Agile Mashups

Speaker: Rachel Davieswww.agilexp.com

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What’s this talk about?

• Understanding industrycontext that’s useful toknow when you areadopting agile.

• What Agile teams aredoing that might be hard towork out from the books.

Why does it matter?

Because books, training and conferences talk aboutagile methods with labels like Scrum, XP, DSDM,etc.

I’ll be talking about the form of Agile which I seeteams actually do.

My experience?

• XP practitioner since 2000.

• Consulting agile coach since 2003. Coachedteams at BBC, CODA, Egg, Lloyds TSB, Nokia,Orange, Roche, Screwfix, and many more.

• Agile community work includes Agile Allianceboard, Experience reports for Agile2007/2006,Agile2008 conference chair, Agile Businessconference, BCS SPA, RetrospectiveFacilitators Gathering, Scrum Gathering openspace facilitator, XPDays, XTC, etc.

Your experience?

Methodologists United!

“I kicked off "The LightweightProcess Summit" with a 10minute plea for a manifesto, andthen watched with awe and gleeas these people, with some deepphilosophical differences, foundthemselves in fundamentalagreement with the notion thatwhat we shared in common wasmore important than ourdifferences.”Bob Martin re: Agile Manifesto

Method Camps remain

Crystal

DSDM

Scrum XP

LEAN

Banging the Drum

Keeping a method simple makesit easy to transmit and easy tounderstand.

Agile methods can help you getstarted but you have to fill inthe gaps.

What am I seeing teams do?

• I work with Scrum teams who use XP practiceslike Velocity, Test-Driven Development andUser Stories describe their Product Backlog.

• I work with XP teams who use Burndowncharts, Retrospectives and Daily Scrum format.

• I work with Lean teams who use a mix of theabove.

• It seems a generic Agile mashups are emerging.

Sorry, No again! Work out new Agile practice gradually through Retrospectives

The 13th Practice?

CorporateCulture

XP SCRUM

Mashup Zone

Teams create their own agile “mashups”

Agile Transition

How XP are you?

Can you claim to be an XP team ..• if you don't use index cards?• if you don't write code test-first?• if you don't program in pairs?• if you don't sit together?• If you don’t have an onsite customer?It seems that some practices are more optional

than others

How Scrum are you?Can you claim to be a Scrum team ..• if you don't have a Sprint Review?• if you don't deliver a Product Increment at the

end of each Sprint?• if you don't have a Sprint Retrospective?• if you don't have a visible Sprint Burndown?• if you don't have a defined Sprint Goal?• if your Product Backlog is not prioritized?Maybe there’s a good reason why you don’t?

Typical Agile Practice List Daily Scrum/Standup Iterations/Sprints User Stories Release Plans Test-Driven Development Velocity Burndown Charts Team boards Retrospectives Continuous Integration

X Pair ProgrammingX Product IncrementX Sit Together

Agile Roles

Between 5 and 10 team members• Cross-functional including at least one tester• Self-organizing

The Team

Split the Customer (ProductOwner) role

The Truth works with support ofcommittees, management,customers, sales people, but is theonly person that makes decisionsabout priorities

With a trusty sidekick …

The Truth

The Voice of the Customer

The Voice of the Customeris typically an analyst whoworks closely with theteam to make sure thatuser stories andacceptance tests areconsistent, valuable anduseful.

Agile Project Managerand Scrum Master

Responsible for:

• Facilitating meetings

• Reporting progress

• Shielding the team

• Working with the team to removeobstacles

• Preparing the road ahead

Whole Team

Current Iteration Future Iterations

Agile Cycle

Start from

Ziffer (Zero Feature Iteration) -- Michael Hill

Projects start with an Iteration Zero

Two Week Cycle

PLAN

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEVELOP

DEMO

RETRO

Most teams set their iteration/sprint length at 2 weeks

DEV

Start the Day around the Board• Teams start the day with a Daily Standup by their

Project Board using the Scrum question format.• The Project Board shows what the team are working

on today and how much is left.

Release Cycle

Sprints/Iterations

Releases

INTERNAL

ZFR

POLISH

EXTERNAL

EXTERNAL

POLISH

Sprints/Iterations

Conformity?• Scrum says “Inspect & Adapt”• Manifesto says “the team reflects on how to become

more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavioraccordingly.”

• Your team will be different and that’s OK :-)

Agile Books

• Use as source of ideas• Not “religious” texts• Read more than one!

No, I’m not suggesting we need this.Project are too varied so we need loose Agile.The Agile Manifesto already serves the purpose

of a framework.

Unified Agile v2.0?

Any Questions?

Rachel Davies

rachel@agilexp.com

http://www.agilexp.com/