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The hidden gems of refinement – phase 2

06 Thursday Nov 2014

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This is part 2 of the hidden gems in refinement, you will find part 1 as the previous post on my blog.

Part 2 of refinement continues as part 1 if you did not manage to finalise part 1 in the first refinement. ( get all stories estimated in T-shirt sizes ) -ultimately, the t-shirt sizing is good enough to start your sprint planning, but I always try to add another level and dig a bit deeper in the stories if time allows it. The sooner we spot potential issues, the sooner we can do something about it.

So, Part 2 is  all about refining further and at the same time, revisiting the stories to get them in every team members mind. Did you know that the way the stories are written ( AS A [PERSONA] I WANT TO […] SO THAT […] ) to be optimised for sucking the information up in your brain? Like songs, we remember stories easier than de-coupled words. So I guess the next step up for remembering stories will be creating song cards, but I haven’t gone that far yet with my scrum master experiments, maybe one day 😉

Also the format is there to really make you think about why you are building what you are building, you you are creating it for and what it actually is that you are creating. This  triggers usually other areas of thoughts/requirements that might have slipped through the net if you didn’t take the trouble to write the as, what, so format. (As a scrum master, make sure that people do THINK about it, and not just use the format without thinking… trust me, it does happen…)

Do we write out the whole format on the card? No, as with everything, nothing is black and white, you need to THINK. What does my team need? Visibility, clarity and to understand the meaning behind it. If you are trying to fit AS a forgetful user I want to… on a card, it looks visually cluttered. So to fix that, I am using a visual persona ( stickfigure with a legend, most of our persona’s are re-occurring anyway so every one gets to know our actors )  I leave out or abbreviate the i want to and the so that is optional anyway, but when I use it, it gets abbreviated or replaced by an arrow ( especially when I am working with a techy  team, arrows is part of their alphabet)

Now back to phase 2 refinement.

This is what it looks like:

Agile refinement phase 2

Agile refinement phase 2

From refinement phase 1, you got to put the stories into T-shirt sized bubbles. Now it’s time to take the relativity one step further.

For every bubble:

  1. Find the smallest piece of work put it to the left of the bubble
  2. Find the biggest piece of work, put it to the right of the bubble
  3. Look at the other cards and put them relative to each other.

For small, you have 3 areas to use (LEFT = 1 user story point, MIDDLE = 2 user story points, RIGHT = 3 user story points)

For the others, you only have 2 columns ( LEFT and RIGHT )

Why do we have 3 options for small and less for medium (5,8), Large (13,21), XL (34,55): The smaller an item, usually, the easier it is to predict the effort so you can have more precise ranges. The more complex, the bigger the ranges ( so they can hold more diverse cards – when it comes to effort. BTW effort = TIME * people)

XL, is another kettle of fish… If an item is XL, find out why. Is it really too big or too unclear or a bit of both? Can we split it out following INVEST? If you can- do so and re-organise the cards. Will it fit into a sprint? if No, then you need to split the card even if it doesn’t follow INVEST, I know there is not a lot of info out there on these scenario’s but, Agile looks at reality, so reality needs to be reflected at all times. Use pragmatism in these cases, that has always worked well for me. But to be honest, it’s very rare that we can’t find a way following INVEST to make it fit into a sprint.

So what are the hidden gems?

  • Individual level => Brain-training + efficiency training due to format of cards and repetition
  • team work as always – they work together deciding smallest, biggest,… it is amazing to see a team really do this together, they form a bond!
  • commitment and autonomy. The team has estimated this, it’s them saying: we can do this, and we feel confident it will take us this amount of effort. => motivation!

I hope you enjoyed this 🙂

Thank you and see you next time!

Brigitte

Building a highly efficient team is building highly efficient individuals

26 Friday Sep 2014

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Highly efficient teams exponentially increase business value.

I am a scrum master, but my area of expertise is the subtleties of human interaction and making individuals more efficient.  The more efficient the individual, the better the team, the higher the business value. And it is not just a 1+1=2  relationship, with every individual that ‘gets it’ your business value output increases exponentially.

Business value increases exponentially as people's efficiency goes up.

Business value increases exponentially as people’s efficiency goes up.

Yesterday, something interesting happened with my scrum team. I constantly do small experiments, to analyse and increase value where I can.

This team, has impressed me in the past with how they take matters in their own hands. On the last sprints, when they needed to know something, they just went and got that information and shared it with every one that needed to know.

It wasn’t always perfect and some individuals are more advanced at doing this than others, but I found it remarkable, you don’t always see that quality. In some teams, the misconception even exists that the scrum master should be the one ‘organising’ everything and being a bridge.

As a side note: I am not saying that there are no situations where as a scrum master you can’t jump in and help, or where you consciously decide to take on a bit of this work as a transition, there can be a multitude of reasons where being a temporary bridge might be the right thing to do, but that is food for another post.

In the current sprint, the team have taking on work with a lot of unknowns, they need to communicate with a team that before they haven’t had a lot of interaction with, the technical solution is not straight forward and there have been some external emergencies which surfaced some frustrations,…

As the days in the sprint went on, I noticed that the cards linked to the interaction with the new team, were not moving. The first few days the team seemed to have good reason for that, but we are now almost in the middle of our sprint and only one card has moved over to in progress. I try to not interfere unless the situation reaches a critical moment. Especially with this team, because the focus is getting them from good to great and learning and responsibility is a big part of that. But usually, because I care a great deal about them and the project, when it reaches a certain threshold, I will start working on a backup plan, without them knowing. So yesterday morning I started that prep. I usually start about 2 hours before every one else, gives me the time to focus.

