This presentation is from a recent talk I did at an event in Houston called Agile Comes to You. It was co-sponsored by Rally, Accurev, Urbancode and Credera.
The presentation discusses the tangible benefits and challenges of Agile development. This is definitely a practical application of Agile, from real experiences.
Credera is a management and technology consulting firm. We help our clients with their toughest technology problems and utilize Agile and traditional project management tools and techniques to help them implement strategic initiatives.
This presentation explores new ways of looking at failure in Startups. Specifically concept of "unfail" or "unfailure" is presented and explained. Lean Startup elements are connected with a failure scenarios and lessons learned
15 Tips to Scale a Large AI/ML Workshop - Both Online and In-PersonChris Fregly
In this talk, we present tips and best practices for scaling a large workshop for 1,000's of simultaneous attendees - both online and in-person. While our workshop is focused on AI and machine learning on AWS, we generalize our learnings for any domain or specialization.
This presentation explores new ways of looking at failure in Startups. Specifically concept of "unfail" or "unfailure" is presented and explained. Lean Startup elements are connected with a failure scenarios and lessons learned
15 Tips to Scale a Large AI/ML Workshop - Both Online and In-PersonChris Fregly
In this talk, we present tips and best practices for scaling a large workshop for 1,000's of simultaneous attendees - both online and in-person. While our workshop is focused on AI and machine learning on AWS, we generalize our learnings for any domain or specialization.
The strength of your community is the best predictor of your project’s long-term viability. What happens when that community is gradually infiltrated by assholes, who infect everyone else with their constant negativity and personal attacks? Although someone may be a valuable technical contributor, that person will never contribute as much to the project as the many others who are scared away and demotivated. This talk will teach you, using quantified data and academic research from the social sciences, about the dramatic impact assholes are having on your organization today and how you can begin to repair it.
Don’t build it: a practical guide for those building Civic Tech - Luke Jordan...mysociety
This was presented at mySociety's TICTeC Show & Tell event, which was held virtually on 20th April 2021. More details on the event can be found here: https://tictec.mysociety.org/showandtells/2021
IBM Design Sprint to Stop Exploitation of Domestic WorkersMike Nedelko
Conceptualized and led a 5-day Google Design Sprint with the IBM CSC Team and Counter Human Trafficking Experts to develop, test and refine a of a mobile application that helps stop the exploitation of female migrant domestic workers in Asia Pacific.
With Great Automation Comes Great ResponsibilityAtlassian
You want to help your team by automating business workflows, but how do you know when and where to use automation?
How can you unleash the full potential of automation using scripts and apps? And what are some pitfalls you need to be aware of?
In this talk, Peter Van de Voorde of Atlassian will walk you through what automation with scripts and apps entails, when you should use it, and what to watch out for.
So you can use automation to unleash the potential of your team.
Getting Unstuck: Enhancing Designer and Developer Collaboration for Mutual Su...goodfriday
Is your team mired in the goo and muck of old-school thinking? Are your designers and developers divided on their approach and about to throw in the towel? Are you dieing to move to a more agile, innovative approach? Attend the session, then participate in this panel discussion with formerly stuck experts.
4 patterns in project management that can have bitter consequences. I share a bit of my experience with tricks I use to see trouble coming, commonly referred to as anti-patterns. Nothing revolutionary but definitely not the same list you'll find on wikipedia.
Thibaut Hermans - Learning on the move - Brussels 2004-2015ecobuild.brussels
This PowerPoint presentation was used by Thibaut Hermans, head of the Exemplary Buildings department at the Brussels Environment Institute (IBGE), during a conference given in Brussels. The conference's theme was Public awareness in sustainable renovation, and was organized by the Ecobuild Cluster and the Greenov European project during the European Sustainable Energy Week on the25th of June, 2013..
The strength of your community is the best predictor of your project’s long-term viability. What happens when that community is gradually infiltrated by assholes, who infect everyone else with their constant negativity and personal attacks? Although someone may be a valuable technical contributor, that person will never contribute as much to the project as the many others who are scared away and demotivated. This talk will teach you, using quantified data and academic research from the social sciences, about the dramatic impact assholes are having on your organization today and how you can begin to repair it.
