Introduction of Basic Agile Concepts for PM Community

1. 1ironworks.com
Introduction to Agile
ICF PM Group Presentation 4/2/2013

2. 2
Pomodoro 1: The Promise of Agile
• What problems in software development does Agile address?
• Where does Agile fit in the Universe of Methodologies
• What is Agile – from Squishy to Solid?
• What is the Promise of Agile?
• What flavors does Agile come in?
• The Current State of Agile
Pomodoro 2: A day/week/month in the life of …
• A Scrum Team
• A Kanban Team
• A Scaled Team
Lean Coffee Retrospective: Agile Dunk Tank
Agenda

3. 3
Businesses are looking for an approach
to software development approach that
offers:
• Predictability and Transparency
• Right-sized, just- enough, and just-in-
time
• Responsive to rapid market change
• Incremental, and iterative delivery to
delivery value, early and often
• Quality built in along the way
Agile Addresses: Software Development is Complex

4. 4
Predictability: What has recent history told us ?
The Standish Group’s CHAOS report results from a 40,000 projects
Top reasons for success
1. User involvement
2. Executive support
3. Clear objectives
4. Optimizing scope
5. Agile process1994
16% Succeeded
≈170% overrun
2004
32% Succeeded
≈70% overrun
“Doing projects with iterative processes as opposed to the
waterfall method, which called for all project requirements
to be defined up front, is a major step forward.”
Jim Johnson, Chairman of Standish Group

5. 5
Sometimes, 16%
Rarely, 19%
Never, 45%
Always, 7%
Often, 13%
Feature Usage in Software Projects
Has Product Development produced Just enough, Just in time?
Always or often used
20%
Never or rarely used
64%
Standish Group Study Reported at XP2002 by Jim Johnson, Chairman

6. 6
Agile Accelerates Value Delivery: Incremental and Iterative
4 444 :
Documents Documents Unverified Code Software

7. 7
Transparency: Do Agile Practitioners listen to the Business?
VersionOne: 7th Annual State of Agile Development 2013
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Manage distribute teams
Increase engineering discipline
Simplify dev process
Improve team morale
Reduce risk
Enhance maintainability
Reduce cost
Project visibility
Enhance software quality
Better Align IT/business
Manage changing priorities
Accelerate time to market
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Highest Very Somewhat Not

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What is Agile? – Squishy to Solid

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Mindset
Agile is a mindset
 Learn through Discovery
 Collaboration
 Failing Early
 Seeking Feedback for
learning
 Strive for Continuous
Delivery
 Focus on Value
A mindset is the
established set of
attitudes held by
someone

10. 10
Values
Mindset
Agile is a mindset defined by values: Agile Manifesto
A Value is an established
ideal that the members
of a given society regard
as desirable
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

11. 11
Principles
Values
Mindset
Agile is a mindset defined by values guided by principles
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous
delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes
harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of
months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the
project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and
support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within
a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The
sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace
indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing
teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then
tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

12. 12
Practices
Principles
Values
Mindset
… and manifested through many different practices
“We surveyed the
Agile Community
and came up with
Over 70 Different
Practices”
Ahmed Sidky, Santeon Group
Practices

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Practices
Principles
Values
Mindset
The various Agile flavors are combinations of practices
Practices

14. 14
The Universes of Methodologies and Standards

15. 15
We’re used to Agile Expects
Time Lines Define Done, Build Quality in
Top Down Control/ Hierarchical Servant Leadership/Self managing teams.
Fixed Budgets Fixed Burn Rate
Predictable, all at once deliverables Incremental deliverables driven by value
Multiple matrixed departments, part time
commitment of resources
Co-location – one team.
Communication by Document Just enough documentation to start
conversation
Customer is “managed” Customer is part of team.
Certain Knowledge Uncertainty solved by “IKIWISI”
Estimates and Actuals Empirical Results, Cone of Uncertainty
The Paradigm Shift from Waterfall

16. 16
There are Many Popular Flavors ……
Agile
Principles
Scrum
SAFe
XP
DSDM
Crystal
Kanban
(Lean)
Flavor Characteristics
Scrum “Reference Implementation” of
Agile. Release, iteration and daily
planning; prioritized backlog,
demos, retrospectives,
generalizing specialists. Time
boxed
Kanban Focus of understanding how work
flows, visualizing the work. Limit
WIP. Often outside of SW.
SAFe: Agile @
Scale
Handles integrating multiples
teams with program and portfolio
layers
Extreme
Programming
(XP)
Technical focus on development
practices. Prescribes practices
that are commonly needed to
make Scrum deliver high quality.
Time Boxed.

17. 17
…. In the end it’s about the People …..

