The document discusses the evolution of agile practices over time from their origins in the 1990s to the present. It notes that while agile was originally defined by practices like iterations and defined roles, it has shifted to become more flexible and focused on rapid delivery of features rather than prescriptive processes. The document also outlines how a large established company implemented more agile approaches including moving from specialized project teams to generalist developers that rotate frequently between short term projects.

1. Agile is the New Black
Fred George
fredgeorge@acm.org
@fgeorge52
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 1

2. “...grey is the new black”
Los Angeles Times quoting Gianfranco Ferre
1984
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 2

3. X is the new Y
✦ Originally attributed to the fashion industry
✦ Designates a versatile staple...
✦ Generally unobjectionable
✦ So overused as to become trivial
✦ Now on Banned Words List
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 3

4. “Agile is agile... or should be”
✦ Changes over time (even within same project)
✦ Different project to project (at the same time)
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 4

5. Agile Smells *
* From “code smells” concept by Kent Beck
Published in Refactoring by Martin Fowler
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6. Agile Score Card... for You!
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 6

7. Agile is not Waterfall
Engineering Manufacturing
Gantt Work In Progress
Starting Finishing
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8. Iteration Length
*
3 Weeks Original
XP
2 Weeks
1 Week
*
* *
1 Day
1999 2005 2009
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9. Roles in Agile Teams
project + SCRUM
+ Agile master
manager
coach iteration
management manager
Agile
+ IBM Certified
Roles Solution Designer
(Rational Unified
Process 7.0)
business development
customer
QA developer
BA
+ dev/ops
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 9

10. Tools...
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11. Tool: Story Cards
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12. Tools: Card Wall (Bangalore)
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13. Rational Method Composer
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14. Agile Process Guide
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 18

15. Bug Tracking
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16. Bug Tracking
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17. Permissions to Ship
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18. Process Experiments
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 21

19. Staff Changes in a Project
✦ What project starts with the right staffing?
✦ What project doesn’t change during its life?
✦ Example (2003-4 project of 8 months)
✦ 10 staff changes in first 6 weeks
✦ Dismissed a client programmer
✦ Eliminated BA
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 22

20. Requirements Hierarchy
Initiatives
Projects
Features
Stories
Tasks
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. Credit: Greg Reiser, ThoughtWorks, 2005 23

21. Agile Score Card... for You!
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved.
? 24

22. Agile circa 1999: XP
✦ Iteration-based
✦ 2-3 weeks
✦ Defined roles:
✦ Customer, developer, business analyst, tester, clerk
✦ Prescriptive process (and that was good!)
✦ Focus: Shippable at each iteration
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 25

23. Agile circa 2006: XP
✦ Iterations disappeared (or daily via Standup)
✦ Defined roles:
✦ Customer, developer, business analyst, tester
✦ Project manager, iteration manager
✦ Acceptance testing nearly gone (smoke tests)
✦ Focus: Potentially shippable anytime
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 26

24. Agile circa 2011: Anarchy
✦ Stand ups ✦ Unit tests
✦ Story narratives ✦ Acceptance tests
✦ Retrospectives ✦ Refactoring
✦ Estimates ✦ Patterns
✦ Iterations ✦ Continuous integration
✦ Mandatory pairing
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 27

25. Agile 2013:
Implementing Anarchy
✦ Online version of Daily Mail
✦ Company established in late 1800’s
✦ MailOnline largest online newspaper in world
✦ Challenge: Introduce Anarchy to an established IT
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 28

26. Transformation Summary
Was 2013
✦ Project focus ✦ Feature focus
✦ 3-6 month ✦ 1 month or less
✦ BAU for smaller ✦ Longer for new
✦ Specialists platforms
✦ Front-end ✦ Poly-skilled
✦ Back-end ✦ Broadly-skilled
✦ Design developers ==
✦ Test Experts
✦ Deployment ✦ Experts float
✦ SCRUM amongst efforts
✦ Story & task ✦ Aggressive Agile
focus ✦ Table-based
teams of 5-8
✦ Rotation to
balance &
broaden
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 29

27. People Focus
Key Business Tech
Platform
iOS
Android
Master Databases
Big Data
Journeyman Languages
HTML/CSS/JS
Java
Apprentice Ruby
Server-side JS
Software Delivery
Agile management
OOD / Architecture
Testing
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 30

28. Matching HR Focus
Master Dev
Senior Dev Systems Dev
Developer
Dual career path
for Developers
Graduate Dev
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29. Flexible Project Approach
“Tables”
C
A G H
D
Developers
E
B
F
time
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 32

30. Agile 2014 @ MailOnline
Was 2013 Next
✦ Project focus ✦ Feature focus ✦ Feature focus
✦ 3-6 month ✦ 1 month or less continues
✦ BAU for smaller ✦ Longer for new ✦ 1 week or less
✦ Specialists platforms ✦ Team delivers on
✦ Front-end ✦ Poly-skilled all platforms
✦ Back-end ✦ Broadly-skilled ✦ Poly-skilled
✦ Design developers == ✦ More self-
✦ Test Experts governance
✦ Deployment ✦ Experts float ✦ Communities of
✦ SCRUM amongst efforts expertise
✦ Story & task focus ✦ Aggressive Agile ✦ Career guidance,
✦ Table-based teams not appraisals
of 5-8 ✦ Anarchy +
✦ Rotation to ✦ Hiring, training by
balance & broaden developers
✦ Team size to 2
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 33

31. Restarting Your Agile...
✦ Start process experiments
✦ Discard those Agile Process Guides
✦ Drop bug tracking for immediate bug fixing
✦ Change metrics to focus only on finished efforts
✦ Fire any Agile Coaches
✦ Hire poly-skilled
✦ Talk to your HR department on changing roles
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 34

32. More?
✦ It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, No It’s Superman
✦ 10:15 Thursday - People over Process or Tools
✦ Micro-Service Architecture
✦ 3:15 Friday - Architecture to enable Anarchy
✦ The Secret Assumption of Agile
✦ 4:30 Saturday - Training for Growth & Anarchy
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 35

33. Agile is the New Black
Fred George
fredgeorge@acm.org
@fgeorge52
Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 36