This weekend kicked off with a fabulous night out with one of the most memorable teams I’ve had the good fortune to be part of. They’re memorable because they were the first delivery team to undergo Agile Enablement in a large organisation. I’m sure you can imagine the pressure and weight of expectation they had to shoulder. Being pioneers is never easy. This team is living proof that focusing on the people aspect in any team gives teams a chance to flourish.

Try, Catch, Finally

The evening began with a game of bowling in two teams of four, followed by seeing Bolt in 3D and a tasty dinner. To the surprise of many, those who rarely bowled did very well for bowling newbies. Of course, that may well have been beginner’s luck.

Nonetheless, it reminded me of how true apprentices (folks who really want to give things a go and do so with an open mind) find it easier to adapt than experts because they find it easier to leave preconceptions and ego behind in order to move forward.

Like Agile, for me learning is an incremental and iterative process:

1. Listen first.
2. Ask questions.
3. Listen some more.
4. Question some more.
5. Ask for feedback.
6. Listen for feedback.
7. Act on feedback.

Playing for Change

Thanks to Neeraj, Sudhakar, Nitin, Murali, Genevieve, Nick, Robin for making it such a F-U-N Friday night! And a special thanks to Leslie for sponsoring our night out!

M.: I hear what you’re saying about Agile Coaching and people.
P.: (Nods and smiles)
M.: The two words that stick in my mind most are ‘Party’ and ‘Fun’. Count me in!
P.: It’s easy if you try. The trick is to really try.

How do you do that?

Since joining Exoftware back in January 2008, it feels as though I’ve had a personal and professional vitamin boost of unexpected tales and adventures, rarely associated with work. Last week’s 2-day get-together at Exoftware was no exception.

A Company of Friends

At Exoftware, we work together and we play together. Last Thursday was spent on strategic thinking and signing up for tasks about a range of topics, including elaborating on the different ways in which we deliver value to our clients. The hard day’s work was followed by conversations over dinner about aerobics, Disneyland and the global economic crisis.

The best was yet to come

The highlight has to be the Go-Kart racing at The Raceway in Charlton. After a 5-minute safety video on how not to press down the accelerator pedal (on the right) and the brake (on the left) at the same time (as this causes the kart engine to burn out), we got into position based on our time trial results.

As we each whizzed, buzzed, burnt and pootled around the circuit, I was struck by the significance of the coloured flag system, with the Blue Flag meaning ‘Let the person behind you pass’. It reminded me how each person’s race time is down to individual performance and that if we’re to all have fun, we have to let people pass.

My 5 Whys for Working at Exoftware

• I’m trusted to do the best I can.
• I get help whenever I ask for it.
• We share moments of joy and pain together.
• We strive to apply the Agile Values and Practices to everything we do.
• We learn as a company.

Does your company learn? If so, do they learn fast enough?

As a followup to an introduction on Real Options Thinking, a group of us gathered once again last Thursday to consider ways in which we could apply Real Options in our projects.

Let me tell you a story

As usual, we kick off with an ice breaker to get everyone moving. Each participant pairs with the person they know best and comes up individually with Six Words to describe one another (as opposed to themselves like we did in the first session). Participants then circulate in pairs to exchange the story they’d written. This ice breaker seems to generate even more laughter and joviality than the first time we played it together.

The Power of Collective Memory

Next we get together by project team and spend 10 minutes recapping on Real Options theory. Each team then presents what they’d remembered about Real Options to the rest of the group. As many discover, this is an effective way of reinforcing the learning from the previous week. You can download the handout here.

Applying Real Options to our projects

We begin the second half of the session by brainstorming current examples of Real Options in our projects to generate scenarios where Real Options could be applied.

Then we select one particular scenario and work through the 7-step Optimal Decision Process. Last, but not least, each team presents their scenario back to the group to demonstrate how they could apply Real Options on their project. One team comes up so many more options they’re keen to hurry back to their project to try them out.

Facing Uncertainty

As a final bit of fun, participants are asked to create a Human Uncertainty Spectrum, with participants sorting themselves from those who are supremely comfortable with Uncertainty on one end to those least comfortable with Uncertainty on the other. This exercise generates the most discussion and laughter of all. Who would think confronting ourselves about how we really feel about Uncertainty in public could be so much fun?

