agile, it, and the business community · 1. agile teams don’t plan or estimate – 2 somewhere...

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Agile, IT, and the Business Community

Presented by:

William F. NazzaroProcess Synergy, LLC

[email protected](484) 854-1354

Page - 2| Copyright © 2010 – 2013 Process Synergy, LLC . All Rights Reserved. |

Process Synergy Background

A Philadelphia-based consultancy dedicated to the highest-quality delivery of project mentoring, training and organizational transformationFull lifecycle consulting, coaching and mentoring

– Requirements – Use Cases, User-Stories, IIBA– Process – Agile (XP, TDD), Unified Process, CMMi– Project Management – Scrum, Iterative, PMI– Architecture – Service-Oriented Architecture– Organizational Change Management and Improvement– Delivered On-Site, Globally

Full lifecycle software training curriculum– Highly differentiated offerings– Experiential approach and skills building– Virtual and on-site

Multi-tool vendor expertise– IBM Rational, Microsoft, Borland, HP Mercury, BluePrint, VersionOne, RallyDev


Presenter’s Background

Twenty years of success in delivering enterprise software solutions for Fortune 100 companies, he has provided unparalleled services in project mentoring, use case and user story training and modeling, agile SCRUM, XP, TDD, service-oriented architecture, Unified Process and CMMi adoption, Java, C++, C, and Smalltalk programming languages, and technical curriculum development and delivery.

His pragmatic emphasis on project execution and process improvement has benefited major insurance, health-care, human resources, stock market organizations and Department of Defense where he has enabled the transformation of their corporate development processes and development teams of diverse skill-levels.

He has provided in-depth talks on Agility, Use Case Modeling, Service-Oriented Architecture, Unified Process, Object Technology and Data Modeling.

He has extensive background in project management, and has successfully led teams on multi-million dollar projects to provide the highest-quality technical solutions in the most efficient and effective manner.


Premise

IT projects are failing at a rate of 25%, and 45% of our projects are challenged for being late, over-budget, or providing less than required features and functions

Unfortunately this has been a habitual problem for IT and more importantly it has been a source of conflict and contention between IT and the business community we serve

Our business community, more than ever, demands speed and flexibility in taking products to market.

As a result, approximately 35% of IT organizations have adopted or are in some form of adoption of agile practices and agile software development


Agenda

Common Agile Misconceptions

Why Should the CIO or CTO Care About Agile?

What Does the Business Community Need to Know About Agile?

Barriers to Successful Enterprise Agile Adoption


Agenda

Common Agile Misconceptions 1. Agile Teams Don’t Plan or Estimate2. Agile Only Works for Co-Located Teams





1. Agile Teams Don’t Plan or Estimate – 1

Why do we plan?– Reduce risk and uncertainty– Support decision making– Establish trust– Convey information

A good plan is one that support reliable decision making

Steve McConnell, Software Estimation, 2006

My one client told me she wanted to get away from the way they ran their traditional projects

– We spend time planning and estimating at the beginning of the project

– We commit to this project plan and estimate at the beginning of the project

– We know, and our customer knows, the plan and estimate are incorrect

– Historical data verifies we are typically incorrect on our plan and estimate

– We move forward with the expectation that the information is correct

– We are disappointed and our customer is upset when we fail to deliver based on our initial plan and estimate


1. Agile Teams Don’t Plan or Estimate – 2

Somewhere along the line a belief cropped up that Agile projects don’t do planning or estimating

This is a MYTH, in fact I’ve found I’ve done more planning and estimating it’s just that I plan to certain horizons

There are different levels of planning– Release planning determines the scope,

schedule, and resources needed for a product

– Iteration planning determines which features will be built in an iteration, and what tasks need to be done to build them

– Day planning monitors progress and deal with obstacles

We plan and estimate to our horizon, then we inspect and adapt

Planning Onion – Mike Cohn, Agile Estimating and Planning, 2006

Agile teams typical focus Release

Iteration

Day


2. Agile Only Works for Co-Located Teams – 1

To be truthful, agility can be more difficult for teams that aren’t co-located because of the expectation to communicate more

So how can we over come this?

We have to be more creative– Shifting of hours or work schedules to

create an opportunity for overlap– Leveraging a variety of communication

tools (e.g., GoogleTalk, IM, Wikis, virtual team rooms, digital cameras, etc.)

