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BECOMING AGILE: FROM CLASSROOM TO BUSINESS IMPACT
Rachel Alt-Simmons, MS, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM, Lean MBB
Agile Project Management Professor at Boston University, Metropolitan College
Project Management in Practice Annual Conference
http://www.projectmanagementinpractice.com
THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT JOURNEY
2570 BC
208 BC
1917
1930s
1957 1962
1969
1987
GLOBAL IT
SPENDING IT’S A TECHNOLOGY WORLD OUT THERE…
Gartner forecasts that worldwide dollar-valued IT spending will grow 3.2% in 2014 or 3.7% when measured in constant currency, reaching $3.8 trillion as the world economy gradually recovers.
Are we doing any better at delivering technology projects?
4
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions Working software Customer collaboration Responding to change
OVER
Processes and tools Comprehensive documentation Contract negotiation Following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
http://www.agilemanifesto.org/
5
Then all this craziness happens…
CS634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
THE APPROACH STUDENT PERSONA
Lean Scrum
XP
Customer focus Value-added
processes Right-sized for
the organization
Scalable structure and routine
Defined roles and responsibilities
Technical discipline
Empowered, self-organizing teams
more about agile frameworks so that they can become excellent agile development team members and evangelist-coaches in their organizations
BU MS-CIS students who want to learn
In the wild, there is no such thing as a “perfectly” applied methodology implementation.
CS 634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
Our journey…
CS 634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
GROUP PROJECT RETROSPECTIVE
Attributes Overview The Good Needs Improvement
Empowered team Three full sprint cycles and a release
Team members shared roles / responsibilities
Instructor as agile coach
Team gelled! Settled into routine
Communication
Customer-centric Product vision User personas User stories Sprint themes and goals
Understood the significance of user-centric design and development
Estimation process Slipped into old habits Learning curve with agile PM
tool Dedicated product owner
(instructor / facilitator)
Inspect-and-adapt Technical practices / testing approach
Retrospectives
Definition of Done Retrospectives
Identification and ownership of action items
CS 634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
SPRINTS: A LITTLE BUMPY…
Sprint 1: Conservative estimate of velocity; utilization of spikes and knowledge gathering
Sprint 2: Progress, but process hiccups; problems with consistency and communication
Sprint 3: Finding the groove
Google hangout improves communication
Ambitious user stories are pushed into later releases
Team updates “definition of done”
Team not prepared for sprint review / retrospective – allowed to defer to sprint 2
Web domain crashes and nobody escalates
CS 634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
IT’S A REAL WORLD AFTER ALL!
Students were more likely to have baseline experience or knowledge of agile
The real world is complex and messy – organizational scenarios defy out-of-the-box fit with a single project delivery methodology
Delivery approaches need to be right-sized to fit the project and organizational culture – make it yours!
Don’t underestimate the some of the cultural challenges within your organization that will impact core aspects of agile (empowerment, customer-focus, velocity)
Agile is not a silver bullet! Keep your line of sight on continuous and incremental improvement
CS634 AGILE
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
RELEASE (AND BIRTHDAY) PARTY!
Brian (new dad)
Michael (always
cheerful)
Aditya (graduating!)
Rachel (birthday)
Radhika (helper
extraordinaire)
Isha (quietly curious)
Agile is about people
