Agile Product, Team, and Culture development

1. “Unless you radiate the purity of the
Dalai Lama, don’t assume that people
automatically believe you truly have
selfless goals.”
-- The Story Factor, Annette Simmons

2. Kicking off an Agile
Product, Team, and Culture

3. Agenda
 Intro
 Purpose
 Start of the Start
 Agile Kickoff
(if time permits)
 Agile Kickoff Examples

4. Darren Hoevel MBA, SPC, CSP, ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF, CSM,
CSPO
Pliant Solutions
Entrepreneur, Coach, Product Evangelist,
Agile Junkie, Adventurer etc..
 A pragmatic, non-prescriptive kaizen
enabler with a passion for leveraging
Agile practices to consistently deliver
exceptional results, great products and
“delighted customers” to evolving
organizations.
 Industry expertise: Technology,
Education, Software, Semiconductor,
Retail, Education, Start-up, Healthcare
(HIX), State & Federal Government.
 Agile Community: AgileDC 2013 & 2014
(AgileDC.org) Organizing Board
Member, Agile 2013-14 Participant,
Agile Meetup junkie, Agile Government
Leadership Steering Committee
Credentials:
SAFe Program Consultant
Certified Scrum Professional
IC Agile Facilitator and Coach
Certified ScrumMaster and Product Owner
MBA, George Fox University, OR

5. Purpose
Problem:
Business and IT struggle to understand what is expected from them as they
enter new projects under the “Agile umbrella”...
Session Goals:
Discuss how “setting the stage” for an Agile product, team and organization will
help to level set expectations and increase the probability of business value
delivery by everyone involved.
We will leverage standard project documentation, Agile best practices and
facilitation games to emulate an Agile product kick off.
Output:
Provide the group with an Agile kick off “template” that will increase team buy
in and minimize hurdles along your journey to happy customers.

6. Vision
A man came upon a construction site where three people
were working. He asked the first, “What are you doing?”
and the man replied: “I am laying bricks.” He asked the
second, “What are you doing?” and the man replied: “I
am building a wall.” As he approached the third, he
heard him humming a tune as he worked, and asked,
“What are you doing?” The man stood, looked up at the
sky, and smiled, “I am building a cathedral!”

7. Disclaimer: No magic fairy dust or unicorns will be
provided... just a compilation of tools for you to
utilize as you feel fit.

8. Start of the Start
 Set yourself up for success
 Facilitators are your friend
 If you are contributing, step back, or step away
 POWER Start
 Purpose
 Outcomes & Deliverables
 Wii-FM
 Engage Participants
 Roles & Responsibilities
 Audience
 The right people & platform
 Invest the right amount of time
 1 day, 2 day, 3 weeks…
 Timeframes are nice, reading your audience is KEY!

9. Kickoff
 Inputs
 Stakeholder buy-in
 Capital
 Outputs
 Ecosystem “unvetted”
 Inception Roadmap
 Project Vision
 Executive Speech
 Show support

10. Ecosystem Architecture (Framework)
 Inputs
 Ecosystem “unvetted”
 Output
 Ecosystem “vetted”
 Project Scope/Elements
 Maturity Model “unvetted”
 Create the container
 Don’t dictate… a gentle assist

11. Remember the future
 Inputs
 Inception Roadmap
 Ecosystem “vetted”
 Outputs
 Proposed EPICS
 Ecosystem Back Mapping Matrix
 Proposed EPICs
Innovation Games
by Luke Hohmann

12. Speedboat
 Inputs
 Proposed EPICS
 Outputs
 Risk Mitigation Plan
 Impediments

13. What’s in / what’s out
 Inputs
 Ecosystem “vetted”
 Project Scope/Elements
 Outputs
 Project Scope
 Validated Ecosystem
 Future EPICS
 “Level Set Expectation”

14. “As is” maturity model
 Inputs
 Impediments
 Future EPICS
 Proposed EPICS
 Outputs
 Based line Maturity Model

15. “To be” maturity model
 Inputs
 Validated Ecosystem
 Maturity Model “un-vetted”
 Outputs
 Maturity Gap
 Set the Project and
Team VISION

16. Roles and goals
 Inputs
 Project Scope
 Outputs
 Roles
 Goals
 Level set expectation

17. Personas
 Inputs
 Roles
 Outputs
 Personas
 Identify your customers!
 Give reason
 Give purpose
 Create passion

18. Story Mapping
 Inputs
 Proposed EPICS
 Maturity Gap
 Goals
 Personas
 Outputs
 Stories
 Portfolio Alignment Wall (PAW)…
 Make it visual, Make it REAL

19. Prioritization
 Inputs
 Stories
 Outputs
 Prioritized Stories
 Find out what’s important to the Team
 Inform the team on what’s important to
management

20. Forecasting
 Inputs
 Prioritized Stories
 Outputs
 Execution Strategy
 Set expectations
 Read the crowd
 Viable plan?

