SM-Swapping

Analogue to Mom-swapping it is possible to swap Scrum Masters for a sprint. Interesting to do!

It is a phenomenon on television, Mom-swapping. You just pull 2 mom's from very different families and put them back in the other environment, have some rules around it and you have attractive TV.

This can be done at work too! Maybe a next TV series can be Boss-swap or Secretary-swap, that will be shocking too. But hey I'm Agile coach, so let's focus on Scrum Master-Swap.

As a matter of fact that is not a bad idea if you think of it. All will benefit of the fact that a new process oriented person is inserted in your scrum team! At least you get new insights and a glimpse of how we can do things differently (positive approach of course!). Rules can be simple, the first sprint the 'inserted' SM will follow the practices of the team, the second sprint the Scrum master is in charge of the ceremonies.

For the conveniences you can decide to bring down the length of a sprint to 1 week. The whole experiment will take 2 weeks then.  Prior to the swap the SM's will have a look in the backlog of the other team, nothing more as preparation. At the end, an overall evaluation and share experience with the two teams and the Scrum Masters will complete the experiment then!

Well try it, I guarantee an exiting period!

Please feed back your experiences!

Happy swapping!

Agile adoption in a non agile environment? 2/5

Teach/Train by example and facilitate others.

You entered a new work environment and it is not efficient and there is not enough fun.
As an agile coach I always say 'When the work situation is not optimal for you, it is not optimal for your environment too; Or, make it optimal, or, go and look for something else!'
This blog series give's you hints on how to deal with a traditional work environment if you want to transform it to an Agile based one.

In the previous blog some tips were provided to gain Agile awareness without management commands and without pushing it too much. In this second blog 'Teach/Train by example and facilitate others.' I focus on cultivating the initial awareness and interest raised with the colleagues by providing them with information on the agile culture and methodologies (I use scrum, but be happy to use Kanban if you want) and help them to get started for their personal scrum boards.

After the initial period of raising awareness and finally have people got interested in a conscious or unconscious way, you can start the second phase.
Of course, the phase borders are vague, but you can have a few proxy indicators which determine that you can go forward. these indicators are:

Colleagues show a raising demand for information on Agile.

Colleagues ask to borrow one of your books, ask you to explain how it works, what the Agile thoughts are, or really go in conversation with you, anyway, they show clearly that they are interested in the Agile story.

Managers get nervous.

Managers ask you to have a conversation with them formally or informally. The manager normally resists most of all, and that is good! A manager resisting will raise interest of the rest even more. In many non optimal situations the spirit is 'all on their own but also all against the manager!'.
In the conversation with the manager you only explain about how you want to organize your own work in an optimal way, and that it is beneficial for the manager because of your more efficient work. No manager will -not- support that! But it will take more than one conversation to convince the typical and 'experienced' command and control managers. In the meanwhile you can make use of the situation that the manager is not (yet) supporting you.

So here the tips for the second phase.

• Explain what you are doing. If people ask what you are doing in front of your own scrum board, then take a bit of time and explain. If there are enough questions of enough persons, then offer a session where you explain in more depth to a larger audience.
• Stand-Up meeting. Actually perform a stand-up meeting every day. Of course you do have your individual SCRUM board at the wall. Actually stand in front of it, move and create your stickies, and maybe a little bit awkward, talk with yourself. Especially things like 'I will finish this and that today!', 'This is done!', 'That is an impediment, I need to talk with manager about this'. Well, you got it I guess, that are really firm statements and if you really accomplish the activities people will be impressed.
• FOCUS. You have to focus on what's on the board, do not divert to other tasks then on your scrum board! If people ask you a favor (>10 mins), then immediately create a stickie and put it in the ToDo column. If needed add a due date on it. If people ask about what you are doing, take time and explain. 'I need to focus to get things done!'. Hidden message is here of course: 'you should do too!'.
• Organize an open Agile intro session.  You need to have at least a few people committed to join the this session you want to provide. Make some noise during lunch and coffee breaks and invite people via the internal mail system. Try to motivate as many as possible people by inviting them individually. Use arguments like 'it is only one hour which can save you many more later', and, 'if it doesn't help, it doesn't hurt either.'.
• Prepare the Agile intro session. Next to the facility like room and coffee etc. you need to prepare the session itself. What is the program for the hour? I should talk briefly about Agile and why this is so popular and some scrum examples, hopefully from your own experiences. 
• Have the Agile intro session itself. Make a bit of fun event from it, start with an inventory of expectations, ask everybody to be silent and take 1-2 mins to write down their expectations for the session. Then categorize the stickies and try to address them during the session. Go on with your talk and stop right on (end) time. Try to end with a recap on ideas and actions emerged from the session if there are. 
• Repeat Agile intro session if needed. Better repeat then deepen on specific subjects like backlog refinement process, DoD, etc. because there will be many more people who really like to know the basics. If you dive in depth too fast, lots of people will lose track. Then you risk to lose them all.
• Facilitate others. If people want to copy your board, you need to help them! Do not think they see it and they know it. No, they need some attention. Help them with the practical things like fix the board to the wall and provide post-it's. Then invite them to your daily stand up and join them with theirs if they want. be careful, some people do like to figure them out themselves and only accept help if they ask for it!

