Notes on agile

I worked to create, and simplify a new jira project. My goal was I to only keep only the fields we used. We also changed the workflow (the statuses issues flow through) and added a new issue type. The most frustrating part was the bulk updates of the backlog and in progress to the new project. For now Issue types Epic-a project that will span may sprints Story-A piece of work I can deliver that has value Task-something that needs to be done to accomplish the story Request something someone asked for and we haven't backlogged and prepped yet Bug - a defect Issue status Requested a request we have not looked at Accepted - a request we will do, in the future To be groomed - may get rid of but we are prepping this for intake Grooming - we are breaking it up/down Groomed-will get rid of To do - ready In progress - being done Completed-done Rejected not done (no longer needed, indefinite hold, duplicate, whatever)

What rituals are there for an agile scrum team? Each sprint (ours are 3 weeks) has Scrum aka standup The goal is 15 minute daily meeting The common three questions are: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? What is in your way? The goal is transparency, everyone on the team should have the opportunity to know what each person is working on, and for the team to all get an idea of where they are on the commitments for the sprint, what issues there are, and use the opportunity to help out other team mates as needed. Grooming The goal is to prepare work for upcoming sprints, break epics (large goals that will span sprints) into stories (a deliverable piece of work, as small as you can make it and still assign value). Each story should be assigned a complexity rating, or story point. These are Fibonacci numbers (1, 3, 5, 8). These are complexity not hours! Retrospective At the end of the sprint look back What action items did we have last sprint, did we make progr

Today I spent my time creating a new JIRA project to move three of the teams into - and attempting to redesign the workflow, fields, and in general simplify it while keeping it so it matches the process and will allow us to report on what is important to us. My goal is to get it cleaned up and ready so that on Monday during sprint planning the three targeted teams can begin by using the new project. In addition, I am going to start cleaning (matching pattern) the SharePoint, and create a template with links to relevant data for each customer. The objective is to make things self-service and predictable which will help with onboarding as well as assisting as analysts and developers move team to team. Finally, I hope to create common definitions and agendas for rituals. For example an agenda for the retrospective, and define our Story Points so there is a common understanding between teams about what a "3" is, for example, I am getting some pushback on this. Mostly in the

Found out about http://modernagile.org Methodology Sounds interesting, and similar to what we did at my last company. However I am not sure I can drive into this with the teams here yet. I hate overhead and wasted work (lean!) so getting away from estimates and other non value added work sounds good.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/547715/

In order to work towards lean, you need to focus on having a balance of throughput and resource utilization, leaning more toward flow (throughput). Lean does not align with all business models. For example low cost airlines focus on most time in the air or utilization of resource planes. They are much less concerned with the throughput of customers from origin to destination. Lean was based on American observations of the TPS or Toyota Production System. The book reviews the Efficiency Paradox, reminds us that learn is a goal, achieved through various methods, not a end point or a pattern you can mimic. Lean is about continuous improvement and not a box to check. You must always remove waste from the system and review the values and goals of the company to check they are being accomplished by the systems and structures you have put in place. A review here http://better-operations.com/2013/06/30/this-is-lean/ The book here http://www.thisislean.com

5 values; Courage, Commitment, Focus, Openness, and Respect.  From https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/updates-scrum-guide-5-scrum-values-take-center-stage Described here: https://guntherverheyen.com/2013/05/03/theres-value-in-the-scrum-values/

We are uncovering better ways of developing  software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on  the right, we value the items on the left more. From http://agilemanifesto.org

I have been working to get all the access I need. I do not yet have the ability to host, A/V meetings (there are remote team members), but I have scheduled a place holder retrospective for this Friday. I do finally have a working phone, wifi, VPN (just in time I broke my Bluetooth headset). I have made a list of proposed fields changes for our electronic scrum board. One other scrum master agrees with me, the other made valid comments so I changed some items, the rest have not responded. I have I gotten approval to become an administrator, and need to relay that to the current administrator. I have calculated the average velocity, and went over the priorities for the next sprint. This planning session will be painful as we are not groomed. I have started to work out what reports I would like, but we don't have a data warehouse or a module (they cost money) for time reporting or ad-hoc reporting. The scrums seem to be going OK, I will check in on them at ret

An article a friend shared with me that was a good summary of what scrum masters do https://www.infoworld.com/article/3236547/agile-development/how-to-improve-your-scrum-master-skills.html You do need to register (free) to read it.

A book not directly related, but a good read This Is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17060202-this-is-lean A very enjoyable book about scrum The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-project

Today was day six. I was able to work in the morning, but had to return in the afternoon to orientation. My day 7 will also be orientation. Day 8 will have an hour of department specific orientation, followed by scrum of scrums, and then our holiday party. In the morning I started my personal Kanban on post its, and started evaluation of fields in use for our jira project. I hope to hide the unused fields to start, and add them back in as needed to make the process less intimidating for users. After speaking with one of the other scrum masters (analyst) we decided my notes can go in jira. I was hoping to take over scrum on Wednesday but it looks like that will need to wait until Thursday. First change is I am making it alphabetical as it seems silly to just have everyone trying to figure out who is next each day. Brain dump below I also need to synch up and go over the backlog with the current scrum master, schedule the next retro, and probably grooming and planning

I have been hired to do the work of scrum master for a private corporation. I just started last week. I plan to document what I am doing here so as a method of thinking it through and talking it out. Perhaps you might find it interesting, or not. My history; I have worked in IT since 2005 with a variety of teams. I have done, and dislike, waterfall. I have managed scrum, kanban, and scrumban teams. I personally prefer kanban for its lightweight nature. I have done the agile management work roles (if not titles) of business system analyst, (technical) project manager, and product manager. I have had the IT roles of (if not titles) manual quality assurance, system administration, network administration, database administration, active directory manager, deployment manager, and enterprise server help desk. I have worked in environments where I needed to have hippa and pic compliance.

In my first week I had to do the normal onboarding activities (hr paperwork, acquire logins, learn my way around, meet people, get my computer). My personal goal for the week was to get a feeling for the type of work the teams I would be working with do, what agile rituals were happening, a high level summary of the projects in flight, and an idea of where we fit within the company. I also wanted to confirm why I was hired, And what my bosses first improvement objectives and expectations were. I had a slight miss understanding of which team I would start with but otherwise, I believe I reached my goals for the week. I will be working with one developer team that currently has three week sprints, does daily scrum standups, has worked in Kanban at points, does not seem to have a regular scheduled retrospective (but has done them), does not seem to have regular demos, and I need to assess the quality of their backlog /grooming, and sprint kickoffs. The team has mostly d