Forwarding for the benefit of those not on Wikimedia-l or Wikimedia- announce.
Pine On Jul 24, 2014 5:52 PM, "Erik Moeller" <e...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi folks, > > It’s my great pleasure to announce Arthur Richards as Team Practices > Manager for WMF. Arthur will lead a group of ScrumMasters and coaches > to scale up our ability to support teams in developing robust > processes for software delivery. In this new role, Arthur will report > to the VP of Engineering (currently, me). > > Arthur’s first engagement in this role will be with the MediaWiki core > team in October. He’s also still transitioning responsibilities for > the mobile web team to Kristen Lans, who just joined WMF as > ScrumMaster. I am very excited about the work ahead. Please join me in > congratulating Arthur and wishing him success in this new role. :-) > > What follows is some more background about this new group and about > Arthur’s leadership in case you’re interested (long): > > Arthur joined WMF in June 2010 [1] to support fundraising tech. In the > context of team process pains, this team was the first one to adopt an > agile development process (specifically, Scrum), and Arthur was in the > middle of it all. He took this experience with him when he joined the > mobile development team under Tomasz Finc in 2012. The mobile team, > too, would soon adopt Scrum, and Arthur took on the role of > ScrumMaster later that year to be the "process owner" for the team. > > What does that actually mean? It means facilitating the "rituals" that > are part of an agile team’s work (e.g. the daily stand-ups, the sprint > planning meetings, retrospectives, etc.) and continually facilitating > the team’s discovery of improving the way they work. Say it turns out > week after week that the team is introducing preventable regressions > -- in a situation like this, the ScrumMaster will work with the team > to better understand what’s going on and work towards a solution > (e.g. collaboration with QA, improved test coverage, etc.). > > In my experience, every team benefits from process improvement, and > the highest performing ones view this as a continuous part of the > team’s work. Arthur embodies this and I've long viewed the mobile web > team as the canonical example in our org that illustrates the benefits > of agile development done right. > > Throughout his experience as ScrumMaster, Arthur has always made a > point of emphasizing the spirit of agile (continued iteration and > improvement, problem solving from the bottom up) rather than sticking > dogmatically to a specific methodology. He’s also led the development > of new processes in the organization that reduce siloed development > and improve coordination, e.g. the Scrum of Scrums. > > Through most of this time we relied on external consultants to get > other teams up to speed on agile development practices. While this has > worked reasonably well, the ever-changing personal relationships (a > new consultant for every project) and the lack of institutional memory > has meant that it was hard to customize and scale the process to our > needs. > > When we spun up the Flow team last year, we had to make a decision: > Will we continue to rely on external consultants, or will we start > building internal capacity for this? We decided to experiment with the > latter, and Arthur Richards and Tomasz Finc led a one-time agile > workshop with the team which was universally well-received and didn't > suffer from some of the false starts of consultant engagements. > > So, in the budget planning cycle this year Tomasz and Arthur made a > pitch to formalize this function in the organization: the Team > Practices Group [2]. Given his experience, Arthur is perfectly > positioned to lead this group. He’s demonstrated level-headedness, > patience, and openness that you want from a coach, guiding teams > gently and always focusing on improvements that will be carried > forward by the team as a whole. > > After consulting with multiple teams who were hungry for more support > (e.g. a full-time ScrumMaster, or just agile process support), we > decided that Arthur would initially bring on two full-time staffers. > > It’s already become clear that this won’t be sufficient. For example, > Analytics is expressing a strong need for a full-time ScrumMaster to > support the growing team so that developers can focus on development. > Whether this is always the right answer remains to be seen. Arthur > will work with teams to find a good balance between custom tailored > solutions and process consistency for the org. > > Ultimately, this new group’s function will be similar to what in > traditional organizational models would be a "Project Management > Office" - except that, instead of having a group of Project Managers > assign work, we want to facilitate self-organizing and increasingly > fluid teams coming up with a process that works for them. > > We draw lots of inspiration from other orgs (e.g. Spotify’s seminal > Scaling Agile paper [3]) but also need to account for the unique > requirements of our org (transparency, commitment to open source, > etc.). > > Working with Arthur is a privilege and a pleasure, and I’m thrilled > that he’s agreed to take on this new role. If you're interested in > being part of the ongoing conversation about process improvements, we > have the public teampractices mailing [4] list for this purpose. > > Warmly, > > Erik > > [1] > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-June/000027.html > [2] > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/Team_Practices_Group > [3] > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1018963/Articles/SpotifyScaling.pdf > [4] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices > -- > Erik Möller > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately > directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia > community. 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