Using Agile methodology, the speaker aims to transform doubting customers into raving fans by demonstrating how Agile can help deliver projects that meet expectations. Agile practices like iterative development, collaboration, and transparency can help improve delivery track records, build confidence through demonstrations of working software, actively engage customers, and enable teams to communicate and adjust based on feedback. The speaker outlines their company's Agile practices for planning, managing, delivering projects, and building effective Agile teams.

1. Using Agile Methodology to
Deliver Projects that Transform
Customers from Doubters into
Raving Fans
Michael Harris
VP of Information Technology, Ecommerce Inc.

2. Goals
• Demonstrate How Agile Can Help to
Transform Customer Perception
• Share Insight Into The Ecommerce Agile
Approach
• Provide You With a Set of Practices That
Can Be Deployed on Your Own Agile Teams

3. Who is the Customer?
From Dictionary.com
1. a
person who purchases goods or services from
another;buyer; patron.
2.Informal . a person one has to deal with: a tough
customer;a cool customer.
For the purpose of this talk a customer can be any
internal or external project sponsor or decision maker.

4. What Do Customers Expect?
• To Get What They Asked or Paid For
• To Have Predictable Costs
• To Get Timely Results
• To Be Kept in the Loop (i.e. No Surprises)
• To Focus On The Business While We Deliver
the Technology

5. What Do Customers Often Get?
• Experience Tells Them...
IT Project = Confusion + Frustration (#FAIL)
• From Their Perspective We...
- Have a Poor Project Delivery Track Record
- Fail to Hold Our Commitments
- Have Fluid, Out of Control Costs
- Misinterpret/Misunderstand What They
Want

6. Why Do We Need Change?
• Because We Do In Fact Have a
Poor Project Delivery Track Record
• As an Industry IT Misses
Approximately 7 Out of 10 Times
(Cost, Features, Time)
- Standish Group - Chaos Summary 2009
- University of Missouri, St. Louis (December 2003)
• This is Performance Only a Baseball
Player Could Appreciate

7. How Do We Improve Our Batting
Average and Get More Fans?
• Hold Our Commitments
• Build Confidence Through
Transparency & Shared
Success
• Actively Engage the
Customer
• Communicate & Adjust

8. Agile Can Help!

9. So What is Agile?
• Agile Provides a Set of Practices and Processes
Based on Iterative and Incremental
Development With a Focus on Collaboration
and Feedback
• Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/)
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan

10. Agile Won’t Prevent Baldness!

11. Agile Won’t Help You Lose Weight!

12. Agile Won’t Predict The Market!

13. But Agile Will...
• Enable Us To (Grow Fans):
1. Hold Our Commitments
2. Build Confidence
3. Engage The Customer
4. Communicate and Adjust

14. How Does Agile Helps Us To
Hold Our Commitments?
• We Break Down Work Into
Manageable Chunks Called Stories
• We Employ “Manage a Day” Theory
• We Plan for Change and Change
the Plan
• We Use Fact Based, Collaborative
Planning

15. How Does Agile Help Us To
Build Confidence?
• Demonstrate Working
Code Early and Often
• Do the Most Valuable and/
or Hardest Things First
• Maintain a “Change” Buffer
in the Plan
• When We Don’t Know...
We Prototype

16. How Does Agile Helps Us To
Engage The Customer?
• Customers Actively Participate
in Story Building
• Customers Define Success &
Failure Criteria
• Customers Help to Plan
Iterations
• Customers Provide Feedback
on Working Code

17. How Does Agile Helps Us To
Communicate and Adjust?
• Agile is All About
Communication and Feedback
• Continuous Improvement is
Built Into the Process via
Retrospectives
• “Do More of What Works
and Less of What Doesn’t”
• We Clearly Define Done

18. Next Lets Examine Our Approach to
Solving this Challenge at Ecommerce

19. How We Practice Agile
• We Will Cover
- Planning
- Managing
- Delivery
- Team Makeup

20. Agile Planning
• Key Practices
- Story Building (Requirements
Gathering)
- Planning Poker (Estimation)
- Iteration Planning (Slotting and
Prioritization)

21. Agile Story Building
Anatomy of a Story
As a <actor/role> I want to <action> so
that <reason>.
Acceptance Criteria Failure Conditions
• What does success • What exceptions do
look like? we handle and how?

22. Example Story
As a presenter, I want to determine the
background of the audience so I can cater
the presentation to their needs.
Success Failure Conditions
• The majority of the audience self • If no one raises their hands make
identifies as (customer or IT) and sure you are in the right room!
as (agile novice or agile expert) • If less than the majority raise their
hand then keep trying until you
get a majority

23. Another Example
As a presenter, I want to teach the audience
how to use agile to win over customers so
that they can be more successful with their
future projects.
Success Failure Conditions
• Members of the audience learn about • If the audience is bored tell a joke
important aspects of agile
• If the audience glassy eyed then re-
• Members of the audience leverage agile on query background information
their future projects
• If the audience fails to applaud at the
• The audience applauds at the end of the end apologize and hand out candy
presentation

24. Planning Poker
• We Estimate Each Story Point Scale
Story Using Story - 0 is <= 2 hours
Points - 1 is <= 8 hours
-
• Members Use
2 is <= 16 hours
- 3 is <= 40 hours
Playing Cards To - 5 is > 40 hours
Cast Their Vote
• Capture Tasks * Stories scored a 5 need to be
broken down

25. Iteration Planning
Backlog
• An Iteration Contains
2 Weeks Worth of 3 3 00 Stories
Stories Minus a 20% 3 1 1
Change Buffer (Plan Change
for Change)
Prioritize
Buffer
• Collaborative Effort
Between Development
and the Customer
Velocity
• We Package 2-3
Iteration
Iterations in Advance

26. Agile Planning Toolbox
• Tools We Use
- Pivotal Tracker for managing
backlog, iteration planning and work
tracking. www.pivotaltracker.com
- www.planningpoker.com for story
estimation.
- Redmine for project documentation
www.redmine.org.

