it to test automation
q Never letting tests break
q Building in testability

n Listening to test estimates as

part of work estimation

n Understanding functional and

non-functional testing

n Root Cause Analysis as a team

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#12) Active Done-Ness; Readiness
n Actively create and automate
Acceptance Tests on a Story or
a Feature basis
q Customer heavily involved with
definition
q Not functional tests

n Have established a view to

multiple levels of Done-Ness
q Work - Done
q Story Acceptance
q Sprint Goals
q Release Criteria & Goals

n Think in terms of traditional

Entry, Exit, and Release criteria

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DoD – another view
Release:
• All agreed sprints
Sprint: done
• Integration tested /
• End date met hardened
• Stories demo’d • Documentation
• UAT complete “tested”
Story: • Retro held and • Install packages
• AC met documented complete
• All agreed tasks • Product backlog • Release notes
done updated • Marketing collateral
• Functionally tested • Exploratory • Regression test suite
/ auto test built testing done complete
• Performance
Task: • All known bugs
(etc.) tested
• Security testing
fixed • PO sign-off
• Implemented • CI success, • Regression suite
• Unit Tested including DB / updated and
• Code commented config updates verified
• Code peer reviewed • Smoke-tested • All bugs closed or
• In source trunk • Integration tested postponed
• In CI build • Tracked • Installation works
• Coverage met • Documented for • Documented for
user view tech. view
• Standards met
• Tracked
• Other metrics?

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#13) Stopping the Line!

n Fix your bugs

q Ruthless testing; immediate
testing; immediate feedback
q Less logging more fixing

n Build is broken ?
q Fix it!
n Need automation for a key area?
q Build it!
n Need to refactor ugly legacy code
that is bug infested?
q Refactor it!
n Key impediments to your team?
q Resolve them!

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Breakout – Quality & Testing Patterns

n Individually, in small groups, or at your table

n Pull together a 3-5 item short list of what YOU believe the KEY
maturity patterns are in this area.

n Perhaps identify things I missed?

n Discuss the WHY behind your decisions. Be ready to explain or

defend your thinking

n Privately, do a “gap analysis” for your teams back home. What

would be 1-2 actions you could suggest/influence to increase team
level maturity?

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Product

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#14) Product Ownership takes a Village

n Fostering an environment
where the entire team ‘owns’
the Product Backlog
q Freely contributes User Stories
q Passionate debate on priority,
themes, and release goals

n Shared—
q Vision & Goals
q Business Values
q Technical direction

n Functional, Technical, and

Product ‘voices’

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#15) Pervasive Product (Customer) Owners

n Can be a ‘team’, but needs a

unified decision-maker
q Organizationally ‘sticky’
decisions

n Engaged as a team member

n Outwardly focused toward the

market & stakeholder demands
q Advocate for the team

n Engage the customer and

stakeholders
www.leadingagile.com
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#16) The Nuance of a Healthy Backlog

n Considering it a tapestry of
work that is considered in turn:
q Architecture & design
q Quality & Test Automation
q Technical debt, Infrastructure
q Bugs
q Innovation & creativity

n As well, planning
q Feature workflow & value
q Dependencies & risk
q Ultimately deployment
n You’re never “done” refinement

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#17) Experimentation

n Open minded to trying out new

ideas
q In design, in code, in testing
q In process & teamwork
q In the product, with the
customer
n ALL ideas get heard
n Willing to:
q Take risks, fail, make mistakes
n Hypothesis
n All the while…Learning!
Pivoting! T-Shaped Curiosity
Continuous Learning
Community of Practice - Sharing

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Breakout – Product Patterns

n Individually, in small groups, or at your table

n Pull together a 3-5 item short list of what YOU believe the KEY
maturity patterns are in this area.

n Perhaps identify things I missed?

n Discuss the WHY behind your decisions. Be ready to explain or

defend your thinking

n Privately, do a “gap analysis” for your teams back home. What

would be 1-2 actions you could suggest/influence to increase team
level maturity?

