How to integrate DevOps and Agile Teams

o   Convert development teams into scrum/Kanban mode

o   Convert support and maintenance teams into Kanban mode

o   Merge support and dev teams

§  Cross train ream members ( T shape skill especially w.r.t. Dev and support work)

§  For small development work/project DevOps team will be loaning members

§  For big projects, if devops team cannot supply all members required, few members are supplied.

Release planning in nutshell

·         Say release cycle is 3 months and sprint cycle is 2 weeks

·         In the back ground PO should be in consultation with stakeholder for assigning business values to features and stories and also prioritization of product backlog items

·         During grooming sessions PO will be discussing PBI with respect to ready status and stakeholders view

·         PO consults dev team for approximate number of items should fit in next 3 month worth of sprints (past velocity, change in environment  are also considered)

·         PO negotiates items of next release with stakeholders -   considering business priorities, team’s capacity & discussion outcome.

·         PO, DevTeam and stakeholder must have shared understanding of release content and must communicate to each other if any change deemed to arise

How to coach team on agile philosophy/mindset

·         Remember – Forming, storming, norming and performing

·         Focus on being agile

·         There is no one solution which fits all

·         Pragmatism over purist

·         Delivery over advise

·         By example

·         Contextual over standardized

·         Showing how to be an example

·         Focus doing the correct and then doing it correctly

·         Keep positive outlook in face of failure

·         Encourage to defend its autonomy and respecting others

·         Encourage individuals to make agile transformation personal

Self-Organizing Team

A self-organizing team:

**sets direction for itself;

**design performing units for its work;

**manages (allocation, reallocation, estimation, re-estimation, delivery, rework)and monitors its work;

**executes the work;

**sets its rules and norms to achieve goal;

** has feeling of ownership and commitment;

** is self-driven, pull out work for itself to meet goal;

**requires mentoring and coaching;

** asks lot of questions to understand not only requirements but to understand reasons;

**gives lot of suggestions;

**intra team communication is spread across formal and informal channels;

**continuously enhance skill set;

**has high level of trust among team members; and

**sticks together for long time.

Metrics for a team in agile environment

In agile environment, there is some dilemma about how to measure team’s performance. Yes, it is PERFORMANCE not productivity.  My first advice is not to measure performance of team.  Even then due to old management adage – If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It, HR department still want to measure team, what are the different measure. There are few:


*Consistent delivery of value

*Reducing amount of repeated tasks (simply automating repeating tasks)

*Velocity has upward trend (assuming no tinkering in assigning story points to stories)

*Downward trend in technical debt

*Downward trend in defects (severity might be a consideration apart from number)

*Reduced number of spikes (assuming no new drastic technical requirement)

*Reducing number of intra & inter team issues/challenges (if any)

*SM becoming redundant in team

*Consistent actions on retro items (I have my own doubts on this item)

*Team members are happy

*Customers have only good words to say about team