10 Agile Tips From Pokémon Go Coach Training
Pokémon Go players want to improve and become better trainers. The same tips that help you catch more Pokémon can help you become a better scrum master. We caught 10 of those pointers that can be applied to leading an agile team developing enterprise software.
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Have you heard of this new game everyone's playing? "Pokémon Go," I think is what they're calling it. I had read about it, but it really came into focus when I saw a group of people with smart phones held at arm's length wandering around the lawn outside a nearby hospital. This is a serious game with serious implications ... for agile development.
As with so many aspects of life, it only took a few days before articles started appearing on the web with advice on how to be a better Pokémon Go trainer. It was only a couple of days later we began to see ads for people willing to catch and train Pokémon for you, but we're not here to talk about PaaS (Pokémon-as-a-Service).
Instead, we're here to talk about how becoming a better Pokémon trainer can help you become a better product owner or scrum master within the agile development discipline.
I know that there are many who will see absolutely no parallels between running around the landscape chasing imaginary monsters with a smartphone and leading an agile team developing enterprise software.
I think those people haven't looked deeply enough at the process of catching and training all those pocket monsters now scattered about the landscape. The link between the two is strong, with deep lessons for scrum masters to be taken from the exercises necessary to "catch them all" in the Pokémon universe.
[See Agile vs. DevOps: 10 Ways They're Different.]
I went around the internet looking for tips on becoming a better Pokémon Go trainer and found a bunch that translate directly into ideas that will help you be a better product owner or scrum master. Out of that group, I've chosen 10 that you should be able to put to use very quickly in order to make a real impact on your next sprint.
Have you become a great Pokémon trainer? Is Pokémon Go taking over your office? I'd really like to hear about your experience with Pokémon Go -- and about all the ways that the game has helped you with your agile experience. The links are out there. Let's hit the parks and catch those Pokémon -- and the lessons they carry!
One of the top tips for beginning trainers is to visit a walk-through site -- one of the many sites that lets you walk through challenges and battles without risking your collection of Pokémon or your point total. This translates very easily into the world of agile: Visit a walk-through site = get trained.
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When you begin catching Pokémon, you will also have tasks to perform with them. Too many wannabe Pokémon trainers will catch the monsters then refuse to do the tasks. That will ultimately weaken their monsters and do little to help them progress as trainers. There's an analogy in the agile world, and it's often wrapped up in the phrase "servant leadership."
Some people don't like the phrase "servant leadership" because of its use in certain religious contexts, but as a concept it's perfect for the agile world. The scrum master isn't there to exercise command and control. He or she is there to serve the needs of the team so that other team members can maximize their time working on the project.
Flip your expectations and you'll find team members coming away from the morning scrum meeting letting you know where problems exist and what you can do to take those problems away. When that happens, you'll be well on your way to serving the team and maximizing the success of the agile experience
In the Pokémon universe, the various stats tell you different things about the health and strength of your Pokémon. You need to know what each statistic means so you can optimize your collection of Pokémon and ultimately gather the greatest number of points. In agile there are milestones and targets both within and between the sprints. Know what each milestone and target truly involves and you'll be have a much better handle on your progress.
The lesson here is that the scrum master needs to understand what the milestones are actually measuring. Sometimes, the process or product that triggers the milestone is only a surrogate for the measurement you really want. Dig deeper, understand what you're measuring, and you'll be able to much more accurately gauge your team's progress on a daily basis.
In game play, the mechanics are the basics of how you make your characters move, fight, and grow within the game universe. If you don't take the time to learn the mechanics, you'll always be several steps behind when it comes to playing the game. In agile development, if the scrum master doesn't know the mechanics -- the basics of every job on the team -- there can be serious problems when issues arise.
One of the principles of agile development is that team members should be flexible and ready to jump in to help where needed. Nowhere is that more true than in the scrum leadership. If you don't know all of the roles and, in general, how they're accomplished, then you need to spend some time learning the mechanics before you tackle your next sprint.
In Pokémon Go, you can challenge computer-generated foes and ultimately beat them, but you'll never really know how good you are (or how much you can help your Pokémon grow) until you challenge and defeat other human trainers. In the agile world, you won't really understand how well your sprints are working until you've benchmarked other sprints and can compare your results to theirs.
On the one hand, enterprise development isn't some silly competition to be won. On the other, it can be very useful to know how your processes stack up against those of other companies. When you benchmark your processes against others, you'll be able to see areas where you need improvement and areas you can take pride in -- pride that you share with the other members of the scrum team. That's a win in every direction.
