Slides of my talk given to the NASSCOM Chennai Friday 2.0 forum on 21 August 2009

1. Introduction to Agile Methods

2. What we do today

3. Does it work?
Lets find out
Its time to have a party!

4. It's Party Time!

5. Waterfall doesn't work well when
- There is a lot of uncertainty
- Requirements change midway

6. Waterfall doesn't work well when
- You or the customer are not 100%
sure of the market requirements

7. Waterfall doesn't work well when
- New ideas derive from using the
software

8. Two options
- Freeze requirements with upfront
research and analysis

9. Two options
- Freeze requirements with upfront
research and analysis
- Make the process adaptable

10. The market for software is complex
and ever changing
Agile methods derive from a theory
of Complex Adaptive Systems to
work in this environment

12. Traditional Timeline
- Wait till the end to use the software
- Feedback and bugs discovered late
- Poor visibility of progress

13. Agile Timeline
- Possible to incorporate feedback
- Bugs found early
- Start getting partial benefits early

14. Agile Timeline
- Better visibility of progress
- Better management of requirement
uncertainty

15. Agile Timeline
- Time is fixed
- Scope is a variable
- Keep software “releasable”

16. Frequent Delivery

17. Frequent Delivery
- Allows customers to view progress
- Customer can give feedback

18. Incremental Development
Image by Jeff Patton

19. Incremental Development
- Build a system piece by piece
- Better idea of development pace
- Allow parts of the system to be
deployed live
- Enable earlier return on
investment

20. Iterative Development
Image by Jeff Patton

21. Iterative Development
- Evolve features based on actual
usage
- Improves usefulness of the
product
- Enables deploy, test, refine cycle
in a live environment

22. Customer Collaboration

23. Customer Collaboration
- Not just building the product right,
but also building the right product
- Both parties are invested in a
successful outcome
- Collaboration vs confrontation

24. So what is Agile really?

25. Scrum, Extreme Programming, FDD,
Crystal, DSDM, Lean
t

26. We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and
helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions
over processes and tools
Working software
over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration
over contract negotiation
Responding to change
over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the
items on the left more.

27. Benefits
- Improved RoI through early
deployment of software
- Build the right product through
incremental improvement

28. Benefits
- Better visibility into progress
- Catch problems early when you
have time to react

29. Further Questions
- How does Agile work in fixed price
projects?
- How to handle documentation?
- How to handle knowledge sharing?

30. Further Questions
- What happens to design?
- What happens to quality?
- Wont making many changes affect
the codebase?

31. Some Agile Practices To Explore
- Self organization
- Inspect & Adapt
- Burndown charts
- Test Driven Development
- Pair Programming
- Continuous Integration

32. Some Agile Practices To Explore
- Pull/Kanban
- Throughput analysis
- Work in progress limits
- Iceberg list
- Walking skeleton
- Information radiators

33. Some Agile Practices To Explore
- Domain object modeling
- Feature teams
- Parking lot diagrams
- Prototyping
- MoSCoW prioritisation
- Facilitated workshops

34. Thanks!
Siddharta Govindaraj
siddharta@silverstripesoftware.com