I Don't Do Agile. I Am Agile

Private and Confidential. © 2011 ThoughtWorks, Ltd. All rights reserved.

I DON’T DO AGILE, I AM AGILE!

@BarryOReilly

www.barryoreilly.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/barryoreilly


Who are ThoughtWorks?

Enterprise Agile and Technology consulting

Offices in US, UK, Germany, India, Brazil, China and Australia

1,800 people worldwide

Creators of GO!, Twist and Mingle

Martin Fowler & Jim Highsmith


What will we cover?


Problems adopting and practicing Agile in

organisations


Follow what is in the book

– we’re Agile!


Agile project failing to deliver or live up to expectations


But we are doing everything X

says to do


Maybe Agile isn’t for us

It does not work

A myth


Practices and Principles

Agile

– SCRUM

– XP

Lean and Kanban


SCRUM - PracticesMeetings

Daily Stand Up

Sprint Planning

Showcase

Retrospective

Time-boxing

Sprint

Spikes

Artifacts

Product Backlog

Sprint Backlog

Burn Down

Roles

SCRUM Team

SCRUM Master

Product Owner

Users


XP – PracticesFeedback

User Stories (Planning)

Whole team

Test Driven Development

Pair Programming

Welfare

Sustainable Pace

Shared Understanding

Simple Design

System Metaphor

Collective Code Ownership

Continuous Process

Continuous Integration

Design Improvement

Small Releases


Kanban

Visualise The Workflow

Limit Work In Progress

Manage Flow

Make Process Policies Explicit

Improve Collaboratively


Change your perspective


Instead of trying to do everything that’s prescribed

Ask why are we doing it?


Do we need to do it?

Does it work for the product we trying to build?


Reverse thinking


The best place to begin an intellectual journey is at its end

– Russell Ackoff


Visionaries look ahead to a desired end

Know where they want to be


Work backwards to find a way of getting there


Bad smells


To do more of what is not working now, is to do more of

what will not work in the future


Trying to do the wrong thing right


Being ineffective


How do we know?


Practices and Principles

Agile

– SCRUM

– XP

Lean

– Kanban

– Muda (Eliminating waste)

– Amplify learning

– Deliver as fast as possible


It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of a specific activity or method.

– Edward Deming


Go Compare


CompareSCRUM

14 Practices

- Time boxed

- Cross Functional teams

- Roles Prescribed

- Cannot Add Items

- Estimation Required

XP

12 Practices

- Iterative

- Developer centric

- Collective Ownership

- Small releases

- Planning game

Kanban

3 Practices

- Event Driven

- Specialist teams

- No Roles Prescribed

- Add Items when capacity

- Estimation Optional

Prescriptive Adaptive


Focus on using the practices that suit the context

Don’t simply stick with one discipline and one alone


Great idea!

When do we start?


Day One to Last Day


Example


Day OneManagement felt need to control and manage team

Showed a lack of involvement in the project (Agile too time consuming)

Wanted progress reports every two weeks

SCRUM by the book

Time-boxing led to mini-Waterfall mentality

Sprint planning meeting (taking hours and all team members)

Build broken, still go to prescribed meetings

Estimate in points, task in hours, Burn down in hours


Change perspective

Planned

On Deman

d


Change Going Forward

Once Planned

Now On Demand

No Sprint

Planning

Story Showcase

No Time Box

Retro Reporting

Trash Hours

Abstract Sizing


Last DayOnly formality

– Showcase to external stakeholders

– Report outwards on velocity covered since last report cycle

Stakeholders

– require continual engagement at story review and showcase

– Forced to prioritised

Developers

– Story huddles meant they only review stories they work on

– Focus on writing code, not hang out in meetings


What are the indicators for what practices to use?


What To Think About….

Project Brief

– Green or Brown Fields

– New Product Development

– Heavy Lifting

– Integration



Organisation

– Experience of Agile

– Open to change

– Culture

– People need to feel secure, otherwise display defensive behaviour



Hand over and collaboration

– Always available

– Not with team continually

– Intermittently

– Only attend schedule meetings



Composition Of The Team

– Co-located

– Distributed

– Same working hours

– Different time zones



Environment

– Technology

– Tools

– Office Space

– Desk Space



Releasing

– Automated or Manual

– How often can you deploy?

– On demand

– Daily, Weekly, Monthly

– Scheduled cycle



Feedback loops

– Stakeholders

– Customers

– Users

– Cannot improve if you do not get it


So back to SCRUM, XP or Kanban


SCURM

14 Practices

- Time boxed


- Roles Prescribed

- Cannot Add Items


XP

12 Practices

- Iterative

- Developer centric


- Small releases

- Planning game

Kanban

3 Practices

- Event Driven

- Specialist teams





Stop thinking about what discipline

to use

Starting thinking about what practice will be useful


SCURM

14 Practices

- Time boxed


- Roles Prescribed

- Cannot Add Items


XP

12 Practices

- Iterative

- Developer centric


- Small releases

- Planning game

Kanban

3 Practices

- Event Driven

- Specialist teams





- Time boxed


- Roles Prescribed

- Cannot Add Items


- Iterative

- Developer centric


- Small releases

- Planning game

- Event Driven

- Specialist teams





Lean Thinking


There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all

- Peter Drucker


Minimum amount to succeed


Muda

– Eliminate waste

– Not helping get rid of it

– Using more tools, people or equipment than is needed

– Software Development is a value creation process

– Perfect process has no unneeded waste


Delivering as fast as possible

– End goal is to deliver a product

– Sooner the product is delivered

– Sooner you get feedback

– Sooner you can improve it


Amplified learning

– Continuous learning process

– Making mistakes and learning

– Increased feedback


Question Everything


Is what we are doing valuable or slowing us down?


Is it relevant for what we are trying to do?


What purpose is it meant to serve

- is it achieving it?


If we didn’t do it what would happen?


Continuous Improvement


Team arrives at maturity when it invests more in

strategies and tactics that do not work more than ones that

do


Learn more when things are wrong not right


Try things out

Don’t be afraid to fail


Do not waste your failures


It's not FAILURE that we should celebrate - but the

LEARNING that ensues


Kaizen

Envisage

Enact

Get Feedback

Feed Learning Back In


Thank you

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