I don't do Agile, I AM Agile!

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CONTEXT

@BarryOReilly www.barryoreilly.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/barryoreilly

What will we cover?

Problems adopting and practicing Agile in organisations

Follow what is in the book

– we’re Agile!

Agile project failing to deliver or live up to expectations

But we are doing everything X

says to do

Maybe Agile isn’t for us

It does not work

A myth

Practices and Principles Agile

– SCRUM –  XP

Lean and Kanban

SCRUM - Practices Meetings "  Daily Stand Up "   Sprint Planning "   Showcase "  Retrospective

Time-boxing "   Sprint "   Spikes

Artifacts "   Product Backlog "   Sprint Backlog "  Burn Down

Roles "   SCRUM Team "   SCRUM Master "   Product Owner "  Users

XP – Practices Feedback "  User Stories (Planning) "  Whole team "  Test Driven

Development "   Pair Programming

Welfare "   Sustainable Pace

Shared Understanding "   Simple Design "   System Metaphor "  Collective Code

Ownership

Continuous Process "  Continuous Integration "  Design Improvement "   Small Releases

Kanban

"  Visualise The Workflow "  Limit Work In Progress "  Manage Flow "  Make Process Policies Explicit "  Improve Collaboratively

Change your perspective

Instead of trying to do everything that’s prescribed

Ask why are we doing it?

Do we need to do it?

Does it work for the product we trying to build?

Reverse thinking

The best place to begin an intellectual journey is at its end

– Russell Ackoff

Visionaries look ahead to a desired end

Know where they want to be

Work backwards to find a way of getting there

Bad smells

To do more of what is not working now, is to do more of what will not

work in the future

Trying to do the wrong thing right

Being ineffective

How do we know?

Practices and Principles

"   Agile –  SCRUM –  XP

"   Lean –  Kanban –  Muda (Eliminating waste) –  Amplify learning –  Deliver as fast as possible

It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of a specific activity or method.

– Edward Deming

Go Compare

Compare "   SCURM

14 Practices

-  Time boxed

-  Cross Functional teams

-  Roles Prescribed

-  Cannot Add Items

-  Estimation Required

"   XP

12 Practices -  Iterative

-  Developer centric

-  Collective Ownership

-  Small releases

-  Planning game

"   Kanban

3 Practices -  Event Driven

-  Specialist teams

-  No Roles Prescribed

-  Add Items when capacity

-  Estimation Optional

Prescriptive Adaptive

Focus on using the practices that suit the context

Don’t simply stick with one discipline and one alone

Great idea!

When do we start?

Day One to Last Day

Example

Day One "   Management felt need to control and manage team

"   Showed a lack of involvement in the project (Agile too time consuming)

"   Wanted progress reports every two weeks

"   SCRUM by the book

"   Time-boxing led to mini-Waterfall mentality

"   Sprint planning meeting (taking hours and all team members)

"   Build broken, still go to prescribed meetings

"   Estimate in points, task in hours, Burn down in hours

Change perspective

Planned On Demand

Change Going Forward

Once Planned

Now On Demand

No Sprint Planning Story Showcase

No Time Box Retro Reporting

Trash Hours

Abstract Sizing

Last Day "   Only formality

–  Showcase to external stakeholders

–  Report outwards on velocity covered since last report cycle

"   Stakeholders

–  require continual engagement at story review and showcase

–  Forced to prioritised

"   Developers

–  Story huddles meant they only review stories they work on

–  Focus on writing code, not hang out in meetings

What are the indicators for what practices to use?

What To Think About….

"   Project Brief

–  Green or Brown Fields

–  New Product Development

–  Heavy Lifting

–  Integration

What To Think About….

"   Organisation

–  Experience of Agile

–  Open to change

–  Culture

–  People need to feel secure, otherwise display defensive behaviour

What To Think About….

"   Hand over and collaboration

–  Always available

–  Not with team continually

–  Intermittently

–  Only attend schedule meetings

What To Think About….

"   Composition Of The Team

–  Co-located

–  Distributed

–  Same working hours

–  Different time zones

What To Think About….

"   Environment

–  Technology

–  Tools

–  Office Space

–  Desk Space

What To Think About….

"   Releasing

–  Automated or Manual

–  How often can you deploy?

–  On demand

–  Daily, Weekly, Monthly

–  Scheduled cycle

What To Think About….

"   Feedback loops

–  Stakeholders

–  Customers

–  Users

–  Cannot improve if you do not get it

So back to SCRUM, XP or Kanban

"   SCURM

14 Practices

-  Time boxed

-  Cross Functional teams

-  Roles Prescribed

-  Cannot Add Items

-  Estimation Required

"   XP

12 Practices -  Iterative

-  Developer centric

-  Collective Ownership

-  Small releases

-  Planning game

"   Kanban

3 Practices -  Event Driven

-  Specialist teams

-  No Roles Prescribed

-  Add Items when capacity

-  Estimation Optional

Stop thinking about what discipline to use

Starting thinking about what practice will be useful

-  Time boxed

-  Cross Functional teams

-  Roles Prescribed

-  Cannot Add Items

-  Estimation Required

-  Iterative

-  Developer centric

-  Collective Ownership

-  Small releases

-  Planning game

-  Event Driven

-  Specialist teams

-  No Roles Prescribed

-  Add Items when capacity

-  Estimation Optional

Lean Thinking

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all

- Peter Drucker

Minimum amount to succeed

Muda

–  Eliminate waste –  Not helping get rid of it –  Using more tools, people or equipment than is needed –  Software Development is a value creation process –  Perfect process has no unneeded waste

Delivering as fast as possible

–  End goal is to deliver a product –  Sooner the product is delivered –  Sooner you get feedback –  Sooner you can improve it

Amplified learning

–  Continuous learning process –  Making mistakes and learning –  Increased feedback

Question Everything

Is what we are doing valuable or slowing us down?

Is it relevant for what we are trying to do?

What purpose is it meant to serve

- is it achieving it?

If we didn’t do it what would happen?

Continuous Improvement

Team arrives at maturity when it invests more in strategies and tactics that do not work more than ones that

do

Learn more when things are wrong not right

Try things out

Don’t be afraid to fail

Do not waste your failures

It's not FAILURE that we should celebrate - but the LEARNING that

ensues

Kaizen

Envisage

Enact

Get Feedback

Feed Learning Back In

Thank you