Pacing Sprints

Do you know the difference between a steady pace and a death march? If you've ever trained for any kind of endurance event, you probably do. In 1998, I trained for my first (and only) marathon. I failed to finish that marathon, but learned a lot that helps me in my work today as a project manager for the United Nations. In this session you will learn how I apply the principles of exercise progressions to successfully pace teams in agile sprints.

By the end of this session you will be able to:

define and map progression, which includes building strength, rest weeks and tapering
adjust a sprint plan to account for atypical weeks and multi-part problems
identify and mitigate individual and team habits that indicate boredom and burnout
adapt your sprint plan when unexpected emergencies arise
By implementing the ideas in this session, your teams will experience higher engagement, improved performance and an overall boost in morale and confidence. There will be time at the end for discussion around how to introduce these concepts for the personalities you work with.

Transcript

1. PACING SPRINTS
   @emmajanehw
   

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2. Difficulty of Task (amount of new knowledge required)
   easier tasks
   Time
   easier tasks
   taper as you get ready
   for public launch
   INCORPORATING LEARNING
   INTO SPRINT PLANNING
   

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3. SPRINTING LIKE A
   DISTANCE RUNNER.
   1. Define scope.
   2. Plan (and pace) sprints.
   3. Maintain focus and motivation.
   

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4. DEFINING THE
   SCOPE OF WORK
   What are we going to do?
   

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5. REWARDS & RISKS
   Allows you to identify and name project gremlins.
   Allows you to get a read on how / when
   stakeholders want to be involved in the project.
   Allows you to start the idea of a “won’t build” list.
   Define Scope
   Can cause tensions if stakeholder
   thinks you’re trying to avoid work
   with the “won’t build” list.
   

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6. Source: http://winnipegagilist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-create-user-story-map.html
   More: http://agileproductdesign.com/
   Book: User Story Mapping (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033851.do)
   

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8. RADICALLY TRANSPARENT
   PLANNING ARTEFACTS
   • Inception Deck.
   • User Story Map.
   • Project Approach Document.
   • Epics / Backlog
   • The “Won’t Build” List.
   

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9. PLAN THE SPRINTS;
   SPRINT THE PLAN.
   When are we going to do it?
   

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10. REWARDS & RISKS
    Allows team to understand the scaffolding they
    should put in place for features they’ll build.
    Place “hard” tasks when team is likely to be most
    engaged (e.g., consider holidays).
    Build in capacity for iteration; plan to replace
    elements with increasingly more complex code.
    Plan your project
    If your plan is too rigid, you start
    getting into waterfall-style promises.
    

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11. A PROJECT IS A
    MARATHON
    Pace sprints to be increasingly difficult with
    periodic rest weeks.
    

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12. MITIGATE THE
    LEARNING CURVE
    • Plan and review:

    technical review board.
    • Allow fluid scheduling:

    Kanban-style pull, not deadline-style Scrum.
    • Share learning often:

    demo -> Q&A.
    

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13. Difficulty of Task (amount of new knowledge required)
    easier tasks
    Time
    easier tasks
    taper as you get ready
    for public launch
    INCORPORATING LEARNING
    INTO SPRINT PLANNING
    

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14. LEAVE ROOM FOR
    UNEXPECTED DELIGHTS.
    

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15. MAINTAINING
    MOMENTUM
    Are we almost there yet?
    

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16. REWARDS & RISKS
    Getting to know your stakeholders means you can
    mitigate their impact on the developers.
    Getting to know your developers allows you to pace
    the project with more grace.
    Know your team
    Seeing today’s capacity might make
    you hesitant to push the team to do
    better tomorrow.
    It’s time consuming,

    and if you stop it will be noticed.
    

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18. [INSERT APPROPRIATE GIF HERE]
    

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19. MOTIVATE
    • Ask the team what motivates them.
    • Give choice.
    • Have high standards

    which allow for creative solutions.
    • Celebrate wins.
    

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20. RESOURCES
    Managing Change

    http://gitforteams.com/resources/change-management.html
    A Developer’s Primer To Managing Developers

    https://austin2014.drupal.org/session/developers-primer-managing-developers.html
    Things I Learned From Managing My First Project

    https://drupalize.me/blog/201312/things-i-learned-managing-my-first-project
    

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