back to notes

Agile Health Radar Topic Sections And Resources

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/1

Team Health – Leadership - Team Facilitator - Effective Facilitation

Competency: Our team facilitator is effective at preparing, scheduling and executing our Agile meetings in an efficient and collaborative manner.

Healthy
Facilitator is organized with clear purpose, deliverables and agenda for meetings
Helps the team stay on track during meetings by practicing 'process' listening and staying 'content' neutral; not taking sides
Facilitates healthy team meetings by paying attention to body language and reading the room
Ensures the team has a pulse on how they're doing to achieve their goals, by visually radiating progress and displaying important metrics for the team
Understand the ART of facilitation, prepares for each meeting by determining best facilitation technique to achieve desired output, for example brainstorming session - would be best facilitated with sticky notes vs. round robin
Effective at controlling meeting dysfunctions
Effective at facilitating conflict and helping the team navigate the layer below the surface
Effective at keeping the room memory, and decisions made visible
Promotes collaboration and try to achieve synergy
Listens to understand instead of listening to act

UnHealthy
Leads meetings through Command and Control - talk to drive vs. talk to guide
Focused on the process and tools over the individuals and their interaction
Focused on 'content' and takes sides
Is not prepared for meetings, there is no clear agenda or deliverables
There are no meeting notes or action items captured or communicated
Listens just enough to act, not to understand


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

01
Establish Team Norms & Expectations
One of the most effective facilitation techniques is to help a team establish team norms and expectations.
This will help meetings run much smoother as everyone is on the same page for what makes others feel respected.
Teams norms answer these 8 questions:
How do we make decisions?
How do we respond to conflicts?
How do we handle impediments?
How do we improve our processes?
How do we manage our work and how do we define Done?
How do we communicate with each other?
How do we run our meetings?
How do we help each other and have fun?

02
Spend at least 15 mins preparing for each meeting
Doing the work initially will help meetings become much more effective - so spend time ensuring your meeting invite has a purpose, agenda, and deliverables. There is an effective meetings cheatsheet in the Resources section, and for most Agile Meetings, this will give you a good start.
Be in the room earlier than attendees and setup the room for deliverables - possibly a flip chart, or if your team is distributed, then maybe a Word document. This will help everyone stay focused on the end goal.

03
Learn Conflict Resolution Skills
A common impediment for teams is not having a decision that is needed to move forward or not being able to come to consensus as a team.
Please see "Conflict Resolution Techniques" within Resolutions section to learn a few ways to help teams and management resolve conflict.
Often facilitating these difficult decision making sessions for management and teams will help resolve impediments and get things moving for the team.

04
Watch the Effective Meeting Video Series
AgileVideos.com has a strong effective meetings video series that contains recommendations for shifting from process listening to content listening.
The Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings are in a video below.

05
Take an Effective Facilitation Course
Most effective facilitators are trained facilitators who understand how to:
Lead and facilitate ceremonies, team and individual interactions.
How to guide the team through the Tuckman model of team stages.
Conflict Resolution.
Find a training course that not only teaches you about effective facilitation but also allows you to self-assess and practice these techniques.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

01
Facilitate Effective Meetings: Learn how to facilitate effective meetings by Samar Elatta
2:58

02
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings Part 1: Learn the top 10 must haves for effective meetings.
11:06

03
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings Part 2: Learn the top 10 must haves for effective meetings.
8:12

04
Ten MUST HAVES for Effective Meetings!: Learn the Ten MUST HAVES for Effective Meetings!
5:08

05
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings (Part 1): Students review the first five of the Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings and what you can do to get the most out of each meeting and eliminate wasted time.
11:06

06
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings (Part 2): Students review the second five of the Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings and what you can do to get the most out of each meeting and eliminate wasted time.
8:12


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

01
Effective Meetings Cheatsheet: This cheatsheet will give you a sample Purpose, Agenda, and Deliverables for each Agile ceremony, as well as facilitation tips for each one of those meetings.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/249634d0-32cf-40d3-9519-3d00ec64e4ee.pdf&name=Agile Meetings CheatSheet V2.pdf
Done

02
Conflict Resolution Techniques: Learn conflict resolution techniques such as common ground, evaluation criteria rating, team brainstorming, etc.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/9f56ecb1-e7e0-4c84-8220-916cf733bbdc.docx&name=New-Conflict Resolution Techniques (1) (1).docx)
Done

03
Effective Facilitator's Cheat Sheet: Power tools to help facilitators meeting initiation, session preparation, session execution and meeting closure / follow-up.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/ff71b24e-0089-492f-8d39-b4fd6bafb1ef.pdf&name=Copy of FacilitatorsCheatsheet 2 page.pdf
Done

04
Testing PDF Download: Testing PDF
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealthdemo.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/8675f9a0-334b-4428-92fe-59032d3008f2.pdf&name=_002_ BoA Dev (1).pdf
Done

 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/2

Team Health – Leadership - Team Facilitator - Servant Leadership

Competency: Our team facilitator demonstrates the traits of Servant Leadership by allowing our team to self organize and determine the "how" of execution.

Healthy
Allows the team to fail (occasionally) - to learn
Owns the process needed to execute the teams work successfully
Leads the team through change - pro-actively as needed
Communicates effectively among the team and leadership triangle
Communicates effectively outside the team when needed
Is aware of the team's health at all times
Guides team to success
Coaches and mentors the team
Observes constantly - speaks when needed
Manages a team not by telling them what to do, but by removing impediments that get in their way

UnHealthy
Sees failure as the last option - negative reinforcement
Leads through command and control
Lacks trust by the team in their leadership and ability to self-organize
Stays the status-quo, doesn't proactively look for team improvement opportunities
Does not have trust in the teams ability to self-organize, directs more than leads
Is task/goal oriented
Is apathetic to the overall health of the team


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

06
Improve Servant Leadership Skills
Enroll in Servant Leadership Training.
Find a Servant Leadership coach and set aside time for deep dive coaching.
Ensure the team's Scrum Master has been trained and coached on Servant Leadership, they can set a solid example to the entire team.
Enroll in Certified Scrum Master® training.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

07
What Is Servant Leadership?: This video will provide a short overview of how Servant Leadership attempts to find a balance in the middle by focusing on growing people and thereby growing high performing teams.
9:18

08
Shifting Towards Servant Leadership: Now that we have discussed what Servant Leadership is about, the question is how do you begin to shift to this style of leadership?
8:59

09
Servant Leadership: Agile Transformation's Bryan Tew sits down with Doug Rose, an Agile Coach & Trainer, to discuss Servant Leadership & how this affects Agile Teams.
2:26

10
Seminar for Agile Managers: We've Disrupted Your Role: Sally Elatta discusses what we really want managers to focus on. How can they add value and contribute to the team and organization's success but in a new way?
1:03:15


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

05
The 10 Most Important Characteristics of Servant Leaders: Article on the 10 most important characteristics of servant leaders and ways to practice each.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/servant-leadership.htm

06
Management 3.0: Jurgen Appelo's book, Management 3.0, introduces the reader to how agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There are at least a hundred books for agile developers and project managers, but very few for agile managers and leaders.
https://management30.com/product/management30/

07
Adaptive Leadership: The authors have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership. In today's rapidly changing world, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership can be your handbook to meeting the demands of leadership in the midst of complexity.
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B004OC071W&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_xW1DzbK4WWTP1

08
The Advantage: There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are.
Book called The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni - no link


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/3

Team Health – Leadership - Team Facilitator - Impediment Management

Competency: Our team facilitator effectively manages impediment removal for the team both within our team and across other teams.

Healthy
Challenges team to address impediments
Communicates and escalates impediments when needed and holds the owner/s responsible
Manages a team not by telling them what to do, but by removing impediments that get in their way

UnHealthy
Inability to recognize conflict and even help prevent it from happening
Does not escalate impediments when needed or hold ownership accountable
Does not have the skills to handle conflict


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

07
Training for Scrum Masters
Certified Scrum Master® Training.
Advanced Scrum Master Training will help facilitators understand how to manage impediments and risks to the team.

08
Build an Environment for Success
For collocated teams, works with managers to create an environment that allows close, daily collaboration within the team and between business customers and team members.
Help managers understand that team space in Agile team rooms increases in productivity.
If there are distributed team members, work with managers to ensure access to collaboration tools is available.
Establish information radiators (team boards, Kanban boards, impediments backlog, etc).

01
Establish Team Norms & Expectations
One of the most effective facilitation techniques is to help a team establish team norms and expectations.
This will help meetings run much smoother as everyone is on the same page for what makes others feel respected.
Teams norms answer these 8 questions:
How do we make decisions?
How do we respond to conflicts?
How do we handle impediments?
How do we improve our processes?
How do we manage our work and how do we define Done?
How do we communicate with each other?
How do we run our meetings?
How do we help each other and have fun?

03
Learn Conflict Resolution Skills
A common impediment for teams is not having a decision that is needed to move forward or not being able to come to consensus as a team.
Please see "Conflict Resolution Techniques" within Resolutions section to learn a few ways to help teams and management resolve conflict.
Often facilitating these difficult decision making sessions for management and teams will help resolve impediments and get things moving for the team.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

22
Managing Impediments & Risks: Listen to a story of how executives can step in and help resolve impediments and learn about ways to manage impediments and risks.
6:27


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

02
Conflict Resolution Techniques: Learn conflict resolution techniques such as common ground, evaluation criteria rating, team brainstorming, etc.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/9f56ecb1-e7e0-4c84-8220-916cf733bbdc.docx&name=New-Conflict Resolution Techniques (1) (1).docx)
Done

09
Impediments: An Impediment is anything that keeps the Team from getting work Done and that slows Velocity. Impediments come in many forms: a sick team member, a missing resource, lack of management support or even a cold team room. If it's blocking the team from doing its work, it's an Impediment.
https://www.scruminc.com/impediments/

10
Closing The Impediment Gap: Agile Applied discusses a practical approach to Agility and closing the impediment gap.
https://agileapplied.com/2015/08/07/closing-impediment-gap/

11
Warning Signs Of Project Trouble Cheatsheet: Discover the early warning signs of a project in trouble.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/ccb1db00-8f81-4af1-9500-bdc68d957c30.docx&name=WarningSignsOfProjectTrouble-CheatSheet.docx


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/3550

Team Health – Leadership - Team Facilitator - Focus

Nothing Further


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/7086

Team Health – Leadership - Team Facilitator - Opp. Win Rate

Nothing Further


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/4

Team Health – Leadership - Technical Lead - Servant Leadership

Competency: Our technical leads help our team grow their skills through mentoring, pairing and leading solution design sessions.

Healthy
Delegation of tasks, works with the team to determine the solution
Partners with development team and collaborates on finding the solution
Allows development team to take risks
Encourages the concept of generalizing specialists
Coaches, mentors and supports

Unhealthy
Uses a command and control leadership style - does not trust the team
Does not allow for innovation through risk taking
Decides the solution on their own, tells the team what tasks they will do


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

09
Improve Technical Lead's ability as a coach and mentor
Servant Leadership Training.
Deep dive coaching into Technical Lead role as it pertains to being a coach and mentor to the development team.
Coaching Technical Lead on Servant Leadership.


Videos
Video #
Title
Runtime

11
Technical Excellence and Quality: Learn about Technical Excellence and Quality from Doc List, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:51

12
Agile Managers and Technical Excellence: Learn about the critical role of Managers to Technical Excellence from Doug Diehnelt, leader of Agile Teams.
3:19

13
Technical Excellence: Learn about the importance of Technical Excellence and how to attain it from Enterprise Agile Coaches Richard Kasperowski and Bryan Tew.
2:29

14
Servant Leadership: Doug Rose and Bryan Tew, Enterprise Coaches, talk about the importance of Servant Leadership.
2:26

15
What is Servant Leadership? Learn the basics of Servant Leadership.
9:18

16
Shifting Towards Servant Leadership: What changes need to be made to shift to a Servant Leadership style of leading?
8:59

17
What Is Servant Leadership?: This video will provide a short overview of how Servant Leadership attempts to find a balance in the middle by focusing on growing people and thereby growing high performing teams.
9:18

18
The Agile Team - Technical Leadership: Learn how the Technical Leader fits into the leadership triangle.
3:43

19
Shifting Towards Servant Leadership: Now that we have discussed what Servant Leadership is about, the question is how do you begin to shift to this style of leadership?
8:59

20
Technical Leadership: Sally Elatta discusses Technical Leadership.
5:42

21
Servant Leadership: Agile Transformation's Bryan Tew sits down with Doug Rose, an Agile Coach & Trainer, to discuss Servant Leadership & how this affects Agile Teams.
2:26

10
Seminar for Agile Managers - We've Disrupted Your Role: Sally Elatta discusses what we really want managers to focus on. How can they add value and contribute to the team and organization's success but in a new way?
1:03:15


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

05
The 10 Most Important Characteristics of Servant Leaders: Article on the 10 most important characteristics of servant leaders and ways to practice each.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/servant-leadership.htm

06
Management 3.0: Jurgen Appelo's book, Management 3.0, introduces the reader to how agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There are at least a hundred books for agile developers and project managers, but very few for agile managers and leaders.
https://management30.com/product/management30/

12
Defining the Role of a Technical Lead: Understanding the role a Technical Lead plays on a team from the perspective of Servant Leadership.
http://tech.dealer.com/defining-the-scrum-tech-lead/

07
Adaptive Leadership: The authors have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership. In today's rapidly changing world, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership can be your handbook to meeting the demands of leadership in the midst of complexity.
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B004OC071W&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_xW1DzbK4WWTP1

08
The Advantage: There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are.
Book called The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni - no link


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/5

Team Health – Leadership - Technical Lead - Technical Leadership

Competency: Our technical leads provide the technical vision and guidance for our work. They stay engaged with the team and plan ahead.

Healthy
Still works as a developer or coder
Partners with Product Owner and Business Owners - helps them determine feasibility of technical solutions as well as recommending other options while incorporating the technical vision & strategy
Can visualize the architecture around the teams work
Is a technical generalist - may have an area of expertise, but is familiar with the technical area of each team
Owner of technical communication
Helps bridge the gap between product architecture and detailed design

Unhealthy
Is removed from the day-to-day coding, no longer understands where the development team is coming from
Does not have the skills or ability to grasp the overall picture of the teams architecture or technical vision
Is not able to communicate effectively with development team and business individuals
Unable to bridge the product architecture and communicate the detailed design to the team


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

10
Technical Leadership
Engage a coach for the Technical Lead to help them on the topics of interest to them, such as:
How to split time between being tactical vs. strategic.
Deep dive into their role as a Technical Lead.
The importance of and how to communicate between the team and customer.

