Agile Methods for Ebusiness keynote from Valtech\'s Al Goerner. London March 2nd 2010. Whether B2C or B2B, web business applications are increasingly complex & significant investments - with ever greater payoffis it has never been more imoprtant to examine methods for software development that foster - innovation for market differentiation - responsiveness for timeliness & change-tolerance - discipline for quality & reproducibility. This presentation explores the differences in culture between the creative marketing and detail oriented technology worlds. For more see www.valtech.co.uk.

1. Agile Edge – London 2 March 2010 Innovation, Responsiveness, & DisciplineAgile Methods in Web-Business Al Goerner Chief Agile Strategist

2. Bottom Line… the last time AnAgile teamin a non-agile environment will not long survive. Development Agility & Business Agility go Hand-in-Hand. 2

3. Top Line… this time AnEnterprise that doesn’t embrace Agile-Lean Thinking will not long thrive. Business Agility & Opportunity Agility go Hand-in-Hand. 3

4. What’s the Hurry? Half-Life of a Requirements Set 1980 – 8-12 years 2000 – 2-3 years 2010 – 6-18 months Need to Respond to Change 4t – 6t t How many of your requirements are obsolete before you even complete the project? How many new requirements do you discoveras you are executing the project? 4

5. “We have met the Enemy and He is Us.” In 1971, Walt Kelly (cartoonist-author of Pogo) gave us this famous quote in honor of the first Earth Day. It is oddly appropriate to Business at the turn of the 21st century. 5

6. Portrait of a Dysfunctional Family? Nearly all aspects of a Modern Business are intimately connected to electronic media & means. Yet, we don’t communicate with each other well. We often don’t share … Working vocabularies. Goals. Values. Timeframes. Planning methods. Trust. Who is the Ugly Other? We are. 6

7. A Question of Cultures & Concerns Executive Management Shareholder Value Middle Management Resource Utilization Marketing Marketshare Sales Quarterly Sales Growth Governance Global Risk Management Graphic Design Compelling Imagery UX Design Ease-of-Use Software Engineering Function & Maintainability QC Engineering Quality Data Center Operation Reliability & Cost-of-Operation Elegance, n. the property of being gracefully concise and simple; the effective synergy of beauty and utility. 7

8. Issues of Scale … Anywhere in the Enterprise 8 PreciserCoordination Concurrent Devlpmt. Version/Config. Mgmt. Product Integration WiderDiversity People & Cultures Disciplines & Skills Sites & Timezones CloserAlignment To Business/Market To Strategic Plan LargerComplexity Architecture Configurations 3rd-party Software Stds Conformance QuickerResponsiveness Half-Life of Reqmts. Time-to-Market BroaderRisk Profile Regulatory Compliance Security Reliability Product People Process ImprovedAccountability Satisfaction-of-Need & Maturity Timeliness & Health Quality & Fitness-for-Release Efficiency & Productivity

9. What is E-Business, any way? “Electronic business … may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.” – Wikipedia “e-business” is a term created by IBM marketing, according to Louis Gerstner in his 1996 book Who says Elephants can’t Dance?. Web-Business simply limits the focus to interactive services via Web technology. Portal Transaction B2C (i.e., e-Commerce) B2B B2G B2E Portal, Transaction, Web Service What is the rate-of-change in these relationships? 9

10. The Challenge of Web-Business- Searching for an Elegant Solution How do we get these 3 parties to talk? Shared Vocabulary & Values How do we get these 3 parties to coordinate & collaborate? Shared Process & Planning Methods How do we get the process to flow? Shared Units-of-Work & Work-Streams 10

11. Effective Solutions are always and only the Result of Active Collaboration among the parties of a Value Streamthat begins and ends with the Customer. The effectiveness of a solution and the efficiency of its development & deployment are directly related to how closely and directly these parties communicate and collaborate. Reducing communication and stepping away from collaboration always produces an inferior solution. Virtue of Feedback: Feedback is Essential to Understanding. Where there is no Feedback, there is no Understanding. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Virtue of Dialog: Regular conversational dialog about a tangible artifact is the most effective kind of feedback cycle. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Virtue of Collaboration: Even Better than Talking-together is Working-together, where we share Goals and produce Results jointly. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Client-Centric: Always seek to improve the client experience. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Agile-Lean Manifesto (2nd-Gen) (1/4) 11

12. Agile-Lean Manifesto (2nd-Gen) (2/4) A Working Solution is the objective of any project, not its Documentation. Documentation may have value to manage certain kinds of risks, but it does not, in itself, solve the problem addressed by the project. Documentation is, ultimately, not the primary Deliverable of the project. 12 Dialog with Validation: The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to, and within, a development team is in face-to-face dialog, where critical aspects of the conversation are thereafter restated and confirmed in another media. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Analysis, not Contract-Drafting: Prefer Exploration over Specification. Our job in analysis is not to write binding contracts. Such contracts are a legacy of distrust.It is, instead, to manage the key analysis risks: (1) How much work are we not aware of? (2) What do we not understand about the problem domain and the needed solution? (3) How good is good-enough? ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Evolving Requirements: Produce Nothing which is Not Consumed by Someone making a Decision. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way

13. Agile-Lean Manifesto (2nd-Gen) (3/4) Work Process is essentially about Effective Cooperative Work and Risk Management. Work together, enforcing just enough process to coordinate your efforts and manage your project’s risks – and no more. A process that inhibits cooperation and introduces risk is a bad process. 13 Paraphrasing Eisenhower: The Plan is Worthless, but the Planning is Priceless. We engage in (continuous) Agile Planning, But we don’t have a (fixed) Plan. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Results breed Trust: Seeing a Process work and deliver Value, even if just a little at a time, is the surest way of building Trust. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Lean – Decision-making: Make Decisions at the Last Responsible Moment, such that the decision closes depreciated real options and opens higher-valued ones. Implement these Decisions Quickly. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Necessity & Sufficiency: We always do what is Necessary to Mitigate Risk, But We only do what is Sufficient to Mitigate Risk. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way

14. Agile-Lean Manifesto (2nd-Gen) (4/4) Change is a force of Nature. Change can, and should, be Managed. It cannot be Controlled. Lest we deliver yesterday’s solution to tomorrow’s problem, we must allow Change to occur, adapting our projects to Change, rather than trying to ban Change from our projects. 14 Lean – Strive for Excellence: At regular intervals, a team should reflect on how it can become more effective, and then it should adjust and tune its behavior accordingly. Continuous process improvement is an Agile-Lean value. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Pacing the Market: Our solution development process must match the pace of the Market, because surely the Market will not slow down to match the pace of our process. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way Evolving Requirements: The only thing that you guarantee when you freeze requirements is that you will deliver the wrong thing. ─ 50 Tenets of the Valtech Way

15. Agile-Lean Ecosystem 15 Different Techniques; Same Process Framework.

16. Coordinating Workstreams The only really unique aspect of multidisciplinary Agile-Lean process is … Synchronization Stories & Synchronization Sprints Synchronize Schedules Exchange of Information and Artifacts Integration Builds Joint Testing Working as a Single Team from a Common Backlog is preferable provided that the Natural Rhythms of the two disciplines are identical. 16

17. Thank you for attending! Questions??? 17