Leading IT Transformation – Workshop 23 (Fine-Tuning Scrum)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Leading IT Transformation is provided by Ms. Drabenstadt MBA BBA Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 24 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
Ms. Drabenstadt is a Certified Learning Provider (CLP) at Appleton Greene and she has experience in Information Technology, Information Governance, Compliance and Audit. She has achieved an MBA, and BBA. She has industry experience within the following sectors: Technology; Insurance and Financial Services. She has had commercial experience within the following countries: United States of America, Canada, Australia, India, Trinidad, and Jamaica. Her program will initially be available in the following cities: Madison WI; Minneapolis MN; Chicago IL; Atlanta GA and Denver CO. Her personal achievements include: Developed Trusted IT-Business Relationship; Delivered Increased Business Value/Time; Decreased IT Costs; Re-tooled IT Staff; Increased IT Employee Morale. Her service skills incorporate: IT transformation leadership; process improvement; change management; program management and information governance.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
The Scrum framework is in itself a complete system and there is very little scope to change the basic elements of this framework. However, Scrum being a framework only provides the structure and some of the finer details can be decided upon by the internal teams. It does not necessarily have to tamper with the framework but rather find ways to implement it better by doing things a little differently. For example, the organization has the liberty to choose the Scrum Team. To ensure better implementation of Scrum, the Team should have some familiarity with Scrum as well as the transformation project undertaken. Another important step in fine-tuning the Scrum implementation in an organization is regularly revisiting the project’s goals and objectives and updating the Product Backlog. Daily Stand-up Meeting must be held with the Scrum Team to share updates on the progress and any hurdles faced in the execution of Scrum. Review and retrospection are also crucial to fine-tuning the Scrum framework. The deliverable of every sprint must be reviewed and the progress of the overall project needs to be measured regularly as well. To ensure that the Scrum implementation is on track, it is important to document all the inputs received during the daily and sprint review meetings. These discussions may often lead to suggestions on actionable improvements from the team members of stakeholders and these should be considered for application. It is also important to retrospect and document all the lessons learned during a project, which can be helpful in future projects.
Objectives
01. Prioritize Fine-Tuning Initiatives: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Experiment & Iterate: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Monitor Progress and Results: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Adapt and Evolve: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Celebrate Successes and Learn from Failures: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. Prioritize Fine-Tuning Initiatives: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Experiment & Iterate: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Monitor Progress and Results: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Adapt and Evolve: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Celebrate Successes and Learn from Failures: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Prioritize Fine-Tuning Initiatives.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Experiment & Iterate.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Monitor Progress and Results.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Adapt and Evolve.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Celebrate Successes and Learn from Failures.
Introduction
What is Fine-Tuning?
Fine-tuning, in the context of machine learning, refers to the process of taking a pre-trained model and further training it on a specific task or dataset to improve its performance for that particular task. It is a common technique used in transfer learning, where knowledge gained from solving one problem is applied to a different but related problem.
The process of fine-tuning involves several steps:
1. Pre-training: Initially, a large-scale model is trained on a vast and diverse dataset to learn general patterns and representations of language, images, or other data types. This pre-training phase is resource-intensive and requires a substantial amount of data and computation.
2. Task-specific Dataset: After pre-training, the model is still a general-purpose model and not optimized for any specific task. To make it more task-specific, fine-tuning requires a smaller, task-specific dataset that is labelled or annotated for the target task.
3. Freezing Pre-trained Layers: During fine-tuning, the early layers of the pre-trained model, which have learned general representations, are often frozen. These layers are assumed to be generally applicable to the target task and do not require further modification.
4. Training on Task-specific Data: The later layers of the pre-trained model (closer to the output) are unfrozen, and the model is further trained on the task-specific dataset. By using this smaller dataset, the model can adapt its weights to better perform the target task.
5. Hyperparameter Tuning: Fine-tuning may also involve adjusting hyperparameters (e.g., learning rate, batch size, etc.) specific to the target task to achieve optimal performance.
Fine-tuning is particularly useful when you have a limited amount of data for your specific task but have access to a pre-trained model on a related task that has been trained on a large dataset. By leveraging the knowledge from the pre-trained model, you can achieve better performance on the target task with fewer computational resources and data compared to training a model from scratch. Fine-tuning is commonly used in natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and other machine learning domains.
