Leading Agile Teams

Leading Agile Teams

by Doug Rose
Released October 2015
Publisher(s): Project Management Institute
ISBN: 9781628251043

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Book description

Leading Agile Teams is a practical and engaging guide to help your organization embrace a more agile mindset.

Most organizations work in large groups when trying to find solutions for big problems. Agile teams are different. They get more done by having a small self-organized team focus on the highest priority items. Each big problem is broken down and solved by a small, stable group of dedicated professionals.

This book will give you the knowledge and tools you need to create and sustain strong agile teams. It is written for the developers, project managers, product owners, and ScrumMasters, who do most of the legwork in getting agile up and running.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Table of Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Why you should Buy this Book
  8. Chapter 1 - The Road Ahead
  9. Chapter 2 - Traditional Projects
    1. The Project Management Institute
      1. Waterfall
      2. Failed Projects
    2. Complex Adaptive Systems
  10. Chapter 3 - A New Lightweight Approach
    1. The Agile Manifesto
    2. “Agile” is an Umbrella Term
    3. Lean Software Development
    4. The Three Most Common Agile Frameworks
      1. Scrum
      2. Extreme Programming
      3. The Scaled Agile Framework
  11. Chapter 4 - Starting Agile in your Organization
    1. Identifying Current Challenges
    2. Shoring up Management
    3. Agile is Predictable
    4. Self-Organized Teams
    5. Defining the Agile Team Roles
      1. ScrumMaster
      2. Product Owner
      3. Developers
    6. Confusing Roles
    7. Working with the PMO
      1. Avoiding the Agile “Rowboat”
    8. Renaming Over Retooling
    9. Setting the Stage
  12. Chapter 5 - Thinking Like an Agile Team
    1. Don't Depend on Superheroes
    2. Training the Agile Team
    3. Letting the Team Self-Organize
    4. Delivering Like an Agile Team
    5. Staying Agile with the ScrumMaster
    6. Gathering Work with the Product Owner
    7. Protecting the team with the Project Manager
    8. Spreading Agile
  13. Chapter 6 - Working Like an Agile Team
    1. Creating a Project Charter
    2. Writing your Release Plan
      1. ROVe Release
      2. The SAFe Way
    3. Delivering without Scope
    4. Planning with Agile user Stories
      1. Planning Incremental Delivery
      2. Planning Starts as Estimates
      3. Starting with user Roles
      4. Creating user Stories
      5. Writing Effective Stories
      6. Grouping with Themes or Epics
      7. Using Relative Estimation
      8. Playing Planning Poker
      9. Calculating your Velocity
      10. Planning your Sprints
  14. Chapter 7 - Driving Productive Agile Activities
    1. Staying Lightweight
    2. Timeboxing
    3. Multitasking
    4. Running Agile Activities
      1. The Daily Standup
      2. Creating the Product Backlog
      3. Refining the Product Backlog
      4. Planning your Sprints
      5. Demoing the Work
      6. Team Improvement
    5. Inviting the Right Groups
    6. Gathering the Roadblocks
    7. Keeping the Activity Moving
      1. Moving the Daily Standup
      2. Moving the Backlog Refinement
      3. Moving the Sprint Planning
    8. Listening to Feedback
      1. Feedback During the Daily Standup
      2. Feedback During Product Backlog Refinement
      3. Feedback During the Sprint Demo
      4. Feedback During the Retrospective
    9. Agenda Setting
    10. Reporting Status at Standups
    11. Breaking the Sprint
  15. Chapter 8 - Reporting with Agile Charts and Boards
    1. Keeping Agile Transparent
    2. Communicating Progress
    3. Creating a Task Board
    4. Reading the Task Board
    5. Sizing the Task Board
    6. Burndown Charts
      1. The Sprint Burndown Chart
      2. The Release Burndown Chart
    7. Updating the Burndown
      1. Updating the Sprint Burndown Chart
      2. Updating the Release Burndown Chart
    8. Seeing Trouble
    9. Dealing with Challenges
      1. How to Avoid Expanding the Burndown
      2. Retrofitting
      3. Working in a Distributed Workspace
  16. Chapter 9 - Getting Better with Agile Retrospectives
    1. Team Reflection
    2. Starting Simple
    3. Understanding Retrospectives
    4. Following the Prime Directive
    5. Using a Facilitator
    6. Setting the Stage
    7. Retrospectives with Distributed Teams
    8. Keeping Track in the Retrospective
      1. Creating a Starfish Diagram
      2. Running PANCAKE Retrospectives
    9. Running the Retrospective
    10. Developing Action Items
      1. Developing SMART Goals
    11. Flushing out the Issues
      1. Playing Games
      2. Asking Good Questions
      3. Asking the “Five Whys”
      4. Finding Actions
    12. Following up on Actions
  17. Chapter 10 - Wrapping Up
    1. Putting the Bell on the Cat

Product information

  • Title: Leading Agile Teams
  • Author(s): Doug Rose
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): Project Management Institute
  • ISBN: 9781628251043