Agile is the New Black
1 like•4,138 views
The document discusses the evolution of agile practices over time from their origins in the 1990s to the present. It notes that while agile was originally defined by practices like iterations and defined roles, it has shifted to become more flexible and focused on rapid delivery of features rather than prescriptive processes. The document also outlines how a large established company implemented more agile approaches including moving from specialized project teams to generalist developers that rotate frequently between short term projects.
Agile is the New Black
- 1. Agile is the New Black Fred George [email protected] @fgeorge52 Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 1
- 2. “...grey is the new black” Los Angeles Times quoting Gianfranco Ferre 1984 Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 2
- 3. X is the new Y ✦ Originally attributed to the fashion industry ✦ Designates a versatile staple... ✦ Generally unobjectionable ✦ So overused as to become trivial ✦ Now on Banned Words List Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 3
- 4. “Agile is agile... or should be” ✦ Changes over time (even within same project) ✦ Different project to project (at the same time) Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 4
- 5. Agile Smells * * From “code smells” concept by Kent Beck Published in Refactoring by Martin Fowler Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 5
- 6. Agile Score Card... for You! Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 6
- 7. Agile is not Waterfall Engineering Manufacturing Gantt Work In Progress Starting Finishing Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 7
- 8. Iteration Length * 3 Weeks Original XP 2 Weeks 1 Week * * * 1 Day 1999 2005 2009 Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 8
- 9. Roles in Agile Teams project + SCRUM + Agile master manager coach iteration management manager Agile + IBM Certified Roles Solution Designer (Rational Unified Process 7.0) business development customer QA developer BA + dev/ops Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 9
- 10. Tools... Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 10
- 11. Tool: Story Cards Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 11
- 12. Tools: Card Wall (Bangalore) Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 13
- 13. Rational Method Composer Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 17
- 14. Agile Process Guide Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 18
- 15. Bug Tracking Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 19
- 16. Bug Tracking Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 19
- 17. Permissions to Ship Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 20
- 18. Process Experiments Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 21
- 19. Staff Changes in a Project ✦ What project starts with the right staffing? ✦ What project doesn’t change during its life? ✦ Example (2003-4 project of 8 months) ✦ 10 staff changes in first 6 weeks ✦ Dismissed a client programmer ✦ Eliminated BA Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 22
- 20. Requirements Hierarchy Initiatives Projects Features Stories Tasks Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. Credit: Greg Reiser, ThoughtWorks, 2005 23
- 21. Agile Score Card... for You! Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. ? 24
- 22. Agile circa 1999: XP ✦ Iteration-based ✦ 2-3 weeks ✦ Defined roles: ✦ Customer, developer, business analyst, tester, clerk ✦ Prescriptive process (and that was good!) ✦ Focus: Shippable at each iteration Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 25
- 23. Agile circa 2006: XP ✦ Iterations disappeared (or daily via Standup) ✦ Defined roles: ✦ Customer, developer, business analyst, tester ✦ Project manager, iteration manager ✦ Acceptance testing nearly gone (smoke tests) ✦ Focus: Potentially shippable anytime Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 26
- 24. Agile circa 2011: Anarchy ✦ Stand ups ✦ Unit tests ✦ Story narratives ✦ Acceptance tests ✦ Retrospectives ✦ Refactoring ✦ Estimates ✦ Patterns ✦ Iterations ✦ Continuous integration ✦ Mandatory pairing Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 27
- 25. Agile 2013: Implementing Anarchy ✦ Online version of Daily Mail ✦ Company established in late 1800’s ✦ MailOnline largest online newspaper in world ✦ Challenge: Introduce Anarchy to an established IT Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 28
- 26. Transformation Summary Was 2013 ✦ Project focus ✦ Feature focus ✦ 3-6 month ✦ 1 month or less ✦ BAU for smaller ✦ Longer for new ✦ Specialists platforms ✦ Front-end ✦ Poly-skilled ✦ Back-end ✦ Broadly-skilled ✦ Design developers == ✦ Test Experts ✦ Deployment ✦ Experts float ✦ SCRUM amongst efforts ✦ Story & task ✦ Aggressive Agile focus ✦ Table-based teams of 5-8 ✦ Rotation to balance & broaden Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 29
- 27. People Focus Key Business Tech Platform iOS Android Master Databases Big Data Journeyman Languages HTML/CSS/JS Java Apprentice Ruby Server-side JS Software Delivery Agile management OOD / Architecture Testing Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 30
- 28. Matching HR Focus Master Dev Senior Dev Systems Dev Developer Dual career path for Developers Graduate Dev Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 31
- 29. Flexible Project Approach “Tables” C A G H D Developers E B F time Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 32
- 30. Agile 2014 @ MailOnline Was 2013 Next ✦ Project focus ✦ Feature focus ✦ Feature focus ✦ 3-6 month ✦ 1 month or less continues ✦ BAU for smaller ✦ Longer for new ✦ 1 week or less ✦ Specialists platforms ✦ Team delivers on ✦ Front-end ✦ Poly-skilled all platforms ✦ Back-end ✦ Broadly-skilled ✦ Poly-skilled ✦ Design developers == ✦ More self- ✦ Test Experts governance ✦ Deployment ✦ Experts float ✦ Communities of ✦ SCRUM amongst efforts expertise ✦ Story & task focus ✦ Aggressive Agile ✦ Career guidance, ✦ Table-based teams not appraisals of 5-8 ✦ Anarchy + ✦ Rotation to ✦ Hiring, training by balance & broaden developers ✦ Team size to 2 Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 33
- 31. Restarting Your Agile... ✦ Start process experiments ✦ Discard those Agile Process Guides ✦ Drop bug tracking for immediate bug fixing ✦ Change metrics to focus only on finished efforts ✦ Fire any Agile Coaches ✦ Hire poly-skilled ✦ Talk to your HR department on changing roles Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 34
- 32. More? ✦ It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, No It’s Superman ✦ 10:15 Thursday - People over Process or Tools ✦ Micro-Service Architecture ✦ 3:15 Friday - Architecture to enable Anarchy ✦ The Secret Assumption of Agile ✦ 4:30 Saturday - Training for Growth & Anarchy Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 35
- 33. Agile is the New Black Fred George [email protected] @fgeorge52 Copyright © 2013 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 36