Fractional agile: how to do iterative development when it’s only part of your job

Presented at Open Repositories 2018

Transcript

1. FRACTIONAL AGILE H OW TO D O I T E R AT I V E D E V E L O P M E N T W H E N I T ’ S O N LY PA RT O F YO U R J O B Robin Dean Digital Projects Librarian Michigan State University Libraries rdean@msu.edu Open Repositories 2018 Bozeman, MT
2. First, A Fairy Tale 2
3. Why are dedicated teams ideal? • No effort lost to context switching / “multitasking” • Easier to plan and forecast • People aren’t interchangeable resources  Teams are made of people  Different people = different team 3
4. Reality: different people work at different times on different projects 4
5. Navigating Part-Time Teams 1.Clarify expectations 2. Have conversations 3. Work sustainably 5
6. 1. Clarify expectations Vision • What are we doing and why? Time commitment • Within sprints and across sprints Developer responsibilities  Plan, do, and test work  Attend meetings  Communicate 6
7. 2. Have Conversations Complex problems need synchronous conversations Not synchronous  Email, Jira comments Maybe synchronous  Slack, IRC Synchronous  Phone, video, in-person 7
8. 3. Work Sustainably Contribute your committed fraction of time  Not less  Not more! It’s better to reliably get a few things done than to randomly get a lot done 8
9. Benefits of Part-Time Teams • Learn interesting and helpful things from other projects your teammates are working on • Share specialists with other teams • Create opportunities to collaborate across departments and institutions • Lower barriers to participating in a team 9
10. Readings & Image Credits Brown, Roger. June 29, 2010. “Multitasking Gets You There Later.” Retrieved June 5 2018 from https://www.infoq.com/articles/multitasking-problems Images Slide 2: Unicorn by Ralf Roletschek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Slide 4: Detail from Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus, Wikipedia, Public Domain Slide 5: Compass Rose by Seamus McGill, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Slide 6: Dog Bubble Play, Pixabay, CC0 Slide 7: Boxer-Hündin… by Slick, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-4.0 Slide 8: Dog Pug Training, Pixabay, CC0 10
11. FRACTIONAL AGILE H OW TO D O I T E R AT I V E D E V E L O P M E N T W H E N I T ’ S O N LY PA RT O F YO U R J O B Robin Dean Digital Projects Librarian Michigan State University Libraries rdean@msu.edu Open Repositories 2018 Bozeman, MT