Archive for the ‘ACCC Sessions’ category
Model for Sustainable Collaboration Between Coaches
July 6th, 2010Is Agile destined to become Dogma?
July 6th, 2010Model for Sustainable Collaboration Between Coaches
July 6th, 2010Below is a video of from Gino Marckx delivering the the session summary. Video courtesy of Selena Delesie:
How to develop product vision user stories?
July 6th, 2010Below is a video of the session summary by Semeh Zeid and Michal Antkiewicz. Video courtesy of Selena Delesie:
The Value of Work no longer Done
June 16th, 2010Like to play a Kanban Game?
June 16th, 2010
This session was led by Sameh Zeid with a summary provided by Rob Adlers and Sameh Zeid.
I attended part of the talk while being a bumble-bee.
The intent was to have a Kanban simulation to teach the concepts of flow and waste. Although the session title has the word ‘game’ it was really more of a simulation.
The simulation had 3 steps in the process:
1. Requirements (1 day) -> 2. Design & Development (2 days) -> 3. Q/A & Release (1 day).
The simulation started with no work in the process. Then each day one new request (label S1, S2, etc.) was introduced and Sameh
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Day 3 |
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Day 4 |
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Sameh walked us through each day showing how the work moved through the system. He explained the waste in the system due to waiting at Design and QA steps.
I left right about Day 4 as a bumble bee so I did not get to hear the rest of the session.
I thought this simulation was a great way to show a real system. I liked the simplicity of the model as it focused on process flow rather than the process itself.
If I were to use this in a coaching capacity I would try to make it more interactive by using physical parts, such as lego building, or paper airplanes. This would allow people to actually performing the steps so that they can feel the wait and waste. I might even assign a bookkeeper to do all the measuring and recording.
This attached photo shows Rob Adlers reporting back to the attendees.
ACCCA Session Video’s on YouTube
June 16th, 2010
How can agile co-exist with waterfall / other existing processes in one’s organization?
June 16th, 2010Below is a video of the summary by Anne-Marie Kong with many thanks to Selena Delesie for submitting it:
Yes – agile can co-exist with waterfall
Some large organizations are constrained by supply chain – leads to wanting to nail down all requirements upfront – how to account for change?
How?
· Introduce in small steps – encourages the business to come to Agile when they see results (better quality, delivering value)
- Closer cross functional teams, particularly dev’t & QA collaboration
- Break up features into small stories
- Business attends daily stand-ups
- Strive to deliver early and often
- Demo working software
· Iterations are like mini-waterfalls
· Removing saying “we’re going to agile” – labels creates barriers within people and people natural inclination is to resist change.
· Benefits to business – can put new features in and take features out
- challenge is product owner do not buy-in (struggles in prioritizing in an ordered 1 … n list)
- Need to shift to want “value” rather than want it all mindset
· Be thoughtful of how/what you want to introduce agile (e.g. pick smaller projects to start or projects that have more leeway to let you fail and learn)
· Be careful of technology
· Leverage demos to have the business prioritize (i.e. what do the product owner want the team to do in the next iteration?)
· Clear scope statement – ask how do you envision the end users will use it and will they “value” it?
· Agile share some of the similarities to waterfall (do some planning, do work, show result) though agile mindset if different and has additional principles and values.
· Agile is on a continuum – how do you keep the momentum to become more agile?
- Building a learning organization- Continuous learning
- Responsibility of team to provide results (working s/w, low cost, high quality)
Attendees:David Juche, Krzysztof Czarnecki, Charles, Mike Edwards, Mujahid Chaudhry, Ann-Marie Kong
What Makes a Great Agile Coach
June 14th, 2010I wasn’t the session originator, but I have the following notes
Session: What Makes a Great Agile Coach and how to you get to be one?
First the group attempted to identify the attributes of a good Agile Coach and the list is long:
Patience, Good/Active Listeners, knowledgeable and passionate, inspiring, facilitation skills, life-long learning, a ‘good bartender’, fearless and honest. Many more leadership qualities so…
Discussion evolved into the question: we should define the difference between Coach and Leader.
Coach – a facilitator of growth and change
Leader – leads teams towards a specific destination, but established that this could be a single person or a group of people.
How to become a great Agile Coach:
Find a mentor: work with other coaches, peer:peer groups. Someone asked : what are the non-software coaches doing? This question was not answered in this session.
Trial and Error: be brave
Learn from other people in different environments: field trips
Become a bartender: coaching dojos, build a toolbox with options to pull out to suit the time/place/dynamic
Recognize what pushes your buttons and learn how to choose not become hooked.
Teach people how to fix their own issues….
Time up….
