Agile 2009: Mapping the Change Battlefied

BigVisible Theme Prioritization Scoring Workshop – CSPO Class

Feel free to download and use.  It currently does not weight the relative benefit of implementing a feature (epic, theme or user story) nor the penalty of not implementing though adding the weighting capability is simple enough.

If you are interested in taking an public scrum class with me, check out training.bigvisible.com

Regards,
Giora Morein

I haven’t had time to create any user guides but here are a couple of things that I think would be helpful to know:

1. You will need to enable Macro’s for the sheet to work correctly
2. If you haven’t already done so, you will need to install the Analysis Toolpak Excel Add-In that comes with Excel.  From the Excel Menu, select Tools, AddIns.  Select the Analysis Toolpak and click OK.
3. After entering your Iteration Start and End Dates, click the “AutoShow Columns” button to automatically hide and show the relevant date columns
4. In the Status field, avoid using the “Fill-Down” capability to set the status of multiple fields.  Instead use copy-and-paste for the same result.  You can copy from a single status field and paste to a range of fields.
5. To have the burndown data for a specific day show up in the charts, you will need to enter an “x” in the field directly beneath the date
6. You can modify the categories by changing the list of categories in the table of “Category Burn-Down Data”
7. You can hide specific categories by removing the “x” next to the category name.
8. Send me a note for any additional help – I’ll do my best to get back to you quickly.

I’ve included two sheets: a blank tracker as well as one containing sample data.

Bigvisible Standalone Iteration Tracker v0.9.2

Bigvisible Standalone Iteration Tracker v0.9.2 – Sample Data

Enjoy
Giora Morein
gmorein@bigvisible.com

This is the Scrum Introduction presentation I presented at the first Scrum Israel User Group.

Download the Introduction to Scrum

Download the Presentation

Download the Presentation

George Schlitz and I presented at the recent Agile2008 conference in Toronto on how to leverage Ambassador Models to enable highly effective distributed teams.

Download the Presentation

I would like to thank all who participated in the Microsoft Effective Agile Open House event today in Herziliya in Israel. Here are the presentations.

Agile Kickstart (pdf)

Effective Distributed Agile Teams (pdf)

We have fostered corporate environments in which we place greater value on conformance to a plan – or commitment to a goal – than we do on maximizing delivery.  Most organizations I encounter provide little or no real incentives for teams or individuals to pursue ambitious, often unachievable goals.  On the contrary, the way management and customers react to a team potentially missing stated objectives forces teams to set the bar as low as possible. 

In order to limit the chance of failure, we find ourselves constantly answering the question: “what is the least amount we can deliver to keep management satisfied?”  This hardly seems like a winning business objective.  Failure today is defined by how much reality deviates from the states plan.  Because we can do little to alter reality, to minimize the risk of failure, people become be hyper-conservative.  This is what happens time-and-again on project teams.  As key dates approach and scrutiny increases, people seek to minimize their risk of failure – as it is defined today. 

This principle is pervasive in most organizations.  Hardly a week goes by without someone asking:  “What has changed that is causing us to change the plan?” or “What has caused us to deliver less than we ‘committed’ to?”  In practical terms the answer does not matter. 

I am sure there is a sports analogy that escapes me that could be inserted here, but the bottom line is that we need to create a mindset where failure no longer means not ‘completing’ everything – but rather not ‘attempting’ to.

Customers often bring up the word ‘commitment’.  I hear this word thrown around in almost every organization I encounter.  It frequently is used in the context of “Why have you failed to deliver what you committed to?”  It’s a very handy word to beat someone over the head with.  The problem is, it implies that a team somehow had the option of whether or not to meet their commitments.  That somehow a team chooses to ‘under-deliver’.  Obviously this is not the case.  The truth is we cannot ask a team to commit to a body of work — we can only ask them to commit to doing their best to achieve it.  When we ask more of them – they will simply commit to as little as possible.

I remember as children it was encouraged to have lofty goals.  I remember a teacher once advising me to set goals that might seem out of reach – and then strive to achieve them.  That was often pointed out to me as a way to “maximize my potential.”  As adults, perhaps we should follow that same advice.