| Leadership Deficit - Part1 - | |

How leaders speak |

People and Product

Interview technique

Split into pairs and interview each other, gathering information to present your partner to the group

Define your objectives

Write out what your objectives are for the overarching goal on a story card (using given then when if you are familiar with BDD).

Team Values

Split into groups and brainstorm ideas as to what values you have as a team, using dot voting (5 votes each) to identify the most important 4-5 values (no conferring whist voting).

Product / Project values

Split into groups and brainstorm ideas as to the product values, dot voting to complete the task

Suggested template for product values:

Create a product vision that (encapsulates the values)

Creates a (value type) community

That (listen shares illuminates)

The Experience is (Inviting lively stimulating)

Design storm

Split into individuals and brainstorm ideas regarding the product design using a visual representation (eg. storyboard / conceptual model approach). The visual representation should keep in mind the project vision.

Assemble in teams and bring the results together to form a single representation.

Defining personas

Identify the key users of our domain using the template:

Name and role - Tess the test manager

Goals - plan and track test

Motivations - detailed oriented

Stories / Features (MMF)

Define high level requirements in terms of stories or minimum marketable features (MMF) using the INVEST principle.

Ideation Pipeline

Ideation stage and ideation pipeline - D P Joyce
A sketch of our ideation pipeline - Steven Harman

Define feature sets

In to groups to define feature sets from the product vision and design storm artefacts. First identifying features individually, converge features as a team and group those features into sets with similar features.

Context mapping

Draw a context map of the feature to highlight behaviour of the user with the system and interaction within the system at a conceptual level. A basic approach would be to imagine a day in the life of a user with respect to the feature set. Context mapping is used in DDD for strategic design.

Story Storm

Select a feature set and brainstorm the stories that make up that feature

Story test

Select a story and write a test

Class diagrams

Using UML to create high level class diagrams to identify the kinds of object that have relevance in our design. Can also identify context boundaries and aggregate types (DDD).

Sequence diagrams

Using UML to create high level sequence diagrams to identify the behaviour of objects in our design.

Wireframes / Ux Prototypes

Using user interface prototypes helps to understand user interaction, eg. balsamiq, Pencil (firefox addon)and other tools

Story examples / Storyotypes

Define requirements in terms of stories that put you in the mind of the users of the system. The concept of Storyotypes can be used to breakdown stories into manageable sizes. Avoid Get Smart storyotypes and other story anti-patterns.

Using the behaviour driven development (BDD) template Given-When-Then helps deliver features based on an identified business value or goal.

Process and tools

Retrospectives

Discussed retrospectives and carried out a retrospective of the events of day 1

Kanban

Kanban (signal card) as a pull system for identifying and reducing waste throughout the project. A Kanban can start as simple as Plan, Doing, Done and evolve to your needs.

Waste can be eliminated by the Kanban showing you bottlenecks and help you move from a batch and queue process (e.g. waterfall)

Kanban101

Value stream mapping

Value stream mapping can be used to create an effective Kanban. To create a value stream map, identify all the steps a feature would go through from concept to delivery and show touch time and waste time. Create columns on the Kanban to represent those steps that give business value or are mandatory.

You can place work in progress (WIP) limits on a Kanban board to increase efficiency in throughput by reducing task switching (multi-tasking) and helping the Kanban become a end to end pull system.

Stand-ups

Part of most agile practices, standups are an important communication tool that should also be inclusive and encourage all team members to engage.

Iterative development - the iteration

Discussed iterations and how they should be consistent in length, as with Scrum. Reducing story sizes can benefit iteration consistency and delivery. In Scrum, consistent story sizes aid in iteration planning, often using T-shirt sizes (small, medium, large) for stories.

Rolling wave planning

Discussed how to carry out long term high level planning as part of an agile project. All features can be planned at a very high level with planning becoming more specific as a feature progresses.

References for Rolling Wave Planning:
Rolling Wave Project Planning
A Risk Perspective: Rolling Wave Planning is a Bet
Planning A Month or Less Ahead Is Not Enough