Saturday, September 28, 2013
AARRR - as Simple as That!
Open Space Meetings - How it Works?
Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of
people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events.
Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an
intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where
ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.
- "Whoever comes is the right people"
תוויות:
Agile,
Coaching,
Open Agile Adoption,
Organization Change
Open Agile Adoption
Open Agile Adoption is a repeatable technique for getting a
rapid and lasting Agile adoption. Open Agile Adoption is a sociological
approach to Agile adoption. It is not a set of Agile practices but rather, a
tool for “opening space” for the right conversations. It assumes people power
Agile practices, not the other way around. It works with what you are currently
doing, and can be added at any time. It incorporates the power of invitation,
Open Space, game mechanics, passage rites, storytelling and more…so your Agile
adoption can actually take root.
SAFe or Not? Wars of - Scaled Agile Framework
SAFe is an interactive knowledge base for implementing agile practices at enterprise scale. Some see SAFe as a collection of (somewhat outdated) software development best practices that you engage an expert or team of experts to tailor for your organization. But SAFe has gained traction and it has been successfully applied in programs of only 50-100 people, and in enterprises employing thousands of software developers. Who is who? who is for and who is against?
Friday, September 27, 2013
FeedForward -Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith's FeedForward Tool was created to provide
individuals, teams and organizations with suggestions for the future and to
help them achieve a positive change in their behavior. The entire idea of
Feedforward Coaching is that it is a continuous process focused on future
performance and career pathing—it’s not grading a year’s worth of past events;
the manager serves as Coach, not Executioner.
תוויות:
Agile HR,
Coaching,
Goals,
Organization Change
Tilt 365 -The Feedback - Positive Influence Predictor
Tilt 365 isn't your typical 360 Feedback Assessment tool. It
answers questions like “How am I showing up as a leader?” and “How can I
achieve my vision?” by asking your boss, peers, direct reports and strategic
partners about your ability to gain support. When you discover your True Tilt
(your natural default pattern) and the other Tilt patterns, you unlock a new
way of being intentional about helping others know how to work with you more
effectively. It’s not a static, once a year assessment. It’s a real-time 24/7
365 quick and accessible dashboard provides immediate traction.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Using the Kanban Board and Retrospective Framework to Create Employee Annual Performance Review
First published Dec 2010
How many times did we realize that the end of year
performance review is too much too late and not relevant!?
Too much numbers, too
many boxes to grade, too many confusing titles, too many meetings to define
those measurable issues, too many questions to answer, too much signs...too little visibility and
follow-ups and at the end too little employee commitment (that derives from pressure instead of
intent to improve).
Why not changing the performance review to be more agile
and open? To be more shared with the employee. Well, there is a way, just use the retrospective framework with a simple kanban board visability.
When I say shared I mean also "under employee
responsibility”, not as something to grade, but as something to draw action
items from, act upon and be accountable for its outcomes as well as for its
progress as any other agile activity. After all, we want those goals to be
achieved according to business needs and business value (which changes all the
time), we want things to get done more then get graded.
The traditional
performance review usually includes few papers with questions. Some of them are
heavy documentation and some a bit lighter. But most of them includes some kind
of a ranking table or statements, discussed with the manager, with some kind of
comments to follow.
Sometimes Goals we have set in the performance review are no
longer relevant when we come back to evaluate them.
Usually this process is under manager control and
responsibility. Employee is set to get good grades instead of behavioral change
and instead of an agile change fits to business changes.
I will never overrule open discussion, positive feedback and
communication. I will overrule the heavy process and the waste included.
Furthermore, it does not seem to work and does not seem to fit to the agile
mindset.
So, my opinion is to stop the heavy process and start leading to a real performance and employee improvement.
This process then should be lead by the employee to take full responsibility over the outcome and his/hers progress.
When working in an agile organization, we anchorage the
teams to be self managed. It means that the team selects its own tasks; accountable
for those issues to deliver. Managers are few steps back, no longer dividing
tasks or controlling the workflow,
rather dealing with the team vision, technology future and cross departments processes.
Agile anchorage communication, it encourage openness between
team members, retrospective and feedback over performance and processes.
