Sample Definition of Done

I continue to receive a lot of questions about the Definition of Done. Now, a lot of content out there talks in generic terms, but I have a sample that provides a good starting point for your team or organization to consider when creating your own.

I can't stress enough the importance of having this in place. It is the work standard and quality standard which the team(s) should follow. It doesn't matter if you're doing Scrum, XP, Kanban, or some Franken-process...you still need a definition of done to ensure quality and completeness of your process steps.

Many problems that teams have implementing their agile techniques are rooted in not having a clear definition of done checklist with quality checks. Maybe its a good time to make sure you have a Definition of Done in place, well communicated, and followed with discipline.

The link below has my Sample Definition of Done in two formats and an exercise to create the initial version if you don't have your own today.


http://www.box.net/shared/erszagsh3c

Good Luck! I welcome any questions, comments, or suggestions

When in Doubt...Act It Out

I was recently working with a team on planning their first sprint on a new project. After a couple of very confusing hours talking about what the project even was about, I asked the team to create personas for their users on large sheets on the wall to help them visualize it, thinking it would help them break through the confusion. But, it didn't really work which really let me know how bad the problem was.
So, it was time to improvise...I had each of them take one of the user roles and write it on a post-it, then stick it to themselves. Then we just acted out the system functions with each person taking on one of the user roles and describing how they would use a feature and how they would be interacting with another user. It worked, it was fun, and it helped everyone get a clear view of the features and the user interactions.

Learn something new everyday! I will certainly be using this technique again. Give it a try.

What's Your Circuit Breaker?

I was working with a group this week and we were in a discussion about making sure that their Scrum teams do the proper level of capacity planning for each sprint in order to avoid overloading. We took a break and I was looking at a home grown power distribution system in the room where two strings of 3-4 power strips each were connected in parallel to two outlets in the floor. No surprise, seen that before. But it got me thinking of yet another metaphor...

Each of the outlet strips has a circuit breaker on it, and the building has breakers for the circuits running through the building. Below is a excerpt from howstuffworks.com explaining circuit breakers:


The circuit breaker is an absolutely essential device in the modern world, and one of the most important safety mechanisms in your home. Whenever electrical wiring in a building has too much current flowing through it, these simple machines cut the power until somebody can fix the problem. Without circuit breakers (or the alternative, fuses), household electricity would be impractical because of the potential for fires and other mayhem resulting from simple wiring problems and equipment failures.


Harris, Tom.  "How Circuit Breakers Work."  09 May 2002.  HowStuffWorks.com.   

Fires and Mayhem! Yikes! Sounds like a few of the projects I've seen in my career. So I thought it would be a good topic after the break to point out what happens when we run too much current through a wire with a certain capacity (no, I did not light the place up!)...a good chance of fire and mayhem. Circuit breakers establish the parameters that allow power to effectively and efficiently flow through the system. When the limits are hit, the breaker shuts down the whole circuit until action is taken to bring it back within limits.

Establishing the teams capacity and the "focused task time" keep the team safe and allow them to increase their speed with experience and learning. When overloaded they often wind up in fire and mayhem. 

What are your team's circuit breakers for the sprint? How do you establish the parameters? What signals your breakers to trip? Who has to take action to reduce the load if they do trip? Do you have surge protection? 

Zero Point User Stories

Recently, with a few clients, I have suggested that they put user stories in their backlogs with zero points. These stories identify work that is being done, but does not add value for the end user. People have used zero point stories in the past to identify some unit of work that was very small. But I'm seeing another angle...

I'm doing this is because if we look at the points that we typically put on a story, we primarily are doing it to identify the relative size. However, I have seen a lot of stories for things like defect fixing (when the team has not conquered the zero defect concept yet), or supporting an audit for ISO or CMMI. By having the stories in the backlog, we make sure the work is visible, by giving it zero points we make sure that that work is not showing as "value points for an end-user".

Before trying this, I was having teams reserve hours in their capacity for things like this and that worked fine. This just makes it a little easier and stops us from counting non-value add work in velocity. Seems to be working great! Give it a try...

Morning Meetings and Daily Scrums

I was amazed the other day when my daughter Melanie (currently a student teacher) and I had a discussion of a technique she is using in her classrooms called the Morning Meeting. The morning meeting is a new strategy being used in schools to get kids engaged and focused on the goals for the day. We both had a good laugh as she explained that process, and then I explained how I have to teach adults to do the exact same thing in something we call the Daily Scrum. We ordered a couple books from Amazon on the subject of Morning Meetings and I began to browse through them to see what the objectives of the process were from a teachers perspective. The main point is to bring in the socialization of children and learning the learning experience as a critical piece in addition to the content of the subject.

In the book "The Morning Meeting Book" by Roxann Kriete she lays out the purpose of the Morning Meeting as follows:

1. Morning Meeting sets the tone for respectful learning and establishes a climate of trust.
2. The tone and climate of Morning Meeting extend beyond the Meeting.
3. Morning Meeting motivates children by addressing two human needs: the need to feel a sense of significance and belonging and the need to have fun.
4. The repetition of many ordinary moments of respectful interaction in Morning Meeting enables some extraordinary moments.
5. Morning Meeting merges social, emotional, and intellectual learning.

That is exactly why we have Daily Scrums. Sure we need to know about where we all are in accomplishing a goal, but the REAL purpose is the same set of points above. Creating that environment everyday leads to better results and a more engaged, energized team. I can't wait to see these kids grow up and enter the workforce with that level of social skills! It will be very interesting.

In the meantime, you may want to take a look at what teachers use as tools for Morning Meetings and see if you can't apply that to your Daily Scrums. Go talk to your son or daughter about this and see if they are doing it at school. The next time you have a parent-teacher conference, ask the teacher about Morning Meetings. I find it fascinating how our childhood is so tightly linked to adulthood even though most of us never make the connection.

Thoughts for a Change Agent

Here's a thought for any of you that are trying to drive change, whether at work or anywhere else in your lives...

Are you getting frustrated when you put new ideas "on the table" and you meet a lot of resistance? Does that get you frustrated and blaming the people you are trying to change? Well, here's a thought you might want to consider:

Sometimes the brick walls we run into are actually mirrors.

It is important for a change leader to understand the people they are presenting new ideas to. To understand the goals and fears of the targets of change. Put yourself in their shoes.

If you find yourself always blaming everyone else for not listening to you or even considering your ideas you might want to take a good look in the mirror.

Emergency Landing Procedures....No Thanks!

Wow! I had a flight lesson the other day that really tested my "how do you react in a panic" brain cells. I was up flying around practicing S-turns and turns around a fixed point, feeling pretty good about the progress I have made since my first flight.

Then my instructor reaches for the throttle and pulls it back to idle while at 2500 feet and says "OK, you just lost engine power...what are you going to do now?" My response was "you mean after I finish [performing a bodily function] (paraphrased)???" I was simply terrified!

But then we walked through the mechanics of focusing on getting the plane to its best glide speed (yes, fixed wing aircraft can stay in the air as long as you don't screw it up), then looking for a place to land, trying to restart the engine, and finally communicating the emergency to others. After doing that a few times, I didn't panic anymore. I wonder if anyone on the ground while I practiced this stuff was a bit curious! But who knows how you'll react when it happens for real and you're either alone, or you have a passenger.

Good practice; and it got me thinking about how you always have to be thinking of contingencies and how you will react when things don't go the way you planned. Better to work through your possible options when you're not paniced, so maybe it becomes "muscle memory". I think we all saw the miracle of that US Airways pilot that put the plane down safely in the Hudson. Very impressive!