11
Improve Technical Expertise
One of the most valuable things a Technical Lead brings to a team is technical expertise and guidance towards technical excellence. The Technical Lead can improve their technical expertise and help the team by:
Improving knowledge of their domain and technology area.
Ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture.
Learning ways to automate and innovate where needed to help the organization move towards continuous integration.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

18
The Agile Team - Technical Leadership: Learn how the Technical Leader fits into the leadership triangle.
3:43

23
Technical Leadership: Learn about the importance of a Technical Lead for an Agile team.
5:42

13
Technical Excellence: Learn about the importance of Technical Excellence and how to attain it from Enterprise Agile Coaches Richard Kasperowski and Bryan Tew.
2:29

12
Agile Managers and Technical Excellence: Learn about the critical role of Managers to Technical Excellence from Doug Diehnelt, leader of Agile Teams.
3:19

11
Technical Excellence and Quality: Learn about Technical Excellence and Quality from Doc List, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:51


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

13
Defining The Scrum Tech Lead: A Scrum Tech Lead’s first responsibility on the team is to provide it with technical leadership. What does technical leadership look like in action when you think of it as a Servant Leadership role?
http://tech.dealer.com/defining-the-scrum-tech-lead/

14
Technical Leadership for Agile Teams: InfoQ interviewed Patrick about the need for technical leaders, differences between the ScrumMaster and Technical Lead roles, leadership skills and what technical leaders can do to support people in developing their skills and abilities.
https://www.infoq.com/news/2015/01/technical-leadership-agile

15
Tech Lead Role: See attached file for a sample detailed Technical Lead role & responsibilities.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/33237d62-1d50-477c-9d60-95dabb883fb1.docx&name=Tech Lead Role.docx


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/6

Team Health – Leadership - Product Owner - Engagement

Competency: Our Product Owner is available to the team to answer questions and provide feedback. They are effective at engaging sponsors and stakeholders when needed.

Healthy
Negotiator with ability to say no or compromise
Engaged with their teams, stakeholders and customers
Available to the team to prioritize, give positive feedback, celebrate, etc.
Is part of the team, engaged with retrospectives and as the team needs - not just involved when discussing requirements
Always explains priority, business value and engaged in defining what they need as well as why its important and why
Engages team in coming up with ideas and innovation

Unhealthy
Is not available to the team on a consistent basis
Refuses to compromise/negotiate scope from the business
Is not communicating with the customer and/or stakeholders
Does not explain business value or why things are a priority
Treats the team as task takers


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

08
Build an Environment for Success
For collocated teams, works with managers to create an environment that allows close, daily collaboration within the team and between business customers and team members.
Help managers understand that team space in Agile team rooms increases in productivity.
If there are distributed team members, work with managers to ensure access to collaboration tools is available.
Establish information radiators (team boards, Kanban boards, impediments backlog, etc).

12
Understanding the Product Owner role within a team
Work with a coach or Product Owner community of practice to learn best practices
Share knowledge to further develop Product Owner leadership skills
Receive coaching on Customer/Stakeholder engagement and discovery practices


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

24
Agile Product Owner: What is the role of the Product Owner?
6:14

25
Agile Team Spaces: Learn key tips and tricks for Agile work spaces from Enterprise Agile Coaches, Tom Friend and Bryan Tew.
2:33

26
Deeper Dive into Product Owner Role: Learn more about the importance of Product Owner role.
3:40

27
Collaborative Workspaces and Virtual Teams: Shane Hastie, Chief Knowledge Engineer, shares tips for creating collaborative workspaces and working as distributed teams.
5:29


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

16
Desirable Characteristics of a Product Owner: Learn about the desirable characteristics of a Product Owner.
http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/desirable-characteristics-of-a-product-owner/

17
Product Owner Cheat Sheet: The Product Owner one page cheat sheet.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/89bb9c5e-2834-45ff-a223-b503e8a8fb4d.pdf&name=Product Owner Cheat Sheet.pdf

18
Slides on Product Owner Roles & Responsibilities: This document reviews the roles and responsibilities of the Product Owner, what's expected within their role and guidelines on time commitment.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/c3a5d164-1d87-4358-b0eb-47bc13c09711.pdf&name=Product Owner Slides.pdf



 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/7

Team Health – Leadership - Product Owner - Backlog Management

Competency: The Product Owner keeps the backlog groomed and prioritized for the team. There is a defined backlog, release plan and clear acceptance criteria for each iteration.

Healthy
Empowered and committed to the team and the value they provide
Has a well groomed backlog ready for team, 2-3 sprints ahead
Builds the vision of what is to be built
Validates hypothesis with stakeholders and customers so the team doesn't have to do unnecessary rework
Continually shares the backlog and changes in priority with the team

Unhealthy
Lacks the true ownership/decision of the product(s)
Does not spend time grooming/pre-planning the backlog with the team
Pressures the team to meet business goals with little to no compromise
Questions the teams estimates in the form of "why can't you?"
Backlog is kept as a document stored locally and shared infrequently with interested parties from getting updates


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

13
Read the book Inspired by Marty Cagan
Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan (https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-create-products-customers-love/)
Product management expert Marty Cagan answers these questions and hundreds more as he shares lessons learned, techniques, and best practices from working for and with some of the most successful companies in the high-tech industry. You’ll find that there’s a very big difference between how the very best companies create products and all the rest.
Creating inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. If you can’t do this, then it’s not worth building anything.
Why do some products make the leap to greatness while others don’t?
How do you decide which product opportunities to pursue?
How do you get evidence that the product you’re going to ask your engineering team to build will be successful?
How do you identify the minimal possible product that will be successful?
How do you manage the often conflicting demands of company execs, customers, sales, marketing, engineering, design, and more?
How can you adapt Agile methods for commercial product environments?

14
Improve Stability of Backlog and Priorities
Many teams struggle with delivering consistently and predictably when they are faced with a constantly changing backlog and moving priorities.
Agile teams need to master the art of balancing flexibility & stability. A team should stay flexible and responsive to their Product Owner and business needs while keeping some level of stability for the backlog and plan, so they can achieve predictable delivery.
Here are a few ideas to help:
For a Product Owner, the first step to stability is to mature the planning process for the team, so that at minimum what they are working on for the iteration (next few weeks) doesn't change with the exception of support work.
A team should make sure they are planning for support work and also 'unplanned' work within their capacity. Some call this 'slack' as it was originated in the XP world, read this blog from James Shore. Here is a book on this topic, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency.

15
Apply Product Discovery and Design Thinking
The Product Owner might want to learn about how to stay one quarter (or one release) ahead of their teams by doing 'Discovery' and design thinking on the epics they want them to work on in the next quarter.
Lean Discovery and Agile Delivery are continuous processes that feed each other, however, starting Discovery early will help you validate what your customers really need and improve the stability of your backlog and priorities.
Start your learning by watching a few videos or reading the blogs below.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

28
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10

29
Planning and Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:18

30
Planning & Estimating: Learn more about planning and estimating with Bryan Tew, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:38

31
Release Planning and Estimating: Learn more about Release Planning (Mid-Term Planning) and Estimating from Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
3:58

32
Cost Estimation: Learn about how to estimate cost on Agile Teams with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:36

33
Date vs Scope Driven Planning: Learn the difference between date-driven planning and scope-driven planning with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
14:01

34
An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery: Teresa Torres’ keynote on “An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery Practices”. (https://youtu.be/l7-5x0ra2tc)
36:44

35
Iteration Pre-Planning (Backlog Refinement): Learn how to execute the iteration pre-planning meeting (a.k.a. Backlog Refinement) so that the Product Owner and Team can ensure they have passed the definition of ready before entering a new Iteration. This reduces the level of churn during the Iteration and helps the team focus.
12:55

36
Agile 2016 - Ryan Fullmer - Backlog Management N/A
2:41

37
Agile 2015 - Sean Barrett & Sally Elatta - "Backlog Management & Prioritization"
Sean and Sally discuss Backlog Management and Prioritization.
7:44

38
Agile 2015 - Richard Dolman - "Backlog Management" N/A
1:50

39
Release Planning Steps: Understand the release planning (mid-term planning) steps with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
8:07

40
Story Points Workshop: Sit in on a story sizing workshop with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

41
Affinity Estimation: Learn about Affinity Estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

42
Planning Poker: Learn how Planning Poker is a key tool in Agile estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
4:15

43
Story Points and Relative Sizing: Learn about relative sizing and story pointing with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
12:49

44
Product Backlog and User Stories - Story Slicing Workshop: Sally Elatta presents Product Backlog and User Stories.
15:34


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

19
Behind Every Great Product by Marty Cagan: In this paper Marty Cagan discusses the role and responsibilities of the good product manager, and then we look at the characteristics of good product managers, where to find them, and how to develop them.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/2718b3e9-c838-43a5-bd41-4cc6e7529ec8.pdf&name=productmanager.pdf

https://svpg.com/

20
Backlog Prioritization Video Series: Please note: access to AgileVideos.com is required for this resource. Please use promocode: TRANSFORM30 for thirty days of free access when registering. This video series includes: Topics include: building the backlog, levels of requirements, writing user stories, story mapping and more.
https://agilevideos.com/videoscategory/pmi-acp-module-6-product-backlog-and-user-stories-videos/

17
Product Owner Cheat Sheet: The Product Owner one page cheat sheet.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/89bb9c5e-2834-45ff-a223-b503e8a8fb4d.pdf&name=Product Owner Cheat Sheet.pdf

18
Slides on Product Owner Roles & Responsibilities: This document reviews the roles and responsibilities of the Product Owner, what's expected within their role and guidelines on time commitment.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/c3a5d164-1d87-4358-b0eb-47bc13c09711.pdf&name=Product Owner Slides.pdf

21
The Evolution of Modern Product Discovery: Product management is evolving quickly. The days of gathering requirements from business stakeholders and documenting them in long product requirements documents are vanishing. By Teresa Torres.
https://www.producttalk.org/2017/02/evolution-product-discovery/

22
Inspired: How to Create Products Customer Love: Author Marty Cagan's book about inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible.
https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-create-products-customers-love/



 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/8

Team Health – Leadership - Product Owner - Leadership

Competency: The Product Owner is effective at defining and communicating the desired vision for the team and helps the team understand and maximize the value they deliver.

Healthy
Articulates the vision of the product
Collaborates and provides direction
Available to the team, within reason
Engaged with the customers
Understands discovery best practices and engages in validating features prior to asking the team to build the solution

Unhealthy
Doesn't provide the vision/direction for the team
Isn't available to the team - only answers via e-mail
Is disengaged from the customer needs
Is too stuck on 'What they want', unwilling to validate hypothesis with customer and get feedback


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

16
Improve PO leadership skills
PO CSPO training
PO role deep dive with Coach
Clarity on vision and it's value
Coaching on PO time commitment to team
Coaching around customer/stakeholder engagement

13
Read the book Inspired by Marty Cagan
Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan (https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-create-products-customers-love/)
Product management expert Marty Cagan answers these questions and hundreds more as he shares lessons learned, techniques, and best practices from working for and with some of the most successful companies in the high-tech industry. You’ll find that there’s a very big difference between how the very best companies create products and all the rest.
Creating inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. If you can’t do this, then it’s not worth building anything.
Why do some products make the leap to greatness while others don’t?
How do you decide which product opportunities to pursue?
How do you get evidence that the product you’re going to ask your engineering team to build will be successful?
How do you identify the minimal possible product that will be successful?
How do you manage the often conflicting demands of company execs, customers, sales, marketing, engineering, design, and more?
How can you adapt Agile methods for commercial product environments?

17
Download and Reference Product Owner Cheat Sheet
Below under resources you'll find a powerful Product Owner Cheat Sheet - keep this with you as you attend meetings as a quick guide.

12
Understanding the Product Owner role within a team
Work with a coach or Product Owner community of practice to learn best practices
Share knowledge to further develop Product Owner leadership skills
Receive coaching on Customer/Stakeholder engagement and discovery practices

18
Product Owner Happiness
As a Product Owner, reflect on these key conditions for Product Owner happiness and identify key gaps you might be experiencing:
They are immersed with their customers
They have the time and space to be visionary and creative
They have true ownership over their product
They are receiving meaningful feedback about the performance of their products
Their product/service is achieving desired business outcomes
They have a positive working relationship with their ScrumMaster
They have an even better relationship with technical leads and designers
They are proud of what the team is delivering
They have embraced their constraints
They are keeping themselves healthy
Read more: http://illustratedagile.com/2016/10/09/even-happier-product-owners/

19
Behind Every Great Product
Read Marty Cagan's "Behind Every Great Product" and learn
Role and Responsibilities of a Product Manager
Detailed guide for the process to achieve success for identifying and building the right product.
Provides guidance to develop Product Management skills


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

34
An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery: Teresa Torres’ keynote on “An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery Practices”. (https://youtu.be/l7-5x0ra2tc)
36:44


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

23
Happier Product Owners: Blog describing the overall expectations of a Product Owner and what contributes to making them happy.
http://illustratedagile.com/2016/10/09/even-happier-product-owners/

19
Behind Every Great Product by Marty Cagan: In this paper Marty Cagan discusses the role and responsibilities of the good product manager, and then we look at the characteristics of good product managers, where to find them, and how to develop them.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/2718b3e9-c838-43a5-bd41-4cc6e7529ec8.pdf&name=productmanager.pdf
https://svpg.com/

24
Product Owner Pitfalls: Short list of common pitfalls for Product Owners to watch for.
http://www.agileadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Product-Owner-Pitfalls.pdf

17
Product Owner Cheat Sheet: The Product Owner one page cheat sheet.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/89bb9c5e-2834-45ff-a223-b503e8a8fb4d.pdf&name=Product Owner Cheat Sheet.pdf

18
Slides on Product Owner Roles & Responsibilities: This document reviews the roles and responsibilities of the Product Owner, what's expected within their role and guidelines on time commitment.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/c3a5d164-1d87-4358-b0eb-47bc13c09711.pdf&name=Product Owner Slides.pdf

25
Leadership Growth Meetings: An example of the details involved in a Leadership Growth Meeting.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/b854a3e7-10ba-4daf-8460-83d713abf787.docx&name=Sample AgilityHealth Leadership Growth Meetings.docx


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/9

Team Health – Leadership – Management - Servant Leadership

Competency: Our functional manager, the manager responsible for personal development of the team members, demonstrates the traits of Servant Leadership by allowing our team to self organize and determine the "how" of execution.

Healthy
Leads by example
Listens to the team and encourage them to come up with solutions and be innovative
Provides team(s) the tools and resources to do their job
Helps resolves conflict and removes impediments
Believes failure can be learning
Teaches the team how to 'fish' and resolve technical impediments

Unhealthy
Inability to recognize and solve conflicts within a team
Sees failure only as a negative outcome
Is apathetic to the growth of individuals across the team
Does't escalate impediments when needed
Gives the team solutions, believes in only one way to do things.