When you feel that things are working pretty well, it's easy to become complacent. In Pokémon Go, you check out the same kind of place every day, seek out the same kind of competition, and use the same methods to grow your Pokémon. You can see your point total grow, but really, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
If you want to maintain your interest and your edge, go spelunking. Explore the occasional scary cave or strange neighborhood. In the world of agile, shake things up on your team or in your process. Don't let the team get complacent by doing precisely the same things in sprint after sprint after sprint.
If your team is truly comfortable, you might shake things up in small ways. Change the daily scrum meeting in some way. Mix up the team and each member's primary tasks. Order different toppings on the sprint completion pizza. If the team members are extremely comfortable, it's beyond time for you to shake things up. Go spelunking and your team will stretch and improve. That's what you really want to see as a trainer or leader.
As Pokémon Go has grown in popularity, there have been some highly publicized accounts of thieves waiting for players and robbing them as they look for Pokémon in the grass. For safety's sake, take a friend when you go out hunting for Pokémon in the wild. For safety in agile, find a peer or colleague you can talk with, share experience with, and trust to give you an honest reality check when you're worried about whether something is running off the track.
If you're in a company that has fully embraced agile, then you can probably find a colleague within the company to compare notes with as you progress. If you're an agile pioneer, though, you'll need to find someone in a local agile management group, in your agile training classes, or through contacts in online fora with whom you can talk and share experience.
This is one of those things that's hard for many people, but this might actually be one of the more important tips on the list. Don't depend solely on yourself; find a friend to help keep the "uglies" at bay when you're working to make agile happen.
I get it. You catch a particular Pokémon and it becomes your favorite. Before you know it, you're specializing in that Pokémon and your stable is getting, well, a bit boring. Mix things up -- and while you're at it, mix things up in your agile dev team, too.
Many of the different dimensions of diversity might be beyond your ability to change. But there will always be something you can change. It might be the way the tasks are assigned, the way things are discussed in scrum meetings, or the individuals who make up the team. One way or another, don't mistake a rut for a smoothly operating team. Keep your team out of the rut and it will be more effective and more successful.
In many of the sites I visited, the advice on combat was the same. Start your battles by dodging left or right and you'll buy yourself time to respond to your opponent and the conditions of the particular battle. In each sprint, identify major obstacles and problems at the beginning and either go around them or figure out how to remediate them and move on.
As millions of new players enter the Pokémon world through Pokémon Go, some see the new version as something entirely separate from the rest of the Pokémon universe. The problem with that is that it's easy for them to end up playing a game that uses Pokémon technologies but isn't Pokémon at all.
It's important to remember that the basic rules of Pokémon still apply. In the realm of agile development, you're ultimately trying to produce good software. Good software is still good software regardless of the process you use in development.
I've heard people talk in ways that imply a huge difference between agile-created software and waterfall-generated software. In truth, though, all the definitions of high-quality software that were developed during the waterfall era still exist in the agile era. Your team doesn't get a pass on quality just because it has daily scrum meetings.
So there they are, 10 pointers that started in the Pokémon universe, but translate to agile. Follow them and you'll get better at both. Isn't that what we all want? To create great software by day and capture the rarest Pokémon by night ... and day ... and odd moments between phone calls ... and, well, you get the point. Get out there, collect your Pokémon, and become a better scrum master. Everyone will be happier.
Do you have any tips for Pokémon Go coaches? How about scrum masters? What are your best tips for those who are both? Let us know in the comments -- and we'll see if any Pokémon show up to help us out.
As millions of new players enter the Pokémon world through Pokémon Go, some see the new version as something entirely separate from the rest of the Pokémon universe. The problem with that is that it's easy for them to end up playing a game that uses Pokémon technologies but isn't Pokémon at all.
It's important to remember that the basic rules of Pokémon still apply. In the realm of agile development, you're ultimately trying to produce good software. Good software is still good software regardless of the process you use in development.
I've heard people talk in ways that imply a huge difference between agile-created software and waterfall-generated software. In truth, though, all the definitions of high-quality software that were developed during the waterfall era still exist in the agile era. Your team doesn't get a pass on quality just because it has daily scrum meetings.
So there they are, 10 pointers that started in the Pokémon universe, but translate to agile. Follow them and you'll get better at both. Isn't that what we all want? To create great software by day and capture the rarest Pokémon by night ... and day ... and odd moments between phone calls ... and, well, you get the point. Get out there, collect your Pokémon, and become a better scrum master. Everyone will be happier.
Do you have any tips for Pokémon Go coaches? How about scrum masters? What are your best tips for those who are both? Let us know in the comments -- and we'll see if any Pokémon show up to help us out.
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