21. Elevator pitch
 Inputs
 Goals
 Project Vision
 Outputs
 Elevator Pitch
 If you cannot sell it, you
cannot support it… let alone build it

22. Showcase
 Inputs
 Elevator Pitch
 Execution Strategy
 Prioritized Stories
 Outputs
 Success Plan
 Team Ecosystem, Product Roadmap,
Buy-In

23. While you were sleeping… or texting

24. 2. Ecosystem
Architecture
1. Kick Off
3. Remember the
Future
4. Speedboat
7. To Be Maturity
Model
8. Roles and Goals
9. Personas
10. Story Mapping
Maturity Model
12. Forecasting 11. Prioritization
14. Showcase
13. Elevator Pitch
5. What s In /
What s Out
6. As is Maturity
Model
Project Vision
Ecosystem
unvetted
Ecosystem
vetted
Ecosystem
vetted
Project
Scope/Elements
Proposed EPICS
Ecosytem
vetted
Ecosytem
vetted
unvetted
Future EPICS
Project Scope
Validated
Ecosystem
Impediments
Maturity GAP
Roles
Goals
Personas
Proposed EPICS
Goals
Stories
Prioritized Stories
Elevator Pitch
Execution Strategy
Prioritized Stories
Risk
Mitigation
Plan
Ecosystem
Back
Mapping
Matrix
Inception
Roadmap
CI
Success Plan
Legend
Data Collection
Analysis
Information Sharing

25. Another Project,
Another Approach
DAY 1
 Meeting Kickoff
 General welcome to the team and an overview of the agenda
 Team self-introductions
 Name
 Where you are from
 Work Experience, surveys, etc.
 Favorite movie, book or TV show
 Executive Briefing
 Welcome the team, discuss purpose and objectives of the project
 State of the business and upcoming objectives

26. Product briefing, review the
focus and scope of MCM
 Vision of the solution
 Project Charter, Vision statement
 In Scope / Out of Scope
 NOT rebuilding Legacy CM
MCM features
 General CM (notes)
 Calendaring / Scheduling
 Mapping / Routing
 Dashboard (email, contacts, IM, “social”)
 Why is this effort different?
 Set expectations
 Product development driven by the FRs
 FR feature driven product development
 How can we do this with only 5 hours a
month
 Agile, so what…
 Demos, backlog grooming, dates,
scheduling
 Pass out calendar
 Product development driven through
frequent releases or iterations

27. Team Exercise
Product Box
This exercise lets you leverage your customers’ collective retail consumer experiences by asking them to design a
box for your product. Not just any box, but a box that represents the product that they want to buy. In the
process, you’ll learn what your customers think are the most important, exciting features of a given product or
service.
Planning Requirements & Lunch
Instruct the team on how we are going to attempt to cover all the core functionality that MCM
“should” have done. Show them the Feature board and what the colors mean. Again, set
expectations for what each individual and each team should be contributing. The Facilitator
explains planning process and expected deliverables.
Walkthrough of:
Team planning process
Planning acceptance criteria
Program Board
Each team had the same deliverables:
An objectives sheet
One sheet per sprint for stories
One risk sheet for risks and impediments

28. World Café exercise
4 Categories (General CM, Calendaring/Scheduling, Mapping and Routing,
Dashboard) (15 minutes per table, 1 hour total)
 Validation of input (15-ish minutes)
Introduce requirements for JAD session (granted these are from
a different group of people)
 Dot Voting of Features
 Set Critical Path line for each Feature
 Dot voting of Categories
 Showcase the final output
If time permits…
Once the product board is complete, start talking about dependencies
 What stories “add up” to be a feature?
 What stories must be done in what order? Dependencies?

29. Another Project,
Another Approach
DAY 2
 Baseline Plan
 Planning Adjustment based on the
recreated visuals
 Let the team walk around, discuss,
add/subtract, etc.
 GAP analysis from old JAD session (if you
haven’t presented these already)
 Identify and validate project risk
 ROAMing Risks
 Confidence Vote
 Team and program votes
 Re-plan if necessary
 Team Communication Plan
 Scheduling Review
 Utilize calendars
 Demo dates for team, Demo date
for stakeholders
 Field Test
 FR visits back to HQ
 Demo Logistics
 Dates/times
 Video conferencing?
 Validate Plan
 Identify challenges / concerns

30. Review Prototype
 Walk through of current UI prototype
 Walk through of possible “dashboards”
 Group Discussion
 Team exercise?
 Add new stories to board…
Showcase what the team has come up with…
Plan, features, dates, deliverables, etc.
Big Visual Indicators:
 Product Map
FR Features on cards
Milestone/Events on Cards
 Product vision/objective on a large banner
 Calendar in months and years (14, 15) on large print outs
 SMART Objectives