Agile Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution

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Telstra

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W was a product owner for one of my teams in Media. I noticed that he was increasingly getting himself excused from user story refinement sessions, beginning to withdraw. This was also the time when there were interactions with the senior management in media around team restructuring (feature teams). 

One fine morning W summoned me to his 20th floor office. The moment he saw me, he turned red faced. The moment we went into a meeting room, he blasted me off. For the next 15 minutes he vented his ire. He seemed to harbour a fear that his job is on threat. And that I as an Agile Coach / Scrum Master was conniving with the senior management to throw him out. 

There was a context to this. Telstra was going thru a gigantic transformation exercise. Age old team structures were being taken down to reorganise people into meaningful cross-functional teams. 

I patiently heard W. Apologised to him if there was any misunderstanding. And now that he was at ease after letting himself out, I started putting forward the background of what was happening. 

1. What are your concerns / fear?

2. In your opinion how could we have approached this?

3. Is there a better approach you think could assuage you and other people?

4. Let's agree to a way of communication going forward. I want to be honest with you, and expect the similar honesty from you. 

It was then W came out with the fact that he was caring for a dying mum, and his emotions were getting mixed with the uncertainty times in the office.

After the matter was resolved, an hour later I receive an email where W officially apologised for his behaviour.

Common Agile Metrics

• Lead Time
• Cycle Time
• Sprint Burndown - tells us how much value has been delivered.
• Sprint Velocity
• No. of deployments to prod
• Average time to prod.

DoR and DoD in TxS...

DOR in TxS
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1. User stories written in As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.
2. Acceptance Criteria written, and in BDD format - Given, When, Then.
3. User stories approved by PO.
4. User stories prioritised by PO.

DoD in TxS
==========

1. Development is complete.
2. Pega unit is complete
3. Code reviewed.
4. Relevant comments and attachments made.
5. Dev QA complete
6. ZSIT / IT complete
7. System Testing complete
8. UAT complete (based on TC provided by business).
9. No open Sev 1/ Sev 2 bugs.
10. US approved by PO.

Agile lifecycle in TxS
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1. Discovery workshops to clarify scope.
2. High level Pega estimates by Pega team (Pega Design Council) - Epic level (in terms of both T Shirt sizes and man days).
3. User story mapping and Release planning sessions.
4. Sprint Planning.
5. Daily standups, Refinement sessions (Every wednesday), Sprint Review (Fri 3pm to 4pm), Retro (4pm to 5pm).
6. Scrum of Scrums [TxR Upstream and downstream] daily 9:45am, standups daily 10:15am to 10:30am.
7. Release Train Scrum of Scrums every Tuesday 2:30pm to 3:00pm.

For Agile Release Train [ART]
======================

o Establish and embed SAFe framework to manage scope, delivery, quality and resources.
o Employ Scrum at team level to reinvigorate team, bring about trust & empathy, transparency and clarity of purpose.
o Coordinate activities in preparation for PI Planning – Backlog with epics, features, stories.
o Coordinate in-PI-planning, dependency management and presentation.
o Plan and coordinate Sprint 0 activities such as initiation, elaboration, architecture, etc.
o Coordinate customer journey mapping and User Story Mapping
o Help team in defining MVP, Release plan, sprints, etc.
o Facilitate sprint planning, daily stand ups, Sprint Review and retrospective.
o Managing program board, dependency management with stakeholders.
o Stakeholder communication, management reporting, etc.
o Manage team conflicts, challenges; escalate where necessary.

Personalised Rates Workflow