1. What makes a Good Agile Team
Erik Barnes

2. Introduction Kimberly-Clark PMO – Agile COE
Using and coaching Agile teams for 4 years
We currently have 60+ Agile teams and growing

3. Agile Teams Agile Workstreams vs Agile Project
Never ends
Has a Beginning and an End
Team size based on investment strategy
Team size based on Scope/Money and Timeline
Cadence/Ceremonies
The Same
Used to manage all team workload
Used to manage project workload
Release Planning (less defined)
Release Planning (more defined)

4. Based on my experience Leadership Lack of Trust
Could not deal with not having a comprehensive Plan for the year, including estimates and dates.
Sometimes it’s their leadership
Support to Fail
Lack of Trust
Product Owner
Wrong Product Owner (Do they have the right accountability)
Multiple Product Owner w/o a single voice
Shallow backlog
Lack of expertise

5. What makes a Good Agile Team

6. Excel Agile Assessment tool
Team fit (Self organizing, problem solving, empowered and open minded attitude)
Single Owner that is accessible and has the decision rights to the vision
Is the team centered around a single product
Is there a continuous flow of work or enhancements (i.e strong backlog)
Can the team deliver capabilities/ROI incrementally
High understanding of tech/solution (Inc Dependencies, sequencing, standards, decomposition)
Continuous development, test and integration approach is possible
Team Composition and Balance (Cross functional skills, balanced across SA, BA and Dev)
Leadership and Senior Stakeholders supports continuous/adaptive planning
Team is co-located or can effectively use tools to simulate co-location
Resource commitment/utilization is consistent
Detailed requirements or Feature priorities may change over time
Excel Template
Excel

7. Ideal Agile Team The Team Team Members Backlog of new capabilities
Develops new Capabilities
Self Organizing
Team Members
Backlog of new capabilities
1 – Security Update
2 – New EDI form
3 – Pricing Config
4 - XXXXXXXX
5 - XXXXXXXX
Product Owner
The Person with a Vision and can
Prioritize new Features
Product Owner
Centered around a Product
(Business Process or Capability)
Examples:
Order to Cash, HR, Warehouse Mgmt, ATR
Product
Minimum requirement for an Agile Team
Product - Must have a Product or Service to be centered around. Think of a Product as a Business Process or Capability supported by ITS. Examples: APO, OTC, Vistex, ATR, etc.
Product Owner - A person who has the vision and can prioritize where they want to take the Product. Ideally a single person or single voice if multiple people. Can be in the Business or IT, must have ownership/accountability for the product.
Team - A team to develop / enhance the Product. The team is sized based on the Investment Strategy. If you want to drive that product forward, invest with more people. The team can be made up of Developers, Business Analysts, Testers or ideally you have generalists that can do it all. Team members need to be accountable, make commitments and deliver on promises.
You need 2 more things:
Backlog - The Product needs to have a healthy Backlog to be prioritized. The Backlog can contain both new Features and Support items, however if there are no new Features to be developed, then the team is sized just to do Support.
ScrumMaster - A ScrumMaster to facilitate the Agile Framework. Typically, it is a team member with facilitations skills. Avoid the Product Owner taking on the ScrumMaster role.
Ideal team size is between 4-7 people; (As low as 2 to as high as 10)
If teams are too big, try to split them into workstreams with smaller number of people.
Where does Agile not fit well:
For teams, it is mostly based on leadership willingness to be iterative vs. following a comprehensive plan.
Large Projects like Byrd, need a comprehensive Plan and are not good candidates for Agile
ScrumMaster to Facilitate the Agile Framework

8. What do you think makes an Ideal Agile Team

9. Share our Results

10. Survey Results By: Christian Dominguez & Erik Barnes
2014 ITS State of Agile
Survey Results
By: Christian Dominguez & Erik Barnes

11. Respondent Demographics
Months and Years of Practicing Agile Techniques
25%
(1-2 Years)
24%
(4-6 months) 7%
(2+ Years)
32%
(7-12 months)
12%
(1-3 months)

12. Respondent Demographics
Respondents were able to select multiple options
The majority of the respondents were from either the Team, ScrumMaster or Team Leader of an Agile team.

13. Productivity Improvements
90% of the respondents believe there was a greater than 10% improvement in productivity, with 71% believing there was a significant (greater than 25%) improvement

14. Business Alignment Improvements
Over 88% of the respondents believe there is a greater than 10% improvement in Alignment between IT and Business Priorities and Objectives
22% believe there is over 100% increase in alignment

15. Team Morale Improvements
90% of the respondents believe there were improvements in team morale, with 73% believing there was a significant improvement

16. Managing Changing Priorities
83% of the respondents believe there were improvements to the speed at which changes were implemented

17. Visibility of Blockers
93% of the respondents believe there were improvements in Visibility to Blockers with 88% of those surveyed believing there was a significant improvement

18. Time to Market or Completion
83% of the respondents believe there were improvements to the speed at which changes were implemented

19. Simplicity in Completing Deliverables
83% of the respondents believe there were improvements in the simplicity of completing deliverables with 66% believing there was a significant improvement.

20. Risk and Quality Improvements
Although Risk reduction and Software Quality had improvements, it was not as significant of an improvement as the other areas

21. Agile Techniques
Respondents were able to select multiple options
Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Retrospectives and Sprint Reviews are widely used techniques by Agile teams
Areas to focus in on are; Burndown, Release Planning, and Single Product Owner

22. Barriers to Further Adopt Agile Techniques
Respondents were able to select multiple options
There is a strong belief that a lack of dedicated resources for the work is a significant barrier to further adopting Agile techniques. The same goes for the ability to change organizational culture.
The good news is that Management Support or Availability to Agile Experience is not a significant barrier to adopting Agile techniques

23. Thanks