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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

Explosions are imminent

16 Tuesday Sep 2014

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I have seen it countless times, when faced with a challenge, people, businesses, revert to old, known behaviour. It takes courage to actually stand still, investigate what is right and be brave enough to implement it.

At my current company, we have had a huge success with Agile. When the CTO made the courageous decision to hire a completely new team and a very talented Agile Coach/scrum master, and took on a new project ( with a deadline ) he knew that he was setting himself up for success. And that is what happened. Not only did he deliver in time, the product was delivered with high-quality, by a happy, self organised team.

The last sprint goal was: keep calm. And that was it. Never before had I, or any other team member been in a live release that was so calm and effective, it was almost surreal and it showed us all what Agile can do.

That, was only scratching the surface and it wasn’t even SCRUM to the letter, as with most projects, in reality, there is a balance to be found, it’s continuous improvement, it’s transition towards Agile. But even in this setting, these were some of the side effects.

The team members were actually happy, a sight that you don’t often see in a place of work. Even though countless studies have shown the immense importance of happiness on productivity, loyalty, drive and creativity.

The team had clarity and transparency, again, not 100% but the trust is there, the basis has been set and now, when there are issues or dangers, they get raised fast and we have the ability to react quickly.

The team was a team, everyone knew what they were doing and they helped each other grow.

Now… a project got thrown in with a rush, it had to be delivered in 2 weeks. No product owner, no clarity, no reason why, no agile, it just had to be done and it had to be done quick.

So what has happened? Almost every member of that team and of the other teams working on this project has come to me with frustration, anger, dis-trust in the project, dis-trust in the company and even in other team members. That well-oiled machine got a huge spanner thrown into the wheels and now it’s stuck, it’s at a risk of over heating, explosions are imminent.

So what can we do? As scrum masters, first thing we did is try and create clarity. Force people to stand still and talk to each other long enough to get at least more visibility and get things down on cards. At the same time, manage individuals to keep motivated, keep believing that this is just a spanner and once taken out, we will be running smoothly again. My co-scrum master had the brilliant idea of doing a scrum reset, the perfect time to get back to basics. Together, we set up the process to introduce bitesize scrum (scrumbites) to lead the way back to how it should be. In daily iterations we will get back to basics, diffuse the situation, get everyone motivated again and bring back a productive happy environment.

Well… as we all know, knowledge comes from experience and I think this has shown us again how far we have come through agile and it has shown us that we do not want to go back.

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.