Priya Sinha & Ben Mancini Fragile Agile The top 10 mistakes made by new agile teams (And how to avoid doing them) 33.38 41.24 Priya Sinha & Ben Mancini

Agenda Who are we… Fragile – an overview The top 10 What we have learnt

Who are we? Ben Mancini Priya Sinha Losing my (agile) religion Passionate about high-performing team

Fragile – this is just some jokey play on agile being fragile isn’t it?

1. Mindset ‘Doing agile’ but practicing something else Consider… Top down/ bottom up drive to do agile Dependency on other teams ‘doing agile’ Consider… Start small, experiment and adapt Remember it’s individual and interactions over process and tools! Leadership backing

2. No focus on customer Forgetting what the team is here for Gold plating Not breaking down work sufficiently Consider… Bigger the release, higher the risk, reduce the size, reduce the risk Plan at different level MVP, V1, V2… Understand real ‘business priorities’

3. Unhealthy focus on estimation Estimating because that’s what the team have always done Relative estimation is relatively useless for some team Software products are difficult to estimate accurately Consider… Understand who are you estimating for and what they need? Consider other alternatives such as ‘release train’.

4. Metrics over value to user Talking just about metrics Comparing velocities across teams Consider… Accept teams are different and will perform with variance Burndown is not equal to delivering value to users

5. Wagile Silo thinking Consider… Keep your priorities in check Late surprises Change request process Consider… Keep your priorities in check Don’t mix project Gantt charts with Scrum/ Kanban boards Keep asking why certain process and value exists

6. Agile as religion Agile evangelism i.e. agile is great, everything else is rubbish Agile sweet spot is the intersection of moderately uncertain requirements and technology Consider… Agile is good, but so are other approaches, tread carefully Understand your pain points before you switch Be aware of the short term increase in cost

7. Give up after 1st attempt Impatience Not finding the root cause Too much context switching Consider… It can take up to 3 years to mature Inspect and adapt Focus on one thing, consider WIP limit

8. Focus on the ceremony in agile ceremonies Using ceremonies for things other than intended for Required stakeholder ignoring ceremonies A perception of ‘too many meetings’ Consider… Be clear on purpose of the ceremonies Understand the concerns around meetings Mandatory vs. optional attendees

9. Lack of transparency Refusal to discuss when things go south An elephant in the room being ignored No retrospectives Consider… Have a safe place for team to talk Make retrospective valuable Don’t forget to celebrate the success

10. Embracing the misconceptions Agile needs no project management We don’t need documentation Agile is easy Consider… Challenge misconceptions Lots of agile methods you could adopt, don’t limit yourself Agile can be easy if you do groundwork

What have we learnt… Keep simple Agile is about good design and discipline Lose religion

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