Last Friday, we celebrated the forthcoming weekend with a session on Real Options, a simple, yet powerful decision making tool. What better time to learn how to deal with uncertainty than in highly volatile times such as these?

What’s your story?

We kickoff the session with an unusual ice breaker called Six Words. Each participant is given a small white card on which they write six words that sum up their lives or who they are. Each group of six words tells a short story, an idea originating from the writer Hemingway.

Participants then circulate to exchange their story with as many people as possible within 3 minutes. Judging from the outbreaks of glee mingled with quiet surprise and lots of questioning, everyone seems to be having fun. This is important because it correlates with my current team’s top team value of ‘Fun’.

Knowing when to decide what

Next we learn about the simple, yet powerful tool of Real Options. You can download the session handout here.

Real Options means you don’t have to decide now. Instead, you need to know WHEN you have to decide. You want to keep as many options open for as long as possible and actively gather information unti the moment you have to decide. Last, but not least, you commit only when you must or when you have good reason to.

A Real Option:

• Has a value – if not, why would we consider it?
• Has an expiry condition – a deadline or condition by which we have to choose
• Has a cost: Buying cost + Exercising cost – the Buying cost gives us the right (not the obligation to implement a decision in the future for a known cost); the Exercising cost is the agreed price to implement the decision

Real Options help us deal with two of the most daunting features of any project: Uncertainty and Risk. Real Options creates opportunities out of Uncertainty by encouraging us to postpone our decision making so that we have more time to gather information. This, in turn, helps us make better informed decisions. Real Options mitigates Risk by explicitly encouraging us to wait and see what happens before we decide.

The Optimal Decision Process

The Optimal Decision Process helps us structure our thinking in 7 steps (especially when we’re under pressure):

1. Identify your options
2. Calculate the first decision point: Decision Point = Deadline – Implementation Time
3. Decide which option to take under which circumstances
4. Seek out information and more Real Options
5. Reduce Implementation Time to push back Decision Point
6. Wait… wait… Until the first decision point
7. Make the decision with confidence

Real Options in everday life

Then, in groups of 4, We practice by identifying Real Options in everyday life, followed by working through one example in detail and mapping it to the Optimal Decision Process.

‘Agile makes my life more simple’

In response to the participants’ feedback, we’ll be meeting up later on this week to consider ways in which we can apply Real Options Thinking on our projects and to ourselves to improve our effectiveness as individuals. One thing’s for certain, it’s going to be F-U-N.

The more I learn, the more I know.
The more I know, the more I forget,
The less I know.

Life’s a series of consequences, sequels, repeats and recorded playbacks. And so we’ve plenty of opportunities, both to forget and to re-learn. The lessons we learnt as children not only still hold true, but are often the most useful. That’s why it’s important we help each other remember. Together.

Back to Basics

Robert Fulghum isn’t a man who minces his words. In his book titled ‘All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten’, he identifies what he calls The Kindergarten Credo:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
• Wonder.

These are what he refers to as the working rules of human enterprise. They are why we send children to school. To be civilised.

‘To be fair, we must share’

For those use to adopting a more directive approach in management, the toughest challenge that comes with transitioning to Agile is sharing. Sharing information, sharing pain, sharing joy and, most important of all, sharing glory. Those who define themselves 100% by what they do often find it almost impossible to relinquish the control and power they’re used to in order to become part of an Agile team.

Given an environment where everyone can be courageous, strangers can come together to form self-organising teams. Often, this happens much quicker than you think. The catch? As a manager and team member, you must adopt a collaborative style yourself. Your first step begins with suspending judgement.

If you believe that the only thing you can be certain of in life is that people will always let you down, the only person you can be sure to disappoint is yourself.

What would life be like if you no longer believed in everything you think?

One way to measure the maturity of a community is by laughter. Laughter is what happens when folks with a common interest get together. They have fun. They laugh together. This is especially true with Agile because people form the heart of Agile.

Knock, Knock – Who’s there?
In my experience, nowhere are these outbursts of laughter more audible than at Agile conferences. Agile conferences are a great opportunity to learn, laugh and recharge. They’re also a chance to test your agility because Agile attracts a mixed bunch of people, sometimes with conflicting interests, motivations and values.

