Charter Your Project/Team for (Agile) Success

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Charter Your Project/Team for (Agile) Success Johanna Rothman @johannarothman www.jrothman.com jr@jrothman.com 781-641-4046

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Have You Ever Wondered: • Who’s on the team? • What are we supposed to do, and for whom? • Why (for the company, product, etc)? • How will we know when it’s done? • What else do we need to know? 2

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Our Agenda 1. Project or Continuous stream of work? 2. Who’s on the team? Do we have everyone we need? 3. Working Agreements 4. Vision: Who, what, why? (Who are we building what for and why?) 5. Release Criteria: What done means 6. What else do we need to know? 4

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 1. Project or Continuous Stream? • What’s your preferred container of work? • Project, so you can stop working on one product to move to another • Continuous stream, to continue working on one product • Every effort requires purpose (charter) for a speciﬁc set of customers 5

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 2. Who’s on the Team? • Agile teams are product development teams • What capabilities/skills does your product require? (not roles) • Small enough team to collaborate • Traps: visitors, narrow experts, component teams 6

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Ideal Agile Teams • Team afﬁliates to collaborate: • Plan • Deliver • Reﬂect • Can your team do this without needing anyone else? • Can your team stay together and not be pulled apart? 7

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman When You Don’t Have a Full Team • Wait for other teams or people • Can’t implement by feature easily • Everything takes longer (cycle time) • Costs go up • Defects more difﬁcult to track and eliminate 9

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman When You Have Teams Who Work by Layer • Dependencies on other teams/people • Everything takes longer (cycle time) • Costs go up • Defects more difﬁcult to track and eliminate 10

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Team or Workgroup? 11 Teams Workgroups Small: 5-10 members Any size Common purpose or goal Possibly a department goal or vision Not a project goal Agreed-upon approach to the work Agreed-upon department goal Complementary skills Often, similar skills across group Interdependent interim goals Independent interim goals Commit to each other for the project goal Individual goals—no need to commit to a peer

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Areas for Discussion: Values • Values from http:// www.dhavalpanchal.com/sharing- values-a-team-building-exercise • “I don’t like it when…” • “I like it when…” • Include ground rules for behaviors at meetings, checkins, etc 13

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Areas for Discussion: Working Agreements • Core hours • What done means • Meeting times • What the team automates and when • Response to urgent requests • Sustainable pace 14

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 4. Vision: What are we building and for whom? • Vision: brief and compelling: • Who are we building this for? • Why do those people need it? • What value do those people receive? 15

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Project Vision Example and Practice • Original vision: “Government- mandated change to accounts.” • New vision: “Save people’s retirement money.” • Now you: • Who? • What can they do with this product? • What value do they receive? 16

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 5. Release Criteria • The vital few criteria by which we will judge the done-ness of the project • Balanced scorecard • Performance, reliability, scalability • Date 17

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Mine the Project Pyramid for Release Criteria • Which features do you need by when with defects? • Who (people) do you have available, for how long (cost), and how do they know how to work? 18

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Release Criteria Example and Practice • Example 1: May 30. (Yes, I had a project like that.) • Example 2: Minimum feature set 1, 2, 3, with speciﬁed response time, by Aug 1. • Now you: • Someone willing to share without speciﬁcs? 19

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Team Works Together • Notice that the team creates their working agreements, vision, and release criteria • Iterate on the working agreements • That means they create a team by working together 20

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 6. What Else? • Might depend on how traditional your organization is • Estimates? Use cycle time or the ideas in Predicting the Unpredictable • Risk “plan?” Use a risk table • What else are you supposed to use in a project charter? 21

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time for Estimation 22 One Team’s Varying Cycle Time 19 days Average Cycle Time: 5 Stories 3.6 days Totals: Day 16 5 Day 19 3 days Day 15 1 day 4 Day 16 Day 7 Day 15 8 days 3 2 Day 7 Day 3 4 days Day 1 1 2 days Day 3 Story Duration Story End Day Story Start Day Story Measure Cycle Time blog post: https://www.jrothman.com/cycletime

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© 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Answer These Questions 1. Project or Continuous stream of work? 2. Who’s on the team? Do we have everyone we need? 3. Working Agreements 4. Vision: Who, what, why? (Who are we building what for and why?) 5. Release Criteria: What done means 6. What else do we need to know? 26