Agile teams operate in the context of an organization, whether it's a small start-up or a global corporation. Organizations that are clear about why they are in business will have a mission identified that expresses what they're all about. A great mission can provide the spice that transforms a team from one that delivers features and projects, to one that passionately delivers business value with fire-breathing intensity. This session will explore how you can utilize the mission of an organization to spice up a team's work, and how a team with a great mission behind it can influence agility throughout an organization.

1. Missionizing Your
Agile Team
Jeff Lopez-Stuit
jeff@radoration.com
www.radoration.com
Twitter: jefflopezstuit

2. How do these statements land on you?

3. “Why We Work Here:
We look forward to a world where children grow strong
in communities free of need and full of promise, where
peace and justice flourish, and the most vulnerable live
in confidence.
This organization helps transform the lives of children
and families in need around the world, and extends
assistance to all people, regardless of their religious
beliefs, gender, race, or ethnic background.
When you work for this organization, this is the mission
for which you’ll be working. It is a mission that
motivates us and gives meaning to the work we do every
day.”

4. “The simplest, most heartfelt mission statement
you’ll ever see:
Number 1:
We will develop visible, effective, differentiated
brands to build shareholder value for clients, long-
term relationships for us, and profits for both.
Number 2:
We will all have fun in the process.
Number 3:
There is no number 3.”

5. “Our mission is to provide everyone from first-time
participants to professional athletes with the world’s
best sports and fitness equipment, footwear and
apparel.
We are dedicated to active lifestyles, sports and
wellness.
The passion for sports is at the core of our business.
Our primary motive is setting and achieving targets
and moving beyond our limits in life, business and
technology, enabling people to achieve their highest
goals in sports and improve their well-being.”

6. “Guided by relentless focus on our strategic
imperatives, we will constantly strive to implement
the critical initiatives required to achieve our vision.
In doing this, we will deliver operational excellence in
every corner of the Company and meet or exceed our
commitments to the many constituencies we serve.
All of our long-term strategies and short-term actions
will be molded by a set of core values that are shared
by each and every associate.”

7. “The mission of this company is to organize the
world‘s information and make it universally accessible
and useful.”

8. missio
The act of sending

9. agile development
(agilis explicatio)
The act of delivering

10. An agile team can get context
for what it delivers from a
mission.
A mission can be made visible
to an organization by an agile
team that delivers working stuff
frequently.

17. A great mission can provide the spice
that transforms a team from one that
delivers features and projects, to one
that passionately delivers business
value with fire-breathing intensity,
and…………..

18. … the best way in the world to
deliver an organization’s mission
is to do it with agile teams

19. How do you find the mission
statement?
• Ask someone! (start with your Product
Owner)
• Visit a web site
• Read at an annual report
• Look at what the competition is doing
• Watch how your customers are behaving.
What is their mission?

20. Or, when in doubt…

21. Self organize!
Why did you decide to work here?
What made you get out of bed and
come to work this morning?

22. “Life is denied by lack of
attention, whether it be to
cleaning windows or trying to
write a masterpiece.”
-- Nadia Boulanger
Composition Teacher

23. Practices for
Making a Mission Visible
• Read the mission out loud at the
beginning of an activity
• Invite people close to the mission to
participate in your review sessions
• Create an information radiator

24. Skillfully use the mission when the
team wants to charge up its work
• Target their use for when the team
wants to spice up their work
• Remove them when they no longer
get attention
• Context is king. Use what will
provide context for the team’s current
work.

25. Turn Up the Heat:
Make Sources of Your Mission Visible
• Is there a source document related to your mission
that can inspire your team to action?
• Examples:
• Images of your mission in action
• Scientific treatise
• Religious and philosophical text
• Astounding social science or business statistics

26. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not
come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s
enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he
who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of
Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not
worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he
who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”
- Matthew 10:34-39

27. "I call this Revolution 2.0. I say that our
revolution is like Wikipedia, OK? Everyone
is contributing content. You don't know
the names of the people contributing the
content…everyone was contributing
small pieces, bits and pieces. We drew
this whole picture. We drew this whole
picture of a revolution. And that picture
— no one is the hero in that picture.”
-- Wael Ghonim, Google

28. The Product Owner Holds the Mission
• The mission provides context to your team for
their work, but it’s still the product owner that
owns the backlog.
• A team can inspire a product owner (and the
backlog) by asking probing questions about the
mission.
• Your product owner holds the mission for the
team! Help them do their job by delivering
inspired working software!

29. Exercise
• The folder on your table has a mission statement, story cards
with your team’s current sprint backlog, and a page with
information just for a Product Owner
• Choose a Scrum Master and a Product Owner.
• Review the mission statement and the backlog. Discuss with
your Product Owner how the user stories in the sprint backlog
relate to the organization’s mission.
• Assignment #1: Create a theme for this sprint that spices up
the team’s work with the context provided by the mission
• Assignment #2: Congratulations! The team successfully
delivered all of the stories in this sprint. Your executive
sponsor has invited some very important people
(customers, vendors, or investors) to the review session. With
a few bullet points, tell them how what you delivered
contributed to the organization’s work toward its mission.

30. Mission smells
• If the mission is hard to find, or isn’t
inspiring, maybe the enterprise isn’t up to
something big enough
• Your choices:
1. Enroll the enterprise in a bigger possibility, with a
bigger mission
2. Enroll yourself in creating a bigger mission
somewhere else
3. Thank you. I’ll just go back to coding this feature
now.

31. Agility Makes the Mission Real
• Agile teams produce working products
frequently.
• An agile team working in the context of a
mission makes that mission visible
throughout the organization with every
completed iteration.
• A team that delivers can make agility a
basic nutrient for sustaining the mission.

32. Your mission, if choose to accept it…
• Coach your teams to make their work visible
throughout the organization.
• Make your workspace an area where visitors
can see the mission at work….with agility!
• Know that you are the ones. It is no accident
that you’ve been invited into this team to help
them produce results.
• Through your work practicing agility, the
mission transforms from a “statement” to
something that continously renews itself.

33. A mission gives context
to an agile team.
An agile team gives life
to the mission.

34. Thank you!
Jeff Lopez-Stuit
jeff@radoration.com