Hands-on Agile Immersion

Agile Whole Team Training
Hands-on Agile Immersion

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© 2012-2013 Eliassen Group. All Rights Reserved -1-

Damon Poole

• Chief Agilist, Eliassen Group’s Agile Practice
– Coaching: Transformation and Tune-ups
– Training
• 22 years of process change: small co-located teams to
multi-hundred team global enterprises
• Founder and past CTO and CEO of AccuRev
• Creator of multiple Jolt-award winning products
• Past President of Agile New England
• Author of “DIY Agile Kickstart”
• Consulted with Ford IT, Orbitz, Fidelity, Capital One,
ING Direct, and many others
• Taught Agile techniques to thousands of people

Mixing it Up
• No more than 7 people per table
• Each team/table needs
– At Least 1 person with a business or
marketing background

– At least one person with a project
management background

– Everybody else
• 1 or more people with a development
background (code, dba, etc)

• 1 or more people with a testing
background

Materials
• Every table will need
– 20-30 index cards
– 1 set of poker cards for each team member
• Each pack contains 4 sets


Exercise: Choose a Product
• Something that involves software
• Something the whole team finds interesting 5 min

• Unrelated to your current project
• Fun!
• Examples:
– Mall map/information app
– Kid tracker
– Online recipe trading
– App to find stuff on your grocery list while shopping


User Story

Who Estimate in
What story points
Traveller wants to 3
book a trip so that
they can go to their
destination Who is
Why Tom
working
on it

 Business value (customer/market) focused
 Keeps Customer, Business, Agile team on same page
 Separates the “what” (need) from the “how” (implementation)


Exercise: User Story Creation
• Produce 4 user stories
• Write each story on a single index card 5 min

• No more than 15 words per story
• No implementation oriented words
• Leave room at upper right for a number
• Brainstorm! You can create more than 5 and
then pick 5
• Format:
As a <user role> I want to <perform some action> so
that <I achieve some goal>


Bill Wake’s “INVEST” Guidelines

• Independent
– To the extent possible, doesn’t depend on other stories

• Negotiable.
– A story is a conversation starter, not the end result

• Valuable to the user
– Something the user can use, not a piece of something the user can use

• Estimable
– No research required, well understood

• Small
• Testable

Exercise: User Story Creation
• Write 4 more stories until you have 8
• Write each story on a single index card 5 min

• No more than 15 words per story
• No implementation oriented words
• Leave room at upper right for a number
• Brainstorm! You can create more than 5 and
then pick 5
• Format:
As a <user role> I want to <perform some action> so
that <I achieve some goal>


Backlog
Most Value Traveller wants 5
to enter a
2 booking
Traveller wants
to e-mail an Bob
airline booking
Traveller wants 2
to see their
upcoming trips
Tom

Traveller wants 3
to edit a booking

Tom

Release
Traveller wants 1
to delete a
booking
Sue

Product Traveller wants 2
to copy a
booking
Bob

Admin wants a 5
report of site-
wide activity
Bob

Traveller wants 2
to move a
booking
Bob

Traveller wants 2
to link to cancel
a booking

Traveller wants 2
to link to on-line

Least Value check-in


Exercise: Backlog Creation
Most
Traveller wants 5
to enter a
booking

Value
Bob • Turn your stories into a backlog 5 min
Traveller wants 2
to see their
upcoming trips
Tom
• No “ties” or buckets
Traveller wants 3
to edit a booking

Tom

Traveller wants 1
• Single file backlog only
to delete a
booking
Sue

Traveller wants 2
to copy a
booking
Bob

Admin wants a 5
report of site-
wide activity
Bob

Traveller wants 2
to move a
booking
Bob

Traveller wants 2
to link to cancel
a booking

Least Traveller wants 2
to link to on-line
check-in

Value

Splitting out the Gold
User needs… 8
“Yes! I need
that and
can use it.”

8


Splitting out the Gold
User wants… 3 User wants… 5

“Yes! I need “Yes! I need
3 that and 5 that and
can use it.” can use it.”

?

Split: “and”, “using”, “,” , “with”, “or”

Person wants to send a 8
happy birthday card, a
valentine’s day card, or a
Christmas card with a gift card

Person wants 2 Person wants 2 Person wants 2 Person wants 3
to send a happy to send a to send a to send a gift card
birthday card valentine’s day Christmas card to go with greeting
card card


The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work
Shopping Cart

Additional value

Change quantity

The simplest thing Pictures with
items
Track items and
purchase Take promo
codes

Realtime calc of
shipping/tax


The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work
Airplane seat
assignment
Additional value

Show only
available seats

The simplest thing Provide graphical
chart
Show all seats
with radio bttns Allow group
seating

Drag’n’drop


Splitting by User
Traveler wants 8
to send a booking e-
mail to the site.

Frequent traveler 5 Vacation traveller 5 5
Business traveller wants
wants to send an e-mail to wants to send an e-mail to to send an e-mail to the
the site the site site


Splitting by Segment
• Splitting by user is an example of splitting by
segment
• Other examples of segmentation
– Market
– Holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc.
– Any kind of list
• Delivery method: ground, 2 day, overnight


Exercise: User Story Splitting
• Look for splittable stories and split them
10 min
• Discard any stories that are split


How long to dig a ditch with this?

1,000 ft = 1 day

5,000 ft, 5 times as much work, 5 days?


How about with this!?

1,000 ft = 1 hour

5,000 ft, 5 times as much work, 5 hours?


Story Points
• Replace time-based estimates
• Focus on “what” rather than “who”
• Simplify planning
• Measure the relative level of effort
• Includes the entire effort to complete the
story


Exercise: 1-Point Story
• Decide which story is the simplest to do
3 min
• Make sure to consider all of the work required
– Implementation
– Integration
– Testing
• Don’t include dependencies
• Mark that story as a 1 point story


Exercise: Planning Poker
• For today, just need cards: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
• Estimate must contain all work: all implementation work,
integration, all testing, etc.

• Only consider the incremental cost, not including
dependencies


Exercise: Planning Poker
• From highest value to lowest value in the backlog:
15 min
– The product owner reads a story
– Each team member chooses an estimate
– When everybody is ready, product owner says “flip”
– If there is consensus, write the estimate on the story
– Revote if necessary (just once for today)
• Estimate as many stories as possible within the time
allotted


Minimum Viable Product

Movie Going Planner



What theaters are Movies and show
near me? times at a theater

What’s playing near Movie details
me: showtime +
distance?

Navigation Purchasing tickets


Exercise: MVP Creation
• Decide on the MVP for your product
• What’s the fewest # of story points 5 min

you can use to create a viable
product?
• You can re-arrange the stories in
your backlog if you need to


Q&A

damonpoole.blogspot.com

Hands-on Agile Immersion

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