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 34

Organizational

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#18) Righteous Retrospectives
n For the team!
n Remember Norm Kerth’s
“Prime Directive”:
q Everyone tried their best
q Safe environment

n Drives “Continuous
Improvement”
q Challenge one other!

n Get the “Elephants” out in the

open

n Be creative – try new things;

take some risks

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#19) The Power of Complete Transparency
n Opening up your stand-ups &
Sprint Planning to everyone
q Even sales folks and customers

n Rampant Information Radiators

n Tell it like it is
q Congruent truth-telling
q Courage
q Success or Failure

n Expect organizational
engagement – questions, n It is what it is…now how do we
suggestions, trade-offs towards ADJUST towards our GOALS
core goals

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#20) Doing More than Thought Possible

n Stretch goals within Sprints

n Creative
q solutions – not simply following
the Story or Task lists
q exploring alternatives with
Product Owner
q The Wisdom of Crowds

n Iterations that lead towards…

“Good Enough”
n Supporting – Slack Time
q Innovation Time
n Fighting Parkinson’s Law and
q Creativity thinking
Student Syndrome
q Experimentation

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#21) Strength-Based Teams
n Individuals focus on what they’re
good at; inspires joy
q While still ‘stretching’ themselves

n Notion of Appreciative Inquiry

leveraged in retrospectives
q And continuous improvement

n Team-building - interview for

complimentary strengths

n At scale, consider strengths

q When Release Planning – loading
work
q Load-balancing teams by skill-set

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#22) Healthy Respect for Management

n Avoid blaming everything on n Leaders are allowed to:

leadership or management q Establish Mission & Vision
q Stop expecting management to q Establish and hold teams to
solve all of your challenges their Goals
q Stop “looking upward” or q Ask questions, be inquisitive
“asking for permission” q Hold teams accountable to their
n No marginalization! It’s a commitments
partnership between q Seek continuous improvement
q Servant Leadership and q Expect and receive results
q Self-directed teams

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 40

Breakout – Organizational Patterns

n Individually, in small groups, or at your table

n Pull together a 3-5 item short list of what YOU believe the KEY
maturity patterns are in this area.

n Perhaps identify things I missed?

n Discuss the WHY behind your decisions. Be ready to explain or

defend your thinking

n Privately, do a “gap analysis” for your teams back home. What

would be 1-2 actions you could suggest/influence to increase team
level maturity?

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 41

Workshop
Wrap-up
n Overall, what were the MOST
compelling patterns?

n What KEY patterns did I miss?

n Final questions or discussion?

Thank you!

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 42

Contact Info Bob Galen
President,
RGCG

Experience-driven agile focused

training, coaching & consulting

Cell: (919) 272-0719

[email protected] www.rgalen.com
@bobgalen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobgalen

Podcast on all things ‘agile’ -

http://www.meta-cast.com/

Copyright © 2019 RGCG, LLC 43

Kanban Pizza Game
Part-1

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44
Kanban Pizza Game
Materials
n Break up into teams of from 4-6 individuals
n Get your materials:
n Post-Its in three colors: yellow (pineapple), pink (ham*) and green (rucola i.e. rocket
salad)
n Index cards (white or yellow or some other light color so that you can draw tomato
sauce on them)
n Red markers
n Glue or transparent tape (to make the Post-Its stick better)
n Masking tape (aka. painter's tape)
n Scissors (one small + one large per team)
n Stopwatch
n Order cards - one set per team
n Oven plate - one per team
n The Kanban Pizza Game slides

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45
Kanban Pizza Game
Objective
n Make as many pizza’s as you can in the allotted time
q I will keep time and stop you at some point; I will also keep counts for
each team/round

q Round one – make Pizza (1 kind – Hawaiian)

n Kanban
q Round two – develop Kanban board, make Pizza (1 kind)
n Improve & modify system
q Round three – customer orders, 2 styles of Pizza Hawaiian and Rocket
Salad)
n Improve system
q Round four – final round, fine-tune the system
q Visualize the process on the tables; then debrief as a group

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Kanban Pizza Game
Rules
n Pizza composed of crust,
sauce, toppings,
n Up to 3 slices in the oven at
once, 30 seconds minimal
cook time
q No adding / removing slice
while cooking
n Hawaiian style: 3 pieces of
Pineapple, 3 pieces of Ham

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Kanban Pizza Game
Scoring

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Kanban Pizza Game
Table Setup, Round 2-4

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Kanban Pizza Game
Table Setup

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Kanban Pizza Game

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