First Interview Flashcards
1
Q
What are your key strengths for this role?
A
- Strong on the human element. Examples include David Brotherton, Jacob, Stacey in Frictionless, Hanin and the Friday afternoon group.
- Coming from an engineering background
- Having developed a skillset in writing
- I’ve done a lot of different roles over the past 10-15 years including PO, Dev, BA and have a strong history of working well with stakeholders including CEOs, CTOs and COO type people.
- Video-based showcasing of new features and product
- Ability to learn - books, articles, talks and evidence of the last 12 months.
- Leadership background. Very proactive. You will never hear me say “I’m just an Agile Coach”, it will always be getting involved “because I’m an Agile Coach”.
2
Q
In which areas might you need support in this role?
A
- Get better at training and being more focused/intention in coaching sessions.
- Preparation
- Technical knowledge of Agile and its related frameworks
- Lack of experience
3
Q
Why Agile?
A
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Transparency
- Early and Predictable Delivery
- Predictable Costs and Schedule
- Allows for Change
- Focuses on Business Value
- Focuses on Users
- Improves Quality
- Refer to the Agile Manifesto of Values and Principals
4
Q
Can you walk me through your preferred delivery framework?
A
- Scrum.
- I like having a finished line in place and have structured meetings. I feel empowered to be focus on the creative side of engineering because of that.
- My wife and I use Weekly Sprints at home and I use them for my writing e.g. I have writing sprints and editing sprints. I live and breathe it.
- I find that most of the collaboration in order to accomplish something during that sprint is nicely setup in the meetings.
- I like how weekly sprints coincide with weekends and Monday mornings.
- Describe different Agile Ceremonies - Planning, Stand-ups, Refinement, Review, Retros.
- Scrum Values, Roles, Principals.
5
Q
Take us through your favorite retrospective or coaching technique/game
A
- A variation on Adkins “Journey” retro. The purpose of the retro is to create a bit of team understanding and unity/synergy in which we understand the path people have taken to get to the point where they are at in their careers and skillsets, but also be visible about where they want to go from here.
- So, after explaining the retro, I get people to draw a timeline as far back as they want and to share as much personal information as well as they want, and then people can ask questions at the end of the little 5 minute presentation.
- I then, also draw a target board like a dart board and assuming that everyone wants to be senior, which role do you want to be in, in the future - EL, Princ, EM etc… and the retro action is for you to have coffee with somebody who is already doing that role and find more about it or what you need to do in order to get there.
6
Q
How do you drive continuous improvement within teams?
A
- Data driven retrospectives with key delivery metrics
- Have a roadmap for high performance showing where you are at and where you are going. e.g. high performance tree or Shane’s pirate map.
- Team is empowered to choose the next step of improvement through the map.
- The reason for improving is to deliver more value earlier that impacts the business.
7
Q
How do you maintain and build your knowledge of best practices in delivery?
A
- Experimentation. Creating hypothesis and seeing if they actually work. e.g. replacing code reviews with peer reviews.
- Read and study a lot
- Try to read one book a week and I take a lot of notes and then try to apply them.
8
Q
What metrics are you familiar with, what does each metric measure, who captures these for your current team?
A
- Cycle Time
- Shelf Time
- Lead Time
- Throughput
- Defect Age
- WIP Limit
9
Q
How do metrics drive the team forward?
A
- Used as the input to retrospectives in which the team look at insights from the data that help guide what to improve next.
- You can’t argue with data.
10
Q
When using metrics within a business, what do you need to be aware of?
A
- They are going to be aggregated
- They are going to be visible
11
Q
What is your approach to influencing people within a team?
A
- Modeling Agile myself i.e. leading by example
- Observation, Gather insights and then act upon those insights
- Spending time with the strategically important people first i.e. EL, PO as they have the most influence amongst the team
- At the beginning and end of the team’s iteration of work mostly with the team in providing feedback and teaching/training sessions
- In the middle of the work iteration, spend time individually with the people.
- I think to have the right influence with the team, you can’t just spend time with the EL and PO or EM, but with everyone.
12
Q
What is your approach to influencing people outside of a team?
A
- So, by this I assume you mean middle and senior leaders/managers within the organization
- Depends on their role and what they expect. Depends on how I can help that particular role within the organization
- Workshops, training, events,
13
Q
How do you resolve conflict within a team?
A
- Adopt a neutral stance
- Determine whether this is a long term or short term conflict or dispute.
- Address the issue openly and honestly and establish understanding between the parties in dispute
- Make sure each party has been heard and acknowledged
- Move the conversation towards a positive outcome or a win-win for both parties identifying the opportunities that are present in the midst of the conflict.
14
Q
How do you build trust with a team you’re working with? What approaches might you take?
A
- Work with them over time. Trust isn’t something established quickly; quickly lost but not so easily gained.
- Start with those already in trusted positions - EL and PO and then work from there to influence the rest of the team.
- Work with the team. Spend time with people listening and observing.
- Default by trusting people up front and I often find they return it.
- Be transparent and visible, be vulnerable.
- Take the heat for other’s mistakes
15
Q
When something has not quite worked with the team, what next?
A
Learn why it didn’t work and what the mistake was. Pivot. Make changes. Fail fast. Don’t keep doing the same thing that fails.
