Presentation to Lonetree PMI Roundtable on August 27, 2008.
Abstract:
According to the Wall Street Journal agile development has "crossed the chasm." Why then are there still strong pockets of intense resistance to agile? This presentation takes a look at some of the most common misconceptions about agile development. It exposes the truth behind the myths and backs up many of the points with actual industry data. In the process, a basic business case for agility is created. The goal of this session is for all participants to leave with the knowledge necessary to answer the question "Why Agile?" In addition, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the realities of agile development and how it can help organizations.
2. Before We Start Cell phones, pagers, PDA’s, etc. to silent If you have a question, please ask it. Don’t wait! It is better to answer the question while we are still in the same area than to go back. Agile?! Are you crazy? 2
4. Bob Hartman 30+ years of software industry experience Certified Scrum Practitioner Bachelor and Masters degrees in Computer Science Roles included Tester, Developer, Dev Manager, QA Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, VP… Started with agile in 1999 Agile?! Are you crazy? 4 bob.hartman@agileforall.com 303-766-0970
5. Who are you? Please introduce yourself including: Name Company and title Agile experience Agile?! Are you crazy? 5 AboutMe
6. Jack and Bill Two typical project managers have a chat Agile?! Are you crazy? 6
7. Meet Jack Agile?! Are you crazy? 7 A really hard-driving project manager. Jack is young and ambitious and believes by making his team work harder they will get superior results.
8. Meet Bill Agile?! Are you crazy? 8 Project manager that is older than Jack with many more battle scars. Bill is at a point in his career where he is starting to question the logic behind the way things have always been done.
9. Jack and Bill meet at the water cooler Agile?! Are you crazy? 9 Hey Bill, haven’t seen you in quite a while. How is your project going these days? Jack, you know how it is. Late, overbudget, stress, not enough time for QA. Blah, blah, blah…
10. Jack tries to help Agile?! Are you crazy? 10 Dude, that stinks. What are you going to do? I’m getting desperate. I think I’m going to try agile on my next project and see if it will work.
11. Jack is in shock Agile?! Are you crazy? 11 Agile! Are you crazy???
12. Bill responds Agile?! Are you crazy? 12 I know it’s crazy, but I’m out of ideas. Hey, you’re the new hard-driving guy, how is your project going?
13. Jack’s reality Agile?! Are you crazy? 13 (to himself) Hmmm, Maybe not as crazy as I thought if his project is in the toilet too! Umm… ahhh… uhhh… I mean… Hey, don’t change the subject here! Are you crazy???
14. Group discussion Do you relate more to hard-driving Jack, or desperate Bill? As project managers do you ever feel like you are personally failing when projects are failing? If you have used agile in the past, why was the switch made from traditional software development processes? How did agile work for you? Agile?! Are you crazy? 14
16. Software project success rates Agile?! Are you crazy? 16 Source: The Standish Group Success increasing by 1.7% per year. Will not reach 50% until 2014!
17. Feature use in software Agile?! Are you crazy? 17 Question: What percentage of software features are NEVER used?
18. Industry realities Most “successful” projects were deliberately over-estimated at the start (Standish – 2001) 64% of features in products are rarely or never used (Standish – 2002) The average project exceeds its schedule by 63% (Standish – 2001) 50% of project failures are due to missing or misunderstood requirements (Ravenflow – 2006) Executive support and customer involvement are the two biggest critical success factors in project success by far (many studies in the past 10 years) Agile?! Are you crazy? 18
19. More industry realities 56% of defects are attributable to missing or misunderstood requirements 82% of defect fixing time and dollars go to fixing requirements related defects NIST has estimated that 0.6% of the GDP is lost due to software defects NIST also estimates that 1/3 of that money could be saved by using a process allowing earlier detection and correction of defects Agile?! Are you crazy? 19
20. Things I sometimes ponder… Why do we make all important decisions on projects when we have the least information? Why do managers always think things will take less time than everyone else? Why do we let them estimate at all? Why has the software industry never improved the ability to estimate accurately? If we know that an average of 30% of requirements will change during a project, why do we use a process that is intolerant to change? Why do companies say that quality is important while internally they give QA less time than originally allocated to do their job? Why do developers always do the easiest things first? If the customer is always right, why do we only ask them their opinion AFTER we have completed the entire project? Agile?! Are you crazy? 20
21. BUT Agile is crazy!Isn’t it??? Excuses for not using agile Agile?! Are you crazy? 21
22. We’re agile so… we don’t need to do documentation any more (more generically) we don’t need to do X because we’re agile developers get to decide what goes into each iteration we’re going to have a lot more meetings we don’t have to plan more than the current iteration we can be undisciplined because QA will catch all the errors in near real time Which of these have you heard? Which of these do we believe? Which of these is the worst? Agile?! Are you crazy? 22
23. No documentation A simple question – is this even possible? The correct phrase is “Just enough documentation, just in time.” Agile?! Are you crazy? 23
24. We don’t need to do X Again, just enough, just in time. It doesn’t matter what X is Design Architecture Project charter Vision … We MUST keep business requirements in mind. If it is required by the business for reasons outside our control, then we have to do it! Agile?! Are you crazy? 24
25. Developers pick what to work on Well, they do say that most myths are at least partially based in reality Agile?! Are you crazy? 25 Developers don’t get to pick and choose what they want to work on They DO commit to what they will complete – but it is in priority order and they don’t make the priorities!