An agile team that follows those practices becomes a more
mature and demanding one. Same goes with an employee, and individual which we expect to be accountable
for his acts and goals.
We count on them to deliver, why not counting on them to
follow and deliver performance as well?.
How do we do this then?
Well, simple, as always.
Use the scrum retrospective approach.
Meet the employee in person, explain the rules:
Openness, brain storm, concentrating in high value delivered issues, communication, the ability to
change and finally and most important – employee responsibility to the
process, action items, follow-ups and success as a non negotiable issue (!)
·
Create a brain storm with the employee over his performance.
Create a brain storm with the employee over his performance.
·
Divide the brain storm to
three main issues:
o
Things we want to continue
doing, stop doing, and start doing.
·
Let him share his view.
·
As a facilitator/manager come prepared: Collect the information, write it down.
·
Best practice will be to
use the Kanban board (I will explain it later).
·
Visualize the goals and actions.
·
Discuss over each issue
shortly.
·
Advice to take some of the
stuff offline.
o
We can leave some of the
issues in the backlog and concentrating over the high value delivered issues only.
·
Assign action items.
·
Ask the employee to follow
those action items.
From time to time, during the personal meetings, employee
presents his goals board.
·
Review the way the employee
took responsibility over the action items. What was the process he chose? What
was the outcome?
·
You can always add action
items from the backlog and assigned them as well.
·
Be flexible to change non
fit action items/goals or to add new ones.
The entire set of rules of how to collect information
regarding employee performance applies here as well.
**Remember – This time the board is personal, its not a public
board to share with the entire team. However, the goals and actions should fit the
team expected performance and goals.
What do we gain out of all of this? We gain employee accountability, open discussion, employee control and commitment, the ability to change, the ability to follow the progress, relevant goals and actions, performed action, collaborative effort and a lighter process.
Let's see how Kanban can answer all of those and meet the
three retrospective characters detailed above:
1.
Visualize your flow
·
create a simple Kanban
board flow to fit the retrospective structure
·
It can hold columns of:
"What should we stop doing", "Continue doing", "Start doing"; or : "What went well", "Needs
improvement".
·
Don’t forget to add an
action item and action columns
2.
Ask the employee to take
some time and start filling out tasks in each of those columns (do not assign
these tasks yet)
3. Create an open discussion over those issues
4. Decide on action items and place them will the assignee
on the action items column.
The board should be followed by the employee, he makes sure to
move the action items following his actual progress
A more improved and mature process can hold types of tasks,
deferent columns, and assignments to areas or improvements, whatever…..…..
Enjoy….
תוויות:
Agile,
Agile HR,
Kanban,
Kanban Boards,
Performance Review,
shirly's work
Career Development in the Agile World
“Our Success Begins and Ends with our People” (infoQ). We
all know that our employees engagement and collaboration is vital to the growth
, performance and adaptability required to survive in today’s fierce business
environment. Jo Mills, CEG General Manager passionately advocates: “It is time
we re-thought our responsibilities as an organization to the career development
of individuals within our business. The world has changed and many
organizations provide ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ . So how does an
agile organization create a Career proposition for their business?
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Employee Engagement With Agile
Less than 1 in four employees are working to the goals of
the company. The bottom line is that not engaged and disengaged employees cost
the organization huge amounts of money. They are far less productive, have no
company loyalty, and spread suffering and chaos from increased financial
volatility and negative financial cycles. Now when agile becomes main stream ,
employees engagement planes need to change accordingly and fit the new
“culture” and “team” scope of the agile mindset. Well. How?
Agile Recruiting - the Mindset and Practices
Cultural fit is key. In agile the recruitment processes is all about fast feedback, knowing the team, collaborate with the team and your recruiting manager and iterate to reach the best fit. The more you know about the team’s culture, the faster you can recruit and fill the position. The more you collaborate with the team the more they will be able to build themselves to be able to commit to a quality delivery. Here are some information and tips.
