Last night, I attended James Couzens’ “fireside chat” on how Suncorp does Agile.
A few take-aways (I’m paraphrasing, forgive me if this isn’t exact but you’ll get the gist):
- Agile doesn’t stop you making mistakes, but it does let you identify the mistakes earlier…then then (hopefully) you can take appropriate and effective action
- Your Product Owner needs to be able to make real decisions (otherwise you’ll suffer looong delays, which warps planning and results in low velocity)
- The relationship between Product Owner and ScrumMaster is very important
- Analysts should run only one sprint ahead or the developers, otherwise everyone’s heads are in different ’spaces’
- Work with your Product Owner (and stakeholders) early and often
- When interfacing with other (waterfall/non-Agile) groups, treat their needs as high priority
- Poor information radiation can lead to problems
- Planning Poker works. Nicely.
- Don’t focus on showcases…this is a sure way to build up technical debt!
The key takeway:
- Your “Definition of Done” has a far-reaching effect, so spend time on formulating and reviewing it
Thanks, James!
