Creating Strong and Passionate Communities

of Practice

Allison & Ty

Today’s Backlog

What do we mean by Community of Practice

How to get started

What to expect

?What is a Community of Practice?

A group of people with a common interest

A group of people with a common goal of

improving

A group of people who share experiences

Domain Community Practice

The First Agile Community of Practice…

What did the agile manifesto signatories want to do by gathering?

How to do work better…

Find out the things we have in common. Discover our strengths. Leverage our

skills.

What can we take away from them?

The Evolution of Communities of Practice

Center of Excellence

Product Based User Groups

Open Space

CoPs

CoP Events

Solve a problem

Workshop

Sage on stage

Collaboration

Presenters from outside our wheelhouse

Community presenters

Social Events

The Community Extends Outside of the Meeting

A lunch room conversation

Crowdsourcing your problem

Small Groups

Study Buddies

?Why Have a Community of Practice?

What does the individual receive?

What does the organization

receive?

What does the community

receive?

?Who is Your Community For?

Who is the target?

Who presents?

ScrumMasters Teams Managers Organizations

ACTIVITY

?What is Your Vision?

What makes this different from other groups?

What is your purpose? What do you do?

What state, context or situation is your target in?

ACTIVITY

?How are We Doing It?

I say that it's incredibly simple. Pick a date, a time, a location, and invite people.

- Allison Pollard http://www.allisonpollard.com

Don't give up too easily

Be happy with whoever shows up

Pick a good location

The invitation matters

?What Type of Space is Needed for the Community of Practice?

Modular, open space

Big open wall space

Great lighting

?How Much Does a Community of Practice Cost?

$$

D I S C

?What Type of People are Needed to Run a Community of Practice?

ENTJ Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Sanguine Choleric

Melancholic Phlegmatic

The Four Temperaments

Myers-Briggs

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

Artisan Guardian

Idealist Rationalist

?What will the Community of Practice Need from Me?

It depends! What type of community of practice…

You may start with shadowing for ceremonies. Move on to cross team

facilitation.

You may start with TDD workshops. Move on to code katas.

Presentations Community Connections Workshops

You may start with sharing product walls. Move on to prioritization styles.

?What Other Things Can a Community of Practice Do?

C o P

Reveal organizational impediments

Guide the organization

Raise the overall ability of the organization

Now What? ?Possible futures

Stuff that needs doing

People to serve

What types of people are

needed

?How Do We Create a Backlog?

Backlog Doing Done

Value Stream

Don’t make long term plans

Reprioritize or recreate the backlog every 6 months

Maybe 3 months

Try a Lean Coffee!

http://leancoffee.org

Did It Work? ?They stayed

after the meeting

They stayed until the end

They showed up

Lifecycle of a Community of Practice

Freshman

Sophomore

Senior

Addressing the needs of the individual who actively seek out the community

Addressing the issues of the organization(s) that it exists within

Addressing the issues of the greater community that its domain caters to

Community Growth PatternAgile Practice

Technical ExcellenceProduct Management Scrum Master, Coaches

PO, BA, PM, UX QA, Automation, UX, Architecture, XP, Specific Languages: .NET, Java, Cobol, Fortran, Pascal

Frameworks: Scrum, Lean, Kanban; Coaching/Mentoring,

Facilitation, Training, Tools

Locations

Resources

Agile Leadership Network

PMI - Agile Community of

PracticeScrum Alliance

Allison Pollardallison.pollard@improvingenterprises.com@allison_pollard

Servant Husband

Father Ally

Artist

Agilist

Gamer

Scrum Master

Ty Crocketttycrockett@tycrockett.com

ty.crockett@improvingenterprises.com@TTcrockeTT

Agile CoachScrum Master

Project Manager

Glasses WearerTheta Tau Fraternity Member