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

20
Improve Manager Servant Leadership Skills
Servant Leadership training
Agile for Managers training
Situational coaching on role as a Manager in an Agile team


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

10
Seminar for Agile Managers: We've Disrupted Your Role: Sally Elatta discusses what we really want managers to focus on. How can they add value and contribute to the team and organization's success but in a new way?
1:03:15

12
Agile Managers and Technical Excellence: Learn about the critical role of Managers to Technical Excellence from Doug Diehnelt, leader of Agile Teams.
3:19

15
What is Servant Leadership?: Learn the basics of Servant Leadership.
9:18

16
Shifting Towards Servant Leadership: What changes need to be made to shift to a Servant Leadership style of leading?
8:59

14
Servant Leadership: Doug Rose and Bryan Tew, Enterprise Coaches, talk about the importance of Servant Leadership.
2:26


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

05
The 10 Most Important Characteristics of Servant Leaders: Article on the 10 most important characteristics of servant leaders and ways to practice each.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/servant-leadership.htm

06
Management 3.0: Jurgen Appelo's book, Management 3.0, introduces the reader to how agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There are at least a hundred books for agile developers and project managers, but very few for agile managers and leaders.
https://management30.com/product/management30/

07
Adaptive Leadership: The authors have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership. In today's rapidly changing world, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership can be your handbook to meeting the demands of leadership in the midst of complexity.
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B004OC071W&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_xW1DzbK4WWTP1

08
The Advantage: There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are.
Book called The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni - no link


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/10

Team Health – Leadership – Management - People Development

Competency: Our manager cares about team members as people and about our career growth. They help team members develop their skills and provides coaching when needed.

Healthy
Provides one-on-one coaching
Career development paths for individuals
Coaches on team dynamics and behaviors
Manages and provides consistent performance reviews

Unhealthy
Doesn't hold one-on-one's with team members to help provide coaching/mentoring
Doesn't help team members develop a growth plan for their careers
Is unaware/apathetic to overall team health
Team is not stable - members move in and out of team regularly


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

21
Understanding The Manager Role On An Agile team
Agile for Managers training
Improve coaching/mentor skills
Regular touch-base sessions with Agile Coaches
Staying engaged and time management
Regular one-on-ones with team members

22
Focus On People
Managers were promoted because they were great contributors. Leaders of teams need to shift from solving the problems to enabling teams to solve the problems on their own.
Focus on building trust and spending time facilitating, coaching and mentoring
Ensure team members have an opportunity to give feedback to managers on how well they are supporting the team and providing mentoring and growth opportunities

23
Focus on Team Goals vs. Individual Goals
Set team goals for business outcomes and measurements

24
Rewards and Incentives
With a team-based model, rewards and incentives need to reflect individual contribution toward the team accomplishing its goals and reflect whether the individual is working well as a member of the team.
Consider examples like: creating a system where peers allocate rewards to each other

25
Continuous and Role Based Feedback
Feedback should be continual and instant, not waiting for an annual performance review.
Continually provide feedback & expectations to specific roles and team members so that they know how well they are serving the rest of the team
Support when an issue is beyond the ability of the team to resolve, many issues can be resolved within the team when feedback is provided continually

26
Individuals Own Their Journey
Allow individuals to own their own journey, moving from a career path/ladder to a journey where individuals can learn skills over time, move into new roles and self-identify where they want to grow.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

10
Seminar for Agile Managers: We've Disrupted Your Role: Sally Elatta discusses what we really want managers to focus on. How can they add value and contribute to the team and organization's success but in a new way?
1:03:15


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

05
The 10 Most Important Characteristics of Servant Leaders: Article on the 10 most important characteristics of servant leaders and ways to practice each.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/servant-leadership.htm


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/43

Team Health – Leadership – Management - Process Improvement

Competency: Our manager is a change agent who is effective at improving processes for the team. They actively seek opportunities to make things better for the team.

Healthy
Identifies and addresses process inefficiencies proactively
Provides necessary tools for a teams work
Establishes standards and best practices
Provides training and education

Unhealthy
Team members are not provided proper training to do their jobs or advance their roles
A vision and mission for the team isn't established
The team lacks the proper resources and tools to do their job


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

27
Team Process Awareness
Complete Agile for Managers training
Improve understanding/awareness of processes within team
Regular one-on-ones with team members
Regular touch-base sessions with Agile Coaches
Stay engaged and apply time management skills

28
Remove Organizational Obstacles
Many teams that struggle to deliver value quickly usually suffer from an array of organizational level impediments. Here are a few examples:
Teams are not organized as cross-functional teams and cannot complete deliverables with minimal handoffs
Team members are not stable and matrixed across many projects at the same time - this causes a lot of work-in-progress (high WIP) but very little strategic priorities actually get to Done
Technical Agility and DevOps have not matured so teams don't know how to develop high quality code using modern practices and/or don't have the infrastructure to integrate and release their work frequently and automatically
Teams have reported impediments they face such as skill gaps, changing priorities, not having a product owner, lack of communication tools or co-location space, having limited access to SMEs (subject matter experts) and nothing has been done to address these
There are many other organizational impediments that slow down your time to market but the ones above are some of the top ones we've experienced.
You can leverage the AgilityHealth assessments to help you identify the top impediments to focus on and create a ranked growth backlog for teams and for the leaders/managers to address.


Videos
None


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

25
Leadership Growth Meetings: An example of the details involved in a Leadership Growth Meeting.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/b854a3e7-10ba-4daf-8460-83d713abf787.docx&name=Sample AgilityHealth Leadership Growth Meetings.docx

26
Multi-Team Growth Process: Leverage Agile to help leaders execute growth iterations.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/9fc9f259-7192-4bec-9459-fd3b51d236c3.pptx&name=Multi-Team Growth Process.pptx

27
Agile Team Maturity Roadmap: This document recommends a growth plan based on the teams maturity stage.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/dc05c45b-6109-4cad-ac9b-fe3e1faba4c1.pptx&name=Agile Team Maturity Modelv2.pptx

28
Article: Self-Organizing teams: Good article on the What and How of self-organizing teams.
https://scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/january/self-organizing-teams-what-and-how


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/12

Team Health – Culture - Team Dynamics - Happiness

Competency: Team members enjoy working on this team and are happy working here.

Healthy
You enjoy working with this team & are happy being here
You are not looking to move to a different area or organization

Unhealthy
You wish you worked somewhere else
You don't look forward to coming to work
Emotions are high & team members complain frequently


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

29
Fun Wall and Fun Ambassador
Identify and rotate each month or sprint a fun ambassador who can be creative and find ways to engage the team and celebrate through outings, fun games and creative ideas.
During a retrospective, have the team brainstorm fun activities they love and what motivates them. Build a list of small vs. larger activities to pull from during an iteration or at the end of the quarter/release.

30
Add 'Happiness' into your Team Norms
As part of your team norms, ask the team, “What's important for us to be happy working here?” and “What will bring us down?”
Allow each person to write down what's important to them and then read it out loud before posting on the wall.

31
Try the Appreciation Game
Play the Appreciation Game at your next retrospective. Spend time recognizing each others qualities and values. Here's a simple version:
Facilitator says, "We'll play a fun appreciation game, please think of who you want to appreciate and tell them why. The receiver can only say 'thank you'. We can start whenever someone is ready."
Add a question to each retrospective: "Who do you want to appreciate?" Have individuals write down who they appreciate and why on post-it notes. The person receiving the appreciation can say 'thank you'.
For more games check these out:
Retrospective Techniques
360 Degrees Appreciation


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

45
Send a Kudos Today: Jurgen Appelo presents gratitude as an intrinsic motivator that leads to happiness. Kudo cards are a way to motivate employees and team collaboration by helping us say thank you. (https://youtu.be/0OotzTcZ2a4)
5:14

46
Happiness: Richard Dolman speaking on the happiness for an Agile Team.
2:45


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

29
360 Feedback Retrospective: Fun retrospective to give 360 feedback and appreciation for individuals.
http://www.funretrospectives.com/360-degrees-appreciation/

30
Management 3.0 - Kudo Box: A kudo is a token or gesture of thanks. It encourages intrinsic motivations. Learn more and give it a try.
https://management30.com/practice/kudo-box/

31
Article on Sustainable Pace: Good definition and explanation of Sustainable Pace.
http://www.sustainablepace.net/what-is-sustainable-pace



 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/13

Team Health – Culture - Team Dynamics - Collaboration

Competency: We collaborate effectively as a team through frequent face-to-face (or virtual) working sessions. Collaboration is a measure of how well the team communicates and works together towards finding common solutions.

Healthy
Solutions are created through collaboration where everyone's voice is heard
Team members are excited to collaborate and co-create solutions, they engage by making eye contact and genuinely listen to what others are saying
Team members have constructive dialog, effective communication & frequently use pairing session
The team has setup effective collaboration tools, especially when working with remote members

Unhealthy
Collaboration happens mostly through emails and there is little face to face interaction
Team meetings are hard, negative and draining
Solutions are designed by managers or senior members (dominators)
No collaboration with other teams
New ideas are not welcome or encouraged
Team do not have the proper tools or technology to aid with collaboration, especially distributed team members


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

32
Collocated Collaboration Space
Redesign current space to be more collaborative for a cross-functional team or find a dedicated or part-time team room
Collocate the team members when possible including their product owner
Establish 'Quiet Time' rules as part of your team norms or provide smaller rooms for heads down work or 1:1 meetings.
Review sample collaboration spaces document
Collaboration supplies: whiteboards, markers, flip charts, post-it notes (super sticky 4X4), moving walls, food, games/creativity toys, inspiring messages/posters

33
Cross Team Collaboration
Invite teams to your demos, stand-ups & other ceremonies (as needed)
Develop a Scrum of Scrums ceremony to support cross-functional & cross-organizational communication
Build a program level Kanban wall visualizes dependencies across teams

34
Leverage Distributed Tools and Working Hours
Ensure the team has at min 4 common working hours across different time zones
Leverage video meetings as frequently as possible, setup video camera from team room in one location to another distributed room
Provide effective software and tools such as video meetings, instant chat, wikis, idea brainstorming, screen sharing, screen and meeting recording

35
Mature Facilitation & Collaboration Skills
Collaboration happens when you have an effective facilitator that can help teams develop common solutions and work through team dynamic issues. Invest in teaching the team Facilitation and Collaboration Skills.

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

08
Build an Environment for Success
For collocated teams, works with managers to create an environment that allows close, daily collaboration within the team and between business customers and team members.
Help managers understand that team space in Agile team rooms increases in productivity.
If there are distributed team members, work with managers to ensure access to collaboration tools is available.
Establish information radiators (team boards, Kanban boards, impediments backlog, etc).


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

47
Lyssa Adkins on Collaboration vs. Cooperation: Lyssa Adkins, President of Agile Coaching Institute shares her thoughts on collaboration vs. cooperation.
6:08

48
Collaboration: Richard Kasperowski & Bryan Tew share what is healthy and unhealthy for team Collaboration.
2:07

49
Globalization and Diversity: Sally Elatta presents ideas on how to bridge the gap within teams that work across different timezones and cultural backgrounds.
2:04

50
Team Norms and Agreements: Sally Elatta shares some important team norms and working agreements to setup the team for success. Related Course: High Performing Teams.
7:26

51
Agile Team Spaces: Learn key tips and tricks for Agile work spaces from Enterprise Agile Coaches, Tom Friend and Bryan Tew.
2:33

27
Collaborative Workspaces and Virtual Teams: Shane Hastie, Chief Knowledge Engineer, shares tips for creating collaborative workspaces and working as distributed teams.
5:29


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

32
Game - The Balloon Battle: The Balloon Battle is a great energizer to get everyone moving while creating a situation to introduce some concepts like team strategy, team work, collaboration, partnership and win-win situation. Source: FunRetrospectives.com
http://www.funretrospectives.com/the-balloon-battle/

33
Distributed Collaboration Cheat Sheet: Read this cheat sheet for some detailed recommendations specifically designed for distributed teams.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/8e74f6d7-cf53-4db9-9954-c518d859abae.pdf&name=DistributedTeams-Best%20Practices-CheatSheet.pdf

34
Collaboration vs. Cooperation: Short and sweet blog on how to think of collaboration and the key ingredients needed vs. cooperation. By Lynn Power
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-power/collaboration-vs-cooperat_b_10324418.html


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/14

Team Health – Culture - Team Dynamics - Trust & Respect

Competency: Team member's opinions matter and all team members feel respected. We have healthy relationships and can speak openly and honestly with each other.

Healthy
Each team member's opinion matters & they feel respected
The team has a healthy relationship & can speak openly & honestly with each other
The team addresses conflict effectively through open dialog, assuming positive intent, genuine listening & working together to find mutual solutions

Unhealthy
Team members feel their options are not respected or heard
Team members feel it's not safe to speak openly and honestly about their feelings
Team members feel others speak behind their back about them
Conflicts usually invoke high emotion and talking over each other


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

38
Develop Team Norms
Develop (or re-establish) team norms that emphasize trust and respect
Hold each other accountable to the team norms established, if you see someone break the norm say something politely.
Watch video on Setting Team Norms.