Strive for purpose and value-driven communication


2. Agile Only Works for Co-Located Teams – 2

When hiring team members stress their ability to be able to communicate

Communication is more than just talking, it can also be– How to express an idea (i.e., Textual, UML,

Architecturally, code)– Do they seek to be understood or to

understand – How do they listen?

Ironically, teams that don’t communicate very well that are co-located are the first to mention that agile won’t work for teams that aren’t co-located


Agenda


Why Should the CIO or CTO Care About Agile?1. Traditional vs. Agile Processes2. Traditional vs. Agile Budgeting3. Some Numbers to Consider

1. What Does the Business Community Need to Know About Agile?

2. Barriers to Successful Enterprise Agile Adoption


Traditional vs. Agile Processes * – 1

Traditional Processes – Lockup capital for a long time by

having significant work in process before seeing any realization of business value

Agile Processes – By releasing incrementally we open

up the opportunity to obtain business value much earlier than would otherwise be possible and prior to the completion of the overall project

– This can be done by breaking the project into "feature chunks" that are delivered every few weeks

* Rudd, J. The Business Case for Agility, 2009


Traditional vs. Agile Processes – 2

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Month

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Month

% W

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Traditional IT Process


Traditional vs. Agile Budgeting *

Traditional Processes – With a fixed capital budget, larger projects

mean fewer projects– When no return is available until the

waterfall process is complete, longer projects increase the likelihood that no return will be obtained during the annual budget cycle

– This leads to fewer investments and limited opportunity to offset losing projects with winning projects

Agile Processes – With an Agile portfolio approach, the

business can break down long-term projects into short-term projects

– This provides more frequent opportunities to both evaluate and adjust investments so that you can:

» Adjust portfolio on the basis of market changes and customer feedback

» Actively reprioritize the project portfolio. » Reallocate funds to stronger performers.

* Rudd, J. The Business Case for Agility, 2009


Some Numbers To Consider *

93% increased productivity 1

88% increased quality 1

83% improved stakeholder satisfaction 1

49% reduced costs 1

66% three-year, risk-adjusted return on investment 2

Reasons for Agile adoption include:– 47% to better manage project scope 3

– 45% to create clear business requirements 3

– 40% to speed or better predict time to market 3

1 “Agile Methodologies: Survey Results”, Shine Technologies, 20032 Forrester Research, 20043 “Agile 2006 Survey Results and Analysis”, Digital Focus, 2005

* Source: http://www.rallydev.com


“I’ve change our funding model by having our teams prove they are worthy of additional investment by demonstrating success early”

“Some of my most successful projects have been the ones that I stopped early before a large investment was made”


Agenda



What Does the Business Community Need to Know About Agile?1. Agile Expects Customer Involvement2. Fixed Bid vs. Time and Materials3. You Prioritize Our Work



1. Agile Expects Customer Involvement

Expect the customer or Product Owner to be involved with the team

Ideally the product owner should be thought of as part of the team

Scenario: Customer may say,– “Perfect, I really want to get this done”

» On this project, we physically co-located the product owner with the team

– “I want to be engaged but I don’t have enough time”

» On this project, the product owner established “office hours” and the team knew they could call on him during those times

– “Working with you isn’t my day job”» On this project, the product owner was

unavailable with the exception of possibly 30 minutes at the beginning or end of day


1. Agile Expects Customer Involvement (cont.)

Regardless of the scenario we need to be prepared to let our customer know our expectations for their time and the amount of involvement we will require of them

We can let them know we will require them for

– Product Backlog– Release & Sprint Planning– Review and Retrospective

We can be creative with their involvement and work with them


2. Fixed Bid vs. Time and Materials (T&M) *

T&M is most likely the biggest deterrent and concern that a customer will have when you are trying to move towards Agile

On an agile project the customer can set the budget they want to spend, they can set the timeline, and then they can prioritize the features

* Sliger and Broderick, The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, 2008

Source: http://www.rallydev.com


2. Fixed Bid vs. Time and Materials (T&M) * (cont.)

Based on the Standish Group, we should remind our customers that 64% of software features are rarely or ever used

– The Standish Group’s CHAOS Report 2006

Fixed scope / fixed price results in– Customer required to specify everything upfront– Any change to the original specifications goes to

through a change control process– Customer realizes a change is need– IT doesn’t want to change it because it will impact the

project plan and budget– Customer doesn’t want to pay for the change because

it should have been there all along

Sligler and Broderick stated in their book– Changing contracts from fixed scope / fixed price to a

pay-as-you-go time and material (T&M) means that customers are now more responsible for the success of the product

– The customer directly control the cost of the contract because they authorize its existence on a recurring basis

* Sliger and Broderick, The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, 2008

Source: www.softhouse.se


3. You Prioritize The Work


You Prioritize The Work (cont.)