If you follow these tips, you will create a basis for an Agile way of working. You need to be aware that this is only the second phase and will also take some time. Think of 1 to 3 months.
The five phases to full Agile adoption in a non IT department are discussed, larded with tips, in the following blogs (some still to be published):
1/5 Raise Agile awareness smoothly.
2/5 Teach/train by example and facilitate others.
3/5 Find management buy-in.
4/5 Implement it,
5/5 Expand it.

Agile adoption in a non agile environment? 1/5

1/5 Raise Agile awareness smoothly

Agile is the buzz word of the 21st century, at least in the first decades of it. I will not talk about the path to where Agile is now, but like to focus on the application of it in different circumstances. Yes it is used a lot in software development where it started from, and Yes, it is used in Start-Ups where they have Agile thinking in their DNA, and Yes, it can be used at home where you discuss the backlog with the family and the tasks are pulled by the members of the family. But then, is Agile beneficial in other workplaces? Yes it is!
In fact Agile is a way of thinking, so if you adopt Agile personally, you will automatically use it anytime anyplace, in the private environment, but also in other IT or non IT departments or workplaces. You actually can 'live' Agile! It will bring a lot of satisfaction to you personally if you 'live' it yourself, but it will help a lot if the environment, your colleagues, join you. Question is, how to get your colleagues adopting Agile too?

The following, initial, 7 tips are focused on how to get your colleagues in a non-Agile workplace, at least closer to the point of adopting Agile. What you can do is the following.

1. Talk about ‘Courage’ when you can! The fact that ‘we’ as an organisation and as employees should have more of that. If something is not optimal, we should shout out! Make our opinions heard!
   Colleagues would appreciate/respect you and hope that you will pick up some hot and difficult items, maybe they will do some effort towards you to do so. You can easily reply ‘why don’t you?’ 
2. Just do it, create your own personal scrum board and put it on a visible spot for everyone to see. Colleagues will look at it and maybe ask questions about it. Take really time for that. That will help you to identify people who are most interested and might be an early adopter. 
3. In central work meetings, departmental sessions, ask if there is a vision or a common goal which we can constantly refer to.
   Colleagues and managers will join you in this desire hopefully. If so, these are potential partners for you to enable change in the organisation. If not, try to come up with a vision yourself for the next meeting and ask to put it on the agenda. 
4. Try to get a picture of the departmental work planned for the upcoming period, try to split it in logical chunks, and discuss this with the manager. Spread this list, and, add this list in a separate column in your personal scrum board.Call it ‘department backlog’. Maybe a few of your stickies/activities are related to departmental work? 
5. Ask feedback on your behavior in bilateral meetings with your colleagues.
   Colleagues are normally OK to do so, maybe hesitating, but they do. Do not ask them to give feedback to them, that is possibly a bridge too far. Show that you take the feedback into account. In later phases you can ask if your behavior is improved. This openness, honesty and courage, will impress colleagues and prepares them for feedback to themselves. 
6. Celebrate something related to general work or one of your achievements. Invite all to the celebration, that will give you the opportunity to have a platform to talk to all. Bake some cake and bring it to the canteen. Express that you are glad, happy and proud of some achievement of you or department and show the sticky from your board related to it.
   Colleagues will look at the sticky and relate/link joy, happiness cake and success to your board!
7. Have Agile books on your desk constantly, if people are interested lend them out to them.
   Colleagues just see it and ask questions about it. Avoid to use the term “Agile”, but talk about an interesting philosophy to approach work. 

If you follow these tips, you raise Agile awareness without explicitly focusing on it. You need to realize yourself that this first phase towards departmental Agile adoption will take some time. Think of 2 to 3 months.
The five phases to full Agile adoption in a non IT department are discussed, larded with tips, in the following blogs to come:
1/5 Raise Agile awareness smoothly.
2/5 Teach/train by example and facilitate others.
3/5 Find management buy-in.
4/5 Implement it,
5/5 Expand it.