Don’t build it: a practical guide for those building Civic Tech - Luke Jordan...mysociety
This was presented at mySociety's TICTeC Show & Tell event, which was held virtually on 20th April 2021. More details on the event can be found here: https://tictec.mysociety.org/showandtells/2021
IBM Design Sprint to Stop Exploitation of Domestic WorkersMike Nedelko
Conceptualized and led a 5-day Google Design Sprint with the IBM CSC Team and Counter Human Trafficking Experts to develop, test and refine a of a mobile application that helps stop the exploitation of female migrant domestic workers in Asia Pacific.
With Great Automation Comes Great ResponsibilityAtlassian
You want to help your team by automating business workflows, but how do you know when and where to use automation?
How can you unleash the full potential of automation using scripts and apps? And what are some pitfalls you need to be aware of?
In this talk, Peter Van de Voorde of Atlassian will walk you through what automation with scripts and apps entails, when you should use it, and what to watch out for.
So you can use automation to unleash the potential of your team.
Getting Unstuck: Enhancing Designer and Developer Collaboration for Mutual Su...goodfriday
Is your team mired in the goo and muck of old-school thinking? Are your designers and developers divided on their approach and about to throw in the towel? Are you dieing to move to a more agile, innovative approach? Attend the session, then participate in this panel discussion with formerly stuck experts.
4 patterns in project management that can have bitter consequences. I share a bit of my experience with tricks I use to see trouble coming, commonly referred to as anti-patterns. Nothing revolutionary but definitely not the same list you'll find on wikipedia.
Thibaut Hermans - Learning on the move - Brussels 2004-2015ecobuild.brussels
This PowerPoint presentation was used by Thibaut Hermans, head of the Exemplary Buildings department at the Brussels Environment Institute (IBGE), during a conference given in Brussels. The conference's theme was Public awareness in sustainable renovation, and was organized by the Ecobuild Cluster and the Greenov European project during the European Sustainable Energy Week on the25th of June, 2013..
A CEO is ultimately responsible for the growth of a company as evidenced by its financial performance, its capacity for self-renewal, and its character. The only way you can measure character is by reputation.
General introduction to agile practices like Scrum and Kanban. Also covers what situations Agile is best at, what situations Agile doesn't help with, and what an Agile team should look like. This deck is a general intro to Agile for OpenSource Connections clients.
Agility as a movement started with software developers uncovering better ways of doing what they do. Today that movement is driving even business leaders to rethink how they lead their organizations. What does it mean to “be” agile? How can agility be applied to leading organizations? Where do successful agile leaders start? Three stories, three secrets and three tips to apply agility to your life and work and unlock your potential as an executive or a manager.
Agile Tour Zurich Three Secrets of Agile LeadersPeter Stevens
How do leaders achieve long-term goals? How do they inspire people to achieve goals larger than themselves? Three stories of successful leaders, three secrets, and three tips for becoming a better leader. (Hint: The answer is hiding in plain sight.)
The Secrets of Agile Leaders at BU Agile Innovation LabPeter Stevens
Agility as a movement started with software developers uncovering better ways of doing what they do. Today that movement is driving even business leaders to rethink how they lead their organizations. What does it mean to "be" agile? How can agility be applied to leading organizations? Where do successful agile leaders start? Three stories, three secrets and three tips to apply agility for more impact in your life and work.
These slides also include background information on the Personal Agility System and why you might want to be certified in The Personal Agility System™
Managing feature requests and backlog is a challenge for any software development team faced with high expectations and limited time. This presentation shows how the team at Cognito Forms moves fast while transparently engaging with their customers to prioritize development. Through sophisticated use of Trello, the team tackles complex management challenges in a way that minimizes process overhead. The focus of this presentation though is not the tool, but the methodology they use to keep things going and keep their customers informed along the journey.
200229 PMDays Kharkiv 3 Secrets of Agile LeadersPeter Stevens
Agility as a movement started with software developers uncovering better ways of doing what they do. Today that movement is driving even business leaders to rethink how they lead their organizations. What does it mean to "be" agile? How can agility be applied to leading organizations? Where do successful agile leaders start? Three stories, three secrets and three tips to apply agility to your life and work. As presented at PMDay 2020 in Kharkiv
Overview of Agile for Business AnalystsSally Elatta
This seminar was presented to the IIBA Omaha group. My goal was to provide a quick overview of Agile and then dive into the role and skills needed for a BA on an Agile team. Let me know if you would like me to present this or a similar topic at your organization. sally@agiletransformation.com
Agile2009 - How to sell a traditional client on an Agile project planOpenSource Connections
12 suggestions for how to convince traditional clients to agree to an Agile project plan. Presented by Arin Sime of OpenSource Connections at Agile 2009 in Chicago.