Fine-Tuning in relation to Scrum
Regarding fine-tuning Scrum, there are two interpretations that can be put into practice.
1. Fine-Tuning in Scrum Processes: In the context of Scrum, teams often engage in continuous improvement and adapt their processes to suit their specific needs. Fine-tuning in Scrum could refer to the practice of making small adjustments to the Scrum processes to enhance team performance, efficiency, or overall outcomes. These adjustments might involve optimizing the length of Sprint cycles, refining the Definition of Done, improving Daily Standup meetings, or enhancing the Sprint Review and Retrospective processes. Essentially, it involves tweaking the Scrum framework to better align with the team’s unique circumstances.
2. Fine-Tuning Scrum Team Dynamics: Alternatively, “fine-tuning scrum” could relate to improving the dynamics and collaboration within a Scrum team. This might involve refining communication patterns, optimizing the roles and responsibilities of team members, nurturing a culture of continuous learning and improvement, and addressing any challenges or conflicts that arise during the Scrum process.
Regardless of the specific interpretation, it is essential to remember that Scrum is an empirical process framework, and teams are encouraged to inspect and adapt regularly. Fine-tuning or making small adjustments is a natural part of the Scrum methodology to ensure teams are continuously learning and striving for excellence. However, any modifications should align with the Scrum principles and values and be agreed upon by the entire team and relevant stakeholders.
Case Study
Company: E-commerce Company W.
Company Background: Company W is an e-commerce company that sells a wide range of products online. As their business grew, they faced challenges in managing their software development projects effectively. To improve their development process and meet customer demands more efficiently, they decided to adopt the Scrum framework.
Initial Scrum Implementation: Company W hired Agile coaches and Scrum Masters to guide their Scrum implementation. They conducted comprehensive training sessions for their development teams and stakeholders. The teams were organized into Scrum teams, and the roles and responsibilities were clearly defined.
Challenges Identified: After a few Sprints, the company conducted a Sprint Review and Retrospective, during which they identified several challenges:
1. Inconsistent Sprint Outcomes: The teams’ Sprint outcomes varied significantly, with some Sprints delivering more than planned, while others fell short of the commitments.
2. Dependency Management: Some Scrum teams faced difficulties in managing dependencies between their work and work from other teams, leading to delays and coordination issues.
3. Lack of Empowerment: The Product Owner made most of the decisions without actively involving the development team, leading to a lack of ownership and motivation.
4. Limited Customer Involvement: The teams struggled to obtain timely and meaningful feedback from end-users and stakeholders, leading to potential misalignments in product development.
Fine-Tuning Scrum: Company W recognized the importance of continuous improvement and decided to fine-tune their Scrum practices:
1. Consistent Sprint Planning: The teams invested more time in Sprint Planning, breaking down user stories into smaller, more manageable tasks, and ensuring a shared understanding of the work to be done.
2. Cross-Team Coordination: The Scrum Masters facilitated regular cross-team coordination meetings to identify and address dependencies. They also established a dependency management board to visualize and track dependencies across teams.
3. Empowered Development Teams: The Product Owners collaborated closely with the development teams during backlog refinement, allowing the teams to actively participate in backlog prioritization and decision-making.
4. Improved Customer Feedback Loop: The teams established a feedback mechanism through user testing sessions and early product demonstrations to gather valuable feedback directly from end-users and stakeholders.
Positive Outcomes: As a result of fine-tuning Scrum, Company W experienced several positive outcomes:
1. Predictable Delivery: The improved Sprint Planning and better dependency management led to more consistent Sprint outcomes, reducing the risk of incomplete increments.
2. Enhanced Collaboration: Cross-team coordination improved, allowing teams to manage dependencies efficiently and streamline their development process.
3. Empowered Teams: With more involvement in decision-making, the development teams felt a greater sense of ownership, accountability, and motivation.
4. Customer-Centric Development: The improved feedback loop ensured that the product better aligned with customer needs, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.
Conclusion: By actively fine-tuning Scrum, Company W overcame initial challenges and achieved success in their software development process. The consistent Sprint outcomes, improved coordination, empowered teams, and customer-centric approach positively impacted their business and overall performance.
Fine-tuning Scrum Vs Implementing Scrum
Source: Wrike
Fine-tuning Scrum and implementing Scrum refer to two distinct phases or activities in the adoption of the Scrum framework for project management. Here’s how they differ:
1. Implementing Scrum:
• Implementing Scrum is the initial and foundational phase of adopting the Scrum framework for project management. It involves introducing Scrum principles, roles, events, and artifacts to an organization or team that has not been following Scrum practices previously.
