Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.Copyright 2010
SkillsMatter June 16, 2010
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
My experience comes …As a QA Manager, Tester, Coach
Working on agile teamsCoaching and training
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1. What is Agile? (one slide)
2. What is organizational culture?
3. Why is culture important?
4. Sustaining agile across the organization
5. Sustaining agile within the team
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• A set of principles rather than a particular model
o Priority is customer satisfaction
o Delivery of valuable software, frequently
o Welcome changing requirements
o Continual collaboration and feedback
o Supportive environment
o Continuous improvement
o Simplicity
o Technical excellence
Source: www.agilemanifesto.org
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
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• Defined by itso Values
o Norms
o Assumptions
• Social System
• Collective Beliefs
• Visible Artifactso Icons
o Rituals
o Vocabulary
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• Leadership
• Design of an organization
• Decision making process
• Sub-cultures
• History of an organization
• Personal values
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• What is visible?
• Individual contribution
• Rewards and recognition
• Customer focused?
• Reactive vs.. responsive?
• Is it a learning organization
• Values, beliefs, mission statements
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• Top-down communication channels
• Extensive meetings
• Structured project management practices
• Micro-management practices
• Office layout
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It’s relatively simple for one team to adapt to agile, make the values’ their own, and follow the principles.
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1. How to spread the existing development agile culture to the rest of the organization?
2. How to sustain the agile culture within the development team?
Two aspects …..
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• Q1: How to spread the
existing development agile
culture to the rest of the
organization?
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1. Lack of executive sponsorship
2. Dysfunction at the management level
3. Heavy processes in place
4. Outside influences
5. Balance of pressures
6. Deadlines
Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lincioni
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
• Understand the agile principles
• Support your teams
• Don’t break up the band .....
• Think what problem you are trying to solve◦ Reports? Metrics?
◦ Audits
◦ Quality Models
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Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
• Team expresses courage◦ They say no to the stakeholder for the overall
benefit of the product
• Team’s declared velocity is less than you would like
• Team asks for help when they are trying to improve
• Team looks for simplicity
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17Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.
Q2. How to sustain the agile culture
within the development
team?
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1. Misunderstandings
2. Sustainable pace
3. Too much collaboration
4. Boring ….
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• Reinforce values, practices
• Swap team members with other teams
• Pair only ‘x’ hours a day
• Spikes
• Gold card
• Investigation of tool upgrades
• Recognition
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• Retrospectives
• Education
• Understanding of Metrics◦ What you are trying to measure & why
• Business Vocabulary – visit client sites
• Change Agents
• Questioning techniques
Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc.
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1. There is no silver bullet
2. It takes perseverance to change, but more to sustain
3. Organizational culture has a impact on the survival of agile team
Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.
And always, strive for quality!
photoshd.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/13/
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• Lean Software Development, (all 3 books), Mary & Tom Poppendieck
• Succeeding with Agile, Addison Wesley 2009, Mike Cohn
Copyright 2010 DragonFire Inc. 24
Now Available
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
www.agiletester.ca
My contact info
www.janetgregory.ca
http://janetgregory.blogspot.com/
Credit: Max F Williams – flickr.com
Questions…