When design is based on random choices, the end product is an assembly of random elements that have little or nothing in common. But when design forces all elements to work together, then it makes a single, powerful, and meaningful impression to the user. This presentation describes a design driven approach called Strong Center Design that is being used at our software studios. It was necessary to incorporate this flow into an agile workflow and we discuss what we learned on that too.
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Communications Mining Series - Zero to Hero - Session 1DianaGray10
This session provides introduction to UiPath Communication Mining, importance and platform overview. You will acquire a good understand of the phases in Communication Mining as we go over the platform with you. Topics covered:
• Communication Mining Overview
• Why is it important?
• How can it help today’s business and the benefits
• Phases in Communication Mining
• Demo on Platform overview
• Q/A
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
zkStudyClub - Reef: Fast Succinct Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Regex ProofsAlex Pruden
This paper presents Reef, a system for generating publicly verifiable succinct non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs that a committed document matches or does not match a regular expression. We describe applications such as proving the strength of passwords, the provenance of email despite redactions, the validity of oblivious DNS queries, and the existence of mutations in DNA. Reef supports the Perl Compatible Regular Expression syntax, including wildcards, alternation, ranges, capture groups, Kleene star, negations, and lookarounds. Reef introduces a new type of automata, Skipping Alternating Finite Automata (SAFA), that skips irrelevant parts of a document when producing proofs without undermining soundness, and instantiates SAFA with a lookup argument. Our experimental evaluation confirms that Reef can generate proofs for documents with 32M characters; the proofs are small and cheap to verify (under a second).
Paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1886
Enchancing adoption of Open Source Libraries. A case study on Albumentations.AIVladimir Iglovikov, Ph.D.
Presented by Vladimir Iglovikov:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/iglovikov/
- https://x.com/viglovikov
- https://www.instagram.com/ternaus/
This presentation delves into the journey of Albumentations.ai, a highly successful open-source library for data augmentation.
Created out of a necessity for superior performance in Kaggle competitions, Albumentations has grown to become a widely used tool among data scientists and machine learning practitioners.
This case study covers various aspects, including:
People: The contributors and community that have supported Albumentations.
Metrics: The success indicators such as downloads, daily active users, GitHub stars, and financial contributions.
Challenges: The hurdles in monetizing open-source projects and measuring user engagement.
Development Practices: Best practices for creating, maintaining, and scaling open-source libraries, including code hygiene, CI/CD, and fast iteration.
Community Building: Strategies for making adoption easy, iterating quickly, and fostering a vibrant, engaged community.
Marketing: Both online and offline marketing tactics, focusing on real, impactful interactions and collaborations.
Mental Health: Maintaining balance and not feeling pressured by user demands.
Key insights include the importance of automation, making the adoption process seamless, and leveraging offline interactions for marketing. The presentation also emphasizes the need for continuous small improvements and building a friendly, inclusive community that contributes to the project's growth.
Vladimir Iglovikov brings his extensive experience as a Kaggle Grandmaster, ex-Staff ML Engineer at Lyft, sharing valuable lessons and practical advice for anyone looking to enhance the adoption of their open-source projects.
Explore more about Albumentations and join the community at:
GitHub: https://github.com/albumentations-team/albumentations
Website: https://albumentations.ai/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/100504475
Twitter: https://x.com/albumentations
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
Maruthi Prithivirajan, Head of ASEAN & IN Solution Architecture, Neo4j
Get an inside look at the latest Neo4j innovations that enable relationship-driven intelligence at scale. Learn more about the newest cloud integrations and product enhancements that make Neo4j an essential choice for developers building apps with interconnected data and generative AI.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Mind map of terminologies used in context of Generative AI
Credera - Agile comes to you 9-27
1. Agile Comes to You Justin Bell presentsThe Benefits of Agile and How to Avoid Common Pitfalls September 27th, 2011
2. Today we’ll talk about the benefits & common pitfalls companies face as they move through the phases of Agile Development adoption Phases of Agile Adoption … braveheart on Flickr bashed on Flickr tallkev on Flickr Just learning … Dipping toe … Trying (HARD) … Enjoying it …
3. There are many benefits of Agile development – but it is often confused with just removing the planning and documentation from other methodologies. Benefits of Agile …
4. We’ve all seen something like this before:The project appears right on track, with no indication of issue until … Benefits of Agile … Improved Visibility & Tracking … gamp on Flickr Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4
5. With Agile it’s easier to get a true status and avoid the late project surprise. Benefits of Agile … Improved Visibility & Tracking …
6. In traditional development models the PM is often lost and stuck with few options other than “management-by-walking-around.” Benefits of Agile … Task Management & Tracking … Whatchaworkin’ on? What else needs to be done? Are you done yet?
