Bonn Agile Meetup - May and June 2015

Wow, it's hard to find the time and motivation to write these blog posts after the meetups have taken place :)

So here's quickly, just for the record:

We had a big crowd attending Andreas' talk about User Story Mapping in June. You can find some pictures and links from the events via the Google+ event page. Thanks to Data-in-Transit for hosting us in their brand new lovely offices!

#Frankenbadplatz-Rückblick: Ebenfalls 2012: Das erste @bonnagile Meetup bei uns zu Mobile Apps #DITumzug #Bonn pic.twitter.com/4enY7OibKI

— Data in Transit GmbH (@dataintransit) March 25, 2015

In June we had a smaller meetup, but still a full coding dojo of a group doing mob-driven development. It was a lot of fun, so we forgot to take pictures! But you can find some links of what we were doing in the mailing list thread (German).

The upcoming meetup will be a beer-garden meetup, if the sun keeps shining. It's now on Tuesday, and you can find out more on the Xing event.

Bonn Agile Meetup - April 2015: Cynefin Framework

For our last meetup, I suggested we take a closer look at the Cynefin Framework. Perhaps you've heard about it, or maybe not, but this seems to be one of the big up and coming terms in the agile world, and it is also present in other communities as well (project management, DevOps, etc).

If you want to learn more about what the framework is, have a look at the resources below (and the resources they again link to). For this post, it suffices to say that the creator of the framework Dave Snowden, and I think it is a very generic, perspective/world-view framework, rather than one that tells you what do exactly.

I personally grew really curious when I read some agile coaches discussing the Cynefin course on a mailing list some months ago. So I set myself the goal of holding a brief intro to the framework at our own meetup, and started consuming as much info on Cynefin as I could:

• http://yi-tan.com/wagn/Navigating_Complexity - Podcast episode, interview with Snowden with some deep discussion.
• https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making - Very good article that perhaps spawned a lot of the interest around Cynefin there is today.
• https://www.youtube.com/user/CognitiveEdge/featured  - Various videos introducing Cynefin.

And then I found some more:

• http://theagilerevolution.com/2012/06/05/episode-33-cynefin/ - Podcast episode, light introduction.
• https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/4261-cynefin - Liz Keogh discusses Cynefin (1 hour video)
• http://foodfightshow.org/2015/01/complexity-theory-and-cynefin.html - Dave Snowden on the Food Fight Show (YouTube/podcast)
• http://systemicinsight.libsyn.com/an-interview-with-dave-snowden - Podcast interview with Snowden

And more by Liz Keogh:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIYwfpyviI8 - LLKD14 - Cynefin in Action
• http://lizkeogh.com/2012/03/11/cynefin-for-devs/ - (Also see her other related posts).

So, after having heard through some of the podcast episodes many times (I needed to hear through them repeatedly before I started to grok the discussion), I put together an adaptation of a workshop I found described the webpages of Cognitive Edge, which is Snowden's company. You can sign up for free there to get at some of the resources. Unfortunately, they re-implemented their website right after the meetup took place, and now I can't log in there for some reason.

The workshop was pretty straight forward. We met in a bar and...

• We split into 3 tables, each of which were going to roleplay being the managers of a small company. 
• I set some context for the company (what kind of employees, what they produce, etc), but left most up to the imagination of the participants.
• Each team of managers were instructed to discuss incoming "problems" they had to deal with, by placing them in the Cynefin framework's categories.
• I started feeding the teams one by one, giving them a few minutes to discuss each one, before I gave them a new problem. I had prepared these problems up front, but as I didn't have any reference from Cognitive Edge, I just made some up - not really sure if they were well suited to the task. Some examples:
• The company has been selected for a tax audit
• Our product needs to get certified
• The canteen food is horrible
• A customer nearly died while using our product
• Average employee sick days are "too high" (more than 10 a year)
• We're introducing SAP in our production/ordering pipeline
• The teams were told not to solve the problems, merely to place them in the Cynefin framework.
• Each problem was noted down on a post it, placed on the table, and were decorated with two arrows:
• red arrow -> which direction the problem is headed if we do nothing
• green arrow- > which direction we want to manage the problem
• After all the problems had been placed, we swapped around positions to hear how the other teams had categorized their own problems for some more discussion.

There wasn't really any correct answers for any of these, but I found it really interesting, and I guess that is one of the key goals of Cynefin, how the managers had to separate complicated problems from complex ones. It was also interesting to see how trying to see the problems from the various perspectives, different solutions would pop into my head.

The minus about using this fictional company, instead of using it in a real company, internally, is that the context was somewhat artificial. I hope nonetheless that we got some valuable practice in how to make use of the framework when we go back to our day-jobs.

I certainly have started seeing more things now in light of the Cynefin perspective, not so much in my job, but more when I look at why large companies and governments are having problems with their massive IT projects. I also see the same trend in education. It seems society as a whole is trying way to much to treat things as if they were in the complicated domain, when actually they should be dealt with as complex issues.