Later that morning, the lead developer came to me and voiced his concern that we hadn’t started yet on international. So to put his mind at ease, and to see his reaction, I showed him that I had already started, I also asked him what he needed and he said he needed an info session with the other team. So, I said I would organise the meeting. ( not the right thing to do by the way )

I checked with every one involved and set a time, invitations were sent and it was clearly visible on the board when that info session was starting, 3 PM.

At 3, no one was there, one person was on the phone and emailing, the other was still in another meeting and one of the other developers was still working on a different task. So, I went over and asked: ‘are you ready?’

D1: Hmm, it’s not really a good time, I am right in the middle of something.

Me: Is it urgent?

D1: Not really but I am just in a flow

Me: Ok, but this meeting is for you all, it is not for me, you told me this morning that you needed this urgently. Things change, as is often the case in reality, and that is perfectly acceptable, but why wasn’t anyone notified?

D1: You are right, we do need this, it’s ok.

Of to the next one…

Me: Hello, are you working on an emergency?

D2: Hello, ow is it that time already? no its not an emergency, it’s a very difficult problem though that i need to help X with, but we wont be able to solve it in the next 30 minutes. So I will come over.

External team member: I am just on the phone, and then I need to send a quick email, I will be there in 2 minutes.

10 minutes later, every one was finally available. But it was like herding kittens ( an expression I heard one of my colleagues use on several occasions and I must admit, it has a nice ring to it 🙂

The above scenario is not a big deal and I paraphrased it a bit, but it illustrates the subtleties of balance between self-organising and dependency. Because I took it in hand, the team lost a little bit of their maturity, of their sense of responsibility. And a sense of responsibility, is one of the most valuable talents of a highly efficient team.

So today, I am going to have a sidebar mini retro to point that subtlety out so they can reflect on it and learn and claim their independence back.

It’s fascinating being a scrum master, challenging and the longer you do it, the more you realise that your role probably has to deal with the biggest unknowns of all and you need to be strong enough to be able to handle those unknowns.

Yours truly,

Brigitte

Just start writing and never give up.

20 Sunday Jul 2014

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I promised myself to write this blog every Sunday, but today, when I try to focus on what to write about, there is a bit of block there.

You probably know that feeling, something prevents you from getting in that moment of flow.

So I said to myself, just do it, just start writing, it will come.

In my career I have had so many times that I was thrown in the deep end and with no or very little prep had to just wing it. Scary at first, but exiting too, I must admit, I quite like it. More than that, I learn from it, not only a boost of confidence but also from an optimisation point of view, sometimes, you just have to trust your years of experience, combined with skills, healthy instincts and with pure intention, THAT is a winning combination. LEAN to the bone.

I have been very lucky to have influences from so many different fields, cultures, environments. Last Friday I got to revisit one of those environments.

In my past, I started a music channel where I interviewed Rock artists. It was called Taste iT Tv, as I wanted a little taste of what they were about, what made them tick, where does the passion come from, how do these creative, passionate and often pure people work and what makes them unique, how do they manage to inspire hundreds and thousands of people? What drives them and what do they all have in common?

Doing these interviews, I discovered one of the gifts I have, even though I don’t consider myself a ‘social’ person, as I am absolute rubbish at small talk, one thing I can do is have deep conversations with people, in a very short amount of time. People just open up to me. Why? Because my intentions are good and pure and they know I genuinely care. Respect and integrity are values I do not compromise on as they are core to who I am. And core to what I want the world to be. I truly believe that these values are the future of the human race and this world, and I will play any part I can in spreading them.

Last Friday, one of those bands I have interviewed was playing a festival near me. They were headlining one of the alternative stages. I went to meet up with them, to see how they were, talk about the future and the past and just relax and have fun, I really had a great time! I really loved it! And of course to see them play. Their live shows are always great, it’s not just the music, it’s how they interact with the audience, it is so much more…

I first interviewed The Blackout in 2006, hard to believe it’s almost 8 years ago. We hit it of immediately and that interview was one of the funniest I ever did. The guys were genuine, filled with drive, determination, hopes and dreams. They were just starting out then, but I knew they had something special. All of them are so unique but they work great together as a team. Over the years, they gained popularity, by working extremely hard and they got picked up by a label and they soared. The music ‘industry’ isn’t the best thing to promote values like respect and integrity and as is often the case, this label tried to suck the life out of this band. They got out, but not without a few scratches. Now, they have a kickstarter campaign running so they can take their future in their own hands and show the world what they can do. It takes guts, it really does, to keep going and just do it.

The Blackout are and will always be an inspiration to me, 6 guys with very different personalities, but together they have got it all, creativity, humour, kindness, strength, integrity, purity, courage, depth, loyalty. Rhys, Gavin, Snoz, Bob, Matthew and Sean, I hope the world backs their project, as they deserve it, and, leading by example, they have a few things they can give back to the world (not everything though, as there are certain things you probably shouldn’t get inspired by 😉 but those success elements, they definitely have them.

TheBlackout.net

This example of a great team, uniqueness, drive and ambition is one of those gems of inspiration I encountered through my life and it will stay with me.

Life is filled with gems along the road, make sure you can recognise them, pick them up and add them to your chest. And when you need to, open that chest and let those gems sparkle and guide you.

As I said in the beginning, sometimes, you just have to start, even if you don’t know where you are going, just start, something great will come out of it.

Thank you and goodnight!

Yours truly,
Bri
x

PS: For those of you wondering about the positivity project, it is going great! Over half the people at the office have signed up for it, I was truly overwhelmed by how many people wanted to take part. Next week we are starting the intro sessions, it’s all coming together.