7. Well-organized agile teams utilize a task board or online tool to managetask assignments, issues, and progress. Benefits of Agile … Task Management & Tracking …
9. Team estimation can be very time consuming and is often corrupted by “anchoring” when one team member heavily influences estimates. Benefits of Agile … Estimation & Planning … Jon thinks he knows exactly what to do, so he says “3 days!”, making Bob and Mary doubt their initial estimates. 1 3 The Project Manager or Product Owner kicks off the Sprint Planning Session. How long? Michelle 2 4 Sarah then asks for the remaining (and now skewed) estimates. The team thinks about the backlog item being discussed. 3 8 1 ? 3! ! ! ? 3! 8 5 1 3 ? 3 Jon Sarah Bob Mary Jon Sarah Bob Mary Jon Sarah Bob Mary
10. Planning poker is an iterative approach to estimating items in the product backlog intended to reduce anchoring and wasted time. Benefits of Agile … Estimation & Planning … kraemer on Flickr
11. Planning poker is an iterative approach to estimating items in the product backlog intended to reduce anchoring and wasted time. Benefits of Agile … Estimation & Planning … Michelle then asks everyone to flip the card representing their estimate. 1 3 The Project Manager or Product Owner kicks off the Sprint Planning Session. How long? Michelle 2 4 Now the team can have an unbiased discussion regarding the differences. The team thinks about the backlog item being discussed. 3 8 1 ? 3 8 1 ? 3 8 1 ? Jon Sarah Bob Mary Jon Sarah Bob Mary Jon Sarah Bob Mary
12. Agile is great, but there are some very common pitfalls that many teams fall into as they adopt agile. Common Pitfalls … yanivG on Flickr
13. Agile isn’t necessarily “faster” development, but it does make development more predictable and minimize wasted effort. Common Pitfalls … kraemer on Flickr
14. There are still many times that dates and scope are determined outside of an Agile process – and the team is left to deliver the project Common Pitfalls … kraemer on Flickr
15. Good communication is critical to good agile. Don’t let the product owner, QA, and the development team work in silos. Common Pitfalls … lu6fpj on Flickr
16. Be careful not to fool yourself Common Pitfalls … kraemer on Flickr
17. For agile teams to be effective, the product owner must be heavily involved in the day-to-day activities and be empowered to make decisions. Common Pitfalls … loop_oh on Flickr
Thank you. I’m excited to be here today with a chance to talk with you about Agile and learn about some tools later on that help make our lives easier. I’ve been doing software development for about 12 years and learned about Agile by name about 7 years ago. I got very interested in it, starting reading about it and incorporating some of the concepts into our projects when I could. I’ve been fortunate to get to witness and be a part of many different Agile projects over the last 7 years and look forward to sharing some of my experiences – both good and bad.
So you’re all here because you and your organization are in some way interested in Agile and improving your software development processes. You each probably fit into one of the four buckets I’ve got up here on the screen and all of my clients have over the years. Each stage has its own benefits, challenges and pitfalls. By a show of hands, how many of you are in the “just learning” phase? Dipping toe and maybe trying it on a small project? Trying Hard – usually meaning your whole department / organization is saying you are doing Agile, but the kinks aren’t worked out yet? And how many are doing it and feel like it is a well-oiled machine?
This is obviously an exaggeration, but not all that uncommon. I’ve seen many organizations that “go Agile” just by no longer producing requirements documents and project plans and calling the PM a scrummaster instead of a PM. That’s clearly not the intent for Agile and is really just a reckless and unpredictable way to do software development.What are the reasons you are “going Agile” or went Agile if you did it long ago? What benefits are you after?
One of the problems I’ve seen many times with a traditional SDLC is a project status that shows green all the way through. At the ¼ mark of the project, based on duration, you can be sure the project status report will show 25%. At the ½ mark of the project, 50% and at the ¾ mark, 75% - but then, when you are truly into development and running into the real issues that have existing all along projects have a tendency to stall and you see that getting that last 25% of the project done takes 75% of the overall time. The project goes over-schedule and over-budget and worse yet, it is a surprise to executives.
