Presentation for Causerie at ADMB Bruges, Thursday 12 February 2009. Audio will be added once I have it - the pictures are nice, but I'm not sure they make that much sense without the narrative (or do they? What do you think?) (NB first slide is not a mistake - deliberately empty)

1. Blank

2. Why Agile Works

3. Why Agile Works
and why it isn’t working for you

4. Why Agile Works
and why it isn’t working for you
(maybe…)

5. Causerie
An informal discussion or chat
(www.thefreedictionary.com)

6. Causerie
An informal discussion or chat,
especially of an intellectual nature.
(www.thefreedictionary.com)

7. Smart people

8. David Harvey
www.teamsandtechnology.com

9. David Harvey
www.teamsandtechnology.com

10. David Harvey
www.teamsandtechnology.com

11. David Harvey
www.teamsandtechnology.com

12. David Harvey
www.teamsandtechnology.com

13. In the old days

14. Project failure rate
70% of IT projects failed
(for some value of “failure”)

15. But hold on…

16. Project success rate
30% of IT projects succeeded
(for some value of “success”)

17. Doing something right

18. Agile projects failing?
Are 70% of agile projects failing?

19. Tombstone
A. M. Kuchling
flickr.com

20. Scientology

21. All projects failing?
Do 70% of all projects fail?

22. Bridge fail 1

23. Bridge fail 2

24. Road fail 1

25. Building fail
Sxenco
Wikimedia Commons

26. Gawunde

27. Surgery

28. Recurrence rate
Recurrence in hernia surgery
Average recurrence rate: 10-15%
Shouldice Clinic recurrence rate: 1%

29. Positive deviant
Positive deviant

30. Brief History HEADER
A brief history
of Agile

31. 1990s
1990s

32. Smart people

33. Back to basics

34. Fundamentals
eXtreme Programming
Scrum
Adaptive Software Development
DSDM
…

35. 2000s
2000-2007

36. Manifesto (2001)

37. Convergence

38. Late 2000s
2008…

39. Mainstream
Scrum
+
TDD
+
…
?

40. What is agile? HEADER
What is agile?

41. Manifesto again
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.
www.agilemanifesto.org

42. Characteristics
Adaptive
Iterative
Fast
Practical
Communicative
Team focus
Based in values

43. Why does it work? HEADER
Why does it work?

44. Light switch - off
Dries Buytaert
buytaert.net

45. Light switch - on
Dries Buytaert
buytaert.net

46. Light switch - off
Dries Buytaert
buytaert.net

47. Light switch - on
Dries Buytaert
buytaert.net

48. Light switch - off
Dries Buytaert
buytaert.net

49. Black!

50. Party Friends
www.howtomakeatoga.info

51. Party House
digicia
flickr.com

52. Party Drink

53. Party Music
Jim Winstead Jr
trainedmonkey.com

54. Party Script
Richard Moross
flickr.com

55. Party Friends
? www.howtomakeatoga.info

56. Simple vs Complex domains
Simple domain: defined process control
Complex domain: empirical process control
(perform, inspect, adapt)

