How to Successfully Run a 100% Virtual Program Increment (Pi) i.e Dispersed Team Members

Considering recent outbreak of coronovirus (covid-19), and what could define standards for future virtual Program Increment (Pi), this article addresses concrete steps to run a successful 100% virtual Pi. Let's not talk about distributed teams’ scenarios, as the reality is you may not even have 2 to 3 people together in a room at a common location. Thus, the big question is, how do you run an entire Pi, effectively and successfully, with 50-150 people individually dialed in remotely from their homes?

This article will provide a readiness toolkit of what is needed to run a 100% virtual Pi, while maintaining the flow, keeping the ART engaged and ultimately being able to get the same commitment as you would with running the onsite Pi event. Let's not assume you have all the “right” tools and enterprise licenses required to run a virtual Pi, tools that support team breakouts and those that seamlessly integrate with the existing agile tools you already have. Having said that, let's take a realistic view of the scenario most enterprises and coaches might experience and must prepare for. The fact is, you just don’t have the runway needed against the speed at which things are unfolding, and how quickly one needs to prepare for changing priorities.

Please note, while I have provided several actionable steps, this article alone cannot do justice to all the minor details, one needs to be fully prepared for. I will update the article in the next two weeks after successfully running virtual Pi for all our trains based on practices defined in the article. (See updates at the end of the article, lessons learned)

Readiness Toolkit:

1. Maintain a simple one-page readiness checklist of the things you need to have checked before starting your first virtual Pi.

2. Does your company back-end infrastructure meet the definition of ready to handle the volume and the demand? Are there any limitations to the number of users that can dial into a single call? What is your backup if the calls drop? A simple suggestion would be to work with the manager of infrastructure and get a level of understanding and identify a contact person you can work with during the Pi event in case their support is needed.

3. Provide dial in number as part of your Pi invite. Share the ART roster link that shows all the teams and members of each team including those in shared services, the various Business owners, Product Managers, Architects, Business Agile teams etc. This will also inform the train which individual is part of the teams and their roles. This is particularly useful so the remote individuals can be easily pinged over a chat query.

4. As a facilitator of the event, create a housekeeping slide of the event, simple rules like, mute and unmuting phones rules/codes, asking questions by first identifying your name, the ability to use ART and group chat windows, assigned break times, and asking people to inform the RTE if they need to step away for another meeting. Hopefully people are still committed to the day as they should be irrespective of being virtual or not. As an RTE, emphasize the importance of staying engaged, the required participation needed from everyone and what is expected from the train participants at the end of the day.

5. As an RTE, if the ART plans to use PowerPoint slides for either the morning presentation or readouts towards the end of the day, make sure you have defined a template for the teams to use. Direct the team to consolidate the team readouts slides as part of the shared presentation slides. Additionally, the team presenters understand the flow of the presentation and maintain a strict timebox particularly for the morning session. One key differentiator between RTE’s is their ability to successfully maintain the flow of the "event", a reflection of their ability as good planners and an important skill needed for the role. Other key areas to validate is the ART presentation is in a centralized location (such as onedrive), accessible to everyone and the document can be updated by multiple people simultaneously.

6. We will focus on 2 most critical tools needed to run a smooth virtual Pi. A) Conference dial in and B) Agile tools.

A. There are many tools in the market that allow you to do "team breakouts" during the call, such as Adobe Connect (check for conference call prices charged by the hour), Zoom (one of the better tools out there), Microsoft Teams (If you have the needed functionality configured and access granted to all participants) and a few others. If you have the right tool and the required license, a significant amount of your tool limitation problem is solved. This is assuming, you know how to use the tool effectively to run large events, if not, do a dry run and a tool overview session with the train. The challenge is when you don't have the right tools available, how do you still run an effective event? One easy way is to break out your day's event into smaller chunks of 15 to 30 minute meetings. You could use tools like sessionlabs, but this really isn't rocket science to plan your breakouts using simple excel sheet or the one-page agenda template slide. As an RTE, setup separate meetings with bridges and invite the teams that need to meet and discuss. You can plan the breakout sessions and slots ahead of time but adjust based on the need of the day and as events unfold. By using the ART chat window, you can quickly share this information and ask teams to huddle on a separate conference bridge. The other recommendation for the RTE's would be to ask the Scrum Masters to create team-based chat groups (by using skype as an example) where teams can communicate over chat messages, invite dependent team members and quickly connect over a conference call as part of the active chat. This breakout will also provide you the ability to share your screen (using your team board) plan and prioritize your stories for each iteration with input from the dependent teams.

