Agile successful practices

Agile software processes and practices: setup, experiences and success factors Johan Platteau Leuven 8 June 2009

Agenda

Agility

Agile overview

Software iterations

Requirements & planning

Practices

Experiences

AgileTeam Value Proposition

Organizational Drivers:

* Growth

* Distribution of software

production

Software Industry Market Drivers * Positioning of software products to new target groups * Customizations of products ICT intensive enterprises Business drivers * Decrease time-to-market * Build the right software * Software that follows business changes Organizational Drivers: * Measurement of real progress of development investments * Improved quality of software * Technological & business innovation * Integration of other products as a result of a merger or acquisition * Reliable & predictable delivery of working software AgileTeam enables the software evolution while maintaining the sustainable software release pace AgileTeam enables ICT to incrementally deliver qualitative working software based on the right business requirements

Agility defined

Is the early and continuous delivery of working valuable software products

Delivery at a sustainable pace

Has value for the customer

Agility illustrated Start Planned result Plan Driven Needed result Agile

Agenda

Agility

Agile overview

Software iterations

Practices

Experiences

Software Iterations Product backlog Cancel Gift wrap Return Sprint 2-4 weeks Return Sprint goal Sprint backlog Potentially shippable product increment Coupons Gift wrap Coupons Cancel 24 hours Change

Setting up iterations

Small teams (5 members)

Iteration length 2 – 4 weeks

Every day daily scrum

Retrospective

It takes 3 sprints to get to your level of productivity

Agenda

Agility

Agile overview

Software iterations

Practices

Experiences

Agile requirements Iceberg principle

Clear requirements on top (small : user stories)

Unclear requirements under water (big : epic)

Allows for making progress without detailing everything upfront

Clear requirements are delivered

Unclear requirements are fleshed out before next iteration/release

Requirements Product Backlog

Planning

Size = “bigness” of a requirement

Effort and duration are derived from size

p.

A Release Plan Size Time Cost = # sprints * Cs Cs = constant = # FTE in team

Agile Planning key points

Mike Cohn « Agile Estimating and Planning pp. 49-51

Small planning/sizing efforts are rewarded with big gains; more effort leads to diminishing returns

Frequent re-planning

Plan at different levels with different precisions

Release plan on requirements estimating in size

Sprint plan on tasks and hours

Planning effort

Agenda

Agility

Agile overview

Software iterations

Practices

Experiences

Trends

Agile Practices

Automation of different types of tests (unit, functional, acceptance testing)

Test Driven / First Development

Keeps level of unfinished work low

Favor black box over white box

Continuous integration and build

Sine qua non for ability to deliver frequently

Pair Programming

Contested

Agile Practices

Architecture & Design

Evolutionary good enough solutions

Refactoring

Agenda

Agility

Agile overview

Software iterations

Practices

Experiences

Experiences: software teams By the book Not invented here team XXXXXXL

The not invented here team Not invented here team

Team performance outperform meets expectations underperform Not invented here team

Productivity

Successful practices Practices Used Benefits Delivering working software every sprint Visible product progress from end-user point of view Daily Scrum Quickly raising issues blocking progress Team members help on tasks that are blocking progress Team collaboration Emphasis on informal regular communication over written documentation Improved functional knowledge among the whole team improving quality Release planning Estimate in “points” instead of tasks/man-days creates a committed plan between product owner and team

The XXXXXXL team XXXXXXL

Team performance outperform meets expectations underperform XXXXXXL Not invented here team

Successful practices Practices Used Benefits Align heartbeat between teams Respect time to market commitments Scrum of Scrums (daily scrum for multiple teams) Ability to stick to tight deadline Setup of integrated development practices (configuration management, automatic code review,…) Improved intra team collaboration

The by the book team By the book

Team performance outperform meets expectations underperform XXXXXXL By the book Not invented here team

Pitfalls Pitfall Consequence Scrum is complete Product Management: no tangible vision and roadmap leaving the team to go in all directions. Software architecture: no shared technical vision, roadmap and implementation. Lesson learned : Agile processes should be complemented with other disciplines Scrum team is self learning by the process itself Too much reliance on the learning aspects of an agile team (retrospective, pair programming,…) had as consequence that underperformance was ignored by management and team. Lesson learned : after 3 sprints you get a good idea about the performance of a team. Measure progress!

Team performance outperform meets expectations underperform XXXXXXL By the book Not invented here team

Experiences wrap-up What is working Time to market Software Team organization Dealing with changing requirements

Promise of Agile Development Start Planned result Plan Driven Needed result Agile

Questions?