The document provides an overview of agile development practices at the Financial Times. It discusses how the FT has adopted agile methods like Scrum and Kanban to adapt to a dynamic landscape characterized by increasing change cycles, global collaboration, and evolving technologies. Some of the key aspects of the FT's agile approach include maintaining visibility, promoting self-organization, defining what "done" means, minimizing technical debt, using the right tools, and addressing challenges like dependencies on third parties.

1. Agile at the Financial Times
An Overview of Agile Development Practices
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra, PhD
Head of Software Development
Financial Times, London
23rd January 2013

2. …AND TODAY’S SPECIAL IS…
• Prologue
• The Dynamic Landscape
• Cooperation is the Key
• Promoting the Agile Lifestyle
• Are We Done Yet?
• In Debt
• The Toy Shop
• The Advert Break
• This is Africa – Premium
• Some Challenges
• Epilogue
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

3. PROLOGUE
“..and (they) should bring about the commencement of what is not done, the carrying out of what is
commenced, the improvement of what is being carried out, and the excellence of (the execution of)
orders, in the case of works..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Modern businesses such as the Financial Times require software development technologies and
processes that are:
• global
• adaptable
• evolving
• measurable
• supportable
• in line with consumer technology trends
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

4. THE DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE
“..during the remaining parts of the day and night, he should learn new things and familiarise himself with
those already learnt, and listen repeatedly to things not learnt..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
• Software development is highly accessible
• Increasing change cycles
• Feedback and analytics are faster
• Collaboration is fuelling innovation
• Social media and social CRM is altering behaviour at many levels
• Exponential adaption of new technologies
• Windows of opportunities are shortening
• Consumption and exchange of information is becoming more rapid
• Workforce is global, multi-skilled and multi-disciplined
• Governance, compliance, certifications and standards are changing
• Delivery frameworks are diverse
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

5. COOPERATION IS THE KEY
“..let us two, build a fort..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Keeping things visible:
• between teams and individuals
• measuring progress and status
• processes and methodologies
• within software
• utilising engineering principles
• through communicating
• across disciplines
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

6. PROMOTING THE AGILE LIFESTYLE
“..in war there are losses, expenses, marches away from home, and hindrances..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
The key is to adapt rapidly to changes in an efficient manner. This is a lifestyle – not just a process, tool or policy.
The need to maintain agility requires:
• focus on the entire lifespan
• defining and measuring current delivery capabilities
• determining the end (realised) benefits
• developing and evolving the frameworks to support such a lifestyle
According to Gartner (2012), “Agile is still seen as an issue for Governance”. The research continues to highlight key
areas where agility should be addressed: application and portfolio management. staffing, skills and sourcing, financial
analysis and budgets, vendor management, architecture management, software processes, service delivery, operations
and support, security frameworks, compliance and standards..
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

7. PROMOTING THE AGILE LIFESTYLE CONT’D
“..the king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army, and the ally are the
constituent elements of the state..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
What do we need to promote such a lifestyle?
• advocates championing the cause
• self-management and self-organisation
• managing dependencies
• cross-skilling and training
• simplifying team / organisational structure
• short iteration cycles
• frequent communication and collaboration
• enabling adaptability and rapid change, and feedback mechanisms
• the right tools, technologies, processes, principles and governance structures
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

8. ARE WE DONE YET?
“..he should declare, without loss of time, what is in the King’s interest..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
When defining ‘done’, we should consider:
• the lifecycle
• the code
• unit tests
• functional, integration, and acceptance tests
• demos and retrospectives
• documentation
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

9. IN DEBT
“..a (king) without a treasury should collect a treasury, when difficulties concerning money have arisen..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
The development process generates code and technical debt, the aim is to determine:
• the quantity
• minimising the quantity and its impact
• addressing it at a given point
How can we minimise it:
• use of good design patterns
• maintaining high quality coding standards
• encouraging peer-reviewing
• code refactoring
• use of automated acceptance test suites
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

10. THE TOY SHOP
“..a calamity of a constitution, of divine or human origin, springs from ill luck, or wrong policy..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Without the right tools, technologies, and an understanding of their consumption, agility will be compromised.
• providing the right hardware, software and platforms
• understanding the diversity of (current, new, emergent) languages: J2EE, PHP, Python, Clojure, Groovy, Scala, etc.
• GPUs are overpowering CPUs
• parallel computing: BigData
• energy efficiency
• as scalability increases, accuracy diminishes
• open source vs commercial
• JavaScript is an expanding universe: ‘just-in-time’ (dynamic) translation of Ruby, Python, Lisp, etc.
• code is less tangible
• the ‘walled’ garden of Eden
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

11. THE ADVERT BREAK
“..just as elephants are needed to catch elephants, so does one need wealth to capture more wealth..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Objective: To enable changes to the online advertising proposition the FT is able to offer
Lifespan: estimated, end 2013
Team size: 7, and 2 staff from Operations
Methodology: Mixture of Scrum and Kanban
Reporting / Sprint Cycle: 2 weeks
What is ‘done’: in review
Kanban allows for: removal of waste, visualising the work,
managing the entire flow through to the delivery of business value
Scrum allows for regular reviews and progress updates
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

12. SOME CHALLENGES
“..there is no country without people, and no kingdom without a country..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Style has encouraged the business to think flexibly and to review their priorities - which in the world of Advertising
change rapidly.
• High dependency on third parties, so timescales can often be impacted
• Other teams need to implement changes to the site to enable functionality, e.g. Advert sizes, positions, etc. – which
means jousting for position in the priority queue
• Being geographically diverse, integration of team members can prove difficult especially due to time zones, limitations
of collaboration software and logistics (availability of meeting rooms)
• Limitations of software (Rally) where it is difficult to identify which initiative a story belongs to in Kanban or Iteration
view, and AntHill Pro (primarily due to the amount of FT-specific customisation)
Some positives:
• Retrospectives (once a month)
• Switching from Skype to Google+ proven to be more reliable
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

13. THIS IS AFRICA - PREMIUM
“..never attempt a long journey alone..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Objective: TIA Premium is a database of Information on Africa, aimed at bringing transparency to emerging African
Markets
Lifespan: estimated, Phase I (6 months)
Team size: 16
Methodology: Scrum ‘Hybrid’ (dependent on multiple data sources being in place before user stories can be fully defined)
Reporting / Sprint Cycle: monthly (reporting), 2 weeks (sprint)
What is ‘done’: When positive and negative tests are applied against the epic and user stories. At project level, it refers to
a completed a shippable project. Definition of done per sprint includes feasible analysis, code completion, performance
testing and user acceptance (wherever possible)
Scrum allows for regular reviews and progress updates, and the ability to estimate changes to stories and delivery times
Some challenges:
The remits of Business Analysts and Product Owners often gets blurred
Working with third party developers based in Ukraine proves difficult on occasion – utilisation of collaboration tools helps
Restrictions on network security means workarounds are in place, e.g. for code repositories (Gitblit and GitHub)
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

14. EPILOGUE
“..time comes but once to a man waiting for an opportunity; that time is difficult for that man to get again
when he wants to do his work..”
- Chanakya, 3 BC
Enabling agility depends on key areas:
• communication and collaboration
• self-empowering and self-organisation
• technology choices
• architecture, development, and testing principles
• resourcing and training
• teams and communities
• analytics and metrics
• processes, policies, frameworks and standards
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

15. THANK YOU
Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times