Product Backlog Sprint Backlog


Agenda






Barriers to Agile Adoption – 1

Organizational

Change

Management


Barriers to Agile Adoption – 2

Common phrases I’ve heard– “We’re agile but…”– “We’re doing SCRUM but…”

It’s usually the “but” that makes them not agile

Unfortunately for many, they are just practicing timeboxed waterfall development and calling it agile,

We call it “waterative” approach to development


Agenda






For More Information

If you have questions, or would like more information about our consulting, coaching, and agile training curriculum:

– Please call 1.610.831.1151

– Email: [email protected]

– http://www.Process-Synergy.com


In Closing…

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right” – Henry Ford

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Additional Supporting Material


Agile Manifesto *

"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 over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value items on the left more."

* www.agilemanifesto.org

The Agile Manifesto, created in 2001 by a group of software methodologists, produced the agile revolution that has significantly impacted the software

development industry in a very short period of time


Implementing and Adopting Agility

Depends on:– Agile process/method you choose

– Successfully focusing your pilot agile project (not projects)

– Organization’s culture and willingness » To adopt change» To accept limited failure and learn from it» To work in integrated, cross-functional teams, not business “silos”

– Individuals’ willingness to be part of a TEAM, where no one has “rank”

– Project Managers’ / Architects’ / Developers’ ability to “let go” of being the » Hero» Dictator» Star of the project» Like everyone else, is just another member of the Team


Traditional Management – Command and Control *

Manager

Subordinates Complies andexecutes

Receivesreports

Makes decisionsGives orders

Reports

Management

Subordinates

* Roman Pichler, Managers in Scrum 2008


Agile Management – Agile Leadership Principles *

EmpiricalManagement

Quality-First

Empowerment

ContinuousImprovement

Servant-Leadership

Standardisation

* Roman Pichler, Managers in Scrum 2008

Team

Management


Agile Doesn’t Work For Matrixed Teams Or Organizations – 1

Matrixed teams are created by pulling a variety of different resources from resource managers and these resources are allocated to a project manager while working on that project

I’m actually fine with this concept of matrixed if that’s all we did and Agile does work if that’s all we did

However, we usually go way beyond this

We’ve mutated the concept of matrix into time-slicing to gain maximum efficiency of resources

– Bill and Patty are each allocated 50% to project A and 50% to production support

– OR –

– Rick is allocated to four projects and each project is expecting that he is available to work 35% on their project (OK, who’s checking the math here?)


Agile Doesn’t Work For Matrixed Teams Or Organizations – 2

What’s an interruption?1. To break the continuity, 2. To hinder or stop the action of (someone) by breaking in on,3. To break in on an action

Why am I not a fan of time-slicing?– If you're being interrupted while working on a task you’re losing time– For a simple IM or telephone call Microsoft 1 found it took their workers 15

minutes to get back into the task whenever they were interrupted– The impact of changing projects is even greater, every time you're have a

context switch, it takes even longer to remember not just the task but why you were working on the task

– Studies have shown that productivity can be hindered by as much as 40% 2

1 Microsoft – “The Grand Seduction of Multitasking”2 Mike Cohn – “The Dark Side of Multi-Tasking


Agile Doesn’t Work For Non Co-located Teams – 1

To be truthful, agility can be more difficult for teams that aren’t co-located because of the expectation to communicate more

So how can we over come this?

We have to be more creative– Shifting of hours or work schedules to

create an opportunity for overlap– Leveraging a variety of communication

tools (e.g., GoogleTalk, IM, Wikis, virtual team rooms, digital cameras, etc.)

Strive for purpose and value-driven communication


Agile Doesn’t Work For Non Co-located Teams – 2

When hiring team members stress their ability to be able to communicate

Communication is more than just talking, it can also be– How to express an idea (i.e., Textual, UML,

Architecturally, code)– Do they seek to be understood or to

understand – How do they listen?

Ironically, teams that don’t communicate very well that are co-located are the first to mention that agile won’t work for teams that aren’t co-located

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