Our Scrum is Great! (And Our XP Practice Ain’t Bad.) Now what?

Steve Holyer and Diana Larsen

Workshop: 90 minutes

Summary

Take Your Agile Adoption to the Next Level

Your Agile transition was a success. That was two years ago. Now all development is done in Agile teams. Your teams deliver value consistently, and most of your teams are mastering the XP technical practices. Yet, something feels stagnant. Are your teams delivering value to the market cadence? Do all your managers and key business experts feel their expertise is incorporated into the teams? Is your dream of a truly “lean startup” style organisation beginning to seem like just that–a dream?

Is your “Agile” the new “Waterfall”? Countless presentations, experience reports and workshops have been given about successfully transforming a company with one flavour of “Agile” or another. This time we turn the focus onto kickstarting the next, continuing Agile transition long after the Agile transformation mission was accomplished.

As coaches we are being called into organisations that have mastered the mechanics of Scrum, Kanban and XP. And yet they feel something is missing. We will review the literature on continued transitions and present our own research and experience. We’ll identify milestones on the long term path towards gaining true fluency in Agile Software Development. Presenting examples drawn from many different types of teams we have met and coached, we will help you identify specific pointers for moving the language of the Agile transition into sustained continuous improvement and for kickstarting the Agile rollout after the Agile rollout.

Short Bios

As a developer, Steve Holyer was initially sceptical of Agile development, but embraced it enthusiastically when he realized Scrum allowed him to deliver better software in a saner way. He is a “by the book” scrum master who doesn’t want to stop at “scrum by the book”. In his ongoing journey he has worked to master the art the “Scrum master”, learned the importance of XP practices and advised lean startups in the technical and social aspects of doing agile development with remote teams. Steve coaches organisations and teams finding their path to truly transformative agile fluency.

Diana Larsen consults with leaders and teams to create work processes where innovation, inspiration, and imagination flourish. Diana brings focus to the human side of organizations, teams and projects. She activates and strengthens her clients’ proficiency in shaping an environment for productive teams and thriving in times of change. Diana co-authored Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great! Past Chair (2007-2010) and current board member of the Agile Alliance Board of Directors, she co-founded the “Agile Open Northwest” conference and the international “Retrospective Facilitators Gathering”. Diana discovers solutions and possibilities where others find only barriers and obstacles.