Agility everywhere!

 

Our annual day function was nearing and our CEO announced to make it big.

The HR team and the cultural team were indicated to plan a big bash. Fortunately a few members of the cultural team are part of one of my development team. This team is comparatively new to agile and I got a chance to provide them this opportunity as a scrum game.
The pitch was ready.

·          They had a vision: Vision from our CEO - ‘Let us have a grand Annual function party!’

·          There were stakeholders: CEO, VP, AVP and the guests (of course).

·          There was a Product owner: HR executive

·         and a ScrumMaster:  Most active member of the cultural team who is in my team and a guitarist also.

·         There was a development team: Members from HR department and members from cultural team.

I asked my teammates to plan this function in an agile way.
It started with a product backlog. The scrum team (HR executive as Product owner, Most active member of cultural team as ScrumMaster and members from HR department + members from cultural team as development team) started to put Product backlog items in a spread sheet.  The product backlog started taking shape. It was one sprint with number of tasks.

Product backlog items:

·         Prepare list of guests, hosts

·         Finalize venue

·         Finalize  name & logo to our annual function

·         Decide theme of the party

·         Decide dress code

·         Prepare List of eatables and drinks

·         Send invitations

·         Appreciation for employees for contribution to the society

·         Appreciation for Best employee(s)

·         Prepare list of dance performances – Solo /group

·         Prepare list of Plays/skits

·         Prepare list Songs – Solo /group

·         Other Surprise Events

Sprint Planning:

Team started sprint planning. There was only one sprint planned. 4 weeks time was to go. The shippable product was the ‘Annual Function’. Team started Daily Scrum meetings for 5 minutes after lunch to know what each member has done since yesterday. What they will do today and if anyone faced any impediments. Definition of Done was created for each items of the sprint.
User stories were broken down to tasks such as while preparing guest list, include the food preference.

Sprint Execution:

·         All team mates started their tasks and peers were doing the review. Regular feedbacks were being provided during the peer reviews.

Sprint Review:

·         As a shippable product, the Annual function was celebrated.

·         All stakeholders enjoyed it.

Retrospective:

·         START Doing – More such events.

·         STOP Doing – None

·         CONTINUE Doing – Encourage more participation to make the event more joyous.

Observations:

·         As a self organized team, all team mates were taking up the responsibilities actively and willingly.

·         Regular feedback during cultural activities was very helpful to prepare for the final event.

Mission ahead:
After the success of Annual function, here came the next vision from the CEO – ‘Clean and Green City’.
Product backlog is growing for this vision. Really BIG Mission ahead…..