Too many cooks! Supporting augmented teams without getting salty

alright guys welcome to too many cooks

supporting augmented teams about getting

salty my name is Stephanie I'll be our

presenter for the duration of this

session as you could tell from the great

high music that I had playing before we

started there are some good things and

some bad things about too many cooks one

of the good things is that they have

theme music the bad thing is the rest of

the session so Hugh get started let's

talk about selfie um I learned after I

had presented after I'd submitted this

session that some people didn't know

what that meant apparently it is a newer

word so I provided the definition so

that we're all on the same page about

what this means to be upset we're bitter

to feel darkness

in your belly when you are encountering

this thing that is upsetting you is to

feel salty typically not a positive

thing and associated with poor

experiences just set the stage for

intersession so to give you also an idea

for people who are not familiar with

augmented teams I found a video that can

better describe or show in the wild and

what an Augmented team can look like and

why you would want to have one

[Music]

disappears just get our ears so the

takeaways from that is that one team was

not able to solve the problem on their

own and so they needed to bring in a

second or augmented team to support them

okay in the what so so this is pretty

normal like you have it all in all kinds

of instances you can have a web

development you can have it in the

criminal justice system it's very

diverse and all over and they just don't

always call it Augmented teams but

they're all over so let me tell you a

little bit about myself so that you know

why I am capable of standing up here and

telling you about augmented teams I'm a

project manager for amazing lens amazing

loves it a web development agency here

well not here in Austin Texas

Zurich Switzerland and Cape Town South

Africa we've been around for seven years

we just don't know ten years we just had

our amazing 10 last year and as you can

tell I'm into trashy TV dramas involving

crime oh yeah so before when I've done

presentations I've I tend to stick kind

of to the same subject they talk about

touchy feely things rather than like

tangible take away a type of things

either because of my role as a project

manager or just because it's really hard

to say here's a specific thing go and

take this and apply it to your lives

because everybody's situation is very

different so I tend to be more like

here's a general combination of words

let's try to get you to internalize them

adapt them to your life so when I first

did a presentation I did it on

recruiting entertaining volunteers you

can basically change out volunteers to

be teams because the components and the

elements of that are all very similar

you want to make sure that the people

that you're working with they're awesome

you want to make sure that they're also

very happy and you want to make sure

that they have a great team dynamic

working together the second talk I did

was how amazing Labs in an agile it took

us like two years to learn how to do it

I think we're in a pretty good place so

this third talk is kind of an

amalgamation of those two things being

put to the test with an outside

influence and odd when two team that we

started working with so I kind of like

how all my topics merged together like I

mentioned before your mileage may vary

with with the content of my talk

obviously it's very specific to my

situation but there should be a lot of

things that are similar to your work

life as a note this is the actual terms

and conditions from drupal.org take

their moment to really wait a minute so

a little bit more about amazing labs

just to get a good idea of what we do we

are distributed and we're used to

working with people from different

countries we have people in three hubs

but we actually have employees all over

the world we have a guy in Tunisia I

don't know where that is but I know that

it's far so we're used to working

remotely and we're used to working with

people with different backgrounds

different time zones like all kinds of

things that would normally make like

daily life confusing awkward difficult

until you figure it out that's our

normal life and so we kind of have a

step up I think from a lot of agencies

who might just have companies who are

all in the same location and so that

makes working as a

an Augmented team a lot more easier

because you've already figured out some

of those hard things along the way so

how do you know if you want to augment

your team so when I first presented this

people felt that it meant if amazing you

wanted to augment their team and that's

not what this is about so this is from

the client side of hiring so this is the

flow chart of I have either eternal web

agency or I have an eternal dev team or

not

ODS already have an internal dev team

and you have a big project coming up

that you want to release and so now

you're stuck with this this decision

tree of do I want to add to my team who

do I want to hire someone or do I want

to pay someone else to come and kind of

pick this up for me so the decision tree

says do I have enough internal resources

to do this yes does my team have the

skill necessary to make this happen

because you might have tons of bodies

but like if they don't know how to do

for example react and you're trying to

do or we have project your to do that

and so you want to bring someone in if

you don't have the resource to do it or

you have the resources but they're busy

doing something else you might want to

bring in an external team as well just

to make sure that you can accomplish the

project another option is actually

bringing in freelancers but if you

already don't have the resources because

the because your internal team is busy

with other things and you don't have

time to onboard a freelancer or babies

of the freelancer then you also want to

think about bringing an external team

who can work independently yeah so it's

like my teens so before you can start

adding other people to your team you

need to kind of know what the dynamic is

of your own team so amazing a lot of

Austin works very differently from

amazing lab Zurich and amazing labs Cape

Town we know this and for that reason

when we start doing intercompany work we

know specifically like what quirks that

we need to incorporate to make that

work-life transition easier so for

example with our team we have a very

