Kent Beck discusses trends in agile development including deployments, testing, co-location, complexity, scale, and business trends. Some key trends are accountability, responsibility, transparency, and focus on relationships with customers. There is also a trend toward more accountable business partners who deliver effective, reliable software on time at a reasonable price. Agile development techniques are well-suited for these trends as agile developers have methods for estimation, listening to customers, and producing reliable software. Both large and small organizations from various industries are adopting agile development due to benefits like improved relationships, reliability, flexibility, and return on investment.

1. Trends in Agile Development
Kent Beck
Three Rivers Institute

2. Development Trends
↑ Deployments
↑ Tests
↓ Co-location
↑ Complexity
↕ Scale

3. Business Trends
• Accountability
– Oregon Health Sciences University publishes
death rates for major operations—
www.OHSUhealth.com/Quality_Service
• Responsibility
– Mitsubishi, Hyundai, and Kia offer 10-year,
100,000 mile warranties on their cars
• Transparency
• Relationships
– Keeping customers is cheaper than getting
customers

4. Demand Trends
• Accountable partners
– Effective software
– Reliable software
– When promised
– Reasonable price

5. Social Evolution
• Historically
– High pay
– No deadlines
– “Wizard” status
– Excused for socially inappropriate behavior
• New generation of Business Professionals
– Grew up with technology—no longer mystical
– Trustworthy behavior expected
– Belief in the value of relationships

6. Trends lead to Opportunity
• Be realistically valuable to our:
– Teams
– Companies
– Communities
• Balance
– Being honest about what we can do frees us
to work
• Sustainable
– Based on reality
• Build business relationships

7. Relationships
• Productive business relationships
– Trustworthy
– Responsible
– Accountable
• Less Waste from
– Hiding
– “Spin”
– Worrying
• Benefits
– Increased confidence in your business partners
– Increased collaboration and creativity
– Increased opportunities
– An interesting life outside of work (American value)

8. Agile Development
• Fortuitous Synergy
– Business trend towards accountable business
practice
– Agile development
• Agile developers have techniques for:
– Estimation/commitment
– Listening and responding to customers
– Producing reliable software

9. Who is Getting Agile?
• Large and small companies
• Large and small teams
• Product development and internal
development
• Regulated industries and startups
• Governments and industry
• Agile 200x conference growing 40%/year
– Not just programmers

10. Why Agile Development?
• Relationship
• Reliability
• Low cost of change
• Increased return on investment

11. Key Skills
• Social skills
– Listening
– Teamwork and teambuilding
– Appreciative attitude
– Emotional intelligence
– Integrity
• Technical skills
– Incremental design
– Automated testing
– Self education

12. Next Steps
• What does your team do well?
• How could you use agile techniques to
enhance your strengths?

13. Resources
• www.threeriversinstitute.org, article on Getting
Started with XP
• Being Agile course
• Dale Emery’s web site, www.dhemery.com
• Extreme Programming Explained, 2nd Edition
• Implementation Patterns
• Test-Driven Development: By Example
• Mailing lists—http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
extremeprogramming