• During the implementation phase, the team typically undergoes training to understand the Scrum framework and its application. They learn about roles like Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team, as well as events like Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective. They also become familiar with Scrum artifacts like the Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Increment.
• The implementation phase may involve significant changes to existing workflows and processes as the team transitions from traditional project management methodologies to the Agile Scrum approach.
2. Fine-Tuning Scrum:
• Fine-tuning Scrum occurs after the initial implementation of the Scrum framework. Once the team has some experience working with Scrum and has completed a few Sprints, they start refining and optimizing their Scrum practices based on their real-world experiences.
• Fine-tuning involves making small adjustments and improvements to the Scrum processes and team dynamics to enhance efficiency, collaboration, and overall performance. It is a continuous improvement process that aims to adapt Scrum practices to better suit the specific needs and challenges of the team or organization.
• During the fine-tuning phase, the team may experiment with different practices, retrospectives, and feedback loops to identify areas of improvement and address any bottlenecks or obstacles they encounter in their Scrum journey.
In summary, implementing Scrum is the initial step of introducing the Scrum framework to a team or organization, while fine-tuning Scrum comes afterward and involves iterative adjustments and enhancements to optimize the Scrum processes and maximize the benefits of Agile project management.
Case Study
Company: Software Company Z.
Company Background: Company Z is a software development company that specializes in building mobile applications. They decided to adopt the Scrum framework to enhance their development process, increase customer satisfaction, and deliver high-quality products more efficiently.
Initial Scrum Implementation: Company Z hired Agile coaches to assist in the Scrum implementation process. They conducted intensive training sessions for their development teams, product owners, and stakeholders. The teams were organized into cross-functional Scrum teams with clear roles defined.
Challenges Identified: After a few Sprints, the company conducted a Sprint Review and Retrospective, during which they identified several challenges:
1. Incomplete User Stories: The teams sometimes failed to complete all the committed user stories within the Sprint, leading to carryover and unfinished increments.
2. Lack of Focus on Customer Value: The Product Backlog items were often not prioritized based on customer value, resulting in delayed delivery of valuable features.
3. Long Sprint Cycles: The two-week Sprint cycle proved to be too long for some projects, making it difficult to adapt to changing market needs quickly.
4. Ineffective Daily Standups: The Daily Standup meetings were not as effective as expected, with some team members dominating discussions and others not actively participating.
Fine-Tuning Scrum: Company Z recognized the importance of continuous improvement and decided to fine-tune their Scrum practices:
1. Adjusting Sprint Length: The teams experimented with shorter Sprint cycles, moving from two weeks to one week for some projects. This change improved the team’s responsiveness to customer feedback and enabled faster iterations.
2. Improved Backlog Refinement: The Product Owners collaborated more closely with stakeholders and conducted regular backlog refinement sessions. This helped them prioritize items based on customer value and reduce ambiguity.
3. Focused Daily Standups: The Scrum master’s facilitated more focused Daily Standups, ensuring that each team member had a chance to share their updates and any impediments. They also encouraged quick problem-solving discussions after the Daily Standup.
4. Retrospective Actions: During Sprint Retrospectives, the teams actively discussed improvement areas and formulated action plans. They tracked and followed through on these actions in subsequent Sprints.
Positive Outcomes: As a result of fine-tuning Scrum, Company Z experienced several positive outcomes:
1. Increased Velocity: With shorter Sprint cycles and improved backlog refinement, the teams became more efficient and delivered a higher number of user stories within each Sprint.
2. Customer Satisfaction: By prioritizing items based on customer value, the company delivered more valuable features to their customers, leading to increased satisfaction and positive feedback.
3. Adaptability: The shorter Sprint cycles allowed the teams to adapt quickly to changes in requirements and market demands, leading to more competitive products.
4. Improved Team Collaboration: The focused Daily Standups improved team communication, collaboration, and mutual understanding, which positively impacted productivity.
Conclusion: Through continuous fine-tuning, Company Z was able to overcome initial challenges and achieve success with Scrum. The adoption of shorter Sprint cycles, improved backlog refinement, and focused Daily Standups contributed to their increased efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall success in Agile software development.