The document discusses Fred George's experiences and philosophies regarding agile, managerless processes, and the concept of 'programmer anarchy' in software development. It emphasizes the evolution of agile practices, the roles within teams, and the impact of new technologies on project delivery and organization. Case studies are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of these principles in real-world scenarios.

1. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
PROGRAMMER ANARCHY
and
MANAGERLESS PROCESSES
Fred George
FredGeorge@acm.org
@fgeorge52
1

2. Fred George
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 2
Technologist
• Computer networks – 70’s
• Token Ring LAN – 80’s
• GUI’s – late 80’s
• OO – late 80’s
• Agile – late 90’s
• MicroServices – mid-2000’s
Programmer
• Since 1968 (Basic)
• 65,000 hours experience
• 70+ languages
• Computer Science Degree 1973
Manager
• 17 years IBM
• Business degree,
MIT Sloan School 1986
• Product Owner, IBM
• VP, ThoughtWorks
• Co-founder, Outpace (Silicon
Valley)
• Senior Advisor to 3 tech
companies

3. Fred George
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 3
Consulting Roles
• Change Agent
• Disruptor
• “Hand grenade I am throwing
into development”
• CTO describing Fred to his Vice
President

4. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred GeorgeCopyright © 2012-2013 by Fred George. All rights
reserved.
Emerging Experiences
at...
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5. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 5
Agile Manifesto
✦ Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
✦ Working software over comprehensive documentation
✦ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
✦ Responding to change over following a plan
✓
✓
✓
✓

6. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 6
XP Values
✦ Feedback
✦ Communication
✦ Simplicity
✦ Courage
✦ Respect
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓

7. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile Best Practices
✦ Stand ups
✦ Story narratives
✦ Retrospectives
✦ Estimates
✦ Iterations
✦ Mandatory pairing
7
✦ Unit tests
✦ Acceptance tests
✦ Refactoring
✦ Patterns
✦ Continuous integration
Not Used

8. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 8
Agile Roles
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
programmercustomer
BA
QA
DBA
UI
designer
architect
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer

9. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 9
Anarchy Roles
✦ Customer
✦ Project manager
✦ Business analyst
✦ Developer
✦ Quality assurance / tester
✓
X
✓
X
X
✦ Manager of programmersX

10. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Process Has Many NamesStartup Model
Developer-Driven
Development
One Hacker
Way

11. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Simple
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Cause a Effect
Cause aaa Effect
Effect? Cause?
Cause ? Effect
Disorder
New Problem Domains:
The Cynefin Framework

12. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Simple
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic

13. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Project Delivery Cycles
5 yrs.
1980 1990 2000
1 mon.
1 week
1 day
2010
1 year
ProjectDuration(log)
Waterfall
Waterfall
Agile
Agile
A2
A2
Waterfall
w OO

14. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ Development driven by stories
✦ Stories small
✦ Priority set by customer
✦ Story-level estimates and metrics
Agile Side Effect:
Story Tyranny
Problem:
14
Developers become disconnected
from business problem (Drones)

15. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Requirements Hierarchy
15
Tasks
Stories
Features
Projects
Initiatives
Credit: Greg Reiser, ThoughtWorks, 2005

16. Over-Specialization
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George
•Theory:
• Specialist are more productive
•Practice:
• Overhead of communication is under-estimated
• Unbalanced workload creates delays
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17. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ QA tools are Programming tools
✦ Selenium
✦ Cucumber
✦ Service Architecture creates complex systems
✦ Need architecture skills to properly test
✦ Shift toward monitoring over acceptance testing
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Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
BA
QA
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer
QA

18. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
BA
18
Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer
BA
Too complex for
programmers!
Programmers
can’t talk
Programmers lack
“social skills”

19. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 19
Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer

20. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 20
Fate of Roles:
Manage
r
ClerkLeaderAmbassadorCoach/mentorConcierge
Power-
Hungry
Boss

21. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 21
Anarchy Roles
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
developer

22. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
forwardtechnology.co.uk
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23. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Energy
Revolution
✦ Prior system:
✦ .NET with SQLServer
✦ New system:
✦ Ruby, Clojure, C++, Node.js, R
✦ MySQL, MongoDB
✦ HAML, SASS
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24. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Energy
Revolution
✦ Ruby for energy calculation - big improvement!
✦ Rewrote in Clojure
✦ Rewrote in Clojure (again)
Question: What manager would let them to do it?
Hence: No manager!
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25. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Click Tracking
✦ Old system:
✦ Ruby-based, 32 servers with 40% utilization
✦ New system:
✦ Node.js, 22 servers with 10% utilization and
lower latency
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26. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile Best Practices
✦ Stand ups
✦ Story narratives
✦ Retrospectives
✦ Estimates
✦ Iterations
✦ Mandatory pairing
26
✦ Unit tests
✦ Acceptance tests
✦ Refactoring
✦ Patterns
✦ Continuous
integration
Trust w
collocation
Results,
not blame
Small,
short-lived
apps
Continuous
deployment
Not Used

27. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile 2013:
Implementing Anarchy
27
✦ Online version of Daily Mail
✦ Company established in late 1800’s
✦ MailOnline largest online newspaper in world
✦ Challenge: Introduce Anarchy to an established IT

28. Specialization
Institutionalized with Titles
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 28
Case Study:
•50 IT professionals
•25+ titles
•0 people understanding projects

29. 29
Master
Journeyman
Apprentice
Key Business Tech
Platform
iOS
Android
Databases
Big Data
Languages
HTML/CSS/JS
Java
Ruby
Server-side JS
Software Delivery
Agile management
OOD / Architecture
Testing
Solution: Fix the Titles

30. Matching HR Focus
3
0
Competent in at least 1
key technology
Graduate Dev
Developer
Not yet competent in a
key technology
Senior Dev Master (expert) in at least
1 key technologySystems Dev
Competent in 5-7 key
technologies
Master Dev Master in 3+ key
technologies
Dual career path
for Developers

31. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ Intensive OO training class (40 hourse, off-site)
✦ Developers, tech leads, QA, and SCRUM masters
✦ Everyone encouraged to participate (but still
optional)
Training in Working
Together
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32. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Flexible Project Approach
32
Developers
time
“Tables”
A
B
C
D
E
F
G H

33. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
MailOnline Scorecard
✦ Absorbed 20 more developers 1 Jan - 1 Mar
✦ By April 15
✦ Delivering LeaderBoard, a new page (Ruby, Node.js)
✦ Building first replacement page (Clojure, Node.js)
✦ Explored numerous message bus technologies
✦ Supporting MicroService architecture
✦ Rebuilt Android application
✦ By September, replaced front-end completely
✦ 130K Java with 4K Clojure + Node.js micro-services
monitoring
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34. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
2014-15: Refining…
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35. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Like MailOnline, Plus…
✦ Titles: Only “Developer”
✦ Remote pairing (4 time zones in US + Canada)
✦ Still meet developers face-to-face for the first time quarterly
✦ Teams decide assignments/roles each day
✦ New technologies/processes for most developers
✦ Clojure
✦ Micro-services
✦ Flat, self-organizing teams
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36. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
PROGRAMMER
40
ANARCHY