An effective transition from component teams to feature teams. Why, how and when? LUCIA BALDELLI agile coach www.lean-solutions.net
SATISFY THE CUSTOMER THROUGH EARLY AND CONTINUOUS DELIVERY OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE Agile Manifesto, 1 st principle Optimization goals AGILITY Welcome changing requirements, even late in development, 2 nd principle REDUCE CYCLE TIME Deliver working software frequently, 3 rd principle DELIVERY OPTIMISED BY BUSINESS VALUE
Feature teams and Component teams
Feature teams Long-lived, cross-functional, cross-component, ideally co-located teams that work to deliver end to end customer features one by one, balancing specialization and flexibility.
Feature teams are about EMPOWERMENT ACCOUNTABILITY IDENTITY OWNERSHIP CONSENSUS BALANCE
Continuous delivery of valuable software The Scrum team is a feature team able to do all the work to complete a Backlog item. Feature teams enable the delivery of customer value at the end of each iteration
EXPLICIT REQUIREMENTS IMPLICIT REQUIREMENTS minimizing the risk of late identification of unknown requirements and allowing feedback that will help meet customer expectations and build a better product. UNKNOWN REQUIREMENTS The iceberg of requirements
Component teams work on a component and their responsibilities remain within its boundaries. More component teams' deliverables are integrated to make up a feature.
Impact of Component teams on team work and dynamics Dependencies between teams leads to additional planning Lack of understanding and ownership of the end to end solution Exploits existing expertise instead of flexibility and continuous learning Teams working in silos, lack of communication and potential design issues
Impact of Component teams on the roles Requirements analysis team to chop up requirements for component teams SYSTEM ARCHITECT REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS TEAM INTEGRATION TEAM One project manager for each team to manage the delivery of chopped requirements Integration manager and Integration team to assemble components in a solution INTEGRATION MANAGER SYSTEM TESTING TEAM System Architect to design the overall solution System testing team and to validate the final integrated solution PROJECT MANAGER
Impact of Component teams on the delivery of business value
What if we transition to feature teams too late? when agile is not understood in the first place you actually end up scaling a problem!
Leading the transformation
Create a sense of urgency Assess and identify inefficiencies and dysfunctions Measure employees (dis)satisfaction Benchmark key metrics with other known competitors data Present to senior stakeholders and get management support and trust Build a guiding coalition Plan short and long term goals Communicate a change vision Start small!
Self designing team workshop - flow THE PURPOSE OF THE EXERCISE IS TO KICK START 1-2 FEATURE TEAMS BEFORE DOING IT ON A LARGE SCALE 3 cycles Review Decision point Decision point at the end of the 3 rd iteration by the Board 25 minute cycles While forming, the Board, POs and SMs leave the room 10 mins review at the end of each cycle Improvement points given by POs, SMs, Coaches and attached with a post it to the flipchart Teams try and address the points in the following iteration OPTION A OPTION B OPTION C The Board is happy with the outcome The Board is happy with the outcome but some further improvements points have to be addressed The Board is not happy with the outcome, will decide some changes and communicate them the day after the event
Time Duration AGENDA Who 10:00 15 mins INTRODUCTION TO POS Coach 10:15 45 mins ELEVATOR PITCH POs 11:00 15 mins INTRODUCTION TO THE FLOW Coach Self designing team workshop - agenda 11:15 35 mins SELF DESIGNING TEAMS CYCLE ONE AND REVIEW Everybody 11:50 10 mins BREAK Everybody 12:00 35 mins SELF DESIGNING TEAMS CYCLE TWO AND REVIEW Everybody 12:35 35 mins SELF DESIGNING TEAMS CYCLE THREE AND REVIEW Everybody 1:10 50 mins LUNCH Everybody 2:00 30 mins DECISION POINT Board 2:30 30 mins TEAM CHOOSE NAME, SM, PO AND COACH Everybody 3:00 30 mins HOW TO START AFTER DAY 0 Board 3:30 15 mins EVENT RETROSPECTIVE Coach 3:45 15 mins CLOSING Board
Building cohesive teams
Focus on people, not processes Be the change, inspire your teams Build a safe-to-fail environment Encourage experiments Give people an equal voice Promote continuous feedback Educate about Agility Celebrate success Be transparent on results
Coach values Commit to quality, to collaborate, to the Sprint Goal, to look for improvements, to inspect & adapt, to transparency Courage to change, to refactor, to share information Focus on what is most important, on getting things done Respect for people and diversity of opinions Open to collaborate, to share feedback
- Say what you mean, mean what you say - No me, just We - Help is not asked, is given - One-4-all = all-4-1 - You code, you commit. Don t wait for tomorrow - Refactoring is not a task, It s how we code - Code = code + test + doc - Work on pairs - One task at the time - Bugs are evil. Kill evil! Working agreement
Build a high performance team culture GET ASTONISHING RESULTS TEAM CAN DO ANYTHING COMMITTED TO TEAM SUCCESS SELF-ORGANIZING OWNS ITS DECISIONS BELIEVE THEY CAN SOLVE ANY PROBLEM CONSTRUCTIVE DISAGREEMENT GET THE RIGHT BUSINESS VALUE FASTER TRUST MOTIVATES THEM CONSENSUS-DRIVEN EMPOWERED ROOM FOR TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL GROWTH GET THE BUSINESS VALUE FASTER COMMITMENT FOCUS OPENNESS COURAGE RESPECT SIMPLICITY
Sharing knowledge
Solution design workshop Each team provides an overview on the design of its component Collaborative and interactive Video recorded as living documentation Followed by ad hoc in depth sessions on critical components
The whole team works on the same code at the same computer Mob They do all the work of a typical software development team including defining stories, working with customers, designing, testing, and deploying software. programming
Pair programming Least qualified implementer technique everyone selects the task they know least about combined with 90 mins pair switching, called promiscuous pairing.
Managing multiple feature teams
Multi team coordination and planning Synchronized Sprints Scrum of scrums Communities of practice Multi-team meetings Leading team
One product vision to drive the initiatives across the organization Single product backlog with different views for each team Release walls to manage interdependencies between features Self managed and self organized teams Aiming for Agile HR, flat organizational structures Multi-team delivery
Recommended readings
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