Here is a very short (2 min)video where Selena Delesie and I reported back on a session at Agile Coach Camp Canada. This is what a group of 10+ of us came up with.

I’ll link to the writeup when it is posted.

Thanks to everyone who was there – it was a fun, intense and valuable session for me.

Tobias Mayer led a fun and effective session (Agile Playground) at DeepAgile where we played games for building team and collaboration.

Movers and Shapers for team dynamics

I first played this game with Tobias at Agile 2009 and found it very powerful for teaching the impact of our behaviours on team dynamics. There are three rounds of simulation with different focus on how to interact with others. A detailed write-up of the game is on Tobias’s blog. Very handy for shifting thinking and focus to team behaviour.

Hypnotizing Hypnotist for pairing and collaboration

This is a very cool exercise to provide participants a sense of directing, following and collaborating. The group is formed into pairs. One person is the hypnotist and guides the other person with their hand. The hypnotizee’s job is to keep their face 1 foot from the hand of the hypnotizer (see Tobias hypnotizing on left). Debrief. Roles are reversed. Debrief.

Now it gets really fun. In the next stage, pairs hypnotize each other at the same time (see Lyssa and Tobias on right). This generates some laughs and interesting behaviours. I think we also ran it with one half of the room at a time so we could see what was happening. Remember to applaud.

Other stuff

There was other really cool stuff I am skipping over:

• Failure Bow – give people the freedom to take risks and recover from mistakes. This allows them to be available and productive rather than discouraged and disengaged.
• Pair storytelling – One person puts their hands behind their back and the other stands behind them and becomes their arms and hands. Once a story topic is established, the participants get to tell a story together with the hands leading.

(This is part of a series on DeepAgile 2010 Games Weekend).

Lyssa Adkins ran a very practical session at DeepAgile that shared several tools for team formation or for tuning up existing teams. She often uses these right at the project start since team members may know very little about one another – even if they have been working together for years. Here is a run-through of three of the exercises.

Constellation – Understanding each other through motion

I love this exercise. It provides the team members as well as the coach important information about everyone on the team. It is called constellation since everyone arranges themselves around an object on the floor (in our case a roll of tape) depending how they feel about a statement such as “I like getting results”.  People align their bodies with the statement: standing beside the object signifies strong agreement while standing far away to signifies strong disagreement. It is very powerful since people are engaging their whole bodies. To learn more, there is a full write-up on Lyssa’s blog.

Timeline – sharing our pasts

In timeline, each participant draws a timeline of their life with peaks, valleys and major life events. In turn, each person describes their timeline to the team. Team members listen and note skills or talents (on sticky notes) that stand out. These are then posted at the bottom of the timeline and reviewed as a team. This approach is about figuring out who the person is and what special perspectives they bring to move the project forward. When we did this, it helped the demo subject feel more positive about their talents. Nice.

Marketplace – sharing our talents

In marketplace we pretend we are a vendor in an open-air market place and decide what wares we have to sell. What are our special skills and talents that pertain to this project? We even get to create a banner to attract people. Under the table are things that are true for us, but may not directly relate to the project. The debrief is the same as timeline. Usually a coach will use one or the other (in the training session half of us did marketplace and half did timeline).

Below is my marketplace as an Agile coach.

(This is part of a series on DeepAgile 2010 Games Weekend).

At DeepAgile2010 this past weekend Mike McCollough led a session on Retrospective Games. We played a brand new game called Balloon Madness as an excuse to use several different retrospective formats. The game is in the conference booklet but is not yet posted on TastyCupcakes (check site for lot’s of fun Agile learning games).

What I learned about retrospectives

• Change the format on a regular basis. One attendee switches things up every retrospective.
• You can get great results by focussing on more of what works. This is inspired by appreciative inquiry. We are so used to looking at what the problem is, that looking at success can have a powerful shift.
• Another was to have each person write a personal commitment story card for something to do in the next iteration. They signed the card and someone else agreed to pair with them on it to provide support. The cards were posted beside the scrum board as a reminder. They were reviewed at the start of the following retrospective.
• Liked-Lacked-LongedFor was also suggested as a powerful way to connect with people’s deeper selves.

Siraj Sirajuddin shared a deeply insightful reflection on the nature of Agile/Lean coaching. Lot’s of insights for me.

Below, I have a few notes that just scratch the surface.

A big take-away for me is that every day and every meeting I need to:

1. Learn
2. Make a difference
3. Have fun

Another concept is Clean State Fridays where everyone goes home without emotional baggage so they can start fresh on the following Monday.

He also reminded me that we play a dance with courage and grace to achieve great outcomes.

Strongly suggest you check out the full presentation or find a way to see him in person.

There was a really good session at the Scrum Gathering’s Open Space on some of the challenges around the CST application process.

What I want to share here is some general thoughts on what is required to be a Certified Scrum Trainer that I noted during the open space session. This is only an excerpt on how to succeed – the full session notes are here.

(Part 4 of 5 blogs on the Scrum Gathering in Orlando)

Caveat: There is a Scrum Alliance Improvement Committee working out the new process so this is an informal look at some considerations.

See mindmap below.

It is important to get connected so that people know who you are. If you are considering co-training, find people you like. (N.B. There was some discussion of dropping Co-training requirements so you’ll have to stay tuned on this.)

What you teach when you are CST is your business, however, the evaluation process is based on you wearing your scrum hat. Not your Agile hat. Not your XP hat. Not your PMI hat. Does this mean I need to show a flock of self-organizing geese? Is it OK to share the Agile manifesto? I still don’t know the answer to these questions.

As a CST you will need to develop a curriculum with learning objectives, exercises, etc. There is no official training material that you can use as a baseline – every CST is expected to author training material.