B. Depending on the Agile tool you use for managing work (Jira, Rally, VersionOne, doesn’t really matter), this is one place where you should spend time to prepare. Focus on the tools you have already in place and not on what you don’t. If you had a runway till your next Pi (12 weeks) then you can explore, but what if all you have is 2 weeks? What should you do? Remember, pushing out the Pi is not an option. The positive side of coronavirus for Agility is it forces teams and trains to improve and effectively use the tool for both pre-planning and during the Pi. Coaching ART's and RTE's to leverage the tools for Pi planning for prioritized features planned for the Pi, team boards needed to plan and estimate stories, program boards needed to show dependent features etc. should be the focus for readiness and not creating manual slides. As Coaches and RTE's make sure you have defined views that you want the train to use. Views that are easy to use, are consistent, and provide concrete and meaningful data. The ability of the ART to plan and present data using the Agile tool boards, is a sign of ART and team maturity. As teams mature, these soft tool boards should be used even during the onsite Pi for planning and readouts vs. using physical team boards and program boards. Having the boards ready with your draft planned stories will help the flow of the event. Making the boards accessible to dependent teams will further help in planning and committing dependencies across the teams. As part of the day’s event, have teams update the boards. Doing this saves a significant amount of administrative time and labor for teams to transfer the information from the physical boards into the tools after the Pi. Since many tools have limitations in their capability, especially with program boards or integrating with the various 3rd party tool, create a simple slide with the program board that can be used for teams to update throughout the day. This simple view of the program board can be used for the final readouts and be leverage by the RTE's for the SOS's throughout the duration of the Program Increment. (If you require the 1-page program board slide, feel free to DM me)

7. ROAMing ART level risk in a virtual environment can be handled in either of the 2 ways. First, is to leverage or create a ROAM board using your existing Agile tools (if it has the capability) or by creating a simple slide that the teams can use for readout and RTE can use for ROAMing the risks.

8. Most Agile tools don't have a way to associate Pi objectives and business values to the objectives. For the readout, teams can present a single slide of the team objectives. If teams want to show additional dependencies and risks associated with each of the objectives a more detail table view can be presented very easily. As indicated earlier, use the centralized ART readout template and direct teams to fill the 1-page slide to prepare for the final readouts. For Fist of Five, use the ART chat window to see the confidence vote from each team after the readout. The voting options capability available in many tools can be used to obtain the ART vote of confidence.

9.Keeping people engaged, is probably the biggest challenge you will face for a virtual Pi. This trait is yet another test of your skills as an RTE. Prepare presenter ahead of time for the morning session (Business context, vision, top features planned for Pi etc.) and maintain a strict timebox. For the readout towards the end of the day, set the rules and context of the readout, keep up an active conversation and engage dependent teams throughout the readout and during Fist of Five. 

10. Lastly, don't forget to do a retrospective of the virtual Pi. Most of the tools have this ability inbuild so leverage those or use any of the free tools you may already have, to get a sense of how things went and things you can improve for future virtual Pi.

In conclusion, the idea of running virtual Pi should not become the norm. It is still highly recommended that teams invest a day at the minimum to come together and plan face to face. This is invaluable and as effective Coaches and RTE you need to stand by the agile principles, at least the ones that are highly valuable and effective. And yes, I did mention a 1-day Pi event, which works just fine. It’s a good balance between still coming together for planning and cost savings and I have done this very effectively since 2019. (Maybe time for another article for the future).

Best of luck for your upcoming virtual Pi.

Updates for RTE's from Virtual Pi and things observed (3/17)

1. Plan the agenda and time better. You may be thinking of shorting the Pi, but you will find the time is never enough.
2. As mentioned in the article above, spend time with the teams and their boards so they are ready at the Pi and not struggling where to start.
3. Set standards and coach teams on what you want the teams to accomplish during the day and what needs to be presented.
4. Remind people to use the team breakout session voice feature, you do not need to drop off and join another "meeting call" to discuss. That's the whole point of team breakouts, this also allows people to join the rooms vs. trying to figure out which "meeting number' they need to dial into to join the conversation.
5. Get help for a secondary host and at least one more person (3 to 4 people in total would be ideal). You will need this. While the RTE is facilitating the session, you need help with back end work such as conference call muting/ unmuting lines, moving people to breakout rooms, managing the Q&A and chat windows, checking on teams during the day and also for you as an RTE to take a break for lunch.
6. Coach your Scrum Master, leverage them to get things organized with their team and for them to work with our SM's and dependent teams. Make them responsible to get final plans, boards ready for readout
7. Before readout unmute all SM and PO's lines at the minimum and ART Architecture, Product Managers, Systems team, Business Owners to have a active discussion and Q&A related to the plan.
8. Use the tools and their functionality, stay away for manual meeting coordination.
9. Fist of five poll view worked amazingly well (see image above). Recommend create one for ART Fist of Five
10. Do the retro, you will get tremendous feedback.
11. More to come... next week