Agile Leadership

Overview

Audience

Executives, Managers at all levels, and others considering a leadership role in an Agile organization

Duration

1 day

Pre-requisite

None

Objectives

• Learn about the challenges facing leaders during the transition from traditional methods to Agile Software Development
• Understand leadership techniques for agile projects and appreciate how they differ from traditional project leadership
• Gain an understanding of tools for displaying status on agile projects
• Understand what measurements are effective for monitoring an agile project
• Gain an understanding of the best practices for Development, Analysis and Testing in Agile teams

Course Outline

Introduction

• Introduction of trainers and participants
• Hopes & Fears exercise
• Learning objectives
• Intended audience
• Agile best practices review

Agile Disruption in a Traditional Organization

• Agile Values and Principles
• Transparency, Collaboration, and Open Communication
• Core Agile Practices versus Core Traditional Practices

Agile Teams

• Wisdom of crowds
  • Optimizing decision making with a team approach
  • Diversity of opinion
  • Member independence
  • Decentralization Agile practices
• Self organizing teams
  • The right people
  • What makes people self disciplined
  • More on self disciplined individuals
  • Social contract - what they are, why we need them, sample for a development team

Servant Leadership

• Definition and origin
• Carrying water and moving boulders
• Leadership styles
• Servant leadership is, is not
• Impediment removal concepts
• Situational leadership discussion
• The 5 dysfunctions of a team compared to the traits of a high performing team
• Crossing the improvement ravine
• Ways to carry water and move boulders exercise
• Command and Control versus Support, Service, and Removing Obstacles
  • Watchdogs
  • Sheepdogs
  • Pushing, Pulling, and Sharing the Load

Communication: Big Visible Charts & Information Radiators

• Definitions
• Big visible charts
  • Burn up charts - extrapolating progress, cost of change
  • Be careful what you measure - some measures may have unintended results
  • The concept of Cycle time
  • Measuring the transparent and visible
  • Measurements for:
    • Cost
    • Time schedule
    • Scope
    • Internal quality
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Risk
• Effective use of timesheets
• Applying metrics to the team exercise
• Meetings and Facilitation
  • Behavior patterns in meetings
  • Discussion of subtleties
• Estimating
  • Planning poker and how it works
  • Doggy planning exercise
• Understanding Agile Planning
  • Program
  • Project
  • Release
  • Iteration

Risk Management

• Agile practices and risk mitigation
• Framework for risk prioritization
• Risk and the project charter

Understanding the Practices

• Development Practices
  • Pairing
  • TDD
  • Refactoring
  • Continuous Integration
• Analysis Practices
  • Last responsible moment
  • Splitting stories
  • Showcases
  • Capacity planning
  • Usability analysis
  • Analysis risk
  • Story mapping
  • Common understanding
• Testing Practices
  • Test strategy
  • Faster feedback
  • Automation