getting to the heart of agile
DESCRIPTION
Getting to the Heart of Agile with Jamie Strachan Presented on September 18 2014 at FITC's Web Unleashed Toronto 2014 Conference Agile is dead! Long live Agile! There is no shortage of people who want to tell you how to do Agile or how not to do Agile; some people will tell you that Agile saved their business while others think Agile is broken and must be abandoned. Jamie Strachan both agrees and disagrees with all of these things. If you can handle a few contradictions, he will tell you about how the CBC went Agile, how it helped them, and why you should absolutely not do the same (along with the one important thing you should do instead). OBJECTIVE To inspire you and your team to be more agile FIVE THINGS AUDIENCE MEMBERS WILL LEARN The origin of Agile Current thinking about the usefulness of Agile What Agile practices he put in place Why those practices worked for them but may not work for you The one thing you need to do to start being agileTRANSCRIPT
GETTING TO THE
HEART OF AGILEJamie Strachan
@jamiestrachan
OUR STORY
• Slow to market• Lack of quality• Struggle with scope creep• Weak stakeholder relationships• Poor internal communication• Siloed teams
ISSUES
We hired consultants
We got Agile training
• Scrum• Small, cross-functional teams• 3 Roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master,
Team Member• 2 week sprints• User Stories• Maintain a Product Backlog• Ceremonies
PRACTICES
• Planning Poker
• Story Points
• Velocity
•Daily Scrums• Backlog Grooming
• Sprint Planning
•D
em
os•Retrospectives
We lived happily ever after
Let’s go further
MANIFESTO FOR
AGILESOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
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 tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
“The word ‘agile’ has been subverted to the point where it is effectively meaningless, and what passes for an agile community seems to be largely an arena for consultants and vendors to hawk services and products.
So I think it is time to retire the word ‘Agile.’”
AGILE BACKLASH?
“I think it is time to retire the word ‘Agile.’”
Agile Is Dead (Long Live Agility)Dave Thomas, March 2014
“[T]here is danger in such a wide range of ‘we are Agile because we implement L with X, Y, Z’. We need to worry about how diluted the meaning of agile is becoming, and focus on real quality.”
Agile at 10 – A State of ContradictionMike Beedle, May 2011
“If you are dogmatically following along with a handful of agile practices, but don’t really ‘get’ the intentions behind the agile mindset, you may be disappointed in your results.”
Agile Schmagile: The Backlash Against Agile
Jon Kern, March 2011
CARGO CULT AGILE
“intentions behind the agile mindset”
?
CONSULTANTS
Michael Sahotahttp://agilitrix.com
Paul Heidemahttp://paulheidema.com
THE HEART OF AGILE
EXPERIMENT
LEARN
1. Observe2. Form a hypothesis3. Establish parameters4. Run the experiment5. Analyze the results
EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS
It’s not an experiment if there is:• No scheduled reassessment•More than one thing being tested• No success criteria
EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS
HOW DOES EXPERIMENTATION
FIT?
User Stories: experiments on your product
Retrospectives: experiments on your process
YOUR TEAMSOLVES
YOUR PROBLEMS
Individuals and interactionsover processes and tools
ACTIVITY INSTEAD OF
SPECULATION
Working softwareover comprehensive documentation
EXPERIMENTATION IS
EXPERIMENTS CANNOT
BE DONE IN ISOLATION
Customer collaborationover contract negotiation
CONSTANT EXPERIMENTATION
INSTILLS ACULTURE OF ADAPTATION
Responding to changeover following a plan
FEAR CHANGE
ACCEPT CHANGE
EMBRACE CHANGE
Experimenting with Waterfall
is more agile than
blindly following Scrum
Stop doing Agile
Start being agile
EXPERIMENTON EVERYTHING