39
Learn Thinking Preferences and Personality Types
Use a self diagnostic tool to discuss how we see ourselves and others (Emergenetics/Myers-Briggs) as a group
Use team building activities to illustrate how we are alike and howe we are different (Constellation Game)
Use personal history exercised to discuss and illuminate individuals (Personal Journey Map)

40
Team Building Event & Excercises
When the energy is low or negative (but not serious), it might be time to schedule a team building event or try some fun team building exercises and games.
Review the resources section for a few ideas
Brainstorm as a team where you could go to have fun together

41
Set a Sustainable Pace
Use Refinement Sessions (a.k.a. Grooming) to improve the quality of the user stories and the team's understanding of what is required
Ensure the team understands relative estimating and there are healthy conversations during estimation
During Iteration Planning, do not over commit. Leave some capacity open especially when uncertainty is significant
Adjust capacity each iteration based on vacations, training, events and holidays
Address impediments quickly to keep productivity high
Address outside pressure on the team to over commit
Use overtime tactically to meet near-team deadlines but only in short spurts (less than three weeks)

42
Facilitate Conflict Resolution
Spend time understanding how the team members view conflict (DiSC model supports this, see resource section below)
Watch the video on the Drama Triangle and discuss as a team during a retrospective
Facilitate a 1:1 crucial conversation to help two team members find a path forward
Watch the video on 1:1 Conflict Resolution

43
Address Dysfunctional Behavior
Address dysfunctional behavior immediately through 1:1 coaching.
Gain the help of a manager if this can't be resolved within the team or the Product Owner and ScrumMaster's help
Watch the video on Managing Dysfunctional Behavior if you're uncomfortable doing this

44
Engage a Coach
When you have tried as a team to resolve the conflicts, but feel you do not have the right skills and know that the conflicts are having a significant impact on your health and productivity, it is time to invite a coach to help.
Talk to your manager about who can help the team
Look through the approved coaching list and request time with a coach
Allow the coach to do an assessment and help your team break through the conflict wall


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

52
Are You Above or Below the Line?: Must watch video! Locating yourself - a key to conscious leadership. (https://youtu.be/fLqzYDZAqCI)
3:35

53
The Drama Triangle: Understanding the Drama Triangle (https://youtu.be/ovrVv_RlCMw)
3:21

54
1:1 Conflict Resolution: Sally Elatta presents tips on facilitating a 1:1 conflict resolution meeting
4:45

55
Managing Dysfunctional Behavior: Sally Elatta shares an step by step approach for managing dysfunctional behavior
10:25

56
Management 3.0 | Personal Maps: Learn from Jurgen Apello how personal maps enhance team's understanding of each other (https://youtu.be/T9d8w-OG-Fk)
4:20

57
Trust and Respect: Beth Hatter shares some tips for teams to build Trust and Respect
0:54


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

35
10 Easy Team Building Activities: 10 and easy team building activities you can use now to bring your team members together!
https://www.huddle.com/blog/team-building-activities/

36
Game - In My Shoes: In my shoes is a team building activity to create strong bond between people, while exercising empathy and active listening skills.
http://www.funretrospectives.com/in-my-shoes/

37
Management 3.0 | Personal Maps: Learn from Jurgen Appelo, author of Management 3.0 how to improve team member's knowledge of each other through personal maps
https://management30.com/practice/personal-maps/


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/15

Team Health – Culture - Team Dynamics - Creativity

Competency: Our team is encouraged to be creative and think outside of the box to find solutions.

Healthy
The team is coming up with ideas collectively that no one on their own
The team genuinely listens to each others ideas
The team is empowered to solve problems creatively
The team is encouraged to think outside the box and not constrained by existing solutions
The team tests, learns & pivots quickly

Unhealthy
The team only works with ideas/solutions that were given to them
The team is not empowered to solve problems creatively
The team does not look for alternative solutions
The team doesn't have time to be creative
Ideas are not heard or welcome because you're focused on meeting our current plan or date


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

45
Plan for dedicated creativity time
Schedule dedicated time to be creative by:
Building innovation stories into your backlog
Dedicating one sprint or one week each release for innovation
Plan for collaborative ideation, pairing or quiet thinking time

46
Try Hack Weeks
Hack Weeks are a great way to energize your team and get their creativity going. You can do them twice a year. Your teams can come up with different product ideas, enhance existing or develop completely new ideas.
Read the 3 Hackathon Stories resource below to inspire your team and help you plan your own hack week!

47
Hire and look for creative talent
When interviewing ensure you are looking for creativity skills and people with open minds. Welcome people who bring a diverse mindset that does not align with your current thinking. Make it safe for them to express their ideas.

48
Try Innovation Games
Has your team checked out any of the popular Innovation Games yet? The concept of innovation games was created by Luke Holman and published in his book "Innovation Games - Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play". Checkout a list of the games here. (http://www.innovationgames.com/resources/the-games/)


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

58
Creativity: Jesse Riley shares what it looks like when the team is effective at being creative.
2:20

59
20 Percent Time and Innovation: Jurgen Appelo explains how companies are not innovative; people are innovative, if you set up the right conditions. (https://youtu.be/gL-jK_PqL18)
4:16

60
7 Rules for Creativity: Jurgen Appelo shares 7 rules for creativity managers. Look, your company will not be more innovative when you only paint the office walls and install a foosball table for your workers.
7:00


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

38
3 Hack Week Stories: Checkout these 3 inspiring stories of Hack Weeks in action.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/89825ab4-725a-4334-9905-36475d94445c.pdf&name=Creativity%20-%20Hack%20Week%20Stories%20.pdf

39
Innovation Games by Luke Hohmann: Has your team checkout any of the popular Innovation Games yet? The concept of innovation games was created by Luke Hohmann and published in his book 'Innovation Games - Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play'.
http://www.innovationgames.com/resources/the-games/


 

https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/16

Team Health – Culture - Team Dynamics - Accountability

Competency: Our team members do what they say they'll do. We hold each other accountable and own things to completion.

Healthy
Team members hold each other accountable
Team members do what they say they're going to do
Team members are honest/open during daily standup and other ceremonies
Team has a safe environment where they can ask each other about progress of work and completion without fear

Unhealthy
Team members over or under commit to work and don't provide visibility into progress
Some team members drop the ball and others don't speak up
Only managers can hold team members accountable getting work done
Team members don't show a sense of urgency for completion or pride for the quality of their work


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

49
Effective Facilitation Skills
Assess your current team meetings, especially the planning and daily standup where team members make commitments and update each other on progress
Improve the facilitation of these meetings so you gain these outcomes

50
Create or Revisit Team Norms
Develop (re-establish) team norms for accountability
Openly discuss 'how' to professionally and respectfully hold someone accountable without embarrassment or disrespect
Ensure team members feel it's safe to hold each other accountable
Establish accountability norms for key ceremonies. For example during the standup you can ask "John, it looks like you're working on this task for a few days, are you stuck? Do you need any help?"
Make it safe for team members to share impediments or ask for help when they don't have capacity or skills

51
Empower team members
Empower team members to hold each other accountable
Practice accountability within the team itself
Teach the team the importance of commitment and how to recognize lack of commitment or when to be honest about roadblocks

52
Role Definition
Spend time clearly defining roles
Confirm during Agile ceremonies that everyone understands the roles and expectations
Use retrospectives to identify and call out where roles are not clear or understood
Play the role clarity game


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

61
The Clearing Model: The Clearing Model is used to help clear up anything in the way of full connection with colleagues and others. Source: Conscious Leadership Group (https://youtu.be/7qtJ87WTPNY)
4:07

62
Accountability: Doc List discusses what it means to be accountable.
2:23


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

40
Role Clarity Cheat Sheet: Use this as an example to build your own one page Roles & Expectations cheat sheet.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/717940e1-1633-41b3-b05b-6c0ad95aa2ad.JPG&name=R&R%20image.JPG


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/17

Team Health – Foundation – Agility - Sustainable Pace

Competency: Our team is working at a sustainable pace with minor or optional overtime. Team members have a healthy work/life balance.

Healthy
Team members regularly work as many hours as they can be productive and only as many as they can sustain. Overtime is an exception and for short periods of time
Team members feel they have time to rest and be with family and friends
Team talks openly about workload and understands that putting in significant extra hours can give a boost of productivity, but only for a short period of time
Teams have time to be creative, adhere to quality standards and build solutions the right way

Unhealthy
Long or unsustainable work hours most days
Regularly putting in overtime
Working nights and weekends
People feeling burned out
Productivity is dropping even though the team is working more hours
Team members start making more mistakes, even in routine areas


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

41
Set a Sustainable Pace
Use Refinement Sessions (a.k.a. Grooming) to improve the quality of the user stories and the team's understanding of what is required
Ensure the team understands relative estimating and there are healthy conversations during estimation
During Iteration Planning, do not over commit. Leave some capacity open especially when uncertainty is significant
Adjust capacity each iteration based on vacations, training, events and holidays
Address impediments quickly to keep productivity high
Address outside pressure on the team to over commit
Use overtime tactically to meet near-team deadlines but only in short spurts (less than three weeks)

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

53
Establish Teams with the Right Size and Skills
Work with leadership to fill the three key leadership roles on the team with qualified individuals
Determine skill gaps and identify training or resource needs to fill the gaps
Work with leadership to adjust the team size, accounting for the right mix of skills and roles needed
Address any environmental constraints or challenges that are impacting choices about who is on the team


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

63
Sustainable Pace: Learn about sustainable pace from Rene Rosendahl
1:51

64
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

31
Article on Sustainable Pace: Good definition and explanation of Sustainable Pace.
http://www.sustainablepace.net/what-is-sustainable-pace


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/18

Team Health – Foundation – Agility - Self Organization

Competency: Our team is empowered to define 'how' to deliver on the Product Owner's vision. The team has defined team norms and clear expectations of each other.

Healthy
Team plans how to do the work collaboratively
Team members pull work without it being assigned by a lead or manager
Team manages work themselves; estimating user stories, defining tasks, keeping the work visible, coordinating their activities and taking daily accountability for completing the work
Team members actively seek to understand requirements and aren't afraid to ask questions
Team members continuously recommend innovative ideas and improvements

Unhealthy
The team works more as a group of individuals than they do as a team
Work is assigned to team members by a lead or manager
Team members are not clear on who is doing what and there is not much visibility into daily progress
There is low engagement and limited discussion in planning and managing the work
Team members do not offer alternatives and look to be told how to get the work done


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

54
Improve self-organization
Improve meeting facilitation to support the team in having effective discussions and build their collaboration skills
Facilitate discussions to address accountability of team members to each other
Work with the team to ensure the Daily Stand-up meeting provides visibility to that day's plan and supports collaboration on tasks
Escalate issues to management when there is team instability (team members are frequently changing)
Work with team members to become generalizing specialist to break down "role specialization" and the "not-my-task" syndrome
Work with leads and management to better support the team by empowering team members to decide how to do the work and self-assign tasks

08
Build an Environment for Success
For collocated teams, works with managers to create an environment that allows close, daily collaboration within the team and between business customers and team members.
Help managers understand that team space in Agile team rooms increases in productivity.
If there are distributed team members, work with managers to ensure access to collaboration tools is available.
Establish information radiators (team boards, Kanban boards, impediments backlog, etc).


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

65
Self-Organizing Teams: Sally talks about Self-Organizing teams
3:11

66
Tom Friend talks about Self-Organizing teams: Tom Friend talks about Self-Organizing teams including what does healthy and unhealthy look like.
2:01


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

28
Article: Self-Organizing teams: Good article on the What and How of self-organizing teams.
https://scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/january/self-organizing-teams-what-and-how

41
Article - 10 traits of a Self-Organizing team: Article on the 10 traits of an Agile Self-organizing team.
https://www.testingexcellence.com/10-traits-agile-self-organizing-team/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/19

Team Health – Foundation – Agility - Technical Excellence

Competency: Our team follows industry accepted best practices for our field, and integrates automated build, testing, integration and deployment practices where appropriate. We have the necessary tools to succeed.

Healthy
Team follows engineering best practices for Agile Teams (pair programming, test driven development, frequent integration, refactoring, automated testing, and emergent design)
Team has continuous integration in place and there is automation to create builds, integrate code, perform tests, and deploy code to environments
Team practices collective code ownership
There are few problems with code duplication and code conflicts
Designs are simple and focused on the requirements at hand
Team adjusts designs and refactors code as new requirements are added

Unhealthy
Team has adopted few or none of the Agile engineering best practices
Code is not integrated often and there are frequently integration issues when building and deploying code
Team relies on designing everything up front, leading to complex solutions and considerable effort incorporating emergent requirements
Team members have little automation support to integrate, build and deploy their code
Automated tests are written after the code is complete, it at all
Quality Assurance testing is all (or mostly) manual testing
Code is not collectively owned and team members only work on certain parts of the code base


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

55
Adopt Agile Engineering Practices
Work with IT leaders to provide the vision and objectives for adopting Agile engineering practices
Provide training, coaching and mentoring in Agile engineering practices
Work with IT leaders to prioritize and fund investments in the continuous integration and automated testing infrastructure
Establish an initiative to adopt DevOps practices
Create communities of practice (CoPs) to advance the adoption and continuous improvement of Agile engineering practices
Create big, visible information radiators for continuous integration and test automation
Establish baseline metrics and begin tracking metrics around code quality, check-ins and automated tests to show the value as you adopt new practices

56
Improve Technical Expertise
One of the most valuable things a Technical Lead brings to a team is technical expertise and guidance towards technical excellence. The Technical Lead can improve their technical expertise and help the team by:
Improving knowledge of their domain and technology area
Ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture
Learning ways to automate and innovate where needed to help the organization move towards continuous integration


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

11
Technical Excellence and Quality: Learn about Technical Excellence and Quality from Doc List, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:51

12
Agile Managers and Technical Excellence: Learn about the critical role of Managers to Technical Excellence from Doug Diehnelt, leader of Agile Teams.
3:19

13
Technical Excellence: Learn about the importance of Technical Excellence and how to attain it from Enterprise Agile Coaches Richard Kasperowski and Bryan Tew.
2:29


Resources
None Listed


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/20

Team Health – Foundation – Agility - Planning & Estimating

Competency: The team is effective at planning their work by breaking down epics into correctly sized stories. The team understands their capacity each iteration and plans appropriately.

Healthy
Team focuses on three levels of planning; release, iteration (sprint) and daily
Team spends time to prepare for planning (reviewing, refining and estimating user stories)
Team uses relative estimation techniques to estimate work in the backlog
Iteration Planning meetings are effective and lead to good execution of Iterations
Team collaborates well in identifying and defining tasks for the stories
Iteration backlog is updated
Team plans, monitors and manages to a Release Plan for the current release
Team effectively plans each day, making adjustments to ensure they meet their Iteration goals

Unhealthy
Team struggles making good plans for each iteration
Iterations are often over- or under-committed
Team does not have a stable velocity; it fluctuates significantly from iteration to iteration
Team is unsure about the user stories during planning and how to execute
Team does not effectively create clear tasks or does not create tasks at all
Team does not know if they are on track for the current release
Daily plans are either not made or are not effective in helping the team achieve their iteration goals


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

57
Planning and Estimating Effectively
Establish regular Backlog Refinement sessions to ensure the user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria, and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for the Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for the user stories in the iteration ensuring that each task can be completed in 1/2 day to two days
Ensure the Daily Stand-up meetings makes progress visible and helps the team focus on collaborating on tasks to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and team to develop a release plan for the next release and track progress to the plan at the end of each iteration


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

28
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10

29
Planning and Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:18

30
Planning & Estimating: Learn more about planning and estimating with Bryan Tew, Enterprise Agile Coach.

3:38

31
Release Planning and Estimating: Learn more about Release Planning (Mid-Term Planning) and Estimating from Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
3:58

32
Cost Estimation: Learn about how to estimate cost on Agile Teams with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:36

33
Date vs Scope Driven Planning: Learn the difference between date-driven planning and scope-driven planning with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
14:01

39
Release Planning Steps: Understand the release planning (mid-term planning) steps with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
8:07

40
Story Points Workshop: Sit in on a story sizing workshop with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

41
Affinity Estimation: Learn about Affinity Estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

42
Planning Poker: Learn how Planning Poker is a key tool in Agile estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
4:15

43
Story Points and Relative Sizing: Learn about relative sizing and story pointing with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
12:49


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

42
9 Agile Estimating Techniques: Quickly learn about 9 Agile estimating techniques a team can start leveraging to improve how to size their work.
http://www.agileadvice.com/2015/10/13/agilemanagement/9-agile-estimation-techniques/

43
Splitting Stories using SPIDR: Learn from Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied, how to leverage the SPIDR method for breaking down larger stories into smaller ones.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/c9a88517-f320-419a-9cf4-5cc4d33d3909.pdf&name=Splitting%20Stories%20using%20SPIDR%20by%20Mike%20Coen.pdf


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/21

Team Health – Foundation – Agility - Effective Meetings

Competency: The core Agile meetings run smoothly for our team and are effective. The team gains value from these interactions.

