Alon Golan's Talk in the Scrum Day

1. GainingAgility
A Practical Look at the Daily Life of a Product Team

2. AboutMe-AlonGolan
● Software Engineer
● Engineering manager
● Web and Mobile application
developer
● Consumer space
Developed and managed software
teams using:
● Waterfall
● Agile
● “Loose guidance”

3. ImplementingAgile:
Team

4. Roles
● Product Owner
● Scrum Master
● Team manager
● Developers
● Testers, QA
Customer, Developers and Testers working together on a Daily
Basis

5. Hazard:Swimlaning
● QA
● Special expertise
● Better specific knowledge
Mitigation techniques
● Peer programming
● Hackathon

6. Hazard:UnrealisticPrincipals
● Self-organization
● Co-location

7. Hazard:EngineeringManagerasScrumMaster
What happens when org chart and team structure don’t match

8. ImplementingAgile
Ceremonies

9. Scrum
● Transparency
● Main goal: help and collaboration
● Strictly timed

10. Hazard:SCRUMasaManagementTool
Team manager using the daily scrum as a way to learn about
direct report’s performance

11. Hazard:ReportingCrypticStatus
What happens when people on the team don’t share their
actual work details

12. SprintPlanning
● Tracking, transparency (Jira)
● Main Continuous Improvement tool
● Find the midpoint between product and developer needs
● Focus on actual delivery via Sprint Goal
● Points as a rough guide

13. Hazard:HeavyLiftingItems
What happens when some individual items exceed the points an
engineer can finish in a sprint

14. Note:BugPBIs
What happens when we
distinguish bugs from
features in the
Backlog

15. SprintReview/Retrospective
● Show-off, driving delivery
● Focus on the customer
● Continuous Improvement

16. Note:TheImportanceofFrequentReleases
What happened to software release cycle in the past decade?

17. Hazard:CommittingtoFeatureShipDates
● Contradicts Agile basics
“a "Rolling Wave" approach to schedule
planning, which identifies milestones but leaves
flexibility in the path to reach them, and also
allows for the milestones themselves to
change” - Craig Larman
● Epics are difficult to
estimate
● Bottom line: same
obscurity, less casualties