the state of agile in ten easy learned lessons

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The state of agile in ten easy lessons learned

Sander HoogendoornAuthor of This Is Agile

@aahoogendoorn

BEYOND BREAKING BAD

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

2Sander HoogendoornMe independent.. (February 2015)

Dad

Mentor, trainer, software architect, programmer

Books, articles, conferences

Work

Principal technology officer Capgemini

Global design authority agile Capgemini

Chief technology officer insurance company

Web

www.sanderhoogendoorn.com

www.smartusecase.com

www.speedbird9.com

@aahoogendoorn

sander@ditisagile.nl

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

4Introducing the Netherlands. December 5!

Name: Sinterklaas

Born: December 5

Age:700+

Name:Black Pete

Colour:Not really black

(yes it’s make up)

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Why it failsTHE WATERFALL MODEL

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

6Waterfall?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

11We’ve got a plan and we’ll stick to it

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

12Boehm’s Law. Testing is always too late

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

14Waterfall?

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Lesson oneAGILE IS NOT YOUR SILVER BULLET

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

16Trying something different

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

17The state of agile

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

18Agile is dead

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

19Agile conferences…

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

20Manifesto for what again?

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Lesson two

HAVING SOME PROCESSIS NOT A BAD THING

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

24We are uncovering better ways to change the world?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

25Process? What process?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

26What do you mean Scrum is not a process?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn 28

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

29FDD. Adding some process

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

30Smart. Adding some process

Create

project

proposal

Write

project plan

Deliver

working

software

Stabilize

software

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

31DSDM. Adding more process

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

33Boehm’s Law applied to iterations

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Lesson three

THE SCRUM MASTER ISN’T ALWAYS A MASTER

?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

37Lowering our fences

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

38Lowering our fences

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

39Dogmagile

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

40Become a scrum master? A servant-leader-master?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

41Scrumman

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

42

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Lesson fourLOOSE THE SCRUM BOARD

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WHAT’S THE REAL STATUS?

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VISUALIZE YOUR FLOW…

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…AND GO WITH THE FLOW

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Not exactly like Kanban? Who cares. It works for us

LIMIT WIP?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

49Boehm’s Law applied to backlog items

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

50Do we really need projects?

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Lesson five

WE ARE NOT MANUFACTURING

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

How long do you need to build this feature?

Eh .. I don’t know. It depends I guess

20 hours.

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

Please for once give me an exact number

you silly nerd!

Stop asking me these things I don’t

really have an answer to

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

55We are using the wrong metaphors

How long do you need to build this feature?

How long do you need to build this feature?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

56Manufacturing? Construction?

Manufacturing and construction are linear processes

Software development is a creative process and it is very much non-linear

Software isn’t Built, it’s InventedCoding is a creative problem. Every time a developer writes code, he is taking a non-deterministic path towards an unknown solution — a unique solution that has never been created before. If the work weren’t unique, he wouldn’t need to write it, he’d simply copy and paste it.

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Lesson six

SELF-ORGANIZATIONCAN BE PRETTY TOUGH

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

61Magic!

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

62Drawing owls

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Lesson seven

ALLOW THE TEAM TO LEARN

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

GERALD WEINBERG

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

67Learning how to play pinball

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

68Learning how to play pinball

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

69Learning how to play pinball

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

70Learning how to play pinball

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

“Whenever I suggest stepping back, easing up, laughing a little at ourselves, and going outside our own field, somebody objects, saying, ‘But software is different. We have to work harder, concentrate more, because nothing is as complex as software.’

Well, of course software is different, and more complex than anything people have ever before attempted to engineer. But that’s why we have to loosen our structures, not tighten them. That’s why we must learn from any place we can, any way we can.”

– Gerald Weinberg, 1982.

@aahoogendoornLesson eightTRUST THE METRICS

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

How long do you need to build this feature?

Eh .. I don’t know. It depends I guess

20 hours.

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

74With creative work estimates are rarely linear

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So no projects? No estimates?LEARN TO LIVE WITH AMBIGUITY

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

How big is this feature?

Eh .. I don’t know. It depends I guess

About 4 points.

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

77Those who do the work, do the estimate

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Lesson nine

YOU ARE NOT USAIN BOLT

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

79Sprints. Scrum’s mini-projects

The team commitsto deliver

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

81The red sprint anti-pattern

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

83Reverse planning

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

84Trust the metrics

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Lesson ten

PROJECT MANAGERS ARE (NOT) A TOTAL WASTE AFTER ALL

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Instructing the team how to marchTHE TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGER

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

90The traditional project manager

ProjectManager

Customer

Analyst

UI Designer

ArchitectDeveloper

Developer

Tester

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“AGILE” PROJECT MANAGERS FACILITATE THE TEAM

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

93The agile team facilitator

Team

Customer

Analyst

UI Designer

DeveloperDeveloper

Tester

ProjectManager

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MANAGE THE ENVIRONMENT

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

97Isn’t that what the scrum master does?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

99This is where a project manager comes in handy

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IN RETROSPECTIVE?

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

101In theory…

• The whole organization is already working agile

• You don’t need a steering committee

• Budget flows automatically

• Everybody wants to collaborate

• Teams are self-steering

• You don’t need a process

• No external parties are involved

• The product owner perfectly represents all stakeholders

• No project manager is needed

• The Scrum Master is our hero

• You always make the sprint

But in practice You’re likely the first agile project in the

organization

Management requires a steering committee

Budgets need to be guarded

People are conservative

Self-steering is hard

A little process is unavoidable

There are always external parties

The product owner only represents a sub-set of all stakeholders

Yes they are needed!

The Scrum Master is too junior

Sprints “fail” all the time

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Lesson ten

THERE IS NO SO THING AS ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL AGILE

BEYOND BREAKING BAD. THE STATE OF AGILE IN TEN EASY LESSONS©2001 - 2014 Sander Hoogendoorn. All Rights Reserved@aahoogendoorn

103Agile is a sliding scale

Ceremony

Agility

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THERE’S VALUE FOUND IN ALL AGILE APPROACHES. AND EVEN IN WATERFALL

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Available from amazon.com

THIS IS AGILE

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www.sanderhoogendoorn.comwww.smartusecase.comwww.speedbird9.com

sander@ditisagile.nl

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REFERENCES AND QUESTIONS