The Secret sits in the middle and knows
‘Have you met Daedalus?’ asks Ralph, an Agile Coach and collector of things darkly comical. Ralph gives a nod towards a small crowd of bobbing and shaking heads by the buffet table. Not one to miss an Agile moment in the making, I head towards the hullabaloo.

‘So I go to see a new client who say they want help with Agile,’ begins Daedalus, ‘and what they were looking for was an Agile installation engineer. They were expecting me to just wheel out a box, plug it in, flick on the switch, then T-A-D-A!’ He clicks his fingers, ‘Everyone becomes agile – just like that!’

Most of us are silent as we stand flabbergasted, recalling the risks and hardwork that come with the magnitude of what we try to achieve with Agile. Organisational change. People change. I’m reminiscing the many seemingly impossible moments when people halted learning because they resisted change. I know because I catch myself doing the same sometimes.

To paraphrase Dolly Parton, ‘If you like rainbows, there’ll be some rain.’ As an Agile Apprentice, it’s the thought of rainbows that keeps me going. I’ve also come to appreciate the rain because I know those are the days when I have the greatest chance to grow.

All’s well that ends well
Being agile isn’t just a laughing matter. It’s a serious business. Because people matter. And remarkable things happen when we come to understand that the Agile Values aren’t just elementary, but elemental.

‘There’s no use trying,’ said Alice; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’

– Lewis Carroll

Turning Constraints into Opportunities

One of my favourite things about Agile is how well it works in a world of constraints. And there’s no better time than the current economic crisis to help focus the mind on Value Driven Delivery. ‘We’ve got limited funds for the project,’ says a project manager. ‘Plus we’ve got a fixed deadline.’

‘That’s great!’ I reply. ‘It’s good to have a fixed budget and a fixed deadline. That leaves us with only one variable to play with: Scope. As for Quality, it’s an integral part in everything we do.’

In my experience, such conversations usually herald the start of a potentially successful Agile project, one that delivers solutions with the highest business value possible faster than most people imagine. Here’s the recipe I use to implement Value Driven Delivery.

Begin with Stories

The key to any successful Agile project is the identification and breaking down of user stories that can be implemented by the team in a single release made up of several iterations.

1. Identify the top two business value currencies for the project. (Value currencies are usually things like Revenue and Customer Satisfaction).
2. Brainstorm all the user stories that the customer has in mind. These will be high level stories (also known as ‘epics’).
3. Estimate the relative business value of each value currency per story or group of stories.

Release Planning in Action

1. Prioritise the backlog based on the primary business value currency.
2. Prioritise the backlog based on the secondary business value currency.
3. Estimate the effort for the top 3 stories selected by the customer.
4. For each of the estimated stories, divide the value estimate by the effort estimate. The product from this calculation allows you to prioritise the top 3 stories based on maximum value, minimum effort.
5. Prioritise the stories in the Release Backlog based on what your customer values most.

The Art of Story Splitting

Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.

After Release Planning, you’re likely to have to split stories into smaller stories until they fit into a single interation. I recommend splitting stories by the thinest possible vertical slice – you’d be surprised how often this is possible.

For instance, if you have to implement a form with 20 fields to be pre-populated by values held in the database, your first story might consist of a vertical slice from the Web Layer down through to Service and Data Layers for 1 or 2 fields only. The result is incremental development as the team implements more and more fields as they complete one story at a time.

Such an approach helps you reduce previously elephantine requirements into manageable chunks. The patient scrutiny required by story splitting can help you identify your project’s Minimum Marketable Feature Set (based on the idea that 80-20 rule that 20% of the stories contains 80% of the business value within the entire project backlog).

This incremental approach allows the team to:

• Test out the size and quality of the user stories.
• Calibrate their velocity through a short feedback cycle of updating the Iteration Board daily.
• Demonstrate the value being delivered at the end of every iteration (2 week iterations are usually a good length to start off with).

A Word to the Wise

Remember, a truly Agile team achieves at least six impossible things every day. And over-sized chunks of elephant are bound to give your team more than a stomach ache.