Healthy
Establish regular Refinement (grooming) sessions to ensure user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use effective relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for user stories in the Iteration, ensuring that each task can be completed in a 1/2 day to 2 days
Ensure Daily Standup meetings make progress visible and help the team focus on task collaboration to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and Team to develop a Release
Plan for the next Release and track progress to the plan at the end of each Iteration

Unhealthy
Meeting participants tend to go in different directions at the same time during meetings
Meetings get bogged down and lost in the details, losing track of of the meeting goals and objectives
Meetings are routinely dominated by the most vocal and loudest participants
All meeting participants are not fully engaged and it is common for people to be checked out
Key people are routinely late or are missing at meetings
Meetings do not have agendas and agreed upon goals
Meetings are not well facilitated
Meeting information is not effectively captured, and decisions and actions items are not tracked


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

58
Effective facilitation and collaboration
Meeting purpose, deliverables and agenda are established prior to the meeting
The right people are identified and invited to the meeting
Facilitator and recorder are identified and they come prepared to the meeting
Meeting facilitator is skilled and effective at fostering effective communication and collaboration
Meeting information is captured and made visible during the meeting and everyone knows what decisions and action items have been agreed upon
Meeting notes are sent out to the participants after the meeting
Meeting space is adequate to support the meeting participants in achieving their goals and the seating arrangement is appropriate for the specific situation
Technology is used to support distributed attendees so that they are eqaul participants in the meeting (video, teleconferences, virtual white boards, etc.)

02
Spend at least 15 mins preparing for each meeting
Doing the work initially will help meetings become much more effective - so spend time ensuring your meeting invite has a purpose, agenda, and deliverables. There is an effective meetings cheatsheet in the Resources section, and for most Agile Meetings, this will give you a good start.
Be in the room earlier than attendees and setup the room for deliverables - possibly a flip chart, or if your team is distributed, then maybe a Word document. This will help everyone stay focused on the end goal.

04
Watch the Effective Meeting Video Series
AgileVideos.com has a strong effective meetings video series that contains recommendations for shifting from process listening to content listening.
The Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings are in a video below.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

02
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings Part 1: Learn the top 10 must haves for effective meetings.
11:06

03
Top 10 Must Haves for Effective Meetings Part 2: Learn the top 10 must haves for effective meetings.
8:12

35
Iteration Pre-Planning (Backlog Refinement): Learn how to execute the iteration pre-planning meeting (a.k.a. Backlog Refinement) so that the Product Owner and Team can ensure they have passed the definition of ready before entering a new Iteration. This reduces the level of churn during the Iteration and helps the team focus.
12:55 25??


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

01
Effective Meetings Cheatsheet: This cheatsheet will give you a sample Purpose, Agenda, and Deliverables for each Agile ceremony, as well as facilitation tips for each one of those meetings.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/249634d0-32cf-40d3-9519-3d00ec64e4ee.pdf&name=Agile Meetings CheatSheet V2.pdf
Done

02
Conflict Resolution Techniques: Learn conflict resolution techniques such as common ground, evaluation criteria rating, team brainstorming, etc.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/9f56ecb1-e7e0-4c84-8220-916cf733bbdc.docx&name=New-Conflict Resolution Techniques (1) (1).docx)
Done

03
Effective Facilitator's Cheat Sheet: Power tools to help facilitators meeting initiation, session preparation, session execution and meeting closure / follow-up.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/ff71b24e-0089-492f-8d39-b4fd6bafb1ef.pdf&name=Copy of FacilitatorsCheatsheet 2 page.pdf
Done

44
Retromat: Need to do some planning for your next retrospective? Find some new ideas on Retromat.
(https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/665c3fc4-fd8b-4582-97f9-a6f4e3a78fd5.JPG&name=Resource%20Icon.JPG)
(https://plans-for-retrospectives.com/en/?id=70-86-10-125-92)

03
Effective Facilitator's Cheat Sheet: Power tools to help facilitators meeting initiation, session preparation, session execution and meeting closure / follow-up.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/ff71b24e-0089-492f-8d39-b4fd6bafb1ef.pdf&name=Copy of FacilitatorsCheatsheet 2 page.pdf
Done


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/22

Team Health – Foundation - Team Structure - Size & Skills

Competency: The team is the right size and has the right skills to deliver on the Product Owner's vision.

Healthy
Team is sized appropriately, there are enough people to do the work and has all the needed skills while not exceeding a maximum of ten dedicated members
Team has members with the skills needed to meet technical standards that have been established and to implement best practices
Team has members with the skills and expertise needed to deliver successfully on the Product Owner's vision
Each of the three key leadership roles on the team are filled by dedicated members who have the needed skills (Product Owner, Scrum Master and Solution Lead)

Unhealthy
Team size is too large causing challenges with coordination, communication and efficiency
Team size is too small and the team requires assistance outside of the team to meet its core deliverables
The team is missing key skill sets or knowledge needed to meet technical standards and best practices and/or to deliver on the Product Owner's vision
Team is missing one or more of the three key leadership roles


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

59
Stabilize Your Team
Identify core team members and desired allocation/dedication
Bring awareness to management/leadership team

53
Establish Teams with the Right Size and Skills
Work with leadership to fill the three key leadership roles on the team with qualified individuals
Determine skill gaps and identify training or resource needs to fill the gaps
Work with leadership to adjust the team size, accounting for the right mix of skills and roles needed
Address any environmental constraints or challenges that are impacting choices about who is on the team


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

70
Size & Skills of an Agile Team: Learn about the appropriate size of and skills on Agile Teams from Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:39


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

46
Article on Team Size vs Relationships: Article on Team Size and how it impacts the relationships on teams.
(https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/86653361-6a6b-4194-bcf3-a6f858717af9.png&name=Team%20relationships.png)
(https://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2016/10/choosing-the-team-size-in-scrum.html#.WZReo9PyuRs)

47
Article on Team Performance: Article on team size as it relates to communication and performance
http://www.peakactivity.com/the-size-and-performance-of-agile-teams/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/23

Team Health – Foundation - Team Structure - Allocation & Stability

Competency: The core team members are dedicated to the team and there is limited shifting among team members.

Healthy
A core team of dedicated members are allocated effectively and stay together
Work is brought to the teams instead of moving individuals to the work
Team has planned effectively for different work classifications (i.e. strategic, operational, unplanned)
Team feels they can focus on getting deliverables to Done

Unhealthy
Team members are allocated towards several other projects (multi-tasking)
Team members are moved in and out of the team frequently for other priorities
No core team of dedicated team members exist which causes lack of focus
General sense of churn; starting many deliverables but not finishing them


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

59
Stabilize Your Team
Identify core team members and desired allocation/dedication
Bring awareness to management/leadership team

41
Set a Sustainable Pace
Use Refinement Sessions (a.k.a. Grooming) to improve the quality of the user stories and the team's understanding of what is required
Ensure the team understands relative estimating and there are healthy conversations during estimation
During Iteration Planning, do not over commit. Leave some capacity open especially when uncertainty is significant
Adjust capacity each iteration based on vacations, training, events and holidays
Address impediments quickly to keep productivity high
Address outside pressure on the team to over commit
Use overtime tactically to meet near-team deadlines but only in short spurts (less than three weeks)

60
Plan for different classes (types) of work
Teams can have several types of work coming their way such as:
New development
Minor Enhancements
Support and service requests
Research and discovery
Refactoring or improving current designs (slack time)
Unplanned work (slack time)
From a leadership perspective this work can also be categorized as Strategic, Operational (keep the lights on) or Innovation (R&D).
Teams usually run out of capacity because they fill up their bucket of work during planning with one type only
Track how much capacity you give to each per iteration and plan future iterations based on how you've previously performed

53
Establish Teams with the Right Size and Skills
Work with leadership to fill the three key leadership roles on the team with qualified individuals
Determine skill gaps and identify training or resource needs to fill the gaps
Work with leadership to adjust the team size, accounting for the right mix of skills and roles needed
Address any environmental constraints or challenges that are impacting choices about who is on the team


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

71
Enterprise Stable Teams: Sally shares the nuts and bolts of stable teams in this webinar.
59:05


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

48
Article on Stable vs Project Teams: Good article on the advantages and disadvantages of stable teams vs project teams.
http://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com/stable-teams-over-project-teams/

49
Article on Stable Teams Really Matter: Short article on the value of Stable Teams.
https://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2013/09/stable-teams-really-do-matter.html#.WZSvzNPyuRs


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/24

Team Health – Foundation - Team Structure – Environment

Competency: The team has effective collaboration tools and spaces to meet together, either face to face or virtually.

Healthy
The three key leadership roles are present on the team and filled with with qualified individuals
Skill needs are continuously assessed and any gaps are addressed immediately through training or adjusting the team size to ensure the right mix of skills and roles
There are no unaddressed environmental constraints or challenges impacting the team
Distributed team members have easy access to each other and are able to collaborate regularly
Information radiators are visible to team members and they know how to use them to understand the current state of their work

Unhealthy
Team members are not co-located and do not have easy access to each other
Conversations between teams members are mostly over email, text message or instant message
Team members struggle getting rooms and places to meet
Information radiators are not displayed and team members do not always know the current state of their work
Team members waste time trying to connect with each other


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

08
Build an Environment for Success
For collocated teams, works with managers to create an environment that allows close, daily collaboration within the team and between business customers and team members.
Help managers understand that team space in Agile team rooms increases in productivity.
If there are distributed team members, work with managers to ensure access to collaboration tools is available.
Establish information radiators (team boards, Kanban boards, impediments backlog, etc).


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

25
Agile Team Spaces: Learn key tips and tricks for Agile work spaces from Enterprise Agile Coaches, Tom Friend and Bryan Tew.
2:33

27
Collaborative Workspaces and Virtual Teams: Shane Hastie, Chief Knowledge Engineer, shares tips for creating collaborative workspaces and working as distributed teams.
5:29


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

50
Article on Agile Working Environments: Short article articulating the pros and cons of Agile working environments.
https://sourceable.net/whats-hot-and-not-about-agile-working-environments/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/25

Team Health – Clarity – Vision - Vision & Purpose

Competency: The team has a clear understanding of their purpose and can articulate it to others. They know and understand their customers needs.

Healthy
Team members understand why the team was put together and what objectives they are expected to accomplish
Team members have a shared understanding of the vision of the project/initiative they are working on
Team members can clearly explain the vision to others
Team members recognize whether or not new priorities/requests coming in meet their Team's objectives and how they align to the vision
The Team knows their Customers and Stakeholders well
The Team understands Customer/Stakeholder needs and communicates with them regularly

Unhealthy
Team members are unclear on the Team's purpose, objectives and mission
There is no clear vision of the project/initiative and confusion about the real/top priorities
When new work comes in there is little or no understanding of how it ties back to the Team's goals and strategy
Team members don't really know their Customers or Stakeholders and rarely, or never, have face-to-face communication


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

61
Connect Planning & Demo activities to the Vision
Have the Product Owner spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each Sprint Planing meeting reviewing:
How the current Sprint Backlog connects back to the vision
Why the work is important
What outcomes are expected by completing the work
Also, have the Product Owner spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each Customer Demo reviewing:
How the work just completed connects to the Vision
Why the completed work is important
How the completed work fits into big picture

62
Hold a collaborative Visioning Session
Hold a visioning session with the whole team and Stakeholders utilizing a collaborative technique such as:
Vision Box
Lean Product Canvas

63
Create a Team Charter
Create a Team Charter to help the team understand their purpose and reason for being a Team. The Charter could include some or all of the following:
The Team Name, Vision and why the Team was created
The Team's Igniting Purpose that makes them WANT to be here
A roster of Team Members their roles, expectations and time commitment
Team Skill Wall (Core, Secondary, Experience)
Team norms
Definition of Done
A roster of the Team’s Stakeholders and their needs
The Team's needed resources, including people, tools, team room and other supplies
Stop / Start / Keep exercise

64
Establish and Communicate Business Outcomes
The Product Owner and Stakeholders should collaboratively establish specific Business Outcomes desired from the execution of a particular initiative or project. These outcomes should tie back to the overall organizational or product strategy. The following may be helpful to guide you through the process:
THINK - Problem Statement
[Service/Product] was designed to achieve [Specific Goals]
We have observed that the [Service/Product] isn't meeting [Goals], which is causing [Adverse Effect] to our business
How might we improve [Service/Product] so that our customers are more successful based on [Measurable Criteria]
THINK - Hypothesis
We believe that [Capability/Feature]
Will result in [Outcome]
For [Persona(s)]
We succeed when [Measurements/Feedback]


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

72
Vision & Purpose: Learn about Vision & Purpose competency by Jay Allison
1:23

73
Vision & Purpose: Learn about Vision & Purpose competency by Sally Elatta
2:44

74
How to Create a Product Vision Box: The Vision Box is a collaborative exercise during which you take flip chart paper and you build a figurative front and back of your box that represents the key elements of the vision of your product or project.
4:39

75
Creating a Lean Product Canvas: A step by step tutorial to create a Product Canvas
14:56


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

51
How to Create a Shared Vision: Here's a fast, 5-step process to create a shared Vision.
http://seapointcenter.com/how-to-create-a-shared-vision/

52
Creating a Lean Product Canvas: Investigate in-depth information with instructions, slides, a template and a video on how to create a Lean Product Canvas
http://www.romanpichler.com/tools/product-canvas/

53
Establishing Business Outcomes: Apply Lean principles to improve User Experience with your product.
https://www.slideshare.net/frederikvannieuwenhuyse/agile-by-example-2015-lean-ux-workshop-crossfunctional-product-design


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/26

Team Health – Clarity – Vision - Measure of Success

Competency: The team knows their measures for success, for example, definition of done, minimal viable product, return on investment or delivery date.

