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Ben Linders Advies
Sustainable Improvement through
Retrospectives
SEPG Europe, november 15, 2013
Ben Linders Advies
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Ben Linders Advies
On the agenda today …
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Improvement buy in from “the workforce”
Agile Retrospectives: Effective improvement
Your role as improvement manager
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Ben Linders Advies
Who is Ben Linders?
Quality & Defect Prevention
Agile & Lean Coaching
Process Improvement
Organizational Development
CMMI / People-CMM Assessor
veranderproject.nl Enterprise Agile Agile People & Organization
WorkImprovers
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Ben Linders Advies
Better Process Improvement
• Business Results
Focused Improvements
Learn to Improve
• Model is a tool, not solution
Apply-Measure-Learn-Adapt
• Empowered Professionals
Continuous Agile & Lean Change
Uncovering Better Ways to do Process Improvement
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Ben Linders Advies
Retrospectives
Why: To help teams to solve problems and improve themselves!
Learning from doing
Reflect, adapt and improve
Focus upon
• Team
• Self steering
• Collaboration
• Value
Why Agile Retrospectives
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Ben Linders Advies
Prime Directive
“Regardless of what we discover,
we understand and truly believe
that everyone did the best job
they could, given what they knew
at the time, their skills and
abilities, the resources available,
and the situation at hand.”
Norm Kerth
www.retrospectives.com/
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Ben Linders Advies
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Ben Linders Advies
Retrospective Exercises
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Asking questions
One-word retrospective
Root Cause Analysis
Timeline
Flow and Energy
Asking Why?
Strenghts (Solution Focused)
Perfection game
Action priorities
Retrospective of Retrospectives
Pocket Book on Agile Retrospectives
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Ben Linders Advies
Examples
The Sprint that failed
The team that wasn’t a team yet
• Trust and Empowerment
• Teamwork
• Getting to know each other
• Skills & Open Culture
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Ben Linders Advies
Adopting Retrospectives
• Purpose
• Capable Facilitators
• Do and Learn
Focus on
• Mindset & Culture
• Listen to Resistance
How to Adopt Agile Retrospectives
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Ben Linders Advies
Workforce Buy-In
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Actions by the team, for the team
Empowerment
Sustainable
Use of Strenghts
Involve Product Owners
No handovers
Lead your own improvement journey
Retrospective Benefits
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Ben Linders Advies
Leading Retrospectives
Roles
• Facilitator – Servant Leader
• Coach – Support Change
• Manager – Arrange for Change
All roles are needed
Play the game
Action is in the interaction
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Ben Linders Advies
Business Value Retrospectives
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Empower teams
Understanding iso Blame
Few Vital Actions
Get to the Root Causes
Follow Up on Actions
Vary Retrospective Exercises
Getting Business Value out of Agile Retrospectives
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Ben Linders Advies
Valuable Agile Retrospectives
Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives
A Toolbox of Retrospective Exercises
By Luis Gonçalves & Ben Linders
Soon to be released on:
• InfoQ
• Leanpub
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Ben Linders Advies
Sustainable Improvement
What have you learned:
• How to get buy in for improvements from “the workforce”
• What makes Agile Retrospectives effective for continuous
improvement
• How does Agile and Retrospectives change your role as
improvement manager
More information:
• Retrospectives.eu
• Agile Retrospective Resource Wiki
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Ben Linders Advies
Contact
Ben Linders
Senior Consultant
info@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies
www.benlinders.com
Veranderproject
De Menselijke Maat in Veranderen
www.veranderproject.nl
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Ben Linders Advies
Background Information
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Ben Linders Advies
Becoming Agile and Lean
Ask yourself:
• How Agile are you?
• Where do you want to become
more Agile, and why?
• What can you do next?
Journey to Become Agile and Lean
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Ben Linders Advies
Assessing yourself
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Readiness
Agile / Scrum Practices
Culture & Mindset
Agile Fluency
Roadmaps for Adoption
Maturity
Agile Self-Assessment
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Ben Linders Advies
Agile Process Improvement
Expected benefits:
• Collaboration PI team and
stakeholders
• Deployment (over defining)
processes
• Adopt to changes
• Incrementaly, ROI
• Learn to work Agile
Process Improvement: The
Agile Way
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Ben Linders Advies
Golden Rules for PI
• Dare to share, Early & frequently
• The result depends on team – Not individuals
• The one who starts something is not
necessarily the one to finish it
• The one’s working on a task are the right
people
• You may critique anything, but never criticize
anyone
Golden Rules for Agile Process Improvement
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Ben Linders Advies
Agile using the People CMM
Implementing Agile with the People-CMM
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Ben Linders Advies
Resistance to Agile?
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Talk with them
Listen what they have to say
Take them seriously
Ask why and how
Resistance = Information!
Dealing with Resistance
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Ben Linders Advies
Articles on Agile and CMMI
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CMMI V1.3: Agile
Scrum Project Management Practices Support the CMMI
CMMI Roadmaps: Improving IT for the Business
CMMI V1.3 Process Areas
CMMI or Agile: Why not embrace both!
Implementing Agile with the People CMM
Uncovering Better Ways to do Process Improvement
Quality Software with Agile Teams
What Drives Quality?
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Ben Linders Advies
Articles on Effective Agile
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Becoming Agile and Lean
Succes Factors for Using Scrum and Getting Benefits
Process Improvement: The Agile Way
Golden Rules for Agile Process Improvement
How to deal with Resistance when Implementing Agile
Managing Projects with Agile Teams
Agile Project Management
Establishing and Maintaining Stable Teams
Getting Business Value out of Agile Retrospectives
Sharing Knowledge is Power
Are your Professionals Empowered?
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