Improving your Agile Process

First...who are we?

We reduce home energy use

We reduce home energy use by showing people how much they use

We reduce home energy use by showing people how much they use and then they actually use less!

Agile means:

Agile means: short iterations

Agile means: short iterations a metric sh*t-ton of practices chosen from a salad bar

TDD, Pair Programming, Scrum, Kanban Cards, BDD, Continuous Integration, MDD, Sprints, Stand-ups, Continuous Deployment, The Planning Game, User Stories, Planning Poker, Sustainable Pace, Collective Code Ownership...

Adopting agile?

Adopting agile? Which practices?

Already agile-ish?

Already agile-ish? Which practices will help us and why?

Pick what feels good?

Pick what feels good? Study your process and target problem areas.

Scientiﬁc Method!

1. Gather Data 2. Form Hypothesis 3. Perform Experiment 4. Analyze Results

1. Gather Data

Quantify: good things (to increase)

Quantify: good things (to increase) bad things (to decrease)

The Big Bad: Bugs

The Big Bad: Bugs (you are using a bug tracker, right?)

“We wrote less bugs than the previous iteration. We rule!” (Right?)

V2.2 V2.3 # of Bugs 25 23

Wait...What? V2.2 V2.3 # of Bugs 25 23 Flu took out half the team! Team Size 8 5

Raw measurements must be put in context

What is the “size” of an iteration?

LOC? Doesn’t ﬁt with agile Hard to measure

Hours/Days?

Hours/Days? Fixed iterations Hard to measure

We use “Story Points”

We use “Story Points” 1, 2, 4, 8 per user story

“Story Points” could be anything that:

“Story Points” could be anything that: changes w/ amount of work

“Story Points” could be anything that: changes w/ amount of work determined consistently

“Story Points” could be anything that: changes w/ amount of work determined consistently easy to capture

Bugs ÷ Size == Defect Density

V2.2 V2.3 Bugs 25 23 Story Points 14 10 Density 1.79 2.3

Simple

Simple Paints Broad Strokes: Increase == Bad

Simple Paints Broad Strokes: Increase == Bad Almost enough to draw conclusions

With a smallamount of additional meta-data...

With a amount of additional small meta-data... ...you can gain incredible insights

•Severity •Priority •‣ Where Introduced: bad requirements ‣bad programming ‣conﬁguration/deployment

Defect Density: unclear requirements Defect Density: Programming Errors 2.2 1.9 1.6 1.3 1.0 V2.3 V2.4 V2.5

Defect Density - all types 2.500 2.125 1.750 1.375 1.000 V2.3 V2.4 V2.5

Defect Density - all types Defect Density - Blockers 2.500 2.125 1.750 1.375 1.000 V2.3 V2.4 V2.5

2. Form Hypothesis

Metrics give us insight to focus on problem areas

Form a hypothesis about problem areas and potential solutions

Agile practices are a goldmine

Agile practices are a goldmine ...if used sensibly in the context of your process

Example: “Increasing test coverage will reduce our defect density”

Example: “Pair Programming will reduce ‘bad programmer’ bugs”

Example: “BDD will help clarify requirements so we implement the right thing”

3. Perform Experiment

On the next iteration, test your hypothesis

Start slowly; implement one change, chosen for maximum impact

4. Analyze Results

The next iteration’s metrics should prove/disprove your hypothesis

Repeat until proﬁt!

This improvement method isn’t perfect

This improvement method isn’t perfect but it’s a GREAT start

How has this helped OPOWER?

Iteration 1 Half of the user stories not being tracked :(

Iteration 2 Parts of the team using different scale for story points :(

Iteration 3 Data looked good, baseline established.

Iteration 4 Lots of deploy/conﬁg errors Other numbers same/better

Iteration 5 Automated deployment » deploy errors down. But: Defect Density was up

Iteration 6 Lowered velocity Set up test coverage tracking (ﬁnal results not in yet!)

Scientiﬁc Method

Measure Hypothesize Experiment Analyze

dave@opower.com http://www.opower.com @davetron5000

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Improving your Agile Process

by David Copeland on Oct 27, 2009

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