57. What can go wrong?
HEADER
So why does it go wrong?

58. Following the book

59. Smart people

60. Just following instructions
Cindy McCravey
flickr.com

61. History written by the victors
“History is written by the victors”
(aka retrospective coherence)

62. Retrospective coherence

63. Unintended consequences

64. Some tests
function testCamelCaseUpperEmpty() {
assertEquals(quot;Empty input should give empty outputquot;,
quot;quot;,
convertIdentifier(quot;quot;,CI_TEXT,CI_CAMEL_UPPER));
}
function testCamelCaseUpperOneChar() {
assertEquals(quot;Single char should map to upperquot;,
quot;Aquot;,
convertIdentifier(quot;aquot;,CI_TEXT,CI_CAMEL_UPPER));
}
function testCamelCaseUpperOneWord() {
assertEquals(quot;Single word should have initial upper and rest lowerquot;,
quot;Helloquot;,
convertIdentifier(quot;helloquot;,CI_TEXT,CI_CAMEL_UPPER));
}
function testCamelCaseUpperTwoWords() {
assertEquals(quot;Two words should have initial uppers and rest lower, space removedquot;,
quot;HelloWorldquot;,
convertIdentifier(quot;hello worldquot;,CI_TEXT,CI_CAMEL_UPPER));
}
function testCamelCaseUpperMessy() {
assertEquals(quot;Messy string should have initial uppers, rest lower, all spaces removedquot;,
quot;HelloFunkyWorldquot;,
convertIdentifier(quot; hELlO FunKy woRld quot;,CI_TEXT,CI_CAMEL_UPPER));
}

65. function convertIdentifier(src, srcType, dstType) {
var allWords = src.split(srcType.sepExp);
Passes the tests
var nonEmptyWords = allWords.filter(function(word) { return word != '';} );
var correctCaseWords = nonEmptyWords.map(dstType.calcCase);
var result = correctCaseWords.join(dstType.joinChar);
return result;
}
var CI_TEXT ={
sepExp: ' ',
joinChar: ' ',
calcCase: _toLower
};
var CI_CAMEL_UPPER = {
sepExp: /(?=[A-Z])/,
joinChar: '',
calcCase: _toInitialUpper
};
var CI_CAMEL_LOWER = {
sepExp: /(?=[A-Z])/,
joinChar: '',
calcCase: function(word, index) {return index == 0 ? _toLower(word) : _toInitialUpper(word);}
};
function _toLower(s) {
return s.toLowerCase();
}
function _toInitialUpper(s) {
return s[0].toUpperCase() + s.slice(1).toLowerCase();
}

66. var CI_TEXT = 0;
var CI_CAMEL_UPPER = 1;
var CI_CAMEL_LOWER = 2;
So does this
function convertIdentifier(s, from, to) {
var result;
if (from == CI_CAMEL_UPPER && to == CI_CAMEL_LOWER || from == CI_CAMEL_LOWER && to == CI_CAMEL_UPPER) {
// camelCase function doesn't deal with this conversion, but it's easy
if (to == CI_CAMEL_LOWER)
result = s.charAt(0).toLowerCase();
else
result = s.charAt(0).toUpperCase();
var end = s.length;
for (i = 1; i < end; i++)
result += s.charAt(i);
} else {
var undo;
if (to == CI_TEXT) undo = true; else undo = false;
var flag;
if (to == CI_CAMEL_UPPER) flag = true; else flag = false;
result = camelCase(s, flag, undo);
}
return result;
}
function camelCase(s, flag, undo) {
var l = s.split(' ');
var i = 0;
var lc = ' ';
var r = '';
while (i < s.length) {
if (s[i] == ' ' && !undo) {
lc = s[i++];
continue;
} else {
if (lc == ' ' && !undo) {
r = r + s[i++].toUpperCase();
lc = '';
} else if (undo) {
// in undo mode
if (i > 0) {

67. So does this
“simple”
!=
“the first thing that passes the tests”

68. Stress

69. Sprint
Zen
Wikimedia Commons

70. Marathon

71. Persistence of Bureaucracy
yaraaa
flickr.com

72. Lack of engineering skills

73. Leave it to development
themadlolscientist
flickr.com

74. Broken window
Sharat Ganapati
flickr.com

75. How do we succeed HEADER
How do we succeed?

76. Taking responsibility

77. Personal mastery

78. Team mastery

79. Visible Change
irargerich
flickr.com

80. What people think
Planning
Sprint review
Sprint

81. What people need to do
Planning
Sprint review
Sprint
Retrospective
Retrospective actions

82. Active leadership

83. Congruent behaviour

84. Supporting pillars
di_the_huntress
flickr.com

85. Just enough process

86. Tools not the answer

87. Paying attention, care about
outcomes

88. END
Thank you

89. Blank