specific set of scrum rituals that we

follow they're very just ever so

slightly from our other teams on Mondays

we do specification of planning which is

our review of all the things that need

to be done or talking about those on

Tuesday we do all of our normal scrum

rituals like sprint planning and sprint

estimation and retrospective and so we

have like we also do daily stand-ups so

we have these things in our everyday

life that kind of set the rhythm of what

we do during a sprint which is two weeks

for us and so everyone kind of knows the

role that they play in that we have a

scrum master we have a regular dev team

who kind of do diverse things we've got

a designer and then we have me who plays

the role of p.m. they have POS like it's

the same thing so don't worry about it

so the other thing about our team is

that we do certain things because we

know how the other people on the team

interact like we know that if we want to

have someone do a technical design

review we take it to X person you want

to have someone do the very back in

heavy tech review we take it to another

person so we're all very comfortable

with each person's role in the team so

that we kind of work like a well-oiled

machine we don't think about it it's

like when you go to a kitchen if you're

in a well-run kitchen in a restaurant

you won't hear them talking they just

sort of know when you know so-and-so has

the oven open they do this when

so-and-so has a knife in their hand they

do this it says all very like musical

and really nice to watch when you go

into the kitchen and they're people

shouting at each other and fires and

things like that if you know that they

don't have that same kind of rhythm and

so the first scenario is kind of what

you want your team

to be like you want them to be calm and

know what everyone is doing and be able

to just kind of trust that everyone is

taking care of their parts so when you

bring in people who are not part of your

team or are new so think about like the

last time you hired someone and you

brought that person into your team they

always bring things that are unique to

themselves so they might leave comments

in JIRA tickets differently they might

not use gifts I don't know you hire them

but they might not use gifts like each

person when you bring them in has quirks

and that those courts that they bring in

change the dynamic of your team and so

like if you've ever seen a company's

hiring they usually try not to hire big

groups of people at one time because we

do that you can either dilute like the

company culture that you currently have

going on in good or bad ways usually bad

ways but it makes it so that when people

come in they don't know which culture

that they're watching that they should

be absorbing so the same thing happens

with one person you bring them in and

what you want to do is you want to make

them as like as part of your team as

quickly as possible without disrupting

the rest of the team

so with augmented teams you basically

take that one new hire and you like

instantly grow it so instead of bringing

in one new person you have to make like

follow your way of life you have five

six seven eight new people and that's

what happens to us so when you bring in

an Augmented team it's basically The

Brady Bunch you have one team one family

he's used to doing things in a certain

way and you have another team or another

family used to doing things in a

different way and they might be similar

you might both do Christmas but one of

them does Christmas presents on

Christmas Eve the other might do in on

Christmas morning one one of the

families might do brunch on Sundays the

other one might sleep in so you have

very similar starting sending

circumstances but when you combine them

you get problems you get fights you get

people who are wondering why this person

thought it was okay to get skim milk

instead of 2% milk people get upset and

you have her feelings and all of these

things are simple miscommunications and

just a matter of like figuring out how

to make them not affect your life so

badly but at the beginning it's always

going to be problematic so needless to

say when we started our Augmented

project we made a lot of mistakes we

learned the hard way that when you bring

in a new team that things change the

dynamic of the team teams changed and

the way that you currently do your work

will mean adjustments like you want to

be able to continue life as it was so

I'm very Pro augmenting teams now but at

the time of this of this project I felt

very differently so the presentation is

going to be a lot of here's what we did

maybe don't do that then here's how we

resolve it at the end and no cats were

actually harmed in the making this so

the first mistake

is that we made assumptions about what

it was going to be like to work with

this other team when we normally bring

on a new project we kind of give the

ground rules we go in and we say hey

we're amazing love's here's how we do

things

chairs bla bla bla bla we're gonna

follow all of these steps and at the end

you're gonna get a website right yay and

we try doing that with this project and

we forgot that the other team hadn't

ever been on the project with us before

and so all these things that we thought

that were just normal in the way of

doing business

hadn't been communicated to them and so

the first thing we did wrong is we said

give us one person on your team who's

going to be the product owner for your

team and whoever that person is is gonna

be the one point of contact that we

talked to to make decisions and to tell

us what we're going to be building and

go up a lot and it made sense to us like

you want to have one point of contact

that you're talking to you so that

you're not having like 50 people tell

you what to do the problem is is that

that person heard what we were looking

for and interpreted it through their way

of doing business and we were given the

wrong person we found this out a few

months into the project so yeah so that

was the first biggest problem that we

encountered and the rest of the mistakes

we made kind of fall out of this being

that decision so when you have a project

you want to make sure it's versus my

project manager project miners

perspective is that you know who's

driving the bus and this is not the same

as who's in charge there is a difference

you want to have one person who makes

sure that like the notes are done that

there's a repository for things that

like the the notes are picked up and

