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7 habits of highly effective agilists

Amoli Upadhye (Tata Consultancy Services)

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• Why ‘habits’ ?

• Which habits do effective agile teams embrace ?

• What induces agilists to practice them ?

Index

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Why habits ?

Motivation gets you started, habits keep you going• Grant a strong sense of mission

• Fill you with commitment

• Are, generally, the missing ingredient in most teams trying to emulate successful teams

Image source - http://collegethrive.com/creating-good-habits-in-college

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Which habits do successful agilists embrace ?

Be ProactiveBegin with the

end in mindPut first

things firstAverage

agilists

Effective

agilists

ThinkWin/Win

Seek first to

understand..Synergize

Sharpen yoursaw

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Habit 1 – Be Proactive

• Ability to assess a situation and develop a positive response to it

• Effective agilists work on their response to conditions, instead of worrying about conditions

• Self – organize, sprint 0

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Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind

• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhance agility• Go beyond short term goals• Rally teams around a shared purpose

• Story – Gutting of Chrysler’s culture

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Habit 3 – Put first things first

• Organize and execute around priorities

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Important

Less Important

Urgent Less Urgent

1− Sprint reviews

− Sprint planning meetings 2

3 4

− Sprint retrospectives

− Break functional stories

− Relationship building among team and other stakeholders

− Raise deployment tickets

− Creating review decks

− Unproductive documentation

− Non – prioritized stories

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Habit 4 – Think Win/Win

• Bring out the best in each player

Option 2: Continue as is and miss the target date

Option 1: Increase velocity to meet target date

Actual

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Option 3: Reduce scope to meet target date

Start date Target dateTime

Planned

Amou

nt o

f pen

ding

wor

k fo

r rel

ease

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Habit 5 – Seek first to understand..

• Listen to understand, do not listen to just reply

• Analysis stories, technical stories, spikes

• Consider using tools like analysis matrix

..And then be understood

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Habit 6 – Synergize

• True test and manifestation of all 6 habits put together

• Less of me and more of ‘We’

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Habit 7 – Sharpen your saw

• At regular intervals, team reflect, on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly

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Habit 7 – Sharpen your saw (contd.)

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What induces agilists to practice 7 habits ?

http://www.wow-tcs-maitree.org/

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Thank You

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15Solutions for changing existing behavior of new

user sign – up formPros

Estimated Effort Level Cons

• Less complex changes

POC Required

Medium

Have users obtain admin approval in system and ---

• Business prefers this approach

• Testing may involve simpler scenarios

Very large

Send an automated email to admin and allow users to sign – up anyways ----

Same as #2. Plus, introduce a validation to check for user’s employee id, joining date, etc. ----

• Very complex code changes

• System performance may degrade

• Absence of data for old employees may rip up/downstream systems

• Business does not support this approach

• Testing would involve more complex scenarios

Large

• Less complex changes

• ABC field consistency ensured

• Business does not support this approach

• Invalid users may still not be weeded out

• Testing would involve more complex scenarios