27. Agile Management
• Key Practices
- Daily Stand Ups
- Iteration Retrospectives
- Workload Management
- Demonstrations

28. Daily Stand Ups
• Must Be Prepared To Answer The
Following:
- Yesterday I Committed To And
Completed... (verify)
- Today I Commit To Completing...
(commit)
- My Roadblocks Are... (escalate)
• And Yes We Stand The Entire Time :)

29. Retrospectives Not
Honest!
• Requires “Brutal Honesty”
• Answers Two Simple Questions
- What Worked
- What Did Not Work
• Turn the WDNW’s Into Stories
or Chores and Incorporate
Into Future Iterations

30. Workload Management

31. Demonstrations
• Gives Customer a Chance to
Interact With Working Code
• Demos Verify Customer
Acceptance of Stories
• Demos Should Be Engaging
• Capture Failures as Bug
Stories

32. Agile Delivery
• Key Practices
- Clear Definition Of Done
- Automated Testing Is Critical To Success
- Continuous Integration
- Agile Coaching

33. Definition Of Done
• Working, Demonstratable Code
• All Tests Pass
- Tests Prove Acceptance Criteria &
Failure Handling
• Story Accepted By Customer

34. Automated Testing
• Test First, Test After... Just Test!
• Tests are as Much for the
Developer as the Customer
• Regression Testing Prevents
Indirect Feature Breakage
• Integration Testing Ensures
That Units Function
Correctly Together

35. Continuous Integration
• Instant Feedback For Build & Test
Validity Upon Code Check In
• Broken Build = Fire Alarm
• Provides Metrics for Code
Coverage
• We Use Hudson (hudson-ci.org)
But There Are Many Good Ones
Available

36. Agile Coaching
• Continuous Coaching is Critical
for New Agile Teams
• Developers Pair as Needed
• Peer Code Reviews Required
- Ensures Consistency
- Spreads Knowledge
• Team is Self Organizing

37. Building an Agile Team
• A Typical Project Will Have
- 1 Project Manager
- 1 Business Analyst
- 3-6 Developers
- 1-2 Designers/Web Developers
- 1-2 QA
• We Use a 1-3-1 Ratio for Designers
to Developers to QA

38. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Communicate Project Goals/
Background
SME’s
• Write Stories
• Business Analyst
• Write Success/Failure
• PM/Dev Manager Criteria
• Provide Reference
(Scrum Master)
Information
• Designers/UX • Help Plan/Prioritize Iterations
• Developers • Provide Feedback in Demos
• Participate in Daily Stand Up
• QA (Optional)

39. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Facilitate Story Building
SME’s • Challenge Customer to Dig
• Business Analyst
Deeper & Work Through
Scenarios
• PM/Dev Manager • Story Clarification
(Scrum Master) • Participate in Planning Poker
• Liaison Between IT & Customer
• Designers/UX
• Demo Presenter
• Developers • Participate in Daily Standup
• QA • Participate in Retrospectives

40. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Lead Iteration Planning
SME’s
• Lead Planning Poker
• Business Analyst
• Lead Daily Stand Up
• PM/Dev Manager • Lead Retrospectives
(Scrum Master)
• Assign Work
• Designers/UX • Eliminate Roadblocks
• Developers • Review Code
• QA • Lead Release Planning

41. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Create Wireframes
SME’s
• Create Screen Mocks
• Business Analyst • Define Interaction
Characteristics
• PM/Dev Manager
• Define Application Graphic
(Scrum Master) Standards
• Designers/UX • Demo Designs
• Developers • Participate in Daily Stand Up
• QA • Participate in Retrospectives

42. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Break Stories into Tasks
SME’s • Deliver Stories (Code & Unit
• Business Analyst
Test)
• Pair & Mentor
• PM/Dev Manager • Participate in Planning Poker
(Scrum Master)
• Participate in Demos
• Designers/UX • Manage Continuous
Integration Server
• Developers
• Participate in Daily Stand Up
• QA • Participate in Retrospectives

43. Our Agile Team
• Customer/Sponsor/ • Participate in Story Building
SME’s • Develop Integration Test
• Business Analyst
Plans
• Execute Integration Tests
• PM/Dev Manager • Record/Prioritize Defects
(Scrum Master)
• Certify Release for
• Designers/UX Production
• Participate in Demos
• Developers
• Participate in Daily Stand Up
• QA • Participate in Retrospectives

44. In Summary
• To Win Fans
- Do What We Say and Say What We Do
- Customers Want To Be Heard
- Demonstrate Consistency and
Transparency Using Agile
• Like Anything Else, Agile Takes Practice
and Coaching But Everyone Can Do IT

45. Questions

46. Thank You
My Contact Info
@mikeharris22
mharris22
michael.harris@ecommerce.com