Leading Agile: Handling Support on Agile Teams

Leading Agile: Handling Support on Agile Teams
posted by Mike Cottmeyer has continued a real world discussion on how to handle building the current iteration, while still supporting other applications with the same team.

You mean we can't work in perfect isolation all the time ??

Setting up the "Agile" Team Room

A key element of Agile projects is the need for real time, dynamic communication. One way of accomplishing this is to co-locate the team, and use low-tech communication tools that are easy to understand, and easy for the team to keep up-to-date. For many organizations, in particular those that are new to Agile, how do you set the team space up effectively?

Physical space and co-location

The most effective layout for the physical team location is co-located desks and shared access to plans, status, next steps, and other project planning and management tools. The picture shows the physical space from an effective team. Team members are not separated from each other by offices or cubicles, but rather share desk and team space in an open concept environment. In teams that must be geographically separated, then tools for conducting virtual meetings such as conference call phones, instant messaging, shared electronic documents and tools are leveraged to minimize the distance and separation.


War Room
The war room is a shared team space for conducting meetings and sharing project planning tools in a real-time and dynamic manner. Ideally this is a physical meeting space near the team area. The typical elements of a war room would include:

• Team Structure - the basic "who's on the team", including contact information
  
• Client Organization Structure - Who are the stakeholders and how do they all fit together
  
• Team goals and objectives - Why are we here. What are we trying to achieve.
  
• High level plan, Mid Level Plan - The overall project milestones, and the key iterations and release dates, with the anticipated objectives or deliverables for each
  
• Roles and Responsibilities - A RACI style chart with the internal and external roles and the person on the team who is responsible
  
• Story Board - The stories for this iteration, what is complete, in-progress, and not started
  
• Purpose and Vision
• Client Deliverables - This may seem straight forward, but a reminder as too what we as a team are trying to deliver
  
• Client Phase Exit Criteria - What are we marching toward to complete the current phase and achieve signoff
  
• Team performance survey results - A summary of the latest team survey or other self-reflection the team has performed, and the key lessons we are trying to learn
  
• Story Stack - The scope of the project
  
• Communications Plan - Team meetings schedule and logisitics
  
• Meeting Agenda - The standard daily team stand-up meeting has a strict, short agenda so we can complete it within 30 minutes
  
• Issues and Next Steps - The whiteboard list of next steps, dates, owners, to be checked during each team meeting
  
• Risks - The whiteboard list of risks, impact, and mitigation that needs to be taken (with owner)
  
• Recognition Awards - Some place to call out great work by the team or individuals.
  
• Ground Rules - The team derived rules for respecting each other

Please share best practices or lessons you have learned to set up the agile project team. If you are looking for assistance to set up your team, please reach out and I will try and point you in the right direction.

Three Key Factors in the Project Closeout Phase

Project closeout is the final phase of the project and is the time where we can ultimately judge the success of all the planning, initiation, and execution of the project plan. Actions taken in this final stage determine the completeness of the project against its objectives, and the ultimate success of the project manager. I want to focus on three key factors of the closeout phase that all projects need to address: the importance of managing the closeout phase of a project, managing stakeholder expectations and achieving acceptance, and the impact of closeout on the project manager.

Managing Project Closeout Phases

There are lessons to be learned through the project closeout phase. Projects can be mined for best practices and lessons of its own that can be shared and leveraged across the organization.

It is important to plan and staff accordingly for the closure activities. Often people are often rolled off projects as soon as possible after completion of their deliverables. This can be prior to the closure activities being completed, leaving a smaller core team to clean up or the work is left incomplete. Often, the tendency is for the team to do what is necessary to achieve completion, without a sense of leaving the work in a state for long term support or enhancement. The customer’s final perception of the final product or deliverable is what sticks in their mind, and if the project team shortchanges this effort the organization will lose credibility, the repeat business, or the referrals.

Conducting a post-project review and capturing best practices to share with the community is a key part of the closeout phase. The intellectual capital is a competitive advantage but it is lost if this step is not completed. The organization should utilize a shared document repository and uploading tools and examples from the project are tremendously useful to new project teams. It is the ideal time to go about collecting the actual project performance data. This can serve as a basis for estimating the amount of work in future, similar projects.

Project closeout is an important time for celebration and recognition. The project team has spent a great deal of time and effort on the project, and often so has the various stakeholders. People need the time to celebrate and relish in the success. As well, if the project did not go smoothly, it is important to capture the lessons learned and give the team a chance to let go of the past so they can move on to future work.

Managing Stakeholder Expectations and Achieving Acceptance

In some ways the success of managing the stakeholder’s expectations, communication, and ultimately achieving acceptance of the project has more to do with the initial and planning stages of the project. Having a clear scope statement defined and agreed to prior to the start of the project is crucial to the success of the project. However, disputes usually surface at the end of the engagement as the final deliverables are being produced and delivered. The best way to reduce the impact of project disputes is to avoid them.

In the event that issues arise during the closeout phase of the project, it is important to have a dispute mechanism and escalation process. The communication plan is the starting point for developing a regular habit of discussing with the client the current state of the project and the issues and risks that are anticipated.

The lesson learned is that an organization should spend more time with the stakeholders, understanding their business, building a relationship, and developing the work products together, and the focus on the contract is secondary. By being on the same side of the table as the stakeholder, having a strong relationship in and outside of work, and showing them that you can be trusted and fair, goes a long way to help disputes be managed without damaging the relationship.

Impact of Closeout on the Project Manager

Project closeout is an important time to focus on the team, with celebration, recognition, feedback and compensation discussions occurring as part of this phase. But as a project manager, it is important to take care of yourself as well. Project management has some built in stresses, and at the closeout phase project managers are dealing with the same issues around closure, moving on, acceptance and recognition as the rest of the team.