that everyone's kind of on the same page

for things and you also want to have one

person who to say yes to know two things

and we didn't have any of that defined

the problem was is that on our side we

had

and on their side they have to PM's one

of those PM's was also the PIO and so we

had three people all who are supposed to

kind of do the same thing and all who

weren't doing the same thing and so like

balls were getting dropped and people

were getting confused about whose role

was what and it was also really

difficult for the people who are also in

the two teams to know who to look to

when there was question or should we

move forward with this are we okay with

the budget it was really problematic and

it wasn't just at the PA level and the

PM level this was happening so on the

project said we had eight people who

attended all the meetings and at the

beginning we knew who won their roles

were because they had titles but we

didn't actually know what those roles

meant because no one was playing their

part at these meetings that we were

having because it wasn't clear what

everyone should be doing at those

meetings so what was happening is that

there was no direct there was no one to

look at when when decisions needed to be

made and so people would offer up

suggestions and be like well what about

this what about this and it made it very

difficult for people to for us to move

forward with the project which is very

no one wanted to step on anyone elses

toes no one wanted to be the leader it

just was a mess the other problem is

that we spent a lot of time building

array see if you know what array C is

it's responsible a terrible something

something totally useless because it's

document that if you don't look at and

you go use it's just something that you

build and then you put it away and then

no one ever looks at it and it's a huge

waste of time but it gave people an idea

that they did have a role which was also

confusing because we never actually

referenced those roles that we did in

Tracy so that you've had this guidebook

that existed in somewhere and then you

have real life that wasn't matching up

with the documentation so the other

problem is that we didn't know we were

going so if we look at this

we had a team that we had to do her we

had people telling us what to do kind of

and we also knew that at the end of the

project we need to be able to deliver

something that the client could use the

problem was is that there was no defined

end goal which sounds very odd usually

that's something that you would have but

there was this idea that everyone knew

what was going on but no one actually

knew what was going on the problem was

is that they had a checklist of all the

things that they wanted to have done and

we kept saying is this in priority order

and they would say yes but the problem

was is that everything was a priority

was just a matter of it what hit the

spreadsheet first none of it was

actually prioritized by this must happen

all of it must happen and it was a very

very very long list so what was

happening is that we look back at the

beginning all those people who didn't

have an actual defined role all those

people who didn't know whether or not

they had the authority to tell people

what to do or to say hey maybe you

should keep working on that you just did

so what was happening is that the dev

team was constantly pushing out work and

they were giving it to people to look at

and saying is this what you wanted and

depending on who they gave it to you the

person either said yes that's what I

wanted or no can you add a new button or

no can you make this blue or this thing

should be taller over here and so kind

of the dev team being like okay well I

know one said I shouldn't do that so I'm

gonna do that we go spend time on this

and so we spent so many hours working on

stuff that at the end of the day like

nobody cared and it was going to change

anyway and so we went into wasting all

this time that could have been spent

like building actual things for the

project the other problem there was a

lot is how are we going to get to the

end so everyone had an idea of what we

were building but there was no defined

have to get there so going back to the

idea of everything in the checklist is a

priority things were getting handed to

the team in saying who cares go ahead

and build this here go ahead and build

this care go ahead and build this and

the team was picking up tickets and

doing the work it was kind of like

blindfold and carpenters and saying

you'll go in here and build the basement

and then this other person is going to

be over here like painting a window what

there's no way to know what's actually

being built because there's no big

picture there's no way to say like okay

we're building the basement because the

next thing we're gonna do is build a

first floor it was I'm building a

basement and you're doing that so I

think it's a house but I don't know so

it was very confusing and it was really

good tightening because the team never

knew how close we were to the finish

line it was just a matter of being like

well I I think eventually this will look

like something and everyone would be

happy the other problem is that

decisions were being made in

documentation and decisions cannot be

made in documentation unless there's

people associated with it who know that

those decisions are being made and then

they're being documented and where the

documentation actually is so what was

happening is that some people had a big

picture and they were writing it down

and they were updating confluence and

they were relying on confluences

notifications that something had been

updated to inform the rest of the team

that a decision had been made which if

you're familiar with mature confluence

you get a thousand emails

anytime someone does anything you're

never gonna see that documentation

change the other problem is that if

you're writing something down and then

having other people read it and hoping

that they realize is that you get

absolutely no consensus you have one

person two people maybe sitting in a

room saying here's the thing that we're

gonna build and then handing it off to a

tinea and hoping that there's nothing

wrong with what they're putting on paper

and if you've ever worked with the team

like even if you're looking at a design

for the home page you're gonna find 50

things wrong with that you always need

to make sure that you talk to people and

that wasn't happening

[Music]