18. 18
• New(ish) role introduced
by Agile.
• NOT the same as or a
replacement of the Project
Manager.
• Focus on
relationships, listening, fac
ilitating.
• The Agile SME
• Team facing not product
facing!
About the Agile Coach

19. 19
An agile coach…
Coordinating individual
contributions
Coaching for
collaboration
Being a subject
matter expert
Being a facilitator
for the team
Being invested in
specific outcomes
Being invested in
overall performance
Knowing the
answer
Asking the team for
the answer
Directing Letting the team find
their own way
Driving
Guiding

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Product Owner

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Team Members
Developer [2-4]
Tester [1-2]
Agile BA for larger teams and Scaled Agile
Tech Lead especially for more developers
Technical Writer [Optional]
Specialist roles main join, FE Dev, DBA etc.
Different Sized
Teams will benefit
from different
practices and Agile
Flavors
• Small 1-4
• Medium 5-8
• Large > 10

22. 22
Agile @ Scale: Beyond Team Delivery Models
Agile
Enterprise
Scaled
Delivery
Teams
Agile Delivery
Teams
Scaling Considerations
Enterprise:
• Team size
• Geographic distribution
• Regulatory compliance
• Domain complexity
• Organization distribution
• Technical complexity
• Organizational complexity
• Enterprise discipline
Scaled Teams:
• Handoffs/Integration
• Incoming and Outgoing
process
contracts
• Consistency
Team delivery:
• Maturity
• Construction of working
software; various delivery
models
Software Project
Management practices
focused on delivering
working, tested code every 2
– 4 weeks;
Highly incremental delivery
practices designed to
improve code quality;
Program-level alignment to
a common, larger mission.
Synchronizing
planning, development, int
egration, delivery and
customer feedback
A set of Lean leadership
principles, that include
respect for
people, continuous
improvement, product
development flow and
executive sponsorship for a
Lean Agile operating mode

23. 23
Pomodoro 1 is over!
5 mins at the end of the first time box
Questions?
Get and move to another seat!

24. 24
Pomodoro 2: A Day/Week/Month in the life of an Agile Team
What is the most important part of this go
cart? – The brakes, they let you go faster
 Scrum uses time-boxed “breaks”
 Kanban uses Work in Progress “breaks”
 Agile @ Scale: A peak
at the bigger picture

25. 25
Scrum prescribes roles, artifacts and meetings

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Scrums aims to have a repeatable cadence to delivery

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Scrum Cadence
Every Release: The process begins with the product owner
collecting and prioritizing requirements in a product backlog.
Every Sprint Beginning: Sprint Planning - The team and product
owner work together to select the highest priority requirements/
stories that can be accomplished within a time boxed sprint.
Every Day: The ScrumMaster and the team have a daily scrum
meeting.
Every Sprint End: The team demonstrates the completed features
to the product owner.
• These features are a potential shippable product.
• The feedback gathered from the demonstration is fed back into
the product backlog.
• The team then has a retrospective to determine what worked
well, and what improvements need to be made to the process
for the next sprint.

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What is a Story
Combination of
• Requirements that combined
provide a standalone shippable
feature
• Visuals to support the knowledge
transfer
• Acceptance criteria: Definition of
done to drive developer and guide
testers
• Small enough to fit in a sprint and
be estimable using tasks

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Sprint Planning where stories become tasks
Planning Units
 Ideal hours or days
 There are other
units, but these two
are the most common
Purpose of Estimates
 Not for tracking time
 Scrum is results
oriented, not effort
driven
Sprint Rules
 No changes during
 No change to sprint
duration
 Team takes work until
they’re full
Velocity
 How much work the
team actually
accomplishes in a
sprint

30. 30
Scrum board = Information Radiator for the Team
• The board Informs
• Highlights impediments
• Burndown shows progress
• Focus of daily meeting
• Swimlanes per story
• Done means shippable!

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Scrum: The day starts with a daily meeting
 15 minutes or less
 Same time, same place – the board
 Starts on time regardless with no role calls
 3 questions
 What I did since the last standup
 What I will do before the next standup
 What’s in my way
Yes, that’s it. That’s all. No more, no less. It’s a
commitment meeting, not a status meeting.

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Sprint: Demo and Retrospect on the events of the Sprint
Preparation
• As little as possible
• Low tech, high impact
• No PowerPoint – this is not about slide
ware, this is about showing real stuff

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Scrums can be linked for larger releases
Release 1
Sprint 1
Sprint
Planning
Daily
Standup
Retro and
Demo
Sprint n
Sprint
Planning
Daily
Standup
Retro and
Demo
Ideas
Product Backlog
Release Planning
Release Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Fixed Time and Resource
Not Done Sprint
Backlog
Not Done

34. 34
Lean and Kanban: First in factories, now front offices
Toyota
Production
System
TQM
TOC
Just-In-Time
Six Sigma
Lean
Healthcare
Lean
Manufacturing
Lean Marketing
Lean
Construction
60’s-80’s 80’s 90’s 2000’s Today
Focus is on the system: rapid flow and
feedback, versus planning and “efficiency”
Enterprise Kanban

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Kanban in factories allowed decentralized decision making
Set priorities, not schedules
Enterprise Kanban
Kanban is Japanese
for visual card

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The Kanban Method for Software
1. Visualize the workflow
2. Limit Work-in-Progress
3. Manage Flow
4. Make Process Policies Explicit
5. Improve Collaboratively
using models and the scientific method