The other key learning for me was that an agile process like Scrum, operates by iterating on features moving us from complex into more ordered systems (by implementing "constraining" software). But sometimes, we actually want to shake things up a little, and move existing systems out of the ordered space, to see what things can be improved upon, and we don't really have a technique for that in our agile methods. All in all, I think Cynefin is a fresh breath of air into the agile community, which has been pretty stagnant the last years. Perhaps we could need a bit of chaos and complexity in our methods.

I also hope that we can get some more knowledgeable Cynefin coach to visit us some time, and give us a proper talk/workshop on the subject. If you know one, or if you are one, let me know!

Bonn Agile im 2015: Call to Action

Es ist wieder soweit!

Ich glaube ich spreche für die übrigen Moderatoren, wenn ich mich bei euch allen für die Teilnahme an den Meetups dieses Jahr bedanke. Es war wieder ein tolles Jahr mit sehr unterschiedlichen und guten Inhalten. Besonderen Dank an Jutta und Data in Transit für die wiederholte Gastfreundschaft. Herzlichen Dank an Moderator Michael Kutz, der uns über die Jahre mit Vorträgen und Locations versorgt hat. Er wird sich jetzt ein bisschen mehr auf Köln und Kinder konzentrieren :)

Damit haben wir auch für nächstes Jahr ein “Call to Action”: Wir brauchen Moderatoren! Wünschenswert wären für 2015 sechs Moderatoren, so dass wir insgesamt mehr Energie für die Inhalte der Meetups aufbringen können.

Jan Nonnen, Christoph Baudson, Andreas Kluth und ich machen als Moderatoren weiter. Das heisst, wir brauchen noch zwei neue Leute im Moderatoren-Team.

Die Rolle des Moderators erfordert nicht viel Arbeit. Ihr organisiert ein oder zweimal im Jahr ein Meetup in folgenden Schritten:

1) Thema wählen. Normalerweise stammen die Ideen dazu aus vorraus gegangenen Meetups, oder von der Mailing Liste.

2) Passende Location wählen. Wir haben einige Alternativen schon aufgelistet [1].

3) Xing Event erzeugen

4) Event ankündigen auf Twitter, usw. [2]

5) Beim Event anwesend sein und sicherstellen, dass alles rund läuft.

Wenn das für euch machbar klingt, und ihr aktiv das Vorantreiben des Bonn Agile Meetups unterstützen möchtest, oder wenn ihr noch Fragen habt, fragt auf der Mailing Liste, oder schickt mir direkt eine Email: tfnico@gmail.com

Wir fangen nächsten Jahr an im Februar, mit einem Meetup am 3. Februar (Coding Dojo vielleicht?). 

Bis dann, genießt die Feiertage, und kommt gut ins neue Jahr!

Liebe Grüße,

Thomas

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/bonnagile/map

[2] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JiyMXeXlu14wzJJGQoXntk-YK3PR1D4mjbGo1HsJC00/pub

Bonn Agile Meetup - October 2014: Docker

Thanks to all who attended the October meetup! Especially +Matthias Lübken and +Timo Derstappen from Giant Swarm for doing the talks on Docker. And once again (seriously, I doubt there would still be a Bonn Agile without them): Data in Transit for hosting. Head over to Google+ to see some more pics from the event.

Some tweets from the event:

mind blown by @teemow and @luebken at @bonnagile ... thanks for the inspiring talk and all the best for @giantswarm ! pic.twitter.com/efKeHaVDAO
— Christoph Baudson (@sustainablepace) October 7, 2014

Heute über 30 Leute zum #Docker intro beim @bonnagile. #devops #bonn pic.twitter.com/xGVhbLX170
— Data in Transit GmbH (@dataintransit) October 7, 2014

Topics included: What is a http://12factor.net/ app. How to build and run an app in a docker container. Why coreos and mesos would make sense.

Bonn Agile Sommerfest 2014

Posting this a bit late but: Thanks to all who attended the Sommerfest! Head over to the Google+ event to see some pictures from the event. For those who want to learn more about, or repeat the Marshmallow Challenge, go to http://marshmallowchallenge.com to find instructions and interesting info.

Some tweets from the event:

Marshmallow challenge crunch time #bonnagile pic.twitter.com/lrbsSikkyn
— Christoph Baudson (@sustainablepace) September 2, 2014

Reached the kindergarten childs average size at @bonnagile marshmallow challenge. pic.twitter.com/xLZFee9ai7
— Benjamin Eberlei (@beberlei) September 2, 2014

Bonn Agile Meetup Juli 2014: Cargo-Kult Agil (Diskussion)

Bilder:

Noch ein Paar Bilder sind auf Google+.

Diskussionsergebnisse (Stichwörter, ich hätte leider nicht die Zeit um das schöner zu schreiben, aber ich bitte um "reblogs" wo die Ergebnisse tiefer diskutiert werden :)

The Team Players (Blau)

“Individuals & interactions over processes & tools”

Motivation, agile Einführung zu verhindern?

