2. www.luxoft.com
Introduction
Svetlana Mukhina
ICAgile ICP, ICP-ATF, ICP-BVA, PSM I, CSPO
Agile and Career Coach at Luxoft Agile Practice
Experience: 12+ years in IT, Project and department management,
Computer Linguistics, Technical Writing, Quality Assurance
Interests: Project management, Agile transformation, Career and
performance coaching, Psychology
Hobbies: Horse riding, music, poker, travelling
3. www.luxoft.com
Session Plan
Learning objectives
What is facilitation and who is facilitator
Agile Facilitator
Warmup to brake the Ice
Brainwriting to gather ideas
World-café to explore opinions
Five and fist to evaluate opportunities
Pro-Con analysis to make a decision
Meeting minutes to summarize and define next steps
Recommended materials
Agile Team Facilitation training
Agile Practice services
10. www.luxoft.com
Warmup
to Brake the Ice
What
• Short informal sharing of personal facts. e.g.
about your weekend
Why
• In order to find out more about the people you
work with and to create open atmosphere
When
• On Monday, before standup, Planning, Product
Backlog Refinement session
Time
• 5 min for a team of 8-10 people
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Warmup
Gather your team
A team member come in front and says what
she/he did during the weekend
If anyone did something similar this
person/people come to the speaker and hive
him/her high-five
Then the next person does similar actions,
in turn all team members should share their
weekend experience
Use on practice
Tip: use warm-up while waiting all participant
to join the meeting
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Brainwriting
To gather ideas
What
• Brainwriting is used to gather ideas on individual basis
Why
• In order everybody think about the question/problem and has a chance to
contribute a solution
When
• When it is necessary to gather all opinions and ideas for discussion.
Whenever you see that only a few participants are active, while you need all
the team to be involved
Time
• 10 min for a team of 8-10 people
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Brainwriting
Define a case for opinion gathering, e.g.
necessity of auto-tests on the project
(possible improvements for next Sprint,
responsibilities with Scrum team, etc.)
Provide stickers and pens to the group
Ask everybody to write 2 pro and 2 contra
opinions on auto-testing. One opinion per a
sticker
Gather ideas or ask participants to put ideas
to “ideas box”
Use on practice
Tip: In case someone has problem with ideas generation,
ask them to focus on the task and avoid doing side-
activities (mobile use, whispering with neighbors). Ideas will
come for sure, if remain thinking on the issue. There can be
more and less productive periods during brainwriting.
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World-Café
To Explore Opinions
What
• The technique is used to explore various
ideas in groups during a reasonable time-box
Why
• It helps to get familiar with lots of ideas and
enrich your understanding of the issue
When
• In case there are lot’s of options to explore or
one, but very complex option
Time
• 20 min for a team of 12-14 people
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World-Café
Define a topic for discussion
In our case it is necessity of auto-testing on the project
Ask participants to form group of 3-5 people
Each group discuss the topic
In our case people share their pro/con ideas
Each group has 4-5 min for discussion
When you say “Go”, people switch tables, remaining one of
them to welcome the coming group. The host should be
chosen by participants on voluntary basis
Continue the exercise till all groups are at default tables, give
them 5 min more to share the ideas they heard with their host
Use on practice
16. www.luxoft.com
Five-to-Fist
To Evaluate Opportunities
What
• It is a group voting procedure
Why
• To understand distribution of voices for/against idea
in a team
When
• Whenever a evaluation is necessary
Time
• 1-5 min. depending on quantity of evaluating items
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Five-to-Fist
Use on practice
Speak aloud some idea/suggestion
In our case it is a benefit or disadvantage of auto-
testing for the project
Ask participants to vote for it using fingers
Write down voting results for the idea
E.g. auto-testing will reduces manual work, 3 people
voted with 4 fingers, 1 with fist (zero), 3 with 2 = 18
Calculate the champion
In our case the biggest disadvantage and the best
benefit
Tip: use this approach to see the distribution in
voices, when there is no 100% “yes” and “no”
answers.
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Pro-con Analysis
To make a decision
What
• Decision-making mechanism
Why
• To summarize evaluated information, to visualize decision-making
for all team members
When
• Whenever there is distribution in opinions over an idea/issue
Time
• 5-10, depending on quantity of items
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Pro-con Analysis
• Auto-testing is executed by tools, so it is
faster than a manual approach 16
• It is more accurate and reliable 12
• Anyone can rut auto-tests 12
• Auto-tests can be re-used 11
51
Use on practice
• Investment is required for testing
frameworks, cost, time 12
• It can’t help to improve usability 10
• Auto-test should be kept up-to-date on
regular basis 18
• It requires accuracy of test data 6
46
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Meeting Minutes
To summarize and define next steps
What
• Summary on meeting decisions, way forward, action items
Why
• To summarize decision(s), share information with all interested parties,
integrate meeting results on practice
When
• During or at the end of a meeting
Time
• 5-10
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Meeting Minutes
Use on practice
What Who When
Setup next meeting on our progress with auto-testing
implementation
Mike by Aug 21
Investigate popular frameworks, present the results Ann by Aug 28
Explore company trainings on auto-testing, share info Olga by Aug 28
Discuss auto-testing experience on other project within
the company, summarize it for our team
Mike by Sep 05
Identify critical parts of our app to cover in first turn Alex and Ivan By Sep 05
Present our approach on auto-testing to stakeholders Mike By Sep 11
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Recommended Materials
Recordings and presentations of my webinars on facilitation:
How to facilitate product backlog refinement sessionshttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-how-facilitate-product-
backlog-svetlana
How to facilitate meetings, Scrum events and group discussions https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-facilitate-meetings-scrum-
events-group-svetlana
Agile Team Facilitator Mindset & Behaviourhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-agile-team-facilitator-mindset-svetlana
Facilitation and Facilitator Stancehttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/recording-webinar-facilitation-facilitator-stance-svetlana
The Power on Visualizationhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141202230246-48371619-follow-up-on-the-webinar-the-power-on-
visualization
Designing Meetings for Collaboration https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-required-effective-collaboration-svetlana
Silent voting technique https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140415193826-48371619-easy-way-to-make-a-discussion-effective
Facilitating decision-making and feedback gathering https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decisions-valued-feedback-remembered-
svetlana
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Way Forward – ICAgile Agile Team Facilitation
ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Team Facilitation
Details - https://icagile.com/icp-agile-team-facilitation
Registration
- For Luxoft employees
https://inthr.luxoft.com/IntHRWebApp/aspx_PTC/CreateRequestInternal.aspx?Course=SDP-035
- For non-Luxoft – email me smukhina@luxoft.com
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Available Services of Agile Practice
ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Fundamentals https://icagile.com/icagile-certified-professional
ICAgile Certified Professional - Business Value Analysis https://icagile.com/icp-business-value-analysis
ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Team Facilitation https://icagile.com/icp-agile-team-facilitation
Professional Scrum Master https://www.scrum.org/Courses/Professional-Scrum-Master
Custom Workshops:
• Coaching and self-coaching;
• Agile project management;
• Agile project metrics;
• Motivation models;
• Feedback gathering;
• etc.
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Personal Coaching in Facilitation
If you need assistance with meeting design, structure, facilitation, you can get a coaching session
with me on facilitation in general or your work-case in particular.
Write me email smukhina@luxoft.com with the request