The impact of an empowered team over HR recruitment process
First Published - 19-12-2010
1. Active user involvement is imperative
2. The team must be empowered to make decisions
3. Requirements evolve but the timescale is fixed
4. Capture requirements at a high level; lightweight & visual
5. Develop small, incremental releases and iterate
6. Focus on frequent delivery of products
7. Complete each feature before moving on to the next
8. Apply the 80/20 rule
9. Testing is integrated throughout the project lifecycle – test early and often
10. A collaborative & cooperative approach between all stakeholders is essential
2. The team must be empowered to make decisions
3. Requirements evolve but the timescale is fixed
4. Capture requirements at a high level; lightweight & visual
5. Develop small, incremental releases and iterate
6. Focus on frequent delivery of products
7. Complete each feature before moving on to the next
8. Apply the 80/20 rule
9. Testing is integrated throughout the project lifecycle – test early and often
10. A collaborative & cooperative approach between all stakeholders is essential
Recruit criteria and processes as they are traditionally
held, sometimes contradict and even interfere with a mature agile mindset that
rules a mature agile organization, those must be altered to reflect the
organization agility mind set.
Organization agility demands Recruiting agile people. Job
descriptions should be altered to fit the agile mind set inside the
organization.
HR systems should contribute to agility and leave behind the traditional recruiting approach.
Agile demands winners, and it is aim to win. Financial
impacts related to the agile approach are more important than traditional slow
and expensive Recruit approaches.
When working in an agile organization, we anchorage the
teams to be self managed. It means that the team selects its own tasks;
accountable for those issues to deliver; managers are few steps back , no
longer dividing tasks or controlling the
workflow, rather dealing with the team vision, technology future and
cross departments processes. The agile manager leads the team by
understanding and effectively empowering the team to business value delivery.
Agile anchorage communication, it encourage openness between
team members, retrospective and criticism of performance and processes. An
agile team that follows those practices becomes a more mature and demanding
one. We count on them to deliver.
When a team is accountable for its own outcome, they must
have the tools to control their resources and decision making which in a traditional world is an HR-Manager related issues.
In many occasions, these issues are very secretive. Defining
the Candidate profile, interviews, paychecks and decisions are all made between
HR and the managers. Furthermore, the training plans and performance evaluation
are also a sole HR-Managers "secret" process.
But, what about the agile team?
What about those team members that needs to deliver? That
was thought to self-thinking and self-organizing? After all, they are the ones
that are committed to the delivery of a quality product. They are accountable for
the result of the entire team. So … something have to change.
Since the team is accountable for its outcomes, and
accountable for the delivery, it also needs to be part of the recruiting
process of new team members to that team.
The team should have the opportunity to define the right
position of the new recruit.
The team should be part of the decision making over new
comers into the team.
It does not mean that the team interviews the person
(although having a team member present in the interview may be a commitment
oriented activity for the team), but the profile, process and decisions are
visible and shared to them.
Once the team is part of this process, the chances of a
new employee to blend into this team day to day activities and mind set is
higher.
The team best practice will also be to build, monitor and
perform the new employee training plan and coach. In this case it is highly
important to emphasize that it is not the team manager role anymore. It's not
the HR and the team manager sole responsibility to define a training plan. It a
collaborative effort, we all need to share and visualize our ideas.
Once the team is responsible for training, has visibility to
recruit process, it's also can take full responsibility for the outcomes. Then
the team can win.
Remember the phrase “we are all accountable for quality?”
well the recruiting process is very similar, its like having the testers inside
the scrum team and having quality being a team mindset , a team responsibility and
not only a tester accountability.
Once you are accountable, responsible for a process, control
the process, have visibility to it, the outcomes will be better.
Loose the control, trust the teams, shift to better
visibility and communication is the best HR practice in the agile world.
Opening
and sharing some of the HR functions into the organization fits the agile way
and the organization mind set.
The outcome will then be, a very agile HR supporting a
healthy and functioning employee layer in the organization that deliver quality
product with financial impact.
תוויות:
Agile,
Agile HR,
shirly's work,
Team
"Agile is about Culture", Where do HR Fit in all this?
The role of HR becomes highly important in changing
environment and in an agile environment. more companies see the value “agile
management”. This is forcing changes in performance and goal management,
performance management, reward strategies, and leadership skills. What Can HR
benefit to agile? Hiring an employee with right attitude and mind-set ,
“Organizational restructuring,
redefining roles and creating open workspaces for agile teams;
“performance management”, “sustain
motivated employees”. They should also start being agile themselves as they are
part of an agile organization.
