Agile Retrospectives

Is Agile solving more problems than it is creating?

Chris Pratt and Laurence Wood, 10th October 2012

Introduction – Chris Pratt

• 9 years IT Project Management

• Registered PRINCE2® Practitioner also trained in DSDM

• After completing his BSc (Hons) in Bio Science, Chris spent6 years in project management at Ventura in Leeds

• Having learned a great deal about project management infinancial services, telecoms and outsourcing Chris movedto Callcredit in November 2010

• He has been using DSDM for almost a year and is heavilyinvolved in supporting the move to DSDM at Callcredit

• Lead one of two DSDM pilots at CIG

• Chris is now running his third agile project

Introduction – Laurence Wood

• Discovered ‘Just In Time’ and Kanban as an apprentice atJaguar Cars in 1988. Supervised V12 engine and XJ vehicle trim.

• Jaguar sent him to The University of Birmingham to studyManufacturing Engineering with Management and Robotics.

• Ford’s takeover prompted a move to IT as RAD (RapidApplication Development) programmer at Marks and Spencer.

• Freelance RAD team lead roles followed in South Africa,Austria and UK including Coca Cola, and South African Airways.

• He was then PM at Serco and Divisional Head of IT in the City.

• Now Agile Programme Manager at Leeds’ rapidly growingCallcredit, a key part of their move to Agile since late 2011.

• PRINCE2 and MSP Practitioner also trained in RAD and DSDM.

About Callcredit

• Callcredit Information Group (CIG)

• Expert in the fields of credit referencing, marketing services, consumer information, interactive solutions and consultative analytics

• Based in Leeds

• Serve UK’s leading businesses - financial services, utilities, retail, gaming and public sector

• Increased profits year on year

• 219 staff in 2004

• 900 in 2012

• About Noddle

• Most of our activity is B2B but......

• Noddle is our new consumer offering that you may recognise.........

Today we will...

• Overview Callcredit’s agile journey so far

• Demonstrate a simple but effective format for a retrospective

• Show how we have continually reviewed our teams’ views on the method

• Revisit our original hypothesis using actual data

• Share the key lessons from our first year of agile

• Questions

Background /Callcredit Agile Maturity

• Jan 2008 – Various ‘informal’ agile activities within IT

• Nov 2011 – Formalised agile using two DSDM Atern pilots

• Dec 2011 - External DSDM training commenced for all team members

• Feb 2012 – PMO setup to help projects follow the methodology

• Jun 2012 – CIG opens Lithuania office including development

• Sep 2012 – Two of four programmes (>20 projects) using DSDM

• Oct 2012 – Ready to share findings using real outputs of retrospectives

What is a retrospective?

• A regular session for the whole team to review progress together

• At the end of each 2 week time box (sprint)

• Feeds immediately into planning the next time box

Why we have been doing retrospectives

• Share everybody’s thoughts, both positive and negative• About the latest time box

• About the success of the method

• To make us share and react to concerns regularly

• Helps us to make the next time box better than the last

• Encourages open discussion across our team

• Because open discussion has proved good for morale

• People tell us they like it

• To provide one place for moaning!

• Asking staff about the effectiveness of agile helps them to adopt it

How we do retrospectives

• At the end of every time box

• Quick and simple (45 minutes)

• Ask everybody• What went well (need to do more of next time)

• What did not go well (need to avoid next time)

• Each individual writes 2 positive points first (Closed)

• Thoughts then shared with whole group (Open)

• Group similar items – identify common themes

• Repeat with 2 negative points • order is deliberate, reduces overrun

• Agree which items we can attribute to the method to give us metrics• (Is it solving more problems than it is creating?)

• Agree what we will feed into the next time box

Olympic retrospective.....(will not include a retro of the method).....

Olympic lessons

• Key themes from our Olympic retro?

• Lessons for our next time box – or advice for Rio?

• But what have Callcredit’s retrospectives shown

• And what did our continual retro of the method uncover?...

Common themes in our retros

Positive

• Method encourages teamwork

• The Kanban boards provide clear progress updates

• Method highlights blockers earlier in the process

• Morale in the project teams has increased (shown in a survey)

• Continuous delivery drives up quality

Negative

• Velocity not on track

• Difficulties with estimating

• Communicating offsite• Complicates or lengthens stand ups

• Not delivering full user stories

• Building on weak foundations• Blockers that were outside the control

of the agile team

• Environment availability

• Deployment complexity• Numerous products and platforms

• People blame the method in error!• Misinterpreting the method often the

problem e.g. “Stand ups too big”

Findings – what we attribute to agile

•Of the feedback attributed to the method, significantly more was positive

•Often none of the negative feedback was attributed to the method

Trends – Within Callcredit

•Both positive and negative feedback on the method are reducing

•After 2 years both may be zero?

Explaining our findings

• Why is most of the feedback that was attributed to the method positive?

• Why on many occasions was none of the negative feedback attributed to the method?

• Overriding response to the method was positive

• Most blockers were traditional (environmental – not ‘firm foundations’)

• Why is feedback (both positive and negative) on the method reducing?

• After 2 years both (positive and negative) may be zero?• As people become more comfortable they gradually attribute less items to method

• As the method and teams mature they know how to best use DSDM

• After 2 years the method may feel furniture so wont be blamed for anything!?

Revisit the original hypothesis

• The hypotheses:

• Project teams (mostly new to the method) consistently rate the positive effect of the method as 2-3 times stronger than any negative effects.

• Our hypothesis was that as our agile teams align and mature the positive effects will continue to increase

• There has always been far more positive DSDM feedback than negative

• In a significant number of retrospectives teams gave no negative feedback regarding the method

• Several negative items are not due to the method

• Morale in the project teams has been enhanced by Agile

Summary & Questions

• We explained what a retro is

• Shown a simple but effective way of running a retro

• Shared our key findings

• Explained how we also did a retro of the method

• Used real evidence to confirm our original hypothesis:

• Yes, Agile is solving more problems than it is creating!

• Questions...