 ‘To have great poets, there must be great audiences.’ – Walt Whitman

Whitman’s quote made me think. What if we were to re-write his quote in an Agile Coaching context? It would probably read something like this: ‘To have great coaches, there must be great teams.’ Where are these great teams? More importantly, where are these great coaches? As an Apprentice Agile Coach, I’m looking because I want to learn from them.

What does Agile mean to you?

Almost everyone I meet these days say they’re agile. Increasingly often, such folks also introduce themselves as Senior Agile Coaches or Agile Experts.

For me being agile is aspirational. That’s because Agile is all about Continuous Improvement. A true Agilista is always learning. And so while I try to be agile every day, I don’t always succeed. For me, the term ‘expert’ and ‘guru’ are the antitheses to being agile. That’s because those two words imply someone who knows everything there is to know about a topic.

In my experience, the danger with being an expert or guru in something is that this usually means you’ve stopped learning. If you have to have all the right answers, you can’t be wrong. If you can’t be wrong, you don’t make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes, you limit your learning.

Teams Beware!

Someone who is truly agile cares more about learning than they do about being right. Beware of coaches who claim they are agile, yet have to ‘win’ arguments by effectively saying ‘My way or the highway.’ That way lies a long and lonely road. Do you care enough to be a lifelong apprentice?

What better way to begin the new year than with a new team? I met my new team for the first time last week. And so we started our 6-week journey together with Iteration 0, jampacked with a flurry of team building activities and Agile training.

Agile: The Full Mind and Body Workout

Beginning with an Iteration 0 is always a strong way to start. Most important of all, it’s always a good idea to warm up if we’re serious about having fun.

We began with a team ice breaker exercise as folks introduced themselves to one another, first by sharing a pet love and pet hate and then by exchanging three interesting facts about themselves. Next we moved onto creating and laying down the foundation stones to any high-performance team: a team manifesto created by the team for the team.

And of course no Agile training is complete without an Agile Games Day, made up of the ubiquitous Agile Game (also known as The XP Game) and The Business Value Game. In my experience, the best way to learn Agile is by doing. The doing in turn triggers a lot of useful thinking and talking.

‘Agile makes you think. It questions everything you do,’ says one of the developers. ‘The best thing of all is, it makes you deliver value bit by bit over time instead of waiting until the last minute,’ quipped another wide-eyed team member.

What Agile means to me

One way I measure the progress of a team learning to be agile is by using the Agile Values. It’s also a great way of gauging my own agility.

• Communication – Does the team question everything? Does the team flock?
• Simplicity – Does the team do what’s needed to satisfy acceptance criteria, no more, no less?
• Feedback – Am I learning from how different people respond to the way I work? Do I adapt myself to become more effective?
• Courage – Can I accept that I’ve much to learn? Do I help create an environment where others can be courageous, too?
• Respect – Do I believe that everyone brings value to the team?

Agile Values++

• Trust – Do I have an open mind? Do I believe in the team’s wisdom?
• Transparency – Do I share, share and share: from what I know to what I don’t know and the joy and growing pains of becoming a team?

One thing’s certain: we’re learning. Fast. Are you?

Sticks and Stones

(During a peer coaching session)

P.: I would like some feedback. Do I come across as patronising?
Agile Coach: Not at all. Why’s that?
P.: Occasionally, certain individuals say they find my sessions patronising.
C.: (Pause) I don’t think it’s got anything to do with you.
P.: But there’s clearly an issue. I ask them for suggestions, but we seem to always be short of ideas.
C.: It’s up to me to decide whether or not you come across as patronising.
P.: (Silence)
C.: Another example is when people feel insulted. I can’t remember the last time I felt insulted. I always assume that people are trying to help me. If they give me information I already know, they’re just being helpful. People decide for themselves how and what they think.
P.: Thanks for your feedback.

Walking the Walk

For me, calling myself an Agile Coach is like painting a target on my back. It forces me to be better than I was yesterday, every day. And that can be exhausting. I push the question about patronising sessions onto the stack of Puzzles I carry around in my head for safekeeping.

I know that I’ll probably have to walk around for days, carrying the question in my head, in the hope of finding ways to improve the way I come across during sessions. I’m confident an answer will manifest itself so long as I’m open to changing myself for the better.