Tung - The Dream Team nightmare : boost team productivity using agile techniques

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To Snow Dragon

For making dreams come true

The colorful story of The Dream Team Nightmare has come to life thanks to all the people and teams Ive worked with and learned from in the past decade.

Special thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to have fun and keep writing, including Michael McCullough, Paul Field, Staffan Nteberg, zlem Yuce, Matt Gelbwaks, Liz Sedley, Lesley Rantell Seldon, Karl Scotland, Jenni Jepsen, James Major, Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen, Ben Seldon, Carolyn Donovan, Claire Hannon, Victoria Morgan-Smith, Graham Lee, Filippo Macchiettini, Antti Kirjavainen, David Peterson, Dan Talpu, Monika Koscian, Steve Hollings, Thorsten Kalnin, Alissa Fingleton, Maria Bortes, Dyan Corutiu, Tamas Jano, Ioana Jano, Chris Hogben, Kate Newdigate, Simon Parkinson, Sandro Mancuso, Pete Thomas, Mazda Hewitt, Vera Peeters, Pascal Van Cauwenberghe, Jenni Jepsen, Yves Hanoulle, Steve Holyer, Derek Graham, Clarke Ching, Phil Trelford, Markku Ahman, Kevlin Henney, Olaf Lewitz, Pat Kua, Eoin Woods, Simon Brown, Nat Pryce, Jens Hoffmann, Benjamin Tung, Linda Yung, Bill Tung, Annie Luk, Chantal Ellam, Sara Lewis, Sharmila Sabaratnam, Steven Smith, and Chris Bird. Thank you also for your endless gifts of feedback.

Last, but not least, many thanks to the Pragmatic Bookshelf team for introducing me to the art of publishing.

Welcome to The Dream Team Nightmare , an agile adventure. As an agile adventurer, youll meet a whole host of characters in lots of different scenarios. Youll be faced with many challenges, and your success will depend on the quality of the decisions you make.

During this agile adventure, you get to decide what to do. Once youve made your choice, turn to the corresponding section to find out what happens next. Keep reading until you have to make your next decision. Repeat these steps until you reach the end of your adventure.

Each adventure is a test of your skills, knowledge, and experience. Unlike in the real world, if at first you dont succeed, you can start all over again.

They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Be prepared and good luck!

Before setting off on this agile adventure...

If youre new to agile or want to learn more about the basics of agile, I suggest first reading one or both of the following books:

• The Scrum Guide by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber (16 pages). This can be downloaded for free from:

  https://www.scrum.org/Scrum-Guides

• Scrum and XP from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg (130 pages). This is also a free download from:

  http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches

If youve worked on one or more agile projects, then jump right in. As you read the book, you may find unfamiliar terms and concepts. Youll find definitions for these in the glossary toward the end of the book. If you find theres a lot of unfamiliar terminology, I suggest you take a break to read The Scrum Guide to make your journey more enjoyable.

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Your name is Jim Hopper. Youve worked with a dozen agile teams in the past three years. Youve typically worked as an agile coach-consultant hired by companies at the start of their agile journey. Of the teams youve coached, six have continued to flourish long after you left, while others have stagnated. You found out last week that the most recent of the teams youve coached has abandoned agile altogether and returned to waterfall in order to meet a deadline.