Healthy
The team understands how they are being measured and regularly discusses how they are doing as a team against those measures
The team regularly captures success metrics like ROI, usage rates, etc. and/or customer satisfaction scores
The team actively pursues customer feedback in demos, visioning sessions, customer visits and other forums
The team's Definition of Done is clear and visible, the team uses it to gauge completeness of their work

Unhealthy
The team does not know if or how they are being measured
The team does not hold regular or effective demos
Little or no effort is spent to get customer feedback
Team members know they could be doing more, or better, work but do "just enough" to get by


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

65
Collect customer data to validate success
Using actual customer data to measure the success of early experiments, MVPs and MMPs will allow for the validation of the product vision and provide guidance on if and when to pivot.
Customer data can be collected in many different formats including:
Customer Interviews
Customer Surveys
Focus Groups
Web Analytics
Support Logs
User Testing Results

66
Create feedback loop on customer satisfaction
Regularly, at least once per quarter, capture satisfaction scores from stakeholders and business partners. This can be done as part of a Stakeholders Retrospective or even following a Customer Demo, and can be done face-to-face or in a survey tool. Here are several potential questions to start with, feel free to add your own as needed.

How satisfied are you with how much we have delivered over the past few iterations? (A 1-10 scale is common)
How satisfied are you with the quality of work we have delivered over the past few iterations?
How satisfied are you the accuracy of what we have delivered over the past few iterations?
How satisfied are you with how we have communicated with you over the past few iterations?
How satisfied are you with our ability to respond to your changing needs?

67
Hold Effective Customer Demos
Agile teams should hold a demonstration of the results they achieved every iteration. Not all iteration results are worthy of customer/stakeholder time and attention. Some demos focus on back-end or purely technical work and may only involve team members, PO, architects and managers. Stakeholders should always welcome to team demos.
When the team produced something significant or has customer focused functionality to show, this deserves a Customer Demo and should be a bigger event. Invite all who would be interested in the results and send out an agenda of what will be shown and more importantly, what will not be shown, to make sure expectations are set. Ask questions, invite feedback, request new ideas and make sure all involved are comfortable with the results or determine if a change in direction is needed.
To ensure your demo runs smoothly, you may want to pre-record the interactions of the software and then talk through it to ensure you don't run into network, environment or other potential problems.

68
Stakeholders Retrospective
Hold a Stakeholders Retrospective every few iterations in which the teams ask key stakeholders for feedback on how the team is doing (Well, Not Well, Potential Improvements).
This is also a time to discuss whether the team and stakeholders are getting everything they need from each other and ensure communication is healthy.

69
Establish and Measure Business Outcomes
Once Business Outcomes are established, specific measurements and feedback loops should be created to measure the success of each outcome. Identify an appropriate threshold for your measure that is significant, yet achievable. Here's an example hypothesis statement with a specific measure:
"We believe that increasing the size of hotel images on the bookings page will result in improved engagement and conversion for new customers that have not booked with us before. We succeed when we see a 5% increase in customers who review hotel images and then proceed to book within 48 hours."


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

76
Measures of Success: Rob Birkland speaks about measures of success and their value to a team.
2:02

77
Customer Demo: Explanation on how a customer demo should be run
5:09

78
What's the true definition of Quality?: What does Quality mean to your customers? Brian Levy from Rome Agile explains.
2:47

79
Agile Program Governance: Standard Metrics: Yvonne Kish from CA Technologies takes us through standard metrics you should be measuring while governing your Agile program.
4:53


Resources
None Listed


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/27

Team Health – Clarity – Planning – Roadmap

Competency: The team has clarity on their deliverables over the next few quarters and has a visual representation of their roadmap.

Healthy
The team has a high-level Roadmap (next few quarters) that outlines the overall product approach at the Epic/Feature level
Product leaders review the Roadmap regularly (at least once per quarter) with the team(s) working on the Product or Initiative
Teams are working on a specific release or date and have built a Release Plan (next few months) and update it each iteration which rolls up to the Roadmap

Unhealthy
No visible Roadmap or product direction
Team is focused on tasks and sprint execution only
Product Owner is not engaged in developing a long-term plan
Team members lack clarity on how their Iteration deliverables relate to the Product Roadmap


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

70
Establish a Product Roadmap
Hold a Roadmap session with the right Product, Business and Technology SMEs to create a roadmap that outlines your Product or Initiative delivery over the next 3-5 quarters or releases
Ensure Roadmap is communicated to team members, stakeholders and customers regularly (team kick-off meetings, quarterly planning etc.)
Determine an easy to use Roadmap tool to help maintain and communicate your Roadmap. There are many tools out there, send a message to info@agilityhealthradar.com if you'd like a few options

71
Communicate the Importance of Long-term Planning
Conduct an EBA (Enterprise Business Agility) or Visioning Workshop to align leadership on the vision, purpose and Roadmap
Create an Enterprise Clarity Center to provide a visual organizational (information radiator) Roadmaps

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

57
Planning and Estimating Effectively
Establish regular Backlog Refinement sessions to ensure the user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria, and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for the Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for the user stories in the iteration ensuring that each task can be completed in 1/2 day to two days
Ensure the Daily Stand-up meetings makes progress visible and helps the team focus on collaborating on tasks to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and team to develop a release plan for the next release and track progress to the plan at the end of each iteration


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

80
Long-term Planning: Skip Angel discusses the importance of Long-term Planning.
2:35

81
Preparation for PI Planning and Execution: Alex Yakyma talks about preparing for a Program Increment (PI) planning event within the SAFe Framework.
4:32

82
The Art of Building a Roadmap: Presentation on the art of building a Roadmap at the Atlassian Summit. (https://youtu.be/rLXcdzBQslM)
45:01

83
Agile Product Roadmaps: Video on building an Agile Product Roadmap including the intent of the Roadmap, inputs, maintaining the Roadmap, etc. (https://youtu.be/ZEAuiYCe54U)
58:53

64
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10

31
Release Planning and Estimating: Learn more about Release Planning (Mid-Term Planning) and Estimating from Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
3:58

69
Determining Iteration Length: Learn how to determine the right iteration length for a team with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
4:27


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

54
Tips for Building a Product Roadmap: Great tips on building an Agile Product Roadmap.
http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/10-tips-creating-agile-product-roadmap/

55
Article on Agile Roadmaps: The article is from the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and specifically draws out roadmaps around Program Increments (PI) but is also very applicable to organizations not running SAFe.
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/roadmap/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/28

Team Health – Clarity – Planning - Release Plan

Competency: The team has clarity on their deliverables over the next several iterations or months. Their mid-term plan is displayed visually and the team continually collaborates on changes.

Healthy
The team has a good understanding of what work they'll be doing over the next 3-4 iterations
The PO leads the team in developing a Release, PI or Rolling Work Plan that is updated each sprint and is shared with management and stakeholders
The team is able to manage dependencies and coordinate shared service needs 2-3 iterations ahead

Unhealthy
The team only knows what they're doing for the current Sprint
Dependencies regularly become problems due to not coordinating in advance
Shared services are often requested at the last moment due to not planning ahead
The team regularly has rework as they uncover new things that could have been avoided by planning further out


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

72
Create a Release or Rolling Work Plan
Prioritize and size your backlog to enable mapping stories to the next 3-4 sprints
Plan out what stories the team would most likely be working on for the current sprint, plus 2 if doing three-week sprints, and plus 3 if doing two-week springs
From the plan identify any internal or external dependencies, any external resource and shared services needs, any potential bottlenecks and other risks
Share the plan with the team, management, stakeholder for feedback and visibility
Remember, keep it simple - a clear power point slide may be all you need

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

57
Planning and Estimating Effectively
Establish regular Backlog Refinement sessions to ensure the user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria, and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for the Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for the user stories in the iteration ensuring that each task can be completed in 1/2 day to two days
Ensure the Daily Stand-up meetings makes progress visible and helps the team focus on collaborating on tasks to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and team to develop a release plan for the next release and track progress to the plan at the end of each iteration


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

84
Release Planning: A few tips on Release Planning from Samar Elatta
3:45

85
Agile Release Planning: Steps of Release or Mid-Term Planning
8:07

33
Date vs Scope Driven Planning: Learn the difference between date-driven planning and scope-driven planning with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
14:01

64
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10

29
Planning and Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:18

30
Planning & Estimating: Learn more about planning and estimating with Bryan Tew, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:38

31
Release Planning and Estimating: Learn more about Release Planning (Mid-Term Planning) and Estimating from Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
3:58

32
Cost Estimation: Learn about how to estimate cost on Agile Teams with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:36

33
Date vs Scope Driven Planning: Learn the difference between date-driven planning and scope-driven planning with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
14:01

67
Measuring Velocity Part 2: Take a deeper dive into Measuring Velocity with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
15:28

68
Measuring Velocity: Learn how to measure velocity with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
10:21

69
Determining Iteration Length: Learn how to determine the right iteration length for a team with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
4:27

39
Release Planning Steps: Understand the release planning (mid-term planning) steps with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
8:07

40
Story Points Workshop: Sit in on a story sizing workshop with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

41
Affinity Estimation: Learn about Affinity Estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

43
Story Points and Relative Sizing: Learn about relative sizing and story pointing with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
12:49

84
Release Planning: A few tips on Release Planning from Samar Elatta
3:45
85
Agile Release Planning: Steps of Release or Mid-Term Planning
8:07


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

56
PI Planning Guide: This is the SAFe tutorial on Program Increment (PI) Planning.
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/pi-planning/

57
Release Planning Measures for Completion: Sample Measures for Completion for a Release Planning event.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/9023b4a7-af32-4db2-a59f-f4f78a07bf04.png&name=Release%20Planning%20Measures%20for%20Completion.png

58
Release Planning Purpose and Sample Agenda: A simple guide on how to conduct a real world Release Planning session.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/27465e8a-2b68-4b08-a9e9-03f9be2593c2.pdf&name=Release%20Planning%20Purpose%20and%20Sample%20Agenda.pdf

59
Rapid Release Planning: The Rapid Release Planning technique by Lee Henson with some customization.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/43a80bb0-5bc5-42fa-9dbf-14732b8dcd4b.pptx&name=Rapid-Release-Planning-ATI.pptx


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/29

Team Health – Clarity – Planning - Iteration Plan

Competency: The team has clarity on their deliverables for the next iteration. The work is reviewed daily and is accessible on a physical or virtual board.

Healthy
The team is consistent in keeping their iteration commitments
Planning ceremonies are effectively being executed
Team Members have clarity on deliverables and user stories over the next few weeks
Team Members view user stories everyday on a physical/electronic wall
Team Members have a clear established Iteration Goal or Theme
Team Members understand and communicate a "definition of ready and done"

Unhealthy
Team members react to daily fire drills and working day-by-day
Sprint plan keeps changing with new unplanned scope
Work is being done outside of Iteration Planning and not captured in user stories
User Stories are changing daily while the team is working on them
Planning ceremonies are not effectively executed


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

73
Create an Iteration Plan
Conduct a story writing workshop to ensure Epic/Features are broken down and ready for the next Iteration
Define a "Definition of Ready" that outlines what should be in place in order for the team to accept stories into the next iteration
Ensure the team has 2 to 3 iterations of their backlog prioritized and ready to be refined
Create an information radiator such as a Scrum or Task board to provide visibility into the user stories scheduled for the current Iteration
Conduct regular backlog refinement and pre-planning meetings
Conduct an Iteration Planning meeting utilizing a Capacity Map as a guide

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

57
Planning and Estimating Effectively
Establish regular Backlog Refinement sessions to ensure the user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria, and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for the Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for the user stories in the iteration ensuring that each task can be completed in 1/2 day to two days
Ensure the Daily Stand-up meetings makes progress visible and helps the team focus on collaborating on tasks to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and team to develop a release plan for the next release and track progress to the plan at the end of each iteration


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

86
Iteration Planning: A guide on how to conduct an Iteration Planning meeting
8:40

64
Planning & Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Robin Yeman, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:10

29
Planning and Estimating: Learn about planning and estimating with Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:18

30
Planning & Estimating: Learn more about planning and estimating with Bryan Tew, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:38

87
Agile 2015 - Bryan Tew - Iteration Planning
Bryan provides a few tips on conducting good Iteration Planning meetings
3:08

67
Measuring Velocity Part 2: Take a deeper dive into Measuring Velocity with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
15:28

68
Measuring Velocity: Learn how to measure velocity with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
10:21

39
Release Planning Steps: Understand the release planning (mid-term planning) steps with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
8:07

40
Story Points Workshop: Sit in on a story sizing workshop with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

41
Affinity Estimation: Learn about Affinity Estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
9:22

42
Planning Poker: Learn how Planning Poker is a key tool in Agile estimation with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
4:15

43
Story Points and Relative Sizing: Learn about relative sizing and story pointing with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
12:49


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

60
Iteration Planning Measures of Completion: Sample Measures of Completion for an Iteration Planning meeting.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/f308bf45-9e22-493b-99cb-e6a97108a00d.pdf&name=Iteration%20Planning%20-%20Measures%20of%20Completion.pdf

61
Iteration Planning Purpose and Sample Agenda: A simple guide on how to conduct an Iteration Planning meeting.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/7b434ae4-846e-4570-a268-9ce79f17766b.pdf&name=Iteration%20Planning%20-%20Purpose%20and%20Sample%20Agenda.pdf

62
Iteration Planning guide: This is the SAFe tutorial on Iteration Planning.
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/iteration-planning/

63
Iteration Capacity Map: How a Capacity Map can be used to help plan an Iteration. Capacity Maps are especially helpful for teams that struggle completing everything needed to meet their Definition of Done in an Iteration.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/5b2853df-d87e-4da1-b36e-c928722e670a.pdf&name=Iteration%20Capacity%20Map.pdf


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/30

Team Health – Clarity – Roles – Roles

Competency: Team members have clarity and clearly understand their role and the roles of their teammates.

Healthy
Team members understand their role and what is expected of them
Team members have clarity on other team members roles
Team members understand the roles of individuals outside of their immediate team, or "extended team" (e.g. Program/Portfolio team roles, Resource Managers, Functional Managers, internal/external Stakeholders)

Unhealthy
Team members are unclear on their role
Team members lack clarity on their team members roles
Team members only do activities related to their role
Team members don't know or interact regularly with their extended team


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

74
Establish Role Clarity
Clearly define and review roles during team forming activities
Set up a temporary weekly “Triangle Team Meeting” to:
Review and discuss triangle roles and responsibilities
Team members roles, responsibilities and capabilities
Establish weekly coaching cadence with team members struggling with their role

75
Establish a Team Charter
Create a Team Charter to help the team understand the roles of the team as well as extended team. The Charter could include some or all of the following:
Team name, vision and why the team was created
Igniting purpose - something that makes us WANT to be here
Team members - roles, expectations, time commitment, etc.
Team skill wall
Team working agreements and norms
Definition of done or definition of ready
Team’s internal partners/stakeholders and their needs
Resource needs - people, tools, team room supplies, etc.