Entwickler:

- wird ersetzbar

- Kontroll-/Statusverlust

- agile Arbeitsweise passt nicht zur eigenen Persönlichkeit

CEO:

- Investition im Wandel (Infrastruktur, Fortbildung)

- Bestehende Verträge und Service Level können nicht eingehalten werden

- Team wird aufgewertet, Individuen weniger ausbeutbar

- Kulturwandel steht im Konflikt zu Geschäftsmodell

Projektleiter:

- Kontroll- / Machtverlust

- Lernaufwand

- Fehler werden schneller sichtbar und transparent

- Mehr Interaktionen, mehr Arbeit

- Mehr Verantwortung

Wie werden agile Entwickler enttäuscht?

- Retrospektiven fuktionieren nicht, kein Lerneffekt

- Agiler Einzelkämpfer

- Fehlendes Team Commitment

- Freiräume nicht vorhanden

- Fehlende Wertschätzung

- Kurzfristige Erfolge bleiben aus

The Techies (Rot)

“Working software over comprehensive documentation”

Top 5: Was sind Anzeichen schlechte Umsetzung dieser Wörter?

- Fehlende “extr.. Programmers”

- Kein investment in Werkzeuge Geschwindigkeit

- Verbesserung Qualität

- Viel Upfront Planning

- Fehlende Dokumentation

- Veraltete Dokumentation

- Dokumentation mit falschem Fokus, viel zu detailiert

Top5: Unagile Architektur

- Single author on components

- “Wildwuchs and Schnittstellen” da fehlende oder späte Integration

- Keine Tests / kein Buildsystem

kein automatisches Deployment

- Hohe Anzahl und Regressionsfehler

- Verhältnis Wartung/Neue Features schlecht

- Maximale Buzz Word Dichte im Code

The Change Agents (Grün)

“Responding to change over following a plan”

Top 5 Zeichen die gutes Planning?

- Nur Estimates zwischen 2 und 3 :( Keine Diskussion)

- Schätzungen für Zahlen statt Einigkeit

- Mittelwertbildung von Schätzungen

- Commitment nach Zahlen/Velocity

- Unverhersagbare Velocity

- DoD wird im Planning vergessen

Welchen Agilen Praktiken können ohne echte Änderung eingeführt werden?

- Commitment ohne Kontrolle/unechtes Commitment

- SPrins mit Q/t & Rev-Phase (QA nachgelagert)

The Product Owners (Gelb)

“Customer Collaboration over negotiation”

Ankündigung von Features vor der Entwicklung

- Marketing verspricht einen langfristigen-Konkreten Horizont (Abgesondter)

- Kunde ist nur am Anfang und Ende Projekte involviert (während der Iteration nicht involviert)

- Mehr als einen PO bzw. einen PO der nur ein Strohmann ist

- Ticket Explosion (lange lead-times)

- Keine Bestellung eines fixierten Scopes ) Lastenheft  kaschiert als Backlog=

- Fehlendes Vertrauen in das Team/fehlende Transparenz

- Sprint gescheitert weil im Review Plötzlich andere Anforderungen auftauchen

PO

In einer erfolgreichen Agilen Entw. Wie ändert sich der Arbeitsaltag des PO mit dem Sales Guys?

- Meeting mit Kunden

- Zeichen von schlechter Implementierung

(PO gibt die Macht auf täglich zu ändern)

Bonn Agile Blog coming back to life!

Nearly a year ago, we decided to cease posting on this blog, hoping that the more interactive channels like the mailing list, Xing and Google+ would suffice as places to find hints of Bonn Agile activity.

However, at a recent meetup we figured that it's a bit sad that we don't have an open public web page where people can see what's going on.

Therefore, we've decided to push some life back into the blog by writing regular post-meetup-posts with pictures and a short summary. At the same time we're setting up blog.bonnagile.de as a new domain for it.

In case you're wondering what we've been up to, here's a quick recap of what went down since the last blog post in July last year:

• August (2013): Bonn Agile Sommerfest (Google+ event with pictures, Xing event)
• October: Testen und Qualitätssicherung in agilen Projekten (Google+, Xing)
• November: Automated cross browser testing with JavaScript/DalekJS (Google+, Xing)
• December: DevOps für Entwickler (Google+, Xing)
• January (2014): Bar Meetup with open space discussions (Google+, Xing, notes)
• February: Technical debt discussion panel (Google+, Xing, notes/results)
• March: Motivationstheorie (Google+, Xing)
• April: Crowdgovernance, agile teams im driver seat (Google+, Xing)
• May: Bar meetup (Xing)
• May/June: Software-Reviews – im Wasserfall entstanden und trotzdem agil? (Google+, Xing)
• June: Bonn Agile moderator meetup (results)

Next meetup will be 1st of July. Follow Bonn Agile on Twitter or Google+ to be notified when it's announced! Or just join the Xing group or mailing list. After the meetup, we'll write another post here!