It is important that you contribute to the Scrum Community. This can take the form of organizing a local user group, a conference. Public speaking and publishing articles and blogs is relevant as well.

The big thing I got out of this session is that no one is going to hand you the CST designation because you know Scrum and have run training sessions. Becoming a CST requires excellence and hard work.

You may also want to check out Tobias’s blog posts: So you want to be a CST?, Becoming a CST and Scrum gathering day zero for an informal perspective.

See also my post on becoming a CSC.

I started filling out my CSC (Certified Scrum Coach) application almost a year ago and then I stopped due to fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I had been using Scrum for quite a while and successfully transitioned a number of teams, but didn’t understand the process and have any context around it to understand how to be successful and even if I should bother.

(Part 4 of 5 blogs on the Scrum Gathering in Orlando)

I signed up for help in the Dialog Room’s Scrum Clinic (thanks Gerry Kirk and Michael de la Maza) the Scrum Gathering.  Roger Brown was kind enough to sit outside by the pool with me and fill in the missing meta-data around the CSC application process. The mind-map below is my effort to capture his perspective on this topic.

The big take aways for me were:

1. Now that I know the process, criteria, expectations and outcomes, I feel comfortable proceeding.
2. A submission needs to be business professional and may take 10-30+ hours to prepare.
3. Three reviewers will score each section to arrive at an overall score (like an exam). No minimum for any section.
4. Agile work is OK, but Scrum is preferred and will score higher.
5. I need to publish an article on the Scrum Alliance website.

Thanks also to Bob Hartman for reviewing and offering his time to help.

Caveat: this is not official Scrum Alliance policy – this is just my understanding of a discussion on this topic. Please see official CSC page here.

At the Scrum Gathering Open Space, there was a great session on this with even more details on the CSC program; please check it out.

I first read Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising when it first came out many years ago as part of Scrum Toronto book reading club. It has been an important source of ideas that have allowed me to successfully adopt Agile at many companies. This is an essential part of any change agent’s toolkit.

Mihai Iancu has a wonderful mindmap to show the patterns in a visual an approachable manner. Thanks to Mihai for allowing me to share this with you.

Here are some of my favourite patterns:

• Do food – Create a relaxed setting and leverage cultural bonding that happens when people eat together
• Tailor made – Find the right solution for the people you are working with; every situation is unique
• Step by step – Take things one step at a time and build on successes

Please comment on yours.

Yesterday, Gerry Kirk and I kicked off a 4 day Agile Assessment with a presentation aimed at taking some of the uncertainty out of Agile and providing context for the transition/assessment.  See slides below.

The values and agile project life cycle slides were not show; instead, Gerry did a live diagram construction (see photo below). This approach worked well and we got lot’s of great questions.

One of the questions was about Agile contracting.  There is a good presentation I commented on in a recent post.

I was really excited to see the presentations from the Munich Scrum Gathering posted on the ScrumAlliance site since I was not able to attend due to a date conflict with Agile Tour Toronto. It took some time to go through all of them so I thought I would post some of the ones I found interesting here to encourage you to check them out and maybe some others. A big thank-you to the Scrum Alliance and authors for posting them.

Ideas from Other Fields

Making Change Happen – Peter Stevens

Peter Stevens has a visually pleasing presentation – Making Change Happen – that summarizes organizational adoption challenges and includes key ideas from one of my favourite books – Fearless Change. The diagram at the left illustrates that there are often factions in an organization pulling in different directions with different agendas – not just your favourite (Scrum or Agile). Check this out if you are involved in organizational change.

Social Objects in Software Development – Dave Harvey

Scrum talks about self-organizing teams. How do you get there? One idea is that we need to think about social networks. These form around social objects, so this is a good place to start. Social objects reinforce our identity and sustain our tribal identity. Consider the photo showing other dimensions of people’s lives. Not only can networks form around this, but it also primes our behaviour to think about others as … people. The presentation is done in zen style and I would totally love to hear Dave in person.

Self-Organizing & Subtle Control: Friends or Enemies? – Mike Cohn

Mike talked about self-organization not happening in a vacuum. It is management’s responsibility to guide the evolution of behaviours (rather than specify what how everyone needs work). He then went on to talk about Containers, Differences and Exchanges as a way of making indirect changes to a team. There is also a discussion of Philip Anderson’s 7 levers for influencing team evolution. Worth checking out if you are interested in coaching teams.

Stories from Scrum in Practice

Agile at Telefonica R&D Gemma_Hornos & Monica Izquierd

Although the presentation is about large scale enterprise adoption of Scrum, there are lots of interesting bits of information that apply in general. One example is image is about styles of growth of Scrum within an organization – I really like the viral/mosquito! Lot’s of other great visuals as well.

Practical Roadmap to Great Scrum – Jeff Sutherland

Jeff shares some of his key understandings of doing Scrum well. Want to double productivity? –> Focus on DONE. Want to double again? –> Focus on READY. Self-organization is identified as the 3rd way to double performance. The presentation also talks about large scale adoption and CMMI. Lot’s of good bits of info packed in here.

10 Contract Forms For Your Next Agile Project – Peter Stevens

Peter has a great analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different types of contracts from both the vendor and the supplier perspectives. Phased development (see photo at left) is one that balances the interests of bother parties and encourages cooperative behaviours. If you need to set up a contract, check out this presentation.

Kicking Scrumbut – Rowan Bunning

Rowan takes a fun and informative look at some common failure modes that organization exhibit when adopting partial Scrum (AKA Scrumbut). Of course all the failure modes are matched with advice on what to do to resolve the problem. Even if you are an experienced coach or Scrum practitioner, you will be sure enjoy and learn from a different perspective.