the other problem is is that going back

to that idea of prioritization is that

we were so proud we were doing agile

like amazing does agile we are so proud

of you to do this

clients get what they want and the team

was really happy but that was not

actually what was happening we were

taking all of these books what was

happening is that we were getting all

the tickets through the end of the

project were written before we even

started the project which if you've done

a project didn't have the way that's a

huge no-no because things change

in an agile project while you're working

on something you might have been told

hey we really have a contact form but as

you're developing as you're designing

you might be like you know what contact

forms are hugely outdated let's never do

that and then it's gone so there's like

remove from your your cheer installation

so that was what was happening here is

that we had so we do in our juris system

we've got the current sprints the next

sprint and maybe a third follow-up

sprint just kind of help get arms around

like lots of big ticket items but what

was happening is that we had 12 sprints

identified in JIRA and like each of

those Sprint's had like a block of

tickets that are supposed to happen

during each of those and the tickets

have been written by someone who's using

very for me archaic like terminology for

everything and so we would look now 12

sprints in the future and say I don't

know what this ticket is I have no idea

what statistic it is but we're gonna

have to deliver it because that's

apparently what we've committed to so

meanwhile amazing sitting there trying

to say okay well we have 12 sprints we

can make it work we know what Sprint's

are let's let's scare arms around this

and we will keep being agile and this is

fine this is fine this is what was

actually

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so needless to say the team was very