26. More meetings Release planning – once Iteration planning – once per iteration Iteration demo/retro – once per iteration Daily standup – every day Hmm, that IS more meetings, but Release planning – 4 hours Iteration planning – 2 hours x iterations Iteration demo/retro – 2 hours x iterations Daily standup - .25 hours x iterations x days Total might look like: 4 + 2x5 + 2x5 + .25x5x10 Total meeting time is 36.5 hours of meetings How long would we have met to analyze, design, code and test an average 3 month release with our current process? More importantly – would the product have been as good? Agile?! Are you crazy? 26
27. No planning Don’t confuse NO planning with ADAPTIVE planning! Would any company actually allow no big picture planning??? Agile?! Are you crazy? 27 Adapting as we go. Notice we still have all the items! Figuring it all out up front
28. No discipline Reality check… In traditional projects of a year in length how hard are people working during the first 2 months? Does that sound disciplined? Planning, demos and retrospectives every two weeks and daily standups. Does that sound disciplined? Making a commitment to work that will be accomplished in two weeks – disciplined? Working in priority order – disciplined? Coding AND testing need to be done in order to be considered complete – disciplined? The heart of the matter – Code needs to pass unit tests AND acceptance tests in order to be complete. High performing teams use the phrase “Add value quickly now AND be able to add value quickly in the future!” In other words, no undisciplined hacking!!! Agile?! Are you crazy? 28
29. Myth recap When you hear something about agile that sounds stupid there are two possibilities: It’s false because someone is misunderstanding It’s true and agile has a fundamental flaw Keep in mind that it may sound “odd” which is very different from “stupid” No documentation required = stupid Teams use points (sizes) rather than hours and minutes for estimating = odd Remember that some VERY successful companies are using agile, and it’s highly unlikely that ALL of them are stupid Agile?! Are you crazy? 29
40. Iteration – the basic unit of agile Agile?! Are you crazy? 33 Iterations create a “product increment” of “potentially shippable software.” This means everything is working. It DOES NOT mean we can get it wrong in an iteration and then fix it all up in the next iteration!!!
41. Maybe agile isn’t so crazy Reasons for being agile Agile?! Are you crazy? 34
42. Building a business case for agility Business case essentials: Bottom line dollars and cents Improvements For this business case we should discuss: Business value Customer expectations and quality Team dynamics Planning Other improvements Agile?! Are you crazy? 35
43. Adding Business Value Quickly – A Simple Example Stuffing envelopes can tell us a lot about agile What are the advantages of getting something released more quickly? Agile?! Are you crazy? 36
44. Delivering business value quickly Agile?! Are you crazy? 37 Question: If we get rid of the 64% of software that is rarely or never used, what happens to our overall software development efforts?
45. Discussion: Customer expectations When does the customer know what they really want in a product? How can we help them know earlier? Does that sound agile to anyone??? Did we mention the highest value items get the most testing so quality perception is better as well? Agile?! Are you crazy? 38
46. Changes to team dynamics Morale improves Team succeeds more often Teams work together Teams empowered to succeed Failures are very limited A single iteration Correction happens immediately Team fails together so no blame Happens quickly rather thanbleeding to death from a papercutor finding out about problems too late! Agile?! Are you crazy? 39
47. Planning improvements Retrospectives for correction and improvement Accurate management visibility Better predictability leading to success Agile?! Are you crazy? 40
48. Other improvements Change tolerance (30% of requirements will change!) Due to short iterations, change is free or nearly free most of the time Increased collaboration Everyone works together to create a great product rather than all groups working in isolation Risks are handled earlier Everyone identifies risks and impediments as soon as they are noticed so there is more time to mitigate the risks and remove the impediments Agile?! Are you crazy? 41
49. Recap: Agile… … adds business value quickly while meeting customer expectations with high value and high quality products produced by teams with high morale through projects that are easier to plan even while being tolerant to change Agile?! Are you crazy? 42
52. VersionOne Survey Results (2008) Agile?! Are you crazy? 45 Survey asked people: Please try to estimate SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS you have actually realized from implementing Agile practices. Source: VersionOne 2008 State of Agile DevelopmentSurvey NOTE: All 2008 data is within 2% of 2007 data Average of 74% of agile projects completed successfully Biggest causes of agile project failure: Company philosophy or culture could not be overcome – 23% Lack of experience with agile – 21%
53. Standish Group further results #5 success factor for projects is using agile methodology Jim Johnson from the Standish Group says: Agile is an important success factor because its incremental nature allows for leaving entire features or portions of features out without affecting the overall value of the project He also notes agile is difficult for some because of corporate culture (as also found in the VersionOne survey) Agile?! Are you crazy? 46
54. Agile is a Proven ApproachSome Agile Companies (there are MANY more) Agile?! Are you crazy? 47
56. One big question to answer… Agile?! Are you crazy? 49 What does the data say about how crazy agile is?
57. 2nd big question Agile?! Are you crazy? 50 How should you respond when someone says “Agile!? Are you crazy???
58. Jack and Bill 6 months later… Agile?! Are you crazy? 51 Hey Jack, I just heard. Sorry dude. You should have tried agile. All of my projects are actually being successful for a change!! Don’t rub it in. Both of my projects stunk, so I deserved it. One was on time but had all wrong features, and the other was WAAAAAAAY late.
59. Take away thoughts… Projects in the software world are NOT completing successfully today Teams are trying hard Project Managers are trying hard Effort is NOT the issue (don’t be Jack!) There is a business case to be made for an agile process The world of project management is changing and you have to decide if you are going to be an agent for change, a person that reacts after change has been made, or a person that will not be a part of project management in the future. Agile?! Are you crazy? 52
