SCRUM turning ScumIgnoring the False Negatives

Ravi Kumar

2010 November

Agenda

Process Smells ( SCRUM - set of practices Not Process)

• Practice Framework – Is it a Necessary Evil?

• QA Audits – are they real or delusions

Stories from real world - Lessons to learn

• Starting on a wrong footing....still finding the elusive sweet spot.

• When improvements start to stagnate?

• When Necessary Evil helps....safeguarding organization/teams from the trap.

Management Apathy

• It Takes Two to Tango

• Empowerment

• Shooting in the dark…recipe for failure

www.agiletour.com20/11/10

False Negative: A result that appears negative but fails to reveal a situation

Process Smells (SCRUM – set of practices Not Process)

•Practice Framework – Is it a Necessary Evil?

•QA Audits – are they real or delusions

www.agiletour.com

http://www.newyorkshitty.com/?p=1346

20/11/10

Practice Framework – Is it a necessary evil?

Agile has gone mainstream.

• Historically agile grew in small communities and projects.

• Large organizations has started to adopt agile.

Agile Nirvana…Organizational Level Focus Groups

• Setup/formalise the agile practices.

• Project Assessments

• Facilitate QA Groups

• Metrics definition

• Mentoring , Training & Consulting

• Community of Practice

www.agiletour.com

http://www.collaborativeuk.com/services/delivering-the-agile-transformation/

Is it a

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FALSE NEGATIVE:Good intent may not propagate as desired.

QA Audits – are they real or delusions

•QA Monthly Audits

•Audit Checklist

•Agile Compliance Score

•Survey/Questionnaire based audits/assessments may tend to be misleading and inaccurate.

• Person dependent.

• Cannot ignore project context and complexities.

www.agiletour.com

http://rostam.co.il/Quality

20/11/10

FALSE NEGATIVE:•Audit scores – means to an end.•Safeguarding individual interests

Stories from the real world

• Starting on a wrong footing....still finding the elusive sweet spot.

• When improvements start to stagnate?

• When Necessary Evil helps....safeguarding organization/teams from the trap.

www.agiletour.com20/11/10

Story 1: Starting on a wrong footing

www.agiletour.com

http://www1.wnec.edu/business/index.cfm?selection=doc.997

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25920277

20/11/10

• Having a Scrum Master onsite with the team offshore

• Lack of agile and technical skills.

• Traditional planning

• Frequent status updates and micro management.

Access to Client environment from Vendor location does matter.

Get the Business, Architects, QA and Dev teams aligned and working together

FALSE NEGATIVE:Ignoring the teething issues

Quality Deliverables

Story 2: When improvements start to stagnate

www.agiletour.com

http://www1.wnec.edu/business/index.cfm?selection=doc.997

20/11/10

http://www.flickr.com/

Continuous

improvements – Where

are they?

• Co-relate metrics and inputs...it’s critical.

• Pressure mounts …reduction in Sprint lengths may not yield results.

“I would like to see the team using the daily SCRUM meetings more effectively. They need to bring up essentials to the attention of the team.”

“I would like to see the team escalating any hindrances in their way and doing so early enough.”

FALSE NEGATIVE:SCRUM without Engineering improvement can’t go a long way.

CSAT Score 6.7/7

Story 3: When necessary evil helps

www.agiletour.com

http://www1.wnec.edu/business/index.cfm?selection=doc.997

http://www.sodahead.com

20/11/10

• Disjoint teams

• Duplication of work (Multiple Trackers)

• Requirements in phased manner

• Varying sprint lengths ; no tracking.

• Estimation by leads and tasks assigned.

• Lack of req. clarity, overwork and major reworks .

• No participation from business users.

CSAT Score 6.2/7…pretty impressive. But…

FALSE NEGATIVE:Customer is happy with releases every 6 months and is fronted by the IT department

Management Apathy

• It takes two to tango

• Empowerment

• Shooting in the dark…recipe for failure

www.agiletour.com

http://www.jentucker.us/2009/03/01/bad-customer-service/

20/11/10

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It takes two to tango

• CxO directive to go agile.

• Customer managers and vendor managers not aligned.

• Customer QA is not aligned with business and development teams.

• SLAs and Contracts that inhibit collaboration and communication

• Multi vendor projects

• Engineering skills are sidelined.

www.agiletour.com

Customer

Vendor

http://www.accountingweb.com/image/separation

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FALSE NEGATIVE:Multiple contracts within single engagements creating boundaries in project execution.

Empowerment

www.agiletour.com

http://www.exceleratorcoaching.com/empower.htm

20/11/10

http://www.thegeminigeek.com/what-is-employee-empowerment/

Empowerment

Applies to both Customer & Vendor teams

• Synergize delivery and focus groups.

• Agile to be treated on par with rest of the methodologies in the central organization.

• Metrics and data collation is important.

• Separation of concerns please.

• Engineering metrics along with project metrics.

FALSE NEGATIVE:Agile drive more based on Opportunity rather than Conviction

Shooting in the dark… recipe for failure

• RFPs and project bids won based on traditional approaches.

• Hybrid models - waterfall requirements followed by development in agile.

• Traditional contracts.

• Agile as cover-up to avoid waterfall.

www.agiletour.com

http://pmtips.net/making-bad-situation/

20/11/10

FALSE NEGATIVE:Winning deals more than long term project success.

FALSE Negatives

www.agiletour.com

http://www.motifake.com/tags/mom

SCRUM

20/11/10

Beware of it !!!! can cause the projects and teams dearly.

Thank You !!!

ravikumar.rk@hcl.com ravikumar.rk@gmail.com

www.agiletour.com20/11/10