Implementing The Agile Team

This five-day service is designed to accelerate team adoption of Agile and is delivered through a combination of coaching, mentoring and hands-on workshops.

This offering is perfect for teams new to Agile development, but can also be adapted for teams who have already started with Agile development and want to "tune" their performance. Initially, a Rally coach will work with your teams via phone and web conference to assess the team’s current level of agility and tailor the on-site portion of the offering to fit your organizational needs. Once on-site, your coach will introduce your teams to Agile and Rally and kick off your first facilitated iteration planning meeting. Later, your coach will facilitate your demo, review, retrospective and next iteration planning meeting.

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Advantages

Upon completion of this service, Agile teams will be able to:

• Effectively plan and execute two timeboxed iterations on your chosen project
• Inspect and adapt their Agile practices based on Agile principles and what they have learned in their iterations
• Provide greater visibility into their project through regular demos and reviews to all stakeholders
• Respond faster and more reliably to changing customer requests

Approach

The Implementing the Agile Team service is divided into four parts, each designed to help software teams and managers effectively accelerate their adoption of Agile.

Part I: Preparation (4 hours of phone and web-based coaching)

Rally coaches work with your team to gather context and customize the on-site training for your needs and discuss logistics. We’ll review your product backlog to ensure that it contains appropriately sized and prioritized items. Note that in cases where a prioritized product backlog does not exist, we may recommend an additional day of consulting with your Product Owner in advance of the engagement.

Part II: Agile Kickoff and Iteration Planning Session (2-day onsite workshop)

This session starts with a one-day interactive workshop introduction for teams new to Agile. The second day is a facilitated iteration planning meeting in which the team commits to work for its upcoming timeboxed iteration.

Part III: Inspect and Adapt Session (2-day onsite workshop)

On day one of this session, your Rally coach will facilitate a demo, review, and retrospective for the timeboxed iteration On day two, the team will be guided through planning their second iteration. In addition, we will provide general consulting to help the team move forward with their Agile practices.

Part IV: Tuning and Coaching (4 hours of phone and web-based coaching)

Your Agile team will have access to a Rally coach via phone, web, and email, to support the team as you inspect, adapt and tune your Agile practices. Your coach can help you with specific problems and provide web-based training as needed.

On-Site Service Details

Agile Kickoff and Iteration Planning Session

This 2-day session is designed to give your team the foundation they need to get started with Agile. We'll introduce the concepts of Agile, establish team working agreements and kickoff an iteration.

Here is an overview of what you and your coach can accomplish:

Day 1: Preparing for Agile Development

This interactive workshop provides your entire team with an overview of the benefits of Agile by exploring the underlying principles of Agile and the fundamental practices of Agile delivery. At the end of the workshop, your team will have a shared context for applying Agile practices within your environment and a plan for getting started with Agile delivery.

Outline:

• The benefits of Agile
• Introduction to Agile principles and practices
• Agile roles
• How to apply Agile planning, demo, review, and retrospective practices
• Next steps for Agile adoption

Day 2: Iteration Planning

This facilitated planning meeting provides a structured approach to help your team determine its capacity, prioritize its work, define tasks, and estimate the tasks for the upcoming iteration. Additionally your team will conduct a review of its resources against its priorities, document issues and risks for the iteration, and ultimately create a team commitment to the iteration.

Outline:

• Determining team capacity and backlog priorities
• Define story tasks
• Estimate effort for story tasks
• Review resources and priorities
• Document issues/risks
• Commit to the iteration

Agile Inspect and Adapt Session

In a return visit conducted at the close of the first iteration, this 2-day onsite session focuses on assessing your team’s progress. Your Agile team will demonstrate their accepted work, and review its success in meeting commitments during the iteration. Your Rally coach will then facilitate a retrospective, help plan the next iteration and provide general consulting advice for your Agile adoption.

Day 1: Demo, Review and Retrospective

This facilitated Demo and Review meeting is the venue for your Agile team to demo their accepted work to all interested stakeholders. The review provides a structured approach for collecting feedback, reviewing metrics and establishing new priorities. Then, the facilitated retrospective meeting with just your Agile team will guide the team in evaluating its team practices. From this retrospection, the team forms new agreements to help in the planning of its next iteration.

Outline:

• Demonstrate accepted work
• Collect stakeholder feedback
• Review iteration metrics
• Assess new priorities
• Retrospect team practices and agreements for next iteration

Day 2: Second Iteration Planning Meeting

Based on the results from the demo, review, and retrospective, your Rally coach will guide your Agile team through planning the next iteration, including adjusting commitments. You will also have an opportunity to engage in general consulting about your Agile practices going forward.

Price

• $13,950 plus travel and expenses
• A La Carte additions available for $2500/service

Availability

The Implementing The Agile Team offering is available as a five-day engagement typically delivered over 30 days or less. Portions are delivered on-site, via phone and web conference. Contact your Rally account representative at sales@rallydev.com to schedule.

A La Carte Offerings

• The Implementing the Agile Team 5-day service can be augmented with additional Rally coaching services. Any of these options can be added for an additional price of $2500.
• 1-day Product Backlog Grooming – in preparation for the Iteration Planning meeting, succeeding with Agile your Rally coach will spend a day with your Agile team, Product Owner / Customer Representative to develop, rewrite, or decompose the features / requirements in your Backlog.
• 1-day User Story Workshop – your entire Agile team (and other possible participants) will work through this interactive set of exercises that introduces teams to the notion of User Stories as backlog items: what their value is, how to write them, how to size them
• 1/2 day Agile Executive Overview – this workshop helps the organization’s leadership team understand how Agile principles and practices benefit the whole organization. It also helps participants understand the "rules of engagement" that Agile asks them to follow for organizational success.
• 1/2 day "Introduction to Agile" – this 4-hour add-on is designed to introduce large audiences beyond the pilot Agile team to Agile and help them understand how it is applied throughout an organization
• 1-day Rally Product Training – this interactive full-day workshop helps teams apply their Agile practices in the Rally tool. Teams learn how each of the Agile team roles can take best advantage of the Rally tool functions.
• 1-day General Consulting – have an expert Rally Coach provide ad-hoc consulting to anyone in your organization in a "Doctor is IN" setting. Individuals or teams can meet in time-boxed sessions to address any issues or questions they like. Alternately, General Consulting time may be used by the Management Team to work with the Coach on designing and planning their Agile rollout for other parts of the organization.