Agile Team Tune Up

The Team Tune-Up is intended for Agile teams that have been using Scrum-based practices from several iterations to several years.

Overview

As teams deliver working software iteration after iteration, they may find they begin to struggle. Perhaps quality has gone down, or retrospectives no longer lead to improvements, or the team no longer collaborates well. Perhaps the team struggles to make and meet its iteration commitments, or to please stakeholders with high-value features. They might be stuck below what Kathy Sierra calls the "suck threshold."

The team could benefit from an outside perspective. Bring in our expert Agile Coaches to observe the team in action — demo-ing, retrospecting, planning, working and collaborating. As they say in Lean, the coach goes to the gemba, the place where value is produced.

Applying our experience guiding hundreds of Agile teams and organizations, the coach will recommend practices and techniques that can help the team reach its goals. Together, the coach and team will build a plan for immediate and long-term improvements. The goal is to reinvigorate the team and get them on a path to the passion threshold with Agile.

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Description

This service offering combines direct observation with team member interviews and workshops, leading to a backlog of near- and long-term practice improvements for the team. The Agile Coach provides feedback on the team's current practices and helps the team build on what they are doing well while identifying opportunities to improve delivery, collaboration, innovation, and results.

Key Benefit

Although results will vary by team, potential improvements could include:

• Reducing time-to-market
• Improving value-delivery
• Stabilizing velocity
• Improving quality
• Managing emergent work
• Making stakeholders happier

Team-level results can also feed back into the larger organization, through identifying:

• Organizational patterns and anti-patterns (through multiple tune-ups)
• Organizational impediments to success
• Opportunities to replicate successes and improvements across teams
• Opportunities for further training/coaching
• Actions for leadership

Approach

The only way to truly assess a team's processes is through watching their ordinary interactions. Therefore, the Team Tune-Up centers on having a coach observe the team's ceremonies at an iteration boundary. The engagement also provides time for the coach to discuss observations with the team and to reach consensus around an improvement plan.

Preparation - 4 hours remote

Prior to arriving on-site, the coach will interview team members and leads, management, and stakeholders to begin our understanding of potential issues and to establish specific goals for the engagement.

Observation and Coaching - 2–4 days on-site

The number of days on-site will depend on the team's iteration length and how long they usually spend on the ceremonies at the iteration boundary. In addition to the observation day(s), the engagement will include another day or two for the coach to interview people, observe the team working, and meet with the team to generate insights and commit to an improvement plan.

The coach will observe and provide feedback on the following ceremonies:

• Daily stand-up
• Iteration demo/review
• Iteration retrospective
• Iteration planning

The coach will also review and provide feedback on the following:

• Product Backlog quality
• Burndown and velocity charts and other team data
• Team working agreements
• Rally product usage (where relevant)

The coach will hold a workshop with the team to discuss observations and feedback, to gather new data, to generate insights, to commit to an immediate improvement plan. The coach and team might also jointly generate a summary of the team's achievements.

Follow-up - 4 hours remote

At the conclusion of this engagement, the coach will summarize his or her findings and recommendations, regarding both the team and potentially the organization, with the sponsor.

Pricing

• $7,900 plus travel and expenses (Includes 1 day remote consulting and 2 days on-site observation)
• Additional days can be purchased for $2,950