stressed out so let's let's recap where

we've already come from so we were

working with a project team there was

eight of them we were delivering

something we had just made it through

the first of three increments of

delivery so something was already being

pushed to production and being used by

people so we made it that far we didn't

fail the first increment um but we were

still doing what we've been doing there

was no real plan we didn't know what

incoming 2 & 3 really looked like we

knew that there was spreadsheets with

words on them and eventually somehow we

were gonna figure out how to do it and

when with the people that we had and

also during this entire thing we had

learned react because we hit sup you

know this thing that you're trying to

build it can be done in Drupal but it

shouldn't be done in Drupal because

there's all these things involved so

let's let's learn react so that we can

build this and react and that you can

have a cool new toy so this picture like

learning a new technology a time box of

this is due in like 9 months from now

and also everything is like low-key on

fire it was not sustainable the whole

team was like look if we're gonna keep

doing this something needs to change and

the good thing is is that the other team

also felt the same way so we did

something as a project manager and

someone who's responsible for the income

of our company absolutely terrifying

we stopped the project we literally

stopped the project in November the the

deliverable is due in April for the

entire month of December an entire month

in the middle of critical parts of our

project we didn't do anything because we

were like you know what we cannot keep

building that that thing Tamar's like

that's just not gonna work this isn't

for anyone we have no idea like what's

coming we need to stop and so what we

did is you brought everyone Austin

so everybody that we were working with

it was all living in a different state

and so everything to be were doing with

them was all done remotely and for the

most part that works fine most of our

clients are not even in Texas but the

problem was is that a lot of the people

that we were working with we made the

assumption coming back to assumptions

but they don't work together before we

found out that the company is so big

that like maybe two of them who had

actually worked together before and so

they didn't actually have a team dynamic

at least in the way that we were

expecting and so they are also low-key

saddening like what is happening I've

never been on at web projects before

like why does it seem like no one knows

what's going on why does it seem like I

don't know what's happening next there

was because it was but they didn't know

that because they hadn't done this a

pillar and so we brought everyone down

to Austin for a two-day and we had a lot

of really great talks and I think the

biggest thing that that made this work

for us was that they wanted the change

and we wanted to change and so everyone

was super open to the idea of saying we

did things one way before and we're

never gonna do that again so we did what

is hugely critical in agile and had a

huge retrospective and this was the

first time that people on this project

on the other side at least had ever

gotten to voice their their sadness so

it was a really good bloodletting

moments where everyone kind of bonded

together and they were like you hate

this - I hate this okay great and we

also had this thing of like if you're

sad about something and you don't

verbalize this is making me sad you

can't be sad about it like you have to

say this is bumming me up I never want

to do this again so that we can say oh

that is bumming you out let's fix that

and this was a huge way of getting that

team together and saying these kinds of

things because they're very corporate

company and that's just not something

that is done and then with our side to

actually have that interaction with

other people and say hey like we're not

perfect we're not trying to tell you

think we're trying to sell you a really

good product that you're happy with but

we also want you to be happy with it

like during the entire process so then

the next thing that we did was everyone

had kumbaya hadn't done all the hubs

around the circle has there we got

everybody on the bus so in my very first

talk about volunteers

I had a analogy about getting everybody

in the boat the same thing this will

just have more magic to it but the idea

is that you want your team to be in sync

you want people to be on the same page

with things you want people to feel

invested in what's happening because

they know what's happening and they feel

like they actually have a role to play

in it and this was it was critical for

us to move forward to say like let's all

agree that this is what we're going to

be doing the first thing that we did is

that we we enforce that building a

website is not like building a house

like people always use this example of

like building website click building a

house if you can decide that you want a

basement and a pool or whatever yeah you

can if you want to refactor and spend a

bunch of money on going back and doing

things that you did before because you

didn't know if there was supposed to be

a pool in the basement so so this is

like my example of you know yeah you've

got two windows but they look like that

because if you would have just told us

that you wanted second-story windows or

they'd have known that you wanted the

second-story we could have built it so

that it looked like a house I'm not just

the combination of weird elements that

do things so once we got that out of the

way we were like let's not like go and

look at it as though something we can

just add on later building a website is

like a road trip you're getting from

point A to point B and you can stop as

many times as you want and you can

change direction as many times as you

want as long as you're ending up at the

place that you want to be you can also

change where you want to be but that

will change the project the other thing

is that when you're doing the road trip

you only have so much money so much gas

and only so much time if you want to go

to Disneyland and like bring your kids

or whatever and you're gonna be there

for two days you cannot do everything in

same thing with a road trip you can do

like five things maybe you might be able

to get to ride the roller coaster three

times but you have to prioritize before

I leave I'm gonna get on that roller

coaster you're three times and spend

five hours in the Sun that's how it's

gonna be

so the same thing with a road trip

whether you can be as fun as you want to

make it but you need to also know like

we're gonna start here we're gonna end

there there's some options but we also

need to be okay saying those options are

not maybe not gonna happen this time

with maybe we'll do a road trip in two

years so so going back to the vacation

analogy like this road trip thing is

very critical for like making decisions

in your everyday life like you can NVP

and everything like I can then BP my

grocery store like you go there and

you're like I don't want to stay in line

so I'm gonna make sure that whatever I

do gets me into the 15 or less like I'm

gonna go do this this and this I can get

past it next week

there's different ways you can just be

like it's not important like let's be

okay dropping Tania's off the balloon we

also defined who's driving we went

around and we were like okay

who wants to do this who's doing this

who's doing this other thing and then we

also brought the correct person or

people into the PIO role so it was very

apparent to us three months into the

project that we had picked the wrong

person to tell us he has to know two

things there was actually two people and

they were working in tandem for the

business to provide different sides

business logic and such to what we were

actually delivering and we didn't

realize how critical their role was

until we were waiting for sign off on

something and then they were and then we

heard like it's gonna be like two or

three weeks because they're on vacation

who's on vacation what oh the person

who's actually saying yes or no is not

