My presentation at Cloudbusting 2012 in Galway on potential benefits of Cloud Computing and Agile project management for start-ups.

1. Cloud & Agile
Richard Bowden
True potential for your
business Challenges
Hype ?
Realising the benefits
#Cloudbusting2012

2. Who Me?
A gazillion years experience &
more mistakes that I care to
remember
Start-up experience – PM & IT Consultancy
& Mobile medical apps
Cloud-arena.com
IC4 EI / IDA Cloud
Competency Centre
#Cloudbusting2012

3. Different Perspectives.....
Users &
Providers
#Cloudbusting2012

4. Items for Discussion
Cloud as a Competitive
Advantage
#Cloudbusting2012

5. If it walks like a duck...
Scalability
On-demand
Yes I'm a cloud
Unlimited
Capacity
Units of Ease of
use access
#Cloudbusting2012

6. Patterns of use
#Cloudbusting2012

7. Delivery models
On Premise Hosted Cloud
Shared multi-
I own the I rent the
tenant
servers, servers,
environment
software, etc software, etc
Access to a
I have I have less
capacity pool –
complete control control & fewer
Less control &
& responsibility responsibilities
fewer
responsibilities
Upfront capital Lower capital
costs costs but paying
Pay as you go
for fixed capacity
#Cloudbusting2012

8. Software Development Lifecycle
All or some on the Cloud ?
Development
Test
Production
Analysis
#Cloudbusting2012

9. Certain practices still apply
Management of
builds and VM
instances Management of dev &
test environments
Access control to development &
test environments
Transaction monitoring &
reporting
#Cloudbusting2012

10. Architectural Considerations
Application reliability
Managing scalability
Code base management
Upgrade management
Authentication & authorisation
Security from within
Service level agreements
Regulatory requirements
#Cloudbusting2012

11. Single vs. Multi Tenancy
#Cloudbusting2012

12. Architectural Guidelines
Microsoft MSDN – June 2006
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13. Hybrid is another option
Not everything needs be on the cloud
Use of cloud services for storage
Salesforce's database.com
Amazon's S3 storage
Use and api to link the Cloud based
application with an on-premise database
#Cloudbusting2012

14. Who's doing what with the cloud ?
• US Government survey – April 2010
– 45% were using cloud computing
• Top 3 services
– Web hosting / content delivery
– Collaboration
– Email
#Cloudbusting2012

15. Why with the cloud ?
• Top 3 reasons for using cloud
– Resource savings
– Features
– Availability & uptime
• Top 3 reasons for not using cloud
– Cost / lack of a business case
– Security
– Waiting for others to take a lead
#Cloudbusting2012

16. More Current Usage Data
• US Government
– FedRAMP – federal programme for cloud security
certification
– US Navy – Amazon solution for digital imagery
– Naval War College – Cloud based security solution
from Cloudlock
– Intelligence Community – use of public cloud
services
– Dept of Labour – Tender for Cloud based email
#Cloudbusting2012

17. Today's Agile Word Cloud
Waterfall
Scrum
Extreme Programming
Kanban Estimating
Sizing
Definition of Done
Backlog
Product Owner
#Cloudbusting2012

18. Projects Background
Recruitment Company
– Permanent, Contract & Temp recruitment
– Offices in several European countries
Two projects
– Configuration & rollout of cloud based front
office system on Force.com
– Redesign of their jobs website
Key interests
– Working software
– Collaboration
#Cloudbusting2012

19. Scrum Process Overview
User stories
– What, why & how
Release plan
– Road ahead
Sprint planning & Grooming the backlog
– Change is welcome
Retrospective & demo
– So what did we learn ?
#Cloudbusting2012

20. Lessons learned – Front Office
User stories
– Put yourself in the shoes of...
– Understand requirements & work flow detail
Release plan
– Project direction & objectives
– Road-map
Sizing
– Grooming the backlog
– Clarification
– Definition of done
#Cloudbusting2012

21. Questions – Front Office
Estimating vs Sizing
Sprint display
– Electronic vs paper
– Basecamp – cloud based pm service
Sprint in progress
– Product owner's input (what's in / what's out)
Use of Kanban technique
– Spare capacity close to the end of a sprint
#Cloudbusting2012

22. Lessons learned – Website Redesign
Persona analysis
– Excellent basis for user stories
Sprint planning
– Helps to get a focus and a starting point
– Include persona analysis findings
Focus on working software
– Can build credibility & confidence
#Cloudbusting2012

23. Questions – Website Redesign
Completion of wire-frames & templates
– Is Waterfall more appropriate ?
– Is definition of done crucial ?
Waterfall or Agile
– Project sponsorship is key
Product owner role
– Business knowledge and contacts
– Needs significant engagement
#Cloudbusting2012

24. Self-organisation –
Individual Commitment
Self-organisation
Not project management
Commitment
Scrum master - Master-follower role
Background material
Ester Darby
Jeff Sutherland
Philip Anderson
#Cloudbusting2012

25. What about fixed price projects ?
Compile and review feature backlog
Use and allocate story points
Agree a credit limit
Review at the start of each sprint
#Cloudbusting2012

26. New Features added in
each Sprint ?
Not necessarily
Reduce technical debt
Faster better code
Second time around
Better documentation
Performance testing
#Cloudbusting2012

27. How do you know its working
Team members feeling focused on their tasks
Team members becoming more conscious of how they spend
their time
Team members feeling proud of their team
Testers feeling fully accepted by the team
Team members and product owners feeling closer to each
other
ScrumMasters feeling proud of their team's accomplishments
All roles feeling more conscious of their capabilities,
responsibilities, strengths, and weaknesses
Source: Dan Puckett – InfoQ.com
#Cloudbusting2012

28. How to correct any problems ?
Is Scrum is being done wrong
Is there an underlying problem that is just being exposed by
Scrum
Give the team time to execute a few sprints and learn from
them.
If the previous items provide no relief, adapt Scrum to
mitigate or resolve the problem.
If the problem still persists after adaptation, then perhaps
Scrum isn't well-suited for this application
Source: Dan Puckett – InfoQ.com
#Cloudbusting2012

29. One Agile Team
#Cloudbusting2012

30. Two Upcoming Events
• Cyber Threat Summit – Malahide – September 20th / 21st
•Cloud Arena – Cloud Showcase – October 10th – NCI Dublin
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31. Thank You
Now for Questions
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32. Further Information & Feedback
rbowden@rbconsulting.ie
@rbconsulting
Ie.linkedin.com/in/richardbowden
blog.rbconsulting.ie
Cloud-arena.com
Agile-Lean on LinkedIn
Lean Start-up Group Dublin
#Cloudbusting2012