76
Hold an extended team building event
Invite key customers, stakeholders and business SMEs to join the team for an outing or other activity to help build relationships, understand roles and strengthen relationships.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

88
Roles and Authorizations in AgilityHealth: Sally Elatta discusses the different roles and authorizations in AgiltyHealth
5:10

89
Roles & Responsibilities: Sally Elatta discusses the roles & responsibilities of an Agile team
4:00

90
Agile vs Traditional Roles: A short comparison of Agile vs Traditional roles of a team
58:37


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

64
Extended Team: Description of what an Extended Team is and how the team should identify the team members and start working together.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/dfc11d53-3559-40bc-a727-82080f82859e.pdf&name=Extended%20Team.pdf

65
Team Charter outline: The outline of a sample Team Charter.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/53ca8a67-c8e7-4773-9e9f-aa9e70674a40.pdf&name=Team%20Charter%20outline.pdf

66
Team Skill Wall: Outlines the purpose and process of building a Team Skill Wall.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/3f6cc62e-1003-4733-bd78-551207ea4849.pdf&name=Skill%20Wall.pdf


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/31

Team Health – Clarity – Roles - Generalizing Specialists

Competency: Team members may have a primary role, but will help each other as needed. They know just enough about the other work on the team to 'generalize'.

Healthy
Team members are jacks-of-all-trades and masters of a few
Team members help each other as needed to accomplish team goals and objectives
Team members contribute in any way that they can
Team members understand and practice being a generalizing specialist
Team members actively seek to gain new skills in both their existing specialties and in other areas

Unhealthy
Team members are narrowly focused in a single skill or area
Team members are forced to work on multiple teams because those teams need someone with their specialty
Team members are single threaded and at risk of missing sprint goals without key team members
Team members do not work on anything outside of their functional area of expertise


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

77
Establish Role Depth
Use brown bag lunches and workshops to introduce new roles
Pair different team members together on user stories each iteration
Have a team member shadow each other's role activities
Give other team members a chance to act as the ScrumMaster and facilitate Daily Standups or other meetings
Provide training and/or coaching to become proficient in a new skill

78
Gain the attitude of Being Willing to Help
Discuss and agree as a team on a Norm that each team member be willing to help in any capacity they can for the team.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

91
Generalizing Specialists: Bryan Tew offers an in-depth description of a generalizing specialist.
2:29

92
Generalizing Specialist: Sally Elatta talks about what it means to be a generalizing specialist.
4:03


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

67
Generalizing Specialists: A thorough review of what Generalizing Specialists are, why they are important and how to gain that attitude as a team member.
http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/generalizingSpecialists.htm#Definition

68
Expectations of Agile Team Members: A sample bullet list of expectations of members of an Agile team
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/275ffa44-d501-486a-8a26-433bb56793fd.pdf&name=Expectations%20of%20Team%20Members.pdf


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/32

Team Health – Performance – Confidence - Product Owner

Competency: The Product Owner has high confidence in the team's ability to meet current goals.

Healthy
Product Owner has a high confidence that the team has the right skills, tools and desire to meet the current goals
Product Owner expresses to the team their satisfaction with the performance of the team
Product Owner is engaged with the sponsor who is also confident the team is moving in the right direction

Unhealthy
Product Owner is not confident in the team's ability to meet current goals
Product Owner is starting to micro-manage the team because of their fear of failure
Product Owner could be disengaged or doesn't have visibility into what the team is working on
Product Owner is not happy with the quality, time to market or performance of the team


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

79
Dig deeper into Product Owner confidence rating
During your Team Health retrospective, ask your Product Owner to be open and honest about how they feel the team is doing and why.
Ask your Product Owner what is ONE thing we could change that could improve their confidence.
As a team, focus on 'listening' and confirming you have heard them correctly.

41
Set a Sustainable Pace
Use Refinement Sessions (a.k.a. Grooming) to improve the quality of the user stories and the team's understanding of what is required
Ensure the team understands relative estimating and there are healthy conversations during estimation
During Iteration Planning, do not over commit. Leave some capacity open especially when uncertainty is significant
Adjust capacity each iteration based on vacations, training, events and holidays
Address impediments quickly to keep productivity high
Address outside pressure on the team to over commit
Use overtime tactically to meet near-team deadlines but only in short spurts (less than three weeks)

18
Product Owner Happiness
As a Product Owner, reflect on these key conditions for Product Owner happiness and identify key gaps you might be experiencing:
They are immersed with their customers
They have the time and space to be visionary and creative
They have true ownership over their product
They are receiving meaningful feedback about the performance of their products
Their product/service is achieving desired business outcomes
They have a positive working relationship with their ScrumMaster
They have an even better relationship with technical leads and designers
They are proud of what the team is delivering
They have embraced their constraints
They are keeping themselves healthy
Read more: http://illustratedagile.com/2016/10/09/even-happier-product-owners/


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

93
Improving Product Owner Confidence: Doug Rose, Enterprise Coach, & Bryan Tew, Enterprise Coach, speak on improving Product Owner confidence.
2:42

94
Agile Product Owner Role: What's the role of the Product Owner?
6:14

33
Date vs Scope Driven Planning: Learn the difference between date-driven planning and scope-driven planning with Sally Elatta, Enterprise Agile Coach and CEO of Agile Transformation.
14:01


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

23
Happier Product Owners: Blog describing the overall expectations of a Product Owner and what contributes to making them happy.
http://illustratedagile.com/2016/10/09/even-happier-product-owners/

20
Backlog Prioritization Video Series: Please note: access to AgileVideos.com is required for this resource. Please use promocode: TRANSFORM30 for thirty days of free access when registering. This video series includes: Topics include: building the backlog, levels of requirements, writing user stories, story mapping and more.
https://agilevideos.com/videoscategory/pmi-acp-module-6-product-backlog-and-user-stories-videos/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/33

Team Health – Performance – Confidence – Team

Competency: Team member's have high confidence in their ability to meet current goals. They feel headed in the right direction and are not seriously concerned about their ability to meet the goals they have set.

Healthy
Team members have high confidence they have the right skills, desire and tools to meet our current goals
The team holds each other accountable for their commitments and delivering value
The team works together to get work done

Unhealthy
Team members are concerned about their ability to meet their goals
The team is unpredictable. Deliverables are not consistently completed
The team lacks trust that they have the right skills, desire or tools to meet current goals


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

81
Identify Root Cause of Low Confidence
Leverage the Team Health retrospective to go deeper with the team into the root causes of their lower confidence rating. Try playing the Fishbone Retrospective game to identify root cause. For example, if QUALITY is one of their reasons for low confidence then you can dig deeper using the fishbone chart (or 5 Whys) to identify what is contributing to lower quality.
See activity 6.4 in 'Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great'. (http://media.pragprog.com/titles/dlret/Activities.pdf)

82
Common Reasons for Low Team Confidence
Investigate your team's health radar and facilitate an open conversation with them around their confidence.
Review some of the common reasons below to see if they are contributing to your team's lower confidence.
Clarity: Lack of clarity on the vision, roles, clear short term plan or understanding of what needs to be accomplished
Culture: Lack of trust, collaboration or respect between team members can lead to lower confidence in their ability to deliver
Foundation: Lack of sustainable pace, not having the right skills or tools, too many escaped defects and constantly shifting key individuals can all lead to lower scores in confidence
Leadership: Constantly changing business priorities from the Product Owner, not removing impediments quickly and Product Owner disengagement can lead to low team confidence

83
Boost the Team's Confidence
Read this blog on 'Boosting Team Confidence - 9 Practices of Great Agile Teams' together and identify one or two practices to apply during your next iteration. (https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/boosting-confidence-9-practices-of-great-agile-teams/)


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

27
Collaborative Workspaces and Virtual Teams: Shane Hastie, Chief Knowledge Engineer, shares tips for creating collaborative workspaces and working as distributed teams.
5:29

51
Agile Team Spaces: Learn key tips and tricks for Agile workspaces from Enterprise Agile Coaches, Tom Friend and Bryan Tew.
2:33

70
Size & Skills of an Agile Team: Learn about the appropriate size of and skills on Agile Teams from Rene Rosendahl, Enterprise Agile Coach.
2:39


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

69
Boosting Team Confidence - 9 Practices of Great Teams!:
9 Practices of GREAT Agile Teams by Mary Gorman and Ellen Gottesdiener

70
Retrospective - Fishbone Activity: Try the Fishbone activity (6.4) to dig deeper into the root cause of why your team has low confidence in their ability to meet their current goals.
(https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/a40a496f-600f-4df8-ae3c-fae145a8709f.pdf&name=Retrospective%20Activities.pdf)
(http://media.pragprog.com/titles/dlret/Activities.pdf)

27
Agile Team Maturity Roadmap: This document recommends a growth plan based on the teams maturity stage.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/dc05c45b-6109-4cad-ac9b-fe3e1faba4c1.pptx&name=Agile Team Maturity Modelv2.pptx


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/34

Team Health – Performance – Confidence – Stakeholder

Competency: The stakeholder's feel confident in the team's ability to meet the current goals.

Healthy
Stakeholders are confident in the team's ability to deliver on current goals
Product Owner communicates with Stakeholders and manages expectations to ensure their requirements are taken into account in the backlog
Stakeholders are engaged early and often to provide input into the vision and provide feedback on current direction

Unhealthy
Product Owner doesn't engage with Stakeholders
Stakeholders have concerns about the team's ability to meet current goals
Stakeholders are not invited to Visioning, Planning Demos or Pre-Planning sessions
Stakeholder's input is being requested but not taken into account. The Product Owners overrides all Stakeholders and implements their own needs


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

84
Improve Stakeholders' confidence in team
Provide training on Agile and their role in supporting Agile teams
Use prototyping for engagement and validation between the Stakeholder and Product Owner prior to feature demo
Team can proactively seek business objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) and map to features, stories, tasks
Revisit Initiative return on investment (ROI), work, Kickoff, Release Planning, Program Increment Planning and confirm higher level vision and definition of success

85
Identify Stakeholders using Visual Modeling Methods
Not sure who your stakeholders or users are? Try using a stakeholder context diagram to identify, prioritize and decide on how to engage stakeholder or leverage Personas to identify your end users.
Learn more by watching the Stakeholder Analysis video or reading this blog:
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/used-visual-modeling-techniques-project-management-5948


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

95
Agile Visioning - Stakeholder Analysis: Learn some common methods for identifying your stakeholders and users then deciding how to engage them.
8:36

96
The Agile Team - Sponsors and Stakeholders: Learn about the expectations of the Sponsor and Stakeholder roles for Agile teams.
3:23

97
Agile Sponsors and Stakeholders - Learn about the roles and expectations of: Sponsors & Stakeholders, Management, Executives & Leaders
14:14


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

71
Stakeholder Management for Agile Teams, Programs and Portfolios: This presentation, 'Stakeholder Management Framework for Agile Teams, Programs and Portfolios' by Drew Jemilo, SAFe Fellow, addresses common challenges of Stakeholder management.
https://agilealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Stakeholder-Management-by-Drew-Jemilo-Agile2012.pdf

72
Visual Modeling Techniques - In this article explore Agile visual modeling methods such as: Agile Vision Box, Stakeholder Context Diagram, User Personas. Use Case Diagrams, Visual Roadmaps, Wireframes
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/used-visual-modeling-techniques-project-management-5948


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/35

Team Health – Performance – Measurements - Predictable Velocity

Competency: The team tracks their velocity and the variance of target vs. actual points completed are within 10%.

Healthy
The team is predictable and can rely on their plans to predict future performance
The team's actual delivery is within 10 - 15% of their target estimate
The team has shown consistent target vs actual delivery over the past several iterations
The team has matured their planning practices in the short-term (next few weeks) and mid-term (next few months)

Unhealthy
The team does not size their work
The team does not track what they 'target' against 'actual' delivery
The team has peaks and valleys of high/low velocity or throughput
The team does use estimates to size their work and plan ahead, but their estimates are not predicable yet and cannot be used for future planning


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

36
Mature Planning and Estimating
Teams are usually too busy delivering to focus on sizing and planning ahead. However, maturing how your team sizes the work will help the team improve their understanding of capacity and lead to more predictable delivery.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Watch some of the videos in this section on Planning and Estimation to learn simple ways to size your stories and deliverables
Learn how to breakdown epics into smaller more achievable stories (something you can complete within two weeks). Read the resources below on how to do this
Improve how you facilitate your release planning and iteration planning meetings by watching the videos below and referring to the recommendations in the Clarity/Planning sub-dimension

60
Plan for different classes (types) of work
Teams can have several types of work coming their way such as:
New development
Minor Enhancements
Support and service requests
Research and discovery
Refactoring or improving current designs (slack time)
Unplanned work (slack time)
From a leadership perspective this work can also be categorized as Strategic, Operational (keep the lights on) or Innovation (R&D).
Teams usually run out of capacity because they fill up their bucket of work during planning with one type only
Track how much capacity you give to each per iteration and plan future iterations based on how you've previously performed

57
Planning and Estimating Effectively
Establish regular Backlog Refinement sessions to ensure the user stories are broken down, have clear acceptance criteria, and are well understood
Use effective facilitation for the Iteration Planning meetings to ensure the team ends the meetings with solid plans
Use relative estimation techniques to ensure user stories are estimated and the team collaborates on the estimates
Work with the team to identify and define tasks for the user stories in the iteration ensuring that each task can be completed in 1/2 day to two days
Ensure the Daily Stand-up meetings makes progress visible and helps the team focus on collaborating on tasks to get stories to done
Work with the Product Owner and team to develop a release plan for the next release and track progress to the plan at the end of each iteration

14
Improve Stability of Backlog and Priorities
Many teams struggle with delivering consistently and predictably when they are faced with a constantly changing backlog and moving priorities.
Agile teams need to master the art of balancing flexibility & stability. A team should stay flexible and responsive to their Product Owner and business needs while keeping some level of stability for the backlog and plan, so they can achieve predictable delivery.
Here are a few ideas to help:
For a Product Owner, the first step to stability is to mature the planning process for the team, so that at minimum what they are working on for the iteration (next few weeks) doesn't change with the exception of support work.
A team should make sure they are planning for support work and also 'unplanned' work within their capacity. Some call this 'slack' as it was originated in the XP world, read this blog from James Shore. Here is a book on this topic, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency.
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633617?tag=viglink12445-20)

15
Apply Product Discovery and Design Thinking
The Product Owner might want to learn about how to stay one quarter (or one release) ahead of their teams by doing 'Discovery' and design thinking on the epics they want them to work on in the next quarter.
Lean Discovery and Agile Delivery are continuous processes that feed each other, however, starting Discovery early will help you validate what your customers really need and improve the stability of your backlog and priorities.
Start your learning by watching a few videos or reading the blogs below.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

98
Simulation: Pre-Planning / Backlog Refinement: A simulation of how a team can pre-plan and get ready before a sprint planning meeting to ensure its success.
12:25