part of this and so we had a

conversation that was like what is it

that you're building us I said you don't

know what we're building because we had

this middle person that was translating

what we were doing to the to the P the

visionaries who were the people who were

ultimately responsible for this

happening so there's this huge breakdown

of we thought the visionaries are being

informed this thing so we thought that

they were being informed of things and

like you would tell someone who was

interested like oh we're working on this

right now

okay how's that going what actually was

was the date hunt specific list of

things that they needed to have

accomplished they weren't getting that

list communicated anywhere and so they

were sitting in a room building like a

very beautiful mind situation that had

like stickies to the wall being like I

want this this and this and none of that

was being communicated to our Austin

office and so when we brought them into

Moonie brought them down dog

toss him we actually like basically had

everyone else shut up and we put the

visionaries in the front of the room and

we were like these next three hours of

yours tell us what you actually want

this project to be and they were floor

they were to them they hadn't even

occurred to them they had this critical

role also to their team what their team

didn't ever look at them and say like

you have this very critical role to the

success of the project

we need to give you like the respect

that that position deserves and put him

in front of the room and giving on this

platform was so critical to taking that

giant list of things and throwing it out

the window

we went from a list of probably 30 items

down to 12 all we had to do was just get

the right person like in front of people

and saying this is what I actually want

you to build for me so the other really

good thing about this is that it helps

everyone figure out what the role is

going to be in in one team unit rather

than just two teams who happen to be

showing bust together and so I look at

it as like you know you've got a soccer

team like not everyone can play goalie

so what are the roles that we're going

to be doing so that everything is kind

of filled and this this sit-down that we

had helped define all of those different

things so we knew that for example when

we're doing a ticket that's based on

design this person this person and this

person all have to see that ticket they

all have to sign off on it and in this

order they took our definition of done

in our tickets and it doubled it but it

made it so much clearer like what

happens to this ticket how does this

ticket make it out the door

the other thing that we did is we

figured out where we're going so we knew

what those 12 items were gonna be and we

also knew who could change that so now

that we have these two visionaries

identified we say here's the 12 things

that we're gonna do if we get to a

situation where we're like you know I

don't need that anymore or we get to a

situation we were like we need to go an

idiot rupees and if we don't have any

roofies this project is going to fail

like they're the people who can say

I'll make shame I'll shave things off

the MVP list to make this happen so now

we had a an actual point of contact who

could say yes no we also define where

we're not going we just find that we

were not going to be doing and that was

also hugely important because you have

have their own agenda of what they think

is critical for delivery and so when the

visionaries are sitting I'm saying you

know we don't need this then everyone's

aware of the fact that the visionaries

don't want it and so they don't have to

fight for it anymore and that they also

like if they actually wanted it for some

other reason they'll need to actually

sing words and say well it would be

really cool if we did this and then give

the visionaries a chance to say yeah

that's not our problem give it to

another project team for something else

to get delivered so it was really good

for their side to say like to make to

bubble up all of these potential

scenarios so that there was no-one

harboring a like secret thing that I'm

going to get accomplished through this

project which actually was the thing the

other thing I'm huge on verbalizing

decisions changes whatever and I hate

this phrase because it sounds like a

tour guide but it's so good like if

you're on a call like people tend to

like be on their laptops or they're you

know looking at email or whatever and so

you don't know if they're actually

listening even though they're physical

cousin and so what I do after any

decision is I say you know I just wrote

this thing down shares me sharing my

screen of this thing that I just wrote

down when I see heads nodding they agree

with this who don't like it you like it

okay we're moving on and that's like one

chance to say like I saw what you did

I'm an either agreeing or I'm not

agreeing but it's going back to this

thing about the retrospective if you

don't say anything your opinion doesn't

happen and this actually needs changed

how people look at the project who have

been attending the way that if you would

have watched the rooms like the video

calls you would have seen you know six

people on this side and six people on

this side most of whom are like checking

Facebook email whatever not paying

attention and just thinking of that

meeting as a huge waste of time but if

you look at the calls now people are

active because they know that if they're

not paying attention and they're saying

like passes them behind they don't get

to go back it really changed the dynamic

of these cubbies calls the other thing

is that we got into the specifics so we

had this the twelve lists of MVP items

and for us like we would assume that

when you want you know this thing

delivered that you all are on the same

page of what that actually means we

found out there was three items no one

agreed oh and so the idea that like

we're gonna deliver a home page for

example like some person thought that

like a home page was like a landing page

for a marketing campaign completely

different than what another person

thought it was going to be so we

actually got into the specifics of if

you want this deliver if you tell me

exactly what you think this is going to

be and what you want to have in it and

from that we were able to say okay you

want to have this thing delivered

normally when that thing gets delivered

it has XYZ components and if you get Z

component implemented that's gonna be

really expensive and probably like kick

one of your MVP items off do you still

want it and they actually got to go and

say oh I didn't realize everything to be

so complicated let's ditch that there's

no reason for that that's what we had

you know the last website we just

thought it was something that we needed

to carry through once they kind of

realized that that you know they're

twelve items were negotiable they

started getting into it and they were

like okay I get this is like

barter anything all right let's exchange

this and this and this and then once we

had our twelve done we were able to

actually pull from the remaining 30 and

like pull things from it and say okay we

have room now let's go ahead listen and

I started feeling empowered of what was

actually going to be built rather than

these like helpless people watching in

the bus go past the other thing is that

they were having meetings on their side

where things were being defined and that

wasn't being relayed back to us kind of

that idea of like you know they would

have a decision and they would build a

documentation they thought that if they

had been in a meeting that everyone had

just sort of osmosis the information but

what we learned like what we shared this

is that you know if you know it make

sure that the guy next to you knows it

it's not redundant if he doesn't know it

like make sure that you say it once and

you say it to the right people otherwise

we're gonna die in meetings like do it

want to do it right and then it's over

so now that were you know working

together we had to do we had to do

things that that a family would have to

do after they've been merged so we got