תוויות:
Agile,
Agile HR,
Organization Change,
Team
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Combining Kanban to Build the Agile Enterprise
How end-to-end business agility looks like and how is it
different from team agility? Scrum is fine, But probably not enough. When scaling
to the enterprise level we can use Kanban
for better architecture analysis, multi teams synchronization ,portfolio and
backlog management. In this RooJoom , I’ll look at using enterprise Kanban boards to
coordinate these issues.
תוויות:
Agile,
Kanban,
Kanban Boards,
Organization Change,
Scrum
Monday, September 23, 2013
Continuous Delivery
Continuous Delivery is a software development discipline
where you build software in such a way that the software can be released to
production at any time. “Techniques such as automated testing, integration and
continuous deployment allow software to be developed to a high standard and
easily packaged and deployed, resulting in the ability to rapidly, reliably and
repeatedly push out changes to customers at low risk and with minimal overhead.
The technique was one of the assumptions of extreme programming but at an
enterprise level has developed into a discipline of its own.” Wikipedia
Dual-Track Scrum - Another Effective Collaborative Tool
The model suggest that each sprint consciously involves both
working on planned development tasks and digging into plans for upcoming sprint
work. The Discovery track is all about quickly generating validated product
backlog items, and the Delivery track is all about generating releasable
software. Rather than focus on artifacts, we focus on prototypes and validating
those prototypes in Discovery, with the added benefit that the prototype serves
as the spec for Delivery. Developers and designers work together. This way,
there is a crossed handover between the two tracks after every phase of the
project.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Kanban for Operations - Deliver Business Value
IT Operations work has different challenges from new
development. DevOps teams must balance large workloads and emergency tasks with
assuring a strong infrastructure. Their tasks tend to be continual, and don't
lend themselves well to time boxes. Kanban is widely used to address the needs
of IT Operations. (http://www.leankanbanuniversity.com/kanban-it-operationsdevops)
תוויות:
Agile,
DevOps,
Kanban,
Kanban Boards
Affinity Diagram
The Affinity Diagram tool is used to consolidate a large
amount of information into groupings or clusters of ideas that have a natural
'affinity', i.e., that have a common thread running through them. It can be
used very effectively to organize the ideas extracted from a Brainstorming
exercise where people from diverse and unrelated departments might come
together to solve a complex problem.
(https://www.moresteam.com/toolbox/affinity-diagram.cfm)
Ratio of Agile Testers to Developers
Many of us would like a
precise answer to the question: “What’s the correct ratio for developers to
testers in my product development project?” Well, “It Depends” is a common answer. But why? Depends on what? And how agile
impacts this ration?
Every project is deferent;
there are people and their Capabilities; Product Risks/Complications; Culture…
and many more aspect to consider. Here it is:
Saturday, September 21, 2013
WorkPlace Megalomania - Big Egos have Little Ears!?
Megalomania is a psychopathological disorder
characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, or omnipotence,
"Megalomania is characterized by an inflated sense of self-esteem and
overestimation by persons of their powers and beliefs.( Wikipedia)
In the workplace they are extremely difficult to deal with and it has to ‘cure’. Do they create A soul-sucking environment run
by executives with Megalomania? After all, their course has little to do with
the product or service you provide and everything to do with culture .Furthermore,
Is it all bad?
Lean Principles - Effective Way of Thinking
“LEAN IS… A mindset, or way of thinking, with a commitment to
achieve a totally waste-free Operation that’s focused on your customer’s
success….It is achieved by simplifying and continuously improving all processes
and relationships in an environment of trust, respect and full employee
involvement….It is about people, simplicity, flow, visibility, partnerships and
true value as perceived by the customer.” Ref: David Hogg, High Performance
Solutions. Lean can be applied everywhere, from the heart of Manufacturing
lines to product development to personal growth aspect. So here it is:
תוויות:
Coaching,
Lean,
Organization Change
Friday, September 20, 2013
Tools for Mapping Organization Transformation Strategy
Success is in the project but failure is in the change
process. The larger the organization the harder is to change. Even in small
organizations, there are sources that influence the change. Those can be employees’
politics, value network, emotional networks and many more. As a change agent
one must know how to look into the organization hidden forces and build the
change while understanding those forces. Otherwise we are headed for a very rough,
full of unpleasant surprises of change management.
