Spotify engineering culture (part 1) Here’s part 1 of short animated video describing our engineering culture (here’s part 2). This is a journey in progress, not a journey completed, and there’s a lot of variation from squad to squad. So the stuff in the video isn’t all true for all squads all the time, but it appears to be mostly true for most squads most of the time :o) Here’s the whole drawing: (Tools used: Art Rage, Wacom Intuos 5 drawing tablet, and ScreenFlow) Here’s Part 2. Related Spotify engineering culture (part 2) Here's part 2 of the animated video describing our engineering culture. In "Labs" Squad Health Check model - visualizing what to improve (Download the cards & instructions as PDF or PPTX) (Translations of this article: Chinese, French) What is a squad health check model? Spotify Technology Career Steps This is part two of a three part series on how we created a technical career path for individuals at Spotify and what we learned in the process.
WSJF « Scaled Agile Framework If you only quantify one thing, quantify the cost of delay.– Don Reinertsen The SAFe Framework is intended for application in situations where a number of teams are engaged in ongoing, continuous development—a flow of products, applications, services, etc.—that make up the enterprise’s value streams. As such, it avoids the overhead and delays of the start-stop-start nature of traditional projects and programs, whereby various project authorizations and phase gates are used to control the program and its economics. While this continuous flow model helps eliminate delays and keeps the system lean, we do have to ensure that the program’s priorities are constantly updated, so that the value derived from the program provides the best economic outcomes for the business. In flow, it is job sequencing ( [1] chap. 13) rather than just theoretical individual job ROI, that drives the best economic result. A summary of the recommended model appears in Figure 1 below. Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3.
12 Key Agile Thinking Tools Written by Mike Cottmeyer Wednesday, 12 January 2011 04:45 Well, turns out that today is toast too. We are still iced-in with no real hope of things melting until the weekend. This post I want to talk about the thinking tools you’ll need to craft a safe and pragmatic agile adoption program. Here’s my starting place, let me know what you think… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Next post, I want to talk about the components or knowledge areas I think you need to apply to successfully lead a transformation. 10 Comments
What is Scrum? An Agile Framework for Completing Complex Projects Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects. Scrum originally was formalized for software development projects, but it works well for any complex, innovative scope of work. The possibilities are endless. The Scrum framework is deceptively simple. The Scrum framework in 30 seconds A product owner creates a prioritized wish list called a product backlog. Beyond the sprint The cycle repeats until enough items in the product backlog have been completed, the budget is depleted, or a deadline arrives. When Jeff Sutherland created the scrum process in 1993, he borrowed the term "scrum" from an analogy put forth in a 1986 study by Takeuchi and Nonaka, published in the Harvard Business Review. Scrum is the leading agile development methodology, used by Fortune 500 companies around the world.
Switching from Scrum to Kanban – Huh? at Rediscovering the Obvious I’ve been hearing a lot of people say things like “We want to switch from Scrum to Kanban” or “When we stopped doing Scrum and started doing kanban…” or similar statements. My first two questions are almost always “Why?” and “What changed?” and my posture was always one of “you obviously don’t understand Kanban.” This, unfortunately, isn’t useful or helpful to the people I”m talking to. So, in the interest of actually helping people, I thought I’d help them through the first step of applying Kanban to a Scrum environment, respecting the ideas of “start where you are”, “make work visible”, and “Make process policies explicit”. At this point, a team can begin to talk about limits for each column: Building limited by number of people/pairsSprint backlog limited on average story size * historical velocityReady for planning at ~1.5 times the sprint backlog limit We’ve already got a few roles in play, so we’ll just keep those for now: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Team Member. Leave a Reply
Agile adoption failure? You’ve got a cultural mismatch. Bob wanted to chat. “We can’t seem to make this work”, he said. “I just don’t think scrum works for a team like ours.” I had provided scrum training and a bit of coaching for his team a few months back to get them going. Now things seemed to be falling apart. I handed Bob a copy of the book “Tribal Leadership” and asked him to read it and see if it gave him any insight into solving his problems. “Is Tribal Leadership an agile book?” “Not exactly, but I think it will help your team be more agile”, I replied. While our first inclination may be to jump in and fix each of these problems, I’ve learned that the problem probably is not about the team or about the process. Tribal Leadership Dave Logan, John King, and Halle Fischer-Wright summarized their study of what made effective leaders in their book Tribal Leadership. You can also listen to author Dave Logan describe these in more detail here: Agile in Tribal Stage 2 cultures Agile in Tribal Stage 3 cultures So how do we fix this?
The Agile Manifesto The Agile Manifesto was written in February of 2001, at a summit of seventeen independent-minded practitioners of several programming methodologies. The participants didn't agree about much, but they found consensus around four main values. Supplementing the Manifesto, the Twelve Principles further explicate what it is to be Agile. We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. © 2001, the above authorsThis declaration may be freely copied in any form, but only in its entirety through this notice. As of this writing, the Manifesto and Principles are officially available in over 40 languages, including English, and more language translations are under development.
Manifesto for Agile Software Development Software Development: Agile, Team Size and Dynamics | shmula I’ve long ranted about Amazon’s 2-Pizza Team, which is defined as the following: a team where the team size is no larger than 2 pizzas can feed. Amazon realized early on that in order to cut software development time, the solution was *NOT* to put more people on the project. What is required is a team, where the roles are defined and each member has the right skill for that role, and following a lean, agile, method — all focused on the customer. Agile Methodology Agile is a response to the well known issues in software development: rigid planning and nazi-like fidelity to original software requirements leads to customer needs not being met. Alistair Cockburn, one of the Agile Authors explains Agile this way: Some of Agile Methodology comes from the manufacturing world, specifically the Toyota Production System, but better known as Lean Manufacturing. For me, it is equally fascinating to apply the principles of Lean to software. Team Size and Dynamics At Amazon, there were six roles.
Your Path through Agile Fluency Agile methods are solidly in the mainstream, but that popularity hasn't been without its problems. Organizational leaders are complaining that they're not getting the benefits from Agile they expected. This article presents a model of Agile fluency that will help you achieve Agile's benefits. Fluency evolves through four distinct stages, each with its own benefits, costs of adoption, and key metrics. For over twelve years, we’ve been leading and helping teams transition to Agile. Throughout the next decade, Agile grew. The community grew, too. Growth hasn’t been without its problems. We’ve been helping teams transition to Agile since the beginning. The Agile Fluency™ model We’ve observed that Agile teams develop through four distinct stages of fluency. In the Agile Fluency™ model [1], we’re considering team fluency rather than individual or organizational fluency. Team fluency depends on more than just the capability of the individuals on the team. Deliberate Practice Call Your Shot