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Agile Continuous Improvement - Agile Tour 2019

Avatar for Adelina Adelina
May 09, 2025
6

Agile Continuous Improvement - Agile Tour 2019

Summary
1.Overview of continuous improvement processes
2. Process improvement Tools
3. Sprint Retrospective
4. Retrospective Patterns
5. Prospective
6. Scrum dysfunctions

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Adelina

May 09, 2025
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Transcript

  1. Summary • Overview of continuous improvement processes • Process improvement

    Tools • Sprint Retrospective • Retrospective Patterns • Prospective • Scrum dysfunctions 05/11/10 www.agiletour.org
  2. Developing a Culture of Continuous Improvement Consistent with the company’s

    culture Taking ownership and be accountable Constant feedback and open communication Rather small changes than major paradigm shifts • Reduces fear factor • Increases speed of improvement 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  3. Retrospective Formats Different outcome depending on the format All team

    members should write ideas on post-it notes -> more engaging discussion A start-stop-continue format -> more points revealed Facilitation: right question and be neutral 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  4. Retrospective Often rather shows symptoms of the team's deeper problems

    Supports team formation and bonding Facilitation • Allow discussion to go where it needs to go • Not predetermine the outcome • Still timeboxed 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  5. Retrospective Benefits Action Points discovered in the retrospective • Tests

    are successful, but the build is crashing - > missing important scenarios • Tests run for 2h to validate the build -> idea of smoke tests, basic tests to validate the build fast • Fail fast approach 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  6. Retrospective patterns • Avoiding difficult topics like team problems and

    conflicts • Too much focus on tools (example old tools that don’t fit but in the end without taking a decision to speak further about it with the product owner, manager) • Blame other teams/people that are not present • Too much focus on the improvements list rather than success 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  7. Retrospective Patterns Solution Create the history of what's happening on

    your team Review notes and action points from previous sprints Measure agility Separated technical retrospective code review of code reviewers improvement of architecture, design 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  8. Scaled Agile - Technical Health 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org •Team reduces technical

    debt •Team adds improvements to the architecture •Automated acceptance tests and unit tests for implemented US •Team improves CI, build and test automation infrastructures •Continuous deployment, release on demand and recovery
  9. Metrics analysis High number of regression bugs - symptom •

    Development skills • Lack of clarity of requirements • Missing impact scenario from developers • Functional/Knowledge gap • Scenarios not tested properly • Code reviews 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  10. Root cause analysis Add specific root cause of bug reports

    for statistics • Implementation Error patterns • Programming Error patterns -> static analysis at PR, include new rules for static analysis 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  11. Reduce Technical debt Improve architecture Encourage refactoring Use of design

    patterns Clean code maintainable easy to extend 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  12. Reduce Technical debt Proactive bug fixing • Discover Similar areas/

    similar scenarios Error logs meaningful for the user, in order to have a hint or take an action Several levels of logging: functional, error, warnings, trace (for dev & qa) Innovation sprint planning • Reduce technical debt • Features and tools that add value • Robust collection of tests • Tools that can improve the development process • Replicate environments 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  13. Prospective Meetings Watches for outcomes, such as a missed deadline,

    a crashing demo/release Relates this to other factors such as suspected risk Possible problems that may occur and issues at risk should be addressed as early as possible 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  14. Prospective Imaginary scenario at a certain milestone When different teams

    need to integrate new features Communicate better the needs so as to solve the dependencies faster Prevents reworking Actual cost of reworking an item 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  15. Prospective example Client extension integration All stories validated and closed,

    except the client extension scenarios(the scope the requirement) •Implement missing part •Rework important parts in the core so as to fit the extension Several major enhancements in the business logic, needed to be done for client extension that were not predicted in the beginning. 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  16. Prospective example Questions •What would happen if the client extension

    is not delivered on time, is it possible to deliver only part of the core functionality for now? •When the client extension is ready would it the be possible to affect also the core functionality? •What is the customer impact with and without extension? 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  17. Prospective benefits Help the team see in advance which are

    the most sensitive points Better prepared for an eventual failure of the initial plan 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  18. Prospective example Mock-ups changing very often and many times for

    the same views -> multiple iterations of the same implementation -> new implementation was inheriting the same bugs from old implementation -> front-end too complex , too much business logic -> technical debt Solution possible ways to improve the architecture so as the code would be reused and not start from scratch due to the UI elements of the window. 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  19. Prospective Benefits The team takes the ownership and communicates better

    its needs Improves the cross-team communication Better predictability of the delivery Run it often to inspect and adapt new points that might come up 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  20. Improving the functions of the scrum team Dysfunction = Things

    that hold back a successful Scrum Team. Spot them and get ahead of them. Product Owner Problems •Lack of engagement •Lack of clarity Scrum Master dysfunctions Hero Developer Disorder Changing Sprint Lengths 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  21. The Role of the Product Owner • Maximize the business

    value delivered in the product • Provide the vision • Translate the needs of the business or Stakeholders into the Product Backlog • Prioritize 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  22. The Role of the Product Owner • Answer questions about

    scope, functionality • Make the tough calls • The Product Owner should expect to spend approximately 20% of his/her time with the team. 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  23. Lack of engagement dysfunction Is Your Product Owner Too Busy?

    • respond to the team's questions quickly • attend the required meetings • spend time for Product Backlog Refinement • Product Backlog ‘”ready” • 3-4 Sprints “Ready” • surprises during the Sprint Review 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  24. Unclear Product Owner • The Development Team needs a clear

    source of direction • A lack of clear direction will cause major problems 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  25. Unclear requirements Incorrect estimation of the complexity of that item

    • Changing the acceptance criterias -> sprint scope -> initial estimation 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  26. Unclear requirements • Immutable user stories • Another requirement should

    be added as a separated product backlog item • Bug report analysis before assign to development 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  27. Scrum master dysfunctions Facilitator, coach, helps team be productive Immutable

    user stories (already discussed and estimated) Too strict about the timeboxed meeting • More detailed technical team meetings afterwards (if needed) in order to provide further direction 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  28. Scrum master dysfunctions Too many goals at the end of

    the sprint planning Metrics like number of bugs solved creates competition between teams The number of regression bugs is important 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  29. Changing the Sprint Length The Sprint Length shouldn’t Change The

    sprint length is changed •based on work •based on holidays or employee availability -> It breaks your Velocity data 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  30. Hero Developer Dysfunction Undesirable Side Effects Can hinder self-organization Can

    hold the team back from working on PBIs -> bottlenecks -> quality problems(DoD, shortcuts) Coach them to be more of a mentor 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org
  31. Conclusion Examine your culture and practices Identify the barriers to

    cross-team communication and coordination Keep statistics about the current situation • The number of bugs found in production and during testing • The number of regression bugs Re-iterate the process after bringing some possible improvements 04/10/2019 www.agiletour.org