An Agile view from a Agile Program Manager and a Agile ExpertBy Pritam (George) Seehra and Carl Bruiners

The Agile team and “the management”

• Grumpy check: Agile teams don’t always know best

• Is a Agile Program Manager an Oxymoron?• Does an Agile team need a manager?• What purposes do I have in life as a program manager?• Defining the role of a Agile Program Manager;

• Removes organisational impediments• Getting the right team ingredients • Gives direction to the team – including practices, tools, etc…• Political guidance for the teams• Has the ability to ‘Stop the line’• Relationship management between the business interfaces and the team• Management of the reporting overhead

• Creates the environment for self driven teams• Why do I need a manager if I have a coach? Or why do I need a coach if I have

a manager?

Scrum Masters – Getting them and keeping them

• Grumpy check: Show me the money - supply and demand• Grumpy check: Scrum Master should not be the manager• Grumpy check: Good Scrum Masters are hard to find

• The goal of a good Scrum Master should be to make themselves redundant• Good Scrum Masters don’t ‘just do Scrum’• The makeup of a Scrum Masters falls into two camps: Those who take on the

challenging roles and those who take on the coasting roles• Evolution of existing team members• Scrum master demands greatly vary depending upon cultural influences• A Scrum Master should act as a bridge between the Agile Program Manager

and the team• Allow the Scrum Master to make continuous improvements with the team• Encourage a Scrum master to coach, its not all about turning the handle• When to be a leader and when to coach and when to be a referee• Project managers don’t automatically make good Scrum Masters. Prince 2

practitioners with Scrum Master certification does not automatically have the making a good Scrum Master

Are all Agile teams made equal?

• Grumpy check: Plodders, lots of teams carry them

• Can they be equal? No! do not strive to make your teams equal, this will only lead to disappointment. British Leyland and Google are not equal

• Play to the strengths of your unique team makeup• Team structure should be able to morph into various shapes as required • Developers cannot be testers and testers cannot be developers• Do not compare team velocities, no two teams can have the same velocity • What do we mean by a high performing team ? Self driven ?• Team commitment – Are they really committed? Do they feel like genuine

owners?• Why do I want individual team members to be customer / product focussed?• Grumpy Trap: Clearly define ownership – The lure of product destiny• Team empowerment – Do it genuinely or don’t do it at all• How do Teams handle constraints on their destiny

The Continuous Integration glue

• Grumpy check: Cultural changes often make your team grumpy!

• Social team capital increased by increased build transparency

• Improvement in team responsiveness• Breaking the build is not allowed – The Microsoft story• Fixing the build is paramount – swarm if needed• Unit tests on legacy products…..why bother ?• Engine for culture change • Behaviour changing - from a developer into an engineer

‘Social capital is a sociological concept which refers to the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results.’

Developer Engineer

1. One that develops2. A person who develops real estate, especially by preparing a site for residential or commercial use.

1. Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes.