Agile Training 101

2/12/2014 at 1:30pm EST

Includes general overview of what Agile and
Scrum mean, as well as specific information
on how we do it at Altisource Labs.

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Glossary
Agile Manifesto - A philosophical foundation for effective
software development
Story - A requirement, feature and/or unit of business value
that can be estimated and tested. Stories describe work that
must be done to create and deliver a feature for a product.
Task - Tasks are descriptions of the actual work that an
individual or pair does in order to complete a story
Backlog - A collection of stories and tasks the Sprint team will
work on at some point in the future.
Iteration - A period (from 1 week to 2 months in duration)
during which the Agile development team produces an
increment of completed software.
Velocity - Velocity measures how much work a team can
complete in an iteration
Scrum - A framework for the iterative development of
complex products, particularly software.
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Glossary
Standup Meeting (sometimes called Scrum) - "A daily team
meeting held to provide a status update to the team members.
Definition of Done - The criteria for accepting work as
completed.
Work in Progress (WIP) - Any work that has not been
completed but that has already incurred a capital cost to the
organization.
Planning Poker - Planning Poker is a consensus-based technique
for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of
tasks in software development.
Stakeholder - Anyone external to the team with a vested interest
in the outcome of the team's work.
Kanban - tool derived from lean manufacturing and is associated
with the branch of agile practices loosely referred to as
Lean software development.
Test Driven Development (TDD) - first write automated test
case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then
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produces code to pass that test and finally refactors the newPage
code
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What is Agile?
Being agile in the working world means being flexible

DONT panic, NOT

THAT kind of flexible

It is being adaptable, responding to change, trying to keep pace with technology.

Agile is mostly about fast feedback (as well as communication, collaboration, trust)
Brings VALUE to the customer Quicker!
Culture change - there is a concept of Empowering the teams (self managed, self organized,

more pleasant work environment )

Agile Methodology

The team works together to achieve what they (as a team) committed to achieving
SCRUM is one of the frameworks that helps you achieve the agile methodology.
SCRUM
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What are the Benefits?

Revenue
Speed-to-market

Quality
Visibility

In Sprint
Testing

Risk Management

Flexibility

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What are the Benefits?

Cost Control

Business Engagement/Customer Satisfaction

Right Product
More Enjoyable!

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Common Mistakes

We can do it ourselves! But No support from the above.

Scrum Master without a believe or passion for Agile (it is easy
to facilitate the 4 meetings, dealing with skeptics is hard!)
Cannot Force it on People. People have to WANT to do it, or at
least be willing to TRY.
Modifications too early (have to follow the basics of SCRUM
first to learn all the benefits). ALL OF IT!

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What is Scrum and how does it fit in?

There is a video Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell , which give a nice

overview!
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Social Objects: What is a Backlog?

A list of issues/features (called stories) that need to be
developed/done
There are 3 different types of a backlog:
General Product backlog things that we will get to later
Often referred to as a DEEP FREEZER

Release backlog things we have triaged and included in a

particular release
We took stuff out of

Often referred to as FRIDGE

the fridge and making
with it
You take stuff out of the Freezer because you will be cookingdinner
it soon

Sprint backlog things a team has pulled into the sprint

Also called iteration, which is usually two weeks long.
The amount of stories (measured in story points) they pull
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Scrum Ceremonies

Releas
e

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBKuYzqvZmI

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ROLES: TEAM

The Team is responsible for delivering potentially shippable product

increments at the end of each Sprint (the Sprint Goal).
A Team is made up of 7 +/- 2 individuals with cross-functional skills who do
the actual work (analyze, design, develop, test, technical communication,
document, etc.).
The Team in Scrum is self-organizing, even though there may be some level
of interface with project management organizations (PMOs).

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ROLES: Scrum Master

Scrum (15 minute daily standup) is facilitated by a Scrum Master, who is

accountable for removing impediments to the ability of the team to deliver
the sprint goal/deliverables.
The Scrum Master is not the team leader, but acts as a buffer between the
team and any distracting influences (in some rare cases POs!).
The Scrum Master ensures that the Scrum process is used as intended.
The Scrum Master facilitates Estimation/Planning/Retrospective meetings
and is often referred to as servant.
The Scrum Master differs from a Project Manager in that the Scrum Master
role excludes additional people management responsibilities.

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ROLES: Product Owner

The Product Owner represents the stakeholders and is the voice of the
customer. He or she is accountable for ensuring that the team delivers value
to the business.
The Product Owner writes (or has the team write) customer-centric items
(typically user stories), ranks and prioritizes them, and adds them to the
product backlog.
Scrum teams should have one Product Owner, and while they may also be a
member of the development team, this role should not be combined with
that of the Scrum Master.

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VISION ->COMMUNICATION->BACKLOG->SPRINT->SHOW>FEEDBACK->BACKLOG-> SPRINT->SHOW->FEEDBACK->BACKLOG->more VALUE

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Scrum at Altisource
How do you get to Jira , story board, reports
1) 10.0.0.20 is the ip address for jira, as well as confluence. A jira
account is created at the same time as the OpenVPN and it is the
same cridentials.

3) If you want to get to the story board, you click on Work

2) We use Greenhopper with Jira for our Agile Story boards,

planning as well as reporting. You start by going to Agile
and
selecting your project.

4) If you want to see reports such as burndown or velocity chart

for the team, you click on Report

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Scrum at Altisource
How do you get to Jira , story board, reports
1) 10.0.0.20 is the ip address for jira, as well as confluence. A jira
account is created at the same time as the OpenVPN and it is the
same cridentials.

3) If you want to get to the story board, you click on Work

2) We use Greenhopper with Jira for our Agile Story boards,

planning as well as reporting. You start by going to Agile
and
selecting your project.

4) If you want to see reports such as burndown or velocity chart

for the team, you
click on Report

5) You need OpenVPN to access the 10.0.0.20 address (see figure

below). OpenVPN should be already setup on your laptop.

6) Email Scott McDonald for a Jira account,

McDonald, John S <John.McDonald@altisource.com>

6) There is an external link to access Jira: 107.21.20.81

5.1 Go to Program Files and select OpenVPN

5.2 Go to the bottom right corner, right click on the small red monitor icon and select
connect

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Daily Standups
We work with Romania and India, so our scrums are all in
the morning

Some are all through the goto meeting, sharing the screen
and showing the electronic story board in Jira. For that one,
everyone calls in from their desks (Rules Management and
Credit Reporting for right now)

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Daily Standups
Some have a combined scrum, in that case, we use goto
meeting and share the Jira electronic board, but we also
have a physical board, which gets updated during the daily
scrum (Core Entities team)
There are many other Agile Teams outside of REALServicing
(including REALRemit, REALTrans, REALDoc. (a ~6 hour
quarterly demo of all the products is avaialble here
\\bos-as-server\D\Quately Product Demos\January_2014
At the moment, we have two REALFoundation teams.
One local (mainly Boston), plus Roy Russo in Atlanta.
They use the physical board and just open a conference
MEETME# for Roy Russo

One team in Endava

This one is over the phone with the goto meeting
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MEETME#
MeetMe # is different from the Gotomeeting . It is used for
the audio only.
Some meetings use gotomeeting for the video, combined
with MeetMe for the audio
It can only be opened up from the office, but you can dial
into it from outside
TO
1.
2.
3.

OPEN UP MeetMe# :
Go to your office phone
Open up the line
Click on the more button (forth small button in the center
of the phone)
4. Select MeetMe button
5. Enter your MeetMe # (example 270717)
TO CALL INTO A MeetME conference:
From Outside, MEETME: Dial (770) 612-7007 - 1 - 270717 Page | 23

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Sprint Reviews
We have a combined Sprint Review for the REALServicing
NextGen teams.
These are internal so far
It happens every other week on a Wednesday morning

Feedback is very important! The Product Owners listen to

the feedback and add user stories to the general or the
release backlog for further consideration
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Retrospectives
We have retrospectives for each team at the end of each
sprint
Florian is the Scrum Master for the Romania Foundations
team, as well as the Credit Reporting Team.
Florian.Georgescu@endava.com
Luba Sakharuk is the Scrum Master for the local
Foundations team
Oleg Vitsev is the Scrum Master for the Rules Management
Team
The retrospective minutes are posted on the confluence, as
well as on the physical story boards.
There is a page on confluence which has each teams

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