People Factor As Failure Reason Of Agile Adoption

People factor as failure reason of Agile adoption Alimenkou Mikalai 19.09.2009

Background
Java Technical Lead/Scrum Master at Zoral Labs
5+ years in software development
3+ years of working by Agile methodologies
Expert in Agile engineering practices
Agile coach (TDD, Testing, Planning)

Agenda
Introduction
Why people are so important in Agile
Agile team member responsibilities
How people factor causes failures in Agile adoption
Ways of preventing failures

Some thoughts about Agile…
There is no ideal formula of success in software development
Agile is not for everybody
If you fail with Agile it is not just your failure
Why it doesn’t work?

How to fail fast with Agile?
Don’t pay attention to people factor
Build Agile team from nothing
Choose inappropriate time and conditions
Have internal or external resistance
Don’t understand Agile values
Don’t have Agile leader or coach

Agile is built around the people
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Build projects around motivated individuals
The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project

Why people are so important?

What is the main goal? How to build right product? How to build product right? Scrum XP

Scrum doesn’t tell us how to ...
Write high quality code
Deploy the system
Test the system
Architect the system
Support the system
Maintain the code base
Work with legacy code

May be try XP? It is so complex …

Ideal Agile developer’s life Communicate! Do pair programming! Do continuous integration! Do unit testing! Do TDD! Do acceptance testing! Make architectural decisions!

Dialog with Agile manager
- Who is an architect in your team?
- Whole team!
- Who is a QA in your team?
- Whole team!
- Who is a manager of your team?
- Whole team!

“ Agile” team behavior “ Architect!” We don’t need upfront design! Nobody like your architectural documents!

Agile team member should …
Be ready for self-organizing
Have high communication skills
Make architectural decisions
Build high quality product
Have enough technical experience to do engineering practices
Have deep understanding of Agile values

You are lucky if your team is ...
Self-organizing
High motivated
Very efficient
Experienced enough
Technically skilled
Responsive to changes
Able to communicate easily and effectively
Working together for a long time

If not so lucky?
Developers write bad code
QA can’t control quality, but just find bugs
Nobody is manageable, chaos in the team
Technical dept is coming
Communication is very difficult
Expectations of the customers are failed
Releases and deadlines are missed

But …
If you have a high motivated,
self-organizing team of skilled
and efficient professionals
you don’t need process at all.
They will build it themselves!

Why most of us are not lucky?
Not all team members may become Agile team member
Time and hard work are needed to become an Agile team member
Team is just a set of people
Lack of self-education
Lack of Agile leaders or coaches
Misunderstanding of Agile values and approaches

You can’t clone people 

Self-education survey
How many of you have read at least 3 technical books this year?
How many of you have tried at least 3 new frameworks this year?
How many of you have visited at least 2 trainings or conferences this year?

What to do?
Have enough (at least 50%) technically experienced team members
Use full set of engineering practices
Be patient and give team enough time
Prepare comfortable working conditions
Improve communication skills
Use team building
Make sure that everyone understands and commits to Agile values

Way of the developer
Produce less but high quality code
Continuous self-education (books, trainings, blogs and forums, conferences and technical meetings)
Improve architectural skills
Improve communication skills
Share knowledge and experience (pairing, games, brown bags)

Way of the QA
Think about QA but not QC
Prepare to be a full functional team member
Learn new frameworks and approaches
Participate in all stages of development
Continuous self-education (books, trainings, blogs and forums, conferences and technical meetings)
Leave old habits in the past

Way of the manager
Try to build self-organizing team
Forget about “command and control” methods
Read and analyze full flow of new ideas and approaches
Inspect and adapt
Motivate people
Listen to people and help them to be efficient
Help people to improve their skills

And of course… Hire right people!

Conclusion
People are the heart of any organization and
Agile process, so invest in them and don’t
forget about people factor making important
decisions …

Any questions? Email me: [email_address] Read my blog: http://javadevelopmenttips.blogspot.com Visit my website: http://agilecoaching.com.ua

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People Factor As Failure Reason Of Agile Adoption

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