Oles 8 steps for Agile Mentors
Having worked as an Agile Mentor for some years, I have discovered a pattern for how I help teams navigate on their journey from from traditional processes towards Agile values and methods. I have discovered, that I can turn most teams into fullblown agile teams, by helping them in 8 different steps - and I have seen, that this takes me 10-15 days during a period of 2-3 months. The early steps are more learning than doing, but that quickly changes - and I stand back, facilitate and support the team and the customers while they are estimating, prioritising, plannning, etc.
For each step I have discovered a number of Do’s and Dont’s. During the whole process you need to focus on your role as a change agent. Like during the planning sessions, where your goal is NOT to create a plan - but to get each individual team member to engage in the planning. A special challenge during planning sessions is the Project Leader, who often is used to do all the planning. Your job as a change agent is to get the Project Leader to stand back and support the team during the planning session. I have a little exercise for this which involves hands and pockets…
One of my favorite steps is when I show up 1-2 weeks before the iteration ends and ask this simple question: “The demo - next Friday…?”. That’s all I have to do at this point. It’s really interesting and funny to see what happens - and the patterns is always the same. The project leader and the other team members come up with all the excuses you can think of - for not being able to demo or deliver anything in this particular iteration. After talking to them about the core values and principles of Agile and Iterative development, we find a way to get ready for the demo - and they always talk about this as a definate KEEP during the reflection workshop after the demo.
My 8 steps are:
Agile Training Workshop
Facilitate Use Case Camp (this can be skipped if there is 100% alignment about the business needs and requirements on a general level - but there never is…)
Facilitate Release Planning Game
Facilitate Iteration Planning Game
Show up a couple of times per week
Ask the question: “The demo - next Friday…?”
Facilitate Demo and Reflection Workshop
Facilitate Product Evaluation and Updating the Release Plan
I will run this as a presentation with a number of interaction sessions with the audience. For each of the 8 steps I will present my experiences and best practices - and I will ask the audience for their ideas on how to perform the step even better. To ensure participant thinking and learning - I will spice the presentation up by a little contest that runs through the whole presentation. This subject is serious and important stuff - but the presentation will be engaging and FUN!