into everyday life rhythm one of those

things you can try this tonight at the

party was learning to speak the same

language so we all speak English as our

as our project language but you would

think that two teams who do agile say

the same thing we found out very quickly

that that's not the case for example we

use sprint to say two-week periods where

we produce work and give you ticket they

use time box that's I'm like it's not

like a you know huge difference but

that's one of many different different

uses of words that that can easily

derail progress another thing is like if

you're gonna say implement this what

does that mean does it mean build it

does it mean deem it what does it mean

so we learned to start breaking down

words the basic we similar start writing

down ideas into like the simplest words

to make sure that anybody who picked up

tickets would know exactly

what was going on to be able to agree

disagree in to say the same thing so win

from the idea of you know us versus them

to let's figure out how we can actually

work together and make the most out of

this as a result we learn how to share

which doesn't sound like a thing when

you're adults it's a huge thing when

you're adults and you're very

territorial of your like area of

expertise specifically me and my PMS we

learn how to work together we learn how

to say we would meet before meetings and

say hey we're going talk about this

where we talk about this we're gonna

talk about this who's gonna be in charge

who's leading us who's taking notes

because so that when we went in and we

had a united front with both teams and

we also knew like you were responsible

for this going forward I'm responsible

for this going for each person within

the PM group had their role we also

learned that we were not always going to

get our way and because everyone was

also not going to get their way it made

it a lot easier to move forward and say

your deployment sucks it makes me super

unhappy I'm gonna spend 17 hours with

merge conflicts and it's gonna like ruin

the productivity of this sprint but

that's the way it's going to be like

it's not gonna change cuz this make you

be sad so we learned how to deal with it

we still cry a little bit but it's

something that we internalize and said

you know what it's fine like out of all

the things that went wrong on the

project then they're going well now I

can take this for the team I can do that

the other thing is that you know when

we're when you're dealing with a big

company who wants something delivered

the easiest way to deliver something

sometimes is the way you want to deliver

it but then they've got business logic

that because of X Y & Z you have to do

this other complicated

things five other steps blah blah blah

not your way of doing it but you're

gonna do it and you're gonna like it

some of the things that you will not be

able to change like you're always gonna

have to deal with the Saturday morning

bike rides even though you wanna sleep

in the other thing and this is for me is

the biggest thing is that planning is

now with group activity so instead of

two people going and locking themselves

in a room and then delivering you know

from the mountain these two scrolls

they're supposed to follow it's now

literally a Productivity where all the

people from their side who need to be

involved who can veto things who can

provide input who can say like no you

need to use these parameters instead of

these parameters they're all in the room

when we're talking about what needs to

get built next they're all in the room

when were reviewing tickets and they're

all in the room when we say okay we're

gonna take these seven tickets we're

gonna do these you guys agree with what

these say you can read them there's no

where questions you like that okay make

sure that you add your comments now so

that we can pull them into our next

screen and so I add everything the time

[Music]

with any given time during a sprint like

you know exactly what's going on you

know exactly what's coming down the pike

and you also know that it's your ticket

that like you're very wanting to have

done this spring isn't gonna get done

you know or you have an idea of like

maybe it's the next one or maybe it's

the next one you don't have to worry

that your tickets gonna die somewhere

because it did get attention and so the

best part of this is that everyone knows

what's going on with the project like

almost to the point where they're like

Stephanie stop telling us what's going

on no but everyone knows what's going on

because we do so there's a thing in

public speaking where you have to tell

them what you're gonna tell them you

tell them and then you tell them what

you told them constantly what we do we

meet we say here's the sprint that we're

in and here's what we're working on

here's this book that we're going to be

doing everybody okay with that here's

the stuff that we just did like that

whole thing of you know planning take a

prioritization and then take a testing

and demo like they they see the ticket

at three points in the lifecycle they

see it being developed they see it being

worked on and then they

being actually tested and demoed to them

so there's there's never a chance for a

ticket to just suddenly appear finished

or push to production that no one

actually saw and so the big thing about

this is that is that at any given time

everyone on your team is informed

everyone on your team is empowered and

everyone on your team feels like they

actually can control the destiny of the

project because they're informed enough

to say like I see a problem I'm gonna

say something about the core I don't

need to worry about this because I know

that so-and-so has it taken care of and

the reason that we're able to do this is

that we go back to that that add a

little theory of you know you fail fast

and you fail often if you think

something's gonna work try it it might

not work like we've already learned a

couple things that we went on being my

brief we've got this and then being like

okay maybe we don't we should rethink

how you want to do that but the idea

that you want to be better you want to

be better as a group and you want to

deliver a really cool product like you

can't do that if there's something

visibly wrong like if you're riding a

bike and there's like a sound happening

like you want to see what that sound is

and fix it if it's a problem same thing

with the team like if it's a problem now

it's not gonna just suddenly be better

or later you have to address whatever

that thing is

that's fucking up your life and that's

what's working for us is that you know

we're not perfect now but we're so much

better than we were two months ago if

you would have asked me you know when I

first did this presentation I was

actively salty but swear that title came

from but now I'm looking at this and I'm

like this feels like it's wrong because

I don't feel this way anymore like we've

changed so much we've come so far and

where we are now like we're working on

the team and we know like we know that

like the project is going to happen the

product is launching in like three or

four weeks and we're not worried about

it because we know exactly what's left

how it's gonna happen who's gonna do it

we know all the weird like risks that

are happening at the end we're still

waiting on English translations but we

know that that's what we're waiting on

we have this idea that like behind some

corner there's this giant monster

something that yet undefined and they're

going to be thrown at us in the last

minute if we've talked to death about

this project we know that like it's in

good it's in a good place the other

thing is that because we're not having

people come in and say hey I need you to

spend time on this hey I don't like the

way that this looks because people have

learned how to MVP a ticket we're not

work we spent like 200 less hours in one

month than we had in a previous month

and we've actually delivered more

valuable stuff at the end because we're

not spinning our wheels developing stuff

that no one's even going to notice no

one's going to notice like three pixels

off and if you do we'll fix it later

[Music]

