1. SkillsMatter June 16, 2010
Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2010

2. My experience comes …
As a QA Manager, Tester, Coach
Working on agile teams
Coaching and training
Copyright 2010
DragonFire Inc.

3. 1. What is Agile? (one slide)
2. What is organizational culture?
3. Why is culture important?
4. Sustaining agile across the organization
5. Sustaining agile within the team
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DragonFire Inc. 3

4. • A set of principles rather than a particular model
o Priority is customer satisfaction
o Delivery of valuable software, frequently
o Welcome changing requirements
o Continual collaboration and feedback
o Supportive environment
o Continuous improvement
o Simplicity
o Technical excellence
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DragonFire Inc. 4
Source: www.agilemanifesto.org

5. Copyright 2010
DragonFire Inc.

6. • Defined by its
o Values
o Norms
o Assumptions
• Social System
• Collective Beliefs
• Visible Artifacts
o Icons
o Rituals
o Vocabulary
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DragonFire Inc.

7. • Leadership
• Design of an organization
• Decision making process
• Sub-cultures
• History of an organization
• Personal values
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8. • What is visible?
• Individual contribution
• Rewards and recognition
• Customer focused?
• Reactive vs.. responsive?
• Is it a learning organization
• Values, beliefs, mission statements
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DragonFire Inc.

9. • Top-down communication channels
• Extensive meetings
• Structured project management practices
• Micro-management practices
• Office layout
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DragonFire Inc.

10. It’s relatively simple for one team to
adapt to agile, make the values’ their
own, and follow the principles.
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DragonFire Inc.

11. Two aspects …..
1. How to spread the existing development
agile culture to the rest of the
organization?
2. How to sustain the agile culture within
the development team?
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DragonFire Inc.

12. • Q1: How to spread the
existing development agile
culture to the rest of the
organization?
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13. 1. Lack of executive sponsorship
2. Dysfunction at the management level
3. Heavy processes in place
4. Outside influences
5. Balance of pressures
6. Deadlines
Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lincioni
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14. • Understand the agile principles
• Support your teams
• Don’t break up the band .....
• Think what problem you are trying to solve
◦ Reports? Metrics?
◦ Audits
◦ Quality Models
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15. Copyright 2010
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16. • Team expresses courage
◦ They say no to the stakeholder for the overall
benefit of the product
• Team’s declared velocity is less than you
would like
• Team asks for help when they are trying to
improve
• Team looks for simplicity
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DragonFire Inc. 16

17. Q2. How to sustain
the agile culture
within the
development
team?
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DragonFire Inc.
Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.

18. 1. Misunderstandings
2. Sustainable pace
3. Too much collaboration
4. Boring ….
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19. • Reinforce values, practices
• Swap team members with other teams
• Pair only ‘x’ hours a day
• Spikes
• Gold card
• Investigation of tool upgrades
• Recognition
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20. • Retrospectives
• Education
• Understanding of Metrics
◦ What you are trying to measure & why
• Business Vocabulary – visit client sites
• Change Agents
• Questioning techniques
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Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.

21. 1. There is no silver bullet
2. It takes perseverance to change, but more to
sustain
3. Organizational culture has a impact on the
survival of agile team
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Copyright © Nov 2009 Janet Gregory. DragonFire Inc.

22. And always, strive for quality!
photoshd.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/13/

23. • Lean Software Development, (all 3 books), Mary &
Tom Poppendieck
• Succeeding with Agile, Addison Wesley 2009, Mike
Cohn
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24. Now Available
Agile Testing: A Practical
Guide for Testers and Agile
Teams
By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
www.agiletester.ca
My contact info
www.janetgregory.ca
http://janetgregory.blogspot.com/
janet@agiletester.ca
Copyright 2010
DragonFire Inc. 24

25. Questions…
Credit: Max F Williams – flickr.com