תוויות:
Agile,
Coaching,
Lean,
Organization Change,
Tools
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Slicing the Cake - User story slicing
Cake consists of several layers, similar to software system
that consists of several architectural layers. Think of a whole story as a
multi-layer cake, e.g., a network layer, a persistence layer, a logic layer,
and a presentation layer. When we split a story, we're serving up only part of
that cake. We want to give the customer the essence of the whole cake, and the
best way is to slice vertically through the layers. ~ Bill Wake
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
“RIghtshifting and The Marshall Model"
Sunday, September 15, 2013
“A3” - The Basic Problem Solving Method
5 Whys Analysis
5-Why is a simple approach for exploring root causes and
instilling a “Fix the root cause, not the symptom,” culture. The idea is to
keep asking “Why?” until the root cause is arrived at.
תוויות:
Agile,
Coaching,
Organization Change
Friday, September 13, 2013
Software Testing As a Game - Fun Way to Find Bugs
"Framing something like software testing in terms of gaming, and borrowing some of their ideas and mechanics, applying them and experimenting can be incredibly worthwhile. . Entertainment and games tap into a different part of our brains than other activities. We enjoy them, and we find them addictive. With games, we feel challenged and a sense of accomplishment when we complete a level or finish a quest." Here are some applications of using Gamification or game characters into software testing.
Pair Agile Testing
Pair Testing is an exploratory testing approach where two
testers (Or with Developers) work through scenarios together, combining their
knowledge of the app and their unique skills and experience to duplicate
hard-to-find bugs or to do especially deep testing of some part of a system.
Pair testing elevate to high productivity, high creativity. Besides that it Is
also a very effective training technique.
תוויות:
Agile,
Agile Testing,
Exploratory testing
Exploratory Testing In Practice
תוויות:
Agile,
Agile games,
Agile Testing,
Exploratory testing
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Patterns of Agile Adoption
Presenting various ways of approaching agile transformations (in the enterprise and
non enterprise). Agile adoption journey can take on many forms , from small to
all, technical vs practices, bottom-up or top down and more. There is no right
and wrong here, only recommended patterns based on professional experience.
Building the Agile Implementation Vision
To motivate an organization
there has to be clarity of purpose. Without it the wheels of change will
quickly fall off.
"A vision statement is your ticket to
success. A photograph in words of your company's future. It communicates both
the purpose and values of the organization. For employees, it gives direction
about how they are expected to behave and inspires them to give their best. An approach to Agile is to first articulate issues an
organization wants to address, create a vision for change, organize a model for
change management, and then use Agile to help find a way forward.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
The Speed Boat Game
Its a game to identify the problems. we can use this game to
understand your customers , our own pains, during retrospective or any other
need to identify problems.
Agile - EVM - Calculating business value
Earned Value Management (EVM) measures the integration of
technical performance, cost and schedule against planned performance within a
given project. The result is a simple set of metrics providing early warnings
of performance issues, allowing for timely and appropriate adjustments.
Writing End-User Documentation in Agile Methodology
Lean :Value stream mapping
A lean manufacturing technique used to analyze and design
the flow of materials and information required to bring a product or service to
a consumer. At Toyota, where the technique originated, it is known as
"material and information flow mapping". It can be applied to nearly
any value chain.
Playing Scrum with Lego
A simulation of Scrum - an Agile software development
framework with LEGOs. The game is based on the original paper by Alexey
Krivitsky published back in 2007.
Backlog Grooming
Grooming is the concept of bringing stories up from the
bottom of the backlog to the top of the backlog. How do we establish a grooming
cadence for sprint, release and roadmap? What methods and techniques are to be
used in each stage of an agile planning? How do we groom?
תוויות:
Agile,
Backlog,
Product Owner,
User Story
Advanced product (PO) : User story splitting
You’ll often find that you can split a story using several
of the patterns. Which split should you choose?
תוויות:
Agile,
Backlog,
Product Owner,
User Story
Kanban Pizza Game
The role of the scrum master (for beginners)
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