questions yeah all tickets

but are there ever tickets that you do

right because you know they need to

happen that you know how do you how do

you work in a very dynamic way that's

still ensure that your main goals yeah

so it comes back to that thing I'd like

you don't want to find out that you need

a second story like you know halfway

through the project so when we do that

like twelve lists of stuff this is how I

use JIRA I create epics out of those and

then I kind of use those to track so

like we know and there's gonna be this

we know there's going to be that but we

don't know exactly what that's gonna

look like what we will do sometimes is

we'll have like one of the things that

was really important to our project is

that we knew that everything had to

follow UX and so what we would do is we

would say you know in Syria for Sprint's

we're gonna try and get started on blah

so let's figure out what needs to go

into that blah and we'll have UX get

started on it so that there's like a

path like a scout out there you know

figuring out what it is that's gonna

look like and so that gives us like no

surprises we know that this thing is

going to happen we don't know exactly

specifically what's going to happen in

it but we have an idea that something is

coming so that it's not a surprise

[Music]

so I think through that process you kind

of describe a lot of risk live saying

something was an issue and then you kind

of work to resolve it other than having

a lot of experience I didn't find such a

weak

like okay in the next project I'm going

to have to do this thing in that very

beginning early

yeah um yes there are certain things

that we look at and we say like let's

never do that again but we are so are

also of the the mode of thinking that

like if you ever get a contract that had

like a thousand different clauses in it

we never want to be the kind of company

that does that we don't want to go in

and say we fear all of these things

potentially happening let's try to get

ahead of them the most that you can do

for us at least is as you can go in with

your like best intentions like now we

know like do not go in and assume that

they know what pio means now we know

that that's a huge blocker but like now

we know also that we want to spend more

than one day doing it on site now we

really want to spend it depending on

what the product is we want to go in and

and like ask people like how the dynamic

of their organization works in the

actual way like I don't want to see a

bar chart and why you tell me like how

these things work I think a lot of it is

you have to ask questions and keep

asking questions

[Music]

yeah that question of like

realizing somebody was

so ya know it's gonna hit her gonna be

gone and if they everybody points to

somebody else yeah we didn't even think

about that like we had we had said at

the beginning like well let's have a

shared calendar of four when people go

on vacation what we didn't actually come

up with a contingency plan yeah so so

you go back to my my first presentation

that is not here for you guys to look at

for reference but I originally used like

started doing your book on and so I'm

super familiar with the importance of

having our roles and responsibilities

like book I would do it that way rather

than array.c because they're racy so

like it's it's so cold and like it's

really hard to actually like it there's

with races you tend to get like a title

versus a role which doesn't tell you

what the role actually does and so what

I like to do is say like okay if we have

what we do as we do the review process

so like so in its in the lifecycle of a

ticket here's what's gonna happen

at this stage who needs to see it write

that down

at this stage who needs to see it write

that down at this stage who can block

this from happening write that down and

use read but like it's you need to

figure out like and that's where we got

our definition of done from was you know

we learned when we had a ticket the

developers will write the ticket when

the developers are done writing the

ticket we're gonna review it with the

entire team including the project team

and they have the responsibility of

saying if you implement it like this

we're not going to accept it if you

implement it like this we will accept it

you need to make sure that it includes

this this and this this needs to be hard

coded block once it was passed them the

visionaries got to say do it or don't do

it because the visionaries

can make the decision to do it or not do

it if like all that informations not

provided so the decision so this

decision whether or not that ticket dies

or goes into the backlog which is where

guys or moves forward is like that's

what needs to happen and then once that

is defined then it goes into the

priority of the priority order from the

priority order it gets built once it's

being built like depending on its design

implications or not it goes to the UX

person on their side we'll give it like

a design review extra view or whatever

then it'll go to our designer he'll look

at it he'll look at different things and

she would look at it and then from there

it goes back to us for browser testing

and then it goes back to that goes to

our team for code review then they get a

PR into their big bucket so that their

IT guy can look at it and do the code

review for their side and then it goes

to their business analyst who looks at

it and make sure that doesn't thing was

like for a business perspective that it

needs to do and then it goes to the

visionary and then went to some of the

visionaries that gets pushed to

production but that's the lifecycle of

one ticket but because we have that like

here's what needs to happen we figured

out like who could block at all of those

different places like we found out that

if it touches finance it will leaves the

project team it goes way to finance man

we would not have known that have we not

put it in the context of a ticket

mmm-hmm cool