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Kanban does not prescribe roles, artifacts and meetings
Start with current process and focus on
improvement
Focus on reducing cycle time in the
system
Improvements are done “real-time”
rather than waiting for retrospectives
Metrics are different reflective continuous
flow

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For knowledge workers, Kanban = Post-ItTM Notes
Visualizing work provides immediate
insight into flow (or not)
bottlenecks

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Kanban works well outside of IT
But sticky notes don’t scale, work for
distributed teams, or track metrics

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Electronic systems support broader view
Enterprise Kanban

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Cumulative flow diagrams replace burndowns
Not based on estimates or percent
complete – just card moves
Enterprise Kanban

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Electronic Kanban boards for distributed visualization
Enterprise Kanban

43. 43
Project A Project B Project C Project Z
Infrastructure QADevelopment
Multi-level Kanban Supports Scaling
Enterprise Portfolio
Cards:
Vertical Lanes:
Swimlanes:
For:
Key Projects
Quarters
Lines of Business
CIO & Peers
Project Breakdown
Cards:
Vertical Lanes:
Swimlanes:
For:
Deliverables
Months
Functions
Project Leads
Departments
Operations
or User Stories
Process
Team Members
Cards:
Swimlanes:
For:
Road Map
Source Control Change Mgmt Test Planning
API Integration
Link to multiple systems
Enterprise Kanban

44. 44
SAFe Roots
Lean Thinking
Product
Development Flow
Agile Development
Field experience at enterprise
scale
Iterative and
Incremental
Development
Core Values:
1. Alignment
2. Code Quality
3. Program Execution
4. Transparency

45. 45
SAFe : Multiple layers need to interoperate

46. 46
Agile Teams act as foundations of productivity
• Empowered, self-organizing, self-managing teams with
developers, testers, content authority
• Teams deliver valuable, fully-tested software increments every two
weeks
• Teams apply Scrum and Kanban project management practices and XP
technical practices
• Teams operate under program vision, system, architecture and User
experience guidance

47. 47
Focus: Strategic Alignment. Code Quality.
Collective
Ownership
Test-First:
TDD
ATDD
Emergent
Design
Scalability
Required
Agile
Analysis
Continuous
Integration
XP Inspired
User Stories
SAFe Scrum
XP Inspired Technical Practices
Strategic Alignment
 Sprint and PSI/Program
objectives
 Aligned sprints and velocities
 Program architecture and UX
Guidance, governance
 Lean prioritization
Code Quality
 Test First: TDD and ATDD
 Continuous integration:
component and system
 Test automation
 Fortnightly system
demonstration

48. 48
Focus: Program Execution. Transparency.
Program Execution
 Economic prioritization
 Frequent, evaluable, quality
deliveries
 Fast customer feedback
 Fixed, reliable cadence
 Fast tracking to actual needs
Transparency
 All backlogs and progress visible
to all stakeholders
 Objective reporting based on
working code
 Everyone understands
capacity, velocity, WIP

49. 49
Scale to the Program Level
 A self-organizing, self-managing team-of-agile-teams committed
to continuous value delivery
 Organized around enterprise value streams
 Aligned to a common mission
 Delivers fully tested, system-level solutions every 8-12 weeks
 Common sprint lengths and normalized velocity
 Face-to-face planning cadence provides development collaboration,
alignment, synchronization, evaluation

50. 50
Develop on Cadence. Deliver on Demand.
Deliver on Demand
Develop on Cadence
Customer
Upgrade
Customer preview
Docs and
certs
QA-Release to Market-
Governance Firewall
Major
Release
Docs and
certs
Feature
Release
Major
Release
PSI PSI PSI PSI PSIPSI

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Scale to the Portfolio
• Lean principles emphasize sustainably fastest value delivery
• Portfolio vision guides investments and the enterprise architecture
needed to support customer and business needs
• Business epic kanban system provides visibility and work-in-process
limits to support continuous product development flow
• Enterprise architecture is a first class citizen; architectural epics are
developed and maintained in a kanban system
• Objective metrics support governance and kaizen

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This session will run more like a Kanban team and can be used
as a retrospective technique:
1. Creates 5 ideas for questions using 5 mins of the Crawford
Slip Method
2. Get with a Business Unit and figure out the groups favorite
5 questions
3. Post to the backlog
4. Vote with Green dots
5. We will flow questions based on highest priority
6. We will answer each question given it 5 mins
7. If it needs > 5 mins we will ask the team “Enough or
another 5”
8. Time Left? Yes - goto 5
9. No – You are released!
Lean Coffee Session

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Certification Opportunities (beyond initial training)
• Supports both client engagements and internal resources/teams
• Certified Scrum Professional
• Certified Agile Coach
• Certified Agile Trainer
ICF Agile/Lean Community
• Connect internal pockets of Agile/Lean enthusiasts across ICF and
Ironworks
• Create avenues for idea sharing
• Promote Agile/Lean practices and training
• Coaching internal key Agile roles
Local Agile/Lean Communities
• Engage and support local communities (Agile Richmond, Capital
Kanban, LeanStartUP…)
Community Evolvement