99
Agile Planning and Estimating Methods: Schedule a lunch and learn as a team and watch this webinar on Agile Planning and Estimating. You'll learn the most popular methods for sizing your stories using points, hrs, TShirt sizing. You'll learn a few different methods such as Planning Poker, Affinity Estimation, Complexity Buckets and more.
(https://youtu.be/jaqiXSp-D8E)
58:30

100
Sprint Planning: A closer look at what Sprint/Iteration planning involves. By Bryan Tew
3::08

101
Simulation: Sprint Planning: A simulation of a sprint planning meeting.
17:43

102
Simulation: Release Planning Meeting: A simulation of how a team can work through a release planning workshop.
11:49

34
An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery: Teresa Torres’ keynote on “An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery Practices”. (https://youtu.be/l7-5x0ra2tc)
36:44


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

42
9 Agile Estimating Techniques: Quickly learn about 9 Agile estimating techniques a team can start leveraging to improve how to size their work.
http://www.agileadvice.com/2015/10/13/agilemanagement/9-agile-estimation-techniques/

43
Splitting Stories using SPIDR: Learn from Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied, how to leverage the SPIDR method for breaking down larger stories into smaller ones.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/c9a88517-f320-419a-9cf4-5cc4d33d3909.pdf&name=Splitting%20Stories%20using%20SPIDR%20by%20Mike%20Coen.pdf

73
Agile Metrics for Predictability: Andrew Fuqua shares key metrics one can use to measure the predictability of a team.
https://dzone.com/articles/agile-health-metrics

74
Book Recommendation – Slack: Slack - Getting past burn-out and busy work.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633617?tag=viglink12445-20

21
The Evolution of Modern Product Discovery: Product management is evolving quickly. The days of gathering requirements from business stakeholders and documenting them in long product requirements documents are vanishing. By Teresa Torres.
https://www.producttalk.org/2017/02/evolution-product-discovery/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/36

Team Health – Performance – Measurements - Time to Market

Competency: None

Healthy
The team delivers value to production as frequently as desired by the product owner and customers
Business and market opportunities are seized due to how fast the team can deliver new capabilities to customers
The lead and cycle time from start to finish is as short as possible
The team is capable of releasing value daily and weekly if desired by the customers

Unhealthy
Product Owner feels the team is too slow in delivering value
The team frequently hears that 'it takes too long'
Release management requires all changes to be released at same time, sometime quarterly or longer cycles
The team has not automated their ability to release work to production with high quality
Business opportunities are lost due to how long it takes (cycle time) to get new capabilities to customers


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

86
Mature DevOps to accelerate Time to Market
Technology teams that have matured their DevOps and technical agility practices have achieved higher and faster rates of releases to production with higher quality. Take concrete steps by leveraging some of the recommendations below:
Run the Technical Agility (https://agilityhealthradar.com/technical-health-radar-assessment) or DevOps (https://agilityhealthradar.com/devops-health-radar-assessment/) Health assessments on your team or a group of teams within a common program/product line. Develop concrete growth plans for the next quarter.
Invest more capital into Dev/Ops
Organize Dev/Ops Enablement teams that are tasked with enabling and maturing other delivery teams with DevOps practices.
Invest in acquiring more talent within DevOps and provide training and education.
Ensure Dev/Ops leaders have a seat at the portfolio planning table.
Integrate Dev/Ops into program planning and execution.
Integrate operations as part of the delivery teams.

87
Remove Organizational Obstacles
Many teams that struggle to deliver value quickly usually suffer from an array of organizational level impediments. Here are a few examples:
Teams are not organized as cross-functional teams and cannot complete deliverables with minimal handoffs
Team members are not stable and matrixed across many projects at the same time - this causes a lot of work-in-progress (high WIP) but very little strategic priorities actually get to Done
Technical Agility and DevOps have not matured so teams don't know how to develop high quality code using modern practices and/or don't have the infrastructure to integrate and release their work frequently and automatically
Teams have reported impediments they face such as skill gaps, changing priorities, not having a product owner, lack of communication tools or co-location space, having limited access to SMEs (subject matter experts) and nothing has been done to address these
There are many other organizational impediments that slow down your time to market but the ones above are some of the top ones we've experienced.
You can leverage the AgilityHealth assessments to help you identify the top impediments to focus on and create a ranked growth backlog for teams and for the leaders/managers to address.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

103
ING DevOps Case Study: ING Bank Case Study - Improving time to market from 13 weeks to Less than 1 week with DevOps
30:27

104
Trenitalia DevOps Case Study: DevOps and Test Automation slashed time to market: an IBM client success story from Trenitalia (https://youtu.be/F6jxL4dxRSA)
5:27

105
How DevOps Practices can Make You a Better Developer: How Using DevOps Practices Can Make You a Better Developer (broken youtube link)
N/A

106
What is DevOps? In 7 Min: What is DevOps? - In Simple English (https://youtu.be/_I94-tJlovg)
7:06

107
Role of Managers and Technical Excellence: Doug Diehnelt, Enterprise Agile Coach, on The role of a Manager and Technical Excellence
3:19

108
Accelerate your time to market: Jesse Fewell, Agilist, on accelerating time to market.
3:30


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

75
DevOps Health Radar: Run your team through the DevOps health assessment as a retrospective to get insights on your current state then build an action plan for improvement.
https://agilityhealthradar.com/devops-health-radar-assessment/

76
Technical Health Radar: Run your team through the Technical Health assessment as a retrospective to get insights on your current state then build an action plan for improvement.
https://agilityhealthradar.com/technical-health-radar-assessment/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/37

Team Health – Performance – Measurements - Value Delivered

Competency: The Product Owner shares the business value of the work being done with the team and has metrics available to measure this post-release.

Healthy
The team has clarity on what makes up their MVP (minimal viable product) and desired business outcomes
The Product Owner shares the business value of the features/deliverables with the Team
The Product Owner assigns business value points/metrics to each feature or capability
The Product Owner actually measures against the business outcomes post release (ROI)

Unhealthy
KPI's that drive business success are not understood or made visible to delivery teams
The team is not sure what the business value is for their work
The team's Product Owner does not track business outcomes or any success metrics


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

88
Business Value Education for Business Leaders
Follow these steps:
Define what 'delivering value' means for your team from the Product Owner and Sponsor perspective.
Define clear outcomes and measures for success for your MVP or the upcoming release/quarter.
Assign Business Value Points or other tracking metrics at the Epic level. Learn different ways of assigning these such as: product pirate metrics, break even analysis, cost of delay, ROI, planning poker, value buckets, WSJF
The team Product Owner should track if the value and outcomes desired by them and the sponsor have been achieved for each release/quarter.

89
Create a Definition of Ready for Your Stories
The definition of ready for stories helps ensure that the checklist of agreed upon entry criteria for stories to be worked on within an iteration has been met.
This has a direct impact to productivity and quality of the team.
Your definition of ready could include items such as:
The work is understood by the team and immediately actionable
The result to be delivered has clear business value
It has been estimated
It is testable with clear acceptance criteria
It can be completed by this team and within their control


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

109
Buy a Feature Game: Watch this video to learn how to practice the Buy a Feature game with your customers during your next prioritization meeting. (https://youtu.be/Nmn_XcyFXKM)
1:01

110
Overview of Pirate Metrics: Fun short video that explains what Pirate metrics are for tracking product success.
3:06


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

77
WSJF Method from Scaled Agile: Leverage the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) to sequence your backlog of work and produce maximum economic benefits.
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/wsjf/

78
Business Value Points Cheat Sheet: The business value points methods is a simple and quick way for your product owner, sponsor and stakeholders to agree on what 'buckets' define value for them (generating $, saving $, customer engagement ...etc) then providing a weight for each bucket and points for Light, Medium, High and Very High value. You walk each epic/deliverable through the buckets and sum up the points when you're done.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/fcadcd75-e75f-4bb7-a3f4-53f83f2afda9.docx&name=BusinessValuePoints-CheatSheetV3%20(1).docx

79
Methods for Determining Business Value: Great summary of other methods you can use to calculate business value from Scrum Inc.
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/GrowthPortalAdmin/Download?id=https://agilityhealth.blob.core.windows.net/growthportalresource/01d63d83-aa57-49f5-b11a-9d664360589a.pdf&name=Determining%20Business%20Value%20-%20ScrumInc.pdf


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/38

Team Health – Performance – Measurements – Quality

Competency: The work delivered by the team has few defects found in production and requires little rework.

Healthy
Customer is satisfied with the team's quality level
Team is happy with the level of quality they produce
Team meets all acceptance criteria of their stories
Team has a clear definition of DONE
Team has a clear definition of READY
Very few or no rework or escaped defects
The team resolves defects within the sprint if possible

Unhealthy
Customers frustrated with the poor quality
Lots of escaped defects and rework
Missing acceptance criteria for stories
Team has no definition of DONE
Defects are not resolved quickly


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

90
Define Your Definition of Done (DoD)
Every Agile team should have clarity on your definition of DONE. This ensures all team members have agreed to the same standards for completion and drives up the quality of the work.
DoD can be defined at the Story, Feature, Sprint and Release levels.
For example, a story is done when:
All code has been checked-in and build is healthy
Code review is done
Unit test has passed
Code is in Test environment
Automated tests have passed
All acceptance criteria have passed
PO accepts the story as complete
What's YOUR team's definition of Done? Perform an exercise and come to agreement for your Story, Sprint and Release level DoD.

89
Create a Definition of Ready for Your Stories
The definition of ready for stories helps ensure that the checklist of agreed upon entry criteria for stories to be worked on within an iteration has been met.
This has a direct impact to productivity and quality of the team.
Your definition of ready could include items such as:
The work is understood by the team and immediately actionable
The result to be delivered has clear business value
It has been estimated
It is testable with clear acceptance criteria
It can be completed by this team and within their control


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

110
Software Quality Metrics: In this video Ryan Yackel dives into quality metrics and the reports behind them. (https://youtu.be/lc0Y1BX7Fig)
8:16

13
Technical Excellence: Learn about the importance of Technical Excellence and how to attain it from Enterprise Agile Coaches Richard Kasperowski and Bryan Tew.
2:29

11
Technical Excellence and Quality: Learn about Technical Excellence and Quality from Doc List, Enterprise Agile Coach.
3:51

111
The 3 Elements of Quality: Craig Smith, Agile Coach, shares the 3 areas of quality: technical debt, escaped defects and rework.
7:26

78
What's the true definition of Quality?: What does Quality mean to your customers? Brian Levy from Rome Agile explains.
2:47


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

80
What is the Definition of Done?: Learn from Jeff Sutherland, creator of Scrum, how a team can improve it's quality and productivity by bringing clarity to the definition of done.
https://www.scruminc.com/definition-of-done/

81
What is the Definition of READY?: Learn from Jeff Sutherland, creator of Scrum, how a team can improve it's quality and productivity by bringing clarity to the definition of ready.
https://www.scruminc.com/definition-of-ready/

82
Using 5 Whys for Root Cause Analysis: Learn how to leverage the popular 5 Whys method for getting to the root cause of your quality issues.
http://www.agilebuddha.com/agile/5-whys-positive-root-cause-analysis-to-find-best-practices/


 
https://app.agilityhealthradar.com/growthportal/0/radar/1/competency/39

Team Health – Performance – Measurements - Response to Change

Competency: The team is able to respond to changing business needs. The Product Owner helps keep the team focused within the iteration.

Healthy
The team adapts well to changes in business needs (customers, users, product) and able to build what customers need and will use
The team has an effective iterative and systematic process for accommodating changes which makes change more predictable and manageable
The product owner of the team along with their sponsor and stakeholders actively plan ahead of the team and validate their ideas through product discovery
The product owner manages their change appetite and allows teams to finish what they start with a given sprint

Unhealthy
Heavy and rigorous change management and red tape process (including strict budgets, vendor contracts, policies) that resist "out of scope" changes
Blindly following the initial plan and missing opportunities to hear the customer voice and build the right product/service
Culture of viewing change as bad and something to avoid
Just flying by the seat of our pants, product owner has no backlog stability
Team hasn't planned for emerging requirements, support and unplanned stories. No slack time allocation
Lots of process and approvals for changes so the team doesn't do them


Recommendations
#
Title
Solution Description

60
Plan for different classes (types) of work
Teams can have several types of work coming their way such as:
New development
Minor Enhancements
Support and service requests
Research and discovery
Refactoring or improving current designs (slack time)
Unplanned work (slack time)
From a leadership perspective this work can also be categorized as Strategic, Operational (keep the lights on) or Innovation (R&D).
Teams usually run out of capacity because they fill up their bucket of work during planning with one type only
Track how much capacity you give to each per iteration and plan future iterations based on how you've previously performed

92
Coach Team on Planning for Change and Unplanned Work
Assuming you've executed some of the other recommendations related to planning ahead and the product owner/sponsor appetite control, now it's time for the team to learn about planning for slack.

14
Improve Stability of Backlog and Priorities
Many teams struggle with delivering consistently and predictably when they are faced with a constantly changing backlog and moving priorities.
Agile teams need to master the art of balancing flexibility & stability. A team should stay flexible and responsive to their Product Owner and business needs while keeping some level of stability for the backlog and plan, so they can achieve predictable delivery.
Here are a few ideas to help:
For a Product Owner, the first step to stability is to mature the planning process for the team, so that at minimum what they are working on for the iteration (next few weeks) doesn't change with the exception of support work.
A team should make sure they are planning for support work and also 'unplanned' work within their capacity. Some call this 'slack' as it was originated in the XP world, read this blog from James Shore. Here is a book on this topic, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency.
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633617?tag=viglink12445-20)

15
Apply Product Discovery and Design Thinking
The Product Owner might want to learn about how to stay one quarter (or one release) ahead of their teams by doing 'Discovery' and design thinking on the epics they want them to work on in the next quarter.
Lean Discovery and Agile Delivery are continuous processes that feed each other, however, starting Discovery early will help you validate what your customers really need and improve the stability of your backlog and priorities.
Start your learning by watching a few videos or reading the blogs below.


Videos
#
Title
Runtime

34
An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery: Teresa Torres’ keynote on “An Introduction to Modern Product Discovery Practices”. (https://youtu.be/l7-5x0ra2tc)
36:44

35
Iteration Pre-Planning (Backlog Refinement): Learn how to execute the iteration pre-planning meeting (a.k.a. Backlog Refinement) so that the Product Owner and Team can ensure they have passed the definition of ready before entering a new Iteration. This reduces the level of churn during the Iteration and helps the team focus.
12:55 25??


Resources
#
Title
URL
Status

21
The Evolution of Modern Product Discovery: Product management is evolving quickly. The days of gathering requirements from business stakeholders and documenting them in long product requirements documents are vanishing. By Teresa Torres.
https://www.producttalk.org/2017/02/evolution-product-discovery/

74
Book Recommendation – Slack: Slack - Getting past burn-out and busy work.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633617?tag=viglink12445-20