With Agile, you start completing the actual work, end-to-end very early in the project and so encounter and resolve issues as they come up instead of postponing those risks. You can then use visual tools like a burn down chart to show your true progress and indicate that there may be a problem while there is still time to resolve it.
Another common problem I’ve seen in more traditional development organizations is that the project managers, while dutifully trying to update their project plans and status reports have to make the rounds, asking each developer what they are working on, if it is done and what else needs to be done to complete something in their project plan that is called “Develop the Checkout Flow”. I’ve been on both ends of this role before and they are both frustrating. As a developer, you feel like you are being micro-managed by someone that doesn’t understand what you are doing. As a PM, you’re just doing your job and trying to keep up with the status of the project and don’t have any other way to understand task-level status and how that relates to larger items in a project plan.
So, you see a lot of Agile teams implementing task boards, kanban boards or some online Agile management tool to help with this. This team used note cards to represent each task, which was broken down from each user story in that iteration. It is easy to see exactly what each person is working on, the current status of all tasks / user stories and in a glance get a feel for how we are doing for this iteration. For example, if you look at the board when you are ¾ through a sprint and see most tasks are still over to the left in TO BE DONE or IN PROGRESS – you know you’re in trouble.
Another very common problem in software development is estimation and planning. There was a large survey done recently that studied thousands of IT projects and over 70% either never completed at all or were completed significantly over schedule and budget. Part of that problem is caused by the scenario depicted above – but not all of it. Even when teams are given proper time to estimate they often miss it big. Agile gives you a couple of tools for this. First, something we haven’t talked about. Because you track velocity in Agile and you get regular feedback on your actual velocity compared to your estimates – you should have a much better idea what your true velocity is and whether or not you typically over or under estimate certain types of tasks. Another problem depicted here is one person (usually PM or lead developer) giving the entire estimate for the work the team will do. Think about asking someone how long it would take to run a mile. Wouldn’t it be much better to ask the actual person who will be running it and get feedback from others on weather conditions, uphill / downhill, etc. There is a great process called Planning Poker that is popular among Agile teams.
Planning poker is a collaborative estimation technique that helps to minimize the impact of anchoring or group think.
With planning poker, you use a physical set of cards – typically labeled with the Fibonochi sequence up to 13 and then on big increments after that (because you don’t want to be debating the difference between 10 and 12 days for an estimate. Instead forcing things to be 8 or 13, 21, etc.).
With planning poker, each team member “votes” at the same time – eliminating the anchoring effect. Significant differences can then be discussed.
So far, we’ve talked about some things Agile does well and really helps us with. Now lets shift focus to some common problems I’ve seen in different organizations as they try to be Agile.
The first pitfall is an organizations understanding of Agile. Just like in traditional project management, proper expectation setting is very important up front. It is important to educate your teams, peers and supervisors what Agile is and what it isn’t. The best way I’ve found is through piloting Agile on a small initiative and then beginning to roll it out to other projects and departments.
Even though you’re using Agile – there are many times you still get backed into a date and scope. There isn’t much that can help with this, but I have seen organizations that do a good job with Agile seem to develop a more trusting relationship between management and development teams, so when dev says “we can’t do that” management listens and doesn’t just try to steamroll them.
Communication is important in traditional software development also, but the documentation and processes do help you even if your team isn’t communicating perfectly. With Agile – great communication and collaboration are a must. I recently witnessed a QA team that stopped coming to the daily scrum and participating in the weekly demos and then at the end of the sprint said “What requirements are we supposed to test?”. The team then had to try and document a month’s worth of conversations and feedback between the developers and product owner so QA could know what to test – this was not Agile. The full team needs to be involved throughout. Now this doesn’t mean that your daily scrum needs to involve 40 people, including every QA analyst, lead and manager – but it does need to involve the key players from dev, QA and product management.
We talked earlier about how Agile can give you improved visibility and sense of true status. This only works if you provide an honest assessment of where you really stand – without any smoke and mirrors. If you are calling something “Done” it needs to be able to be run without a bunch of caveats, fully test or at least testable and be vetted by the product owner to make sure it generally meets expectations.
One of the benefits of Agile is that is gives you great flexibility to make adjustments based on actually seeing software work and knowing the true status of a project. For that to be effective, the product owner needs to be heavily involved in the project so that they know the status of items, can field questions and can give feedback. They also must be empowered to actually make decisions on usability, requirements and scope. It can’t always be a “well – let me check with so and so”. It can’t be someone that struggles with making timely decisions and you shouldn’t use flexibility as an excuse to continually change your mind and never really make progress.