Results of the 2015 Digital PM Summit Digital PM Agile Retrospective

Dave Prior Twitter: @mrsungo

Email: [email protected] Phone: 405/248-7480

Results of the 2015 Digital PM Summit

Digital PM Agile Retrospective

Session ObjectiveTo gather information about how Digital PMs are using Agile, gain insights into what helps, what hurts and where current Agile practices may fail to meet the needs of doing work in a Digital context.

Analysis and commentary on this session will be posted on 10/15/15 at LeadingAgile.com/blog

Retrospective

What model do you use?Participants were asked to share whether they were practicing:

• Waterfall

• Agile

• Conscious Hybrid

• Unconscious Hybrid

Conscious Hybrid Approach• Conscious Hybrid was defined as a blend of

traditional and Agile project management practices that was created after attempting to practice a form of Agile (like Scrum) as it is formally defined.

• Example: After several Sprints where we practiced Scrum as it is defined in the Scrum Guide we discovered that in order to meet the needs of our client and our organization it made sense to incorporate a formal (traditional) approach to project risk management.

Unconscious Hybrid Approach

• Unconscious Hybrid was defined as a blend of traditional and Agile project management practices which was created without having first attempted a disciplined approach to a form of Agile.

• Example: We use Scrum (mostly) but we decided that Daily Standups were going to take too much time so we only do them once a week.

Agile/Waterfall/Hybrid

Method Response Percentage

Waterfall 10 20%

Agile 5 10%

Conscious Hybrid 16 31%

Unconscious Hybrid 19 37%

Not Sure 1 2%

Teams

Participants were asked to share information about how their Teams are set up to work.

Cross Functional TeamsCross functional teams are comprised of people who collectively have all the skills needed to build the product, and each team member is willing to do more than just their own thing.

We have those 30 70%

We Don’t Have Those 8 19%

Not Sure 5 11%

Self Organizing TeamsSelf organizing teams are empowered to estimate, plan and manage their own work in whatever way they feel makes the most sense for them as a group.

We have those 20 48%

We Don’t Have Those 19 45%

Not Sure 3 7%

Agile Practices

Participants were asked to share information about how they incorporate specific Agile practices into their work.

Daily Standup• Teams meet once each business day for not more than

15 minutes.

• The focus of this event is for the team to sync up and plan their work for the day.

• This is NOT a status meeting for a PM/SM/PO/Manager.

We have those 15 37%

We Don’t Have Those 26 63%

Definition of DoneOur teams have a clearly defined, documented definition of what “done” means.

We have that 10 24%

We Don’t Have That 32 76%

Potentially Shippable WorkAt the end of each time-boxed iteration, our teams deliver something that could be shipped/delivered/published/sold.

This does not mean you have to ship, but you could.

Yes 12 29%

No 19 45%

We don’t work in iterations 11 26%

RetrospectivesOur teams meet at the end of each iteration (or regularly scheduled intervals) to inspect and adapt on how they are working together and performing as a team.

We do those 19 45%

We don’t do those 23 55%

Group Work

• What Agile practices work well for your teams?

• What Agile practices don’t work well for your teams?

• How does Agile fail to meet the needs of working in a Digital context?

Participants were asked to work in small groups and respond to the three questions listed below.

Results were shared during a brief standup meeting following the exercise.

The results are summarized on the following slides.

• Daily Scum • Breaking things into Sprints • Time boxes – predictable work

and commitments • Quick QA • Clients like the backlog • Good for team focus,

manageable pieces • Prioritize work daily • Sprint planning – people

actively engage – collaborate within the team

• Regular work schedule, people show up

• Weight off of PM “control” • Demos to show progress • Shippable work

• Self organizing has created leaders

• Under promising and over delivering

• More retrospectives, more learning and process iteration and continuous feedback

• Learning from the end of the sprint helps the team improve as they go

• Cross Team Communication • Playbacks • Demos keep the client engaged • Scrum improves issue

resolution • More frequent feedback

highlights new scope

What Agile practices work well for your teams?

• Daily Scrums don’t last 15 minutes

• Daily Scrums have too many tangents – more of org. stats and just one more meeting to deal with

• More stress to working team • Some want traditional direction • Takes “longer” • Agree to do more than can be

accomplished • Developers/ Clients don’t

understand • Don’t know when you wil be

done

• Hard to sell clients on the true Agile

• Learning curve, adaptation • Difficult to know where we are • Manage expectation / manage

budget • UX Research – where does it fit • Learning curve – not everyone

is on the same page • Keeping scrum short with large

teams • No Product Ownership • Using a Scrum Board • Backlog Management • Estimation • User Stories

What Agile practices don’t work well for your teams?

How does Agile fail to meet the needs of working in a digital context?

• UX-Research doesn’t fit • Requirements gathering • Digital teams aren’t fully dedicated to one project • Need for certitude • Client Comfort • Need to educate the client • Service vs. Product • How to Sell It • Time spent in meetings is expensive • Getting buy in with a fixed budget • Where does the bid process/proposal fit in

Analysis and commentary on this session will be posted on 10/15/15 at LeadingAgile.com/blog.

If you are interested in helping me work on the question of what may be needed to enable Agile to work better within a Digital PM context, please email me at: [email protected]

Next Steps

Dave PriorEmail: [email protected]: http://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/Twitter: @mrsungoCell +1 405/248-7480