In this session you will learn what is Agile and how it compares to traditional waterfall development. We will also explore the advantages of Agile for increasing visibility and shortening the feedback loop. Then we will introduce you to Scrum, the most popular agile process improvement framework. We will finish with a description of the Product Owner role and its involvement in Scrum.
David Hawks is a Certified Scrum Coach and Certified Scrum Trainer. He founded Agile Velocity when he noticed companies ineffectively building innovative software products. David brings his broad experience working with Fortune 50 companies and early stage startups to challenge organizations to think differently about how they build software.
3. Intro to Agile for Product Managers
After reading this, introduce yourself to a person
seated next to you, tell this person why you are
here and what you want to learn from this
session.
Write down your:
Struggles
with Current Process
Agile Questions
One item per post-it note
Place on the Wall Sheets
4.
5. David Hawks
CEO of Agile Velocity
Agile Trainer and Coach
Certified Scrum Coach (CSC)
Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)
Agile Austin Board Member
(Education Chair)
@austinagile
austinagile.com (blog)
Transforming Technology Organizations
9. Three things we wish were true
9
1.
2.
3.
The customer knows what he wants
The developers know how to build it
Nothing will change along the way
10. Three things we have to live with
1. The customer discovers what he wants
2. The developers discover how to build it
10
3. Many things change along the way
15. Intro to Agile for Product Managers
What type of
Progress Visibility
is Important?
16. Working software is the primary
measure of progress
16
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Sprint 4
Requirements
Requirements
Requirements
Requirements
Design
Design
Design
Design
Development
Development
Development
Development
QA
Agile
Sprint 1
QA
QA
QA
Potentially Releasable
Product Increment
19. Intro to Agile for Product Managers
What is the
Purpose of the
Product Owner?
20. 20
Product Owner is in the
Game
The Product Owner is present and available to clarify priorities, answer product questions and
give feedback on work-in-progress.
Answering
Questions
Preparing
Backlog
Clarifying
Priorities
Facilitating
Feedback
from
Stakeholders
21. Backlog Physics
21
The Product Owner
should be constantly
grooming the Backlog
•
•
•
•
Change items
Add items
Delete items
Break big items into smaller
ones
• (deleting the big one)
• Re-prioritize
• Add details
• De-prioritize items to make
room for new items
23. 23
Product Owner
Responsibilities
Forms a single view
of the prioritized
requirements for the
team
Ensures features
are defined with
clarity
Accepts or rejects
work results
Available to review
daily work product
to ensure on track
Manages customer/
stakeholder
expectations
Editor's Notes
Prep before Meeting Day 1: Print Backlog for story writing and cut out (Tab 1 titled Feature Requests of Agile Training.xlsx) Print Velocity charts for teams (Tab 2-5 titled Team 1-4 of Agile Training.xlsx) Measure perimeter of room with tape measurePrep before Meeting Day 2: Print Cards for Scrum Roles Skit and cut out (Tab 6 titled “Daily Scrum Roles Skit” of Agile Training.xlsx) Make balloon that meets spec without others seeing you. (~10 inches wide, ~2 inch eyes, ~1 inch gap between eyes, ~1.5 inch high nose, and ~4.5 inch wide mouth) Print Feedback FormsSetup Setup tables for teams Put all supplies on tables available to the team (except special supplies listed above)Supplies4x6 index cards for stories (1 stack per table)3x5 index cards for tasks (1 stack per table)Stickies (1 square pad per person)Chart board pads (1 per table)Sharpies (1 per person)Paper (1 ream per table)Scotch TapeMasking TapeButcher Block paper for task board (if a whiteboard area is not available)Chips for Chip Flip Game (20 per 10 people)Brochure Game (1 per table)Different color markersScissorsGlue stickConstruction paperMagazines (for clipping images)Ruler20-30 balloons per team25 ft tape measure
Couple questions?Who is working with software development teams?Who is employing Agile Methods?Who is using Scrum?Who is using Kanban?Who has heard of Kanban before?Give aways at the end. Let them choose which class they want a 50% discount on. Random person and who tweets
Winston W. Royce 1970 wrote originally about waterfall model and stated that he didn’t think it would work.But back then what did programming look like? Mainframes and punch cards, testing was very expensive so you needed to spend a lot of time up front.40 years later we know this model doesn’t work.
A defined process is an amount of tightly coupled steps where the output from one step is the input to the next step and where no observation or evaluation of the output is done to feedback to the process. A defined process when started will run to the end without any checkpoint. The output from a defined process should always be the same or with little variance given the same input to the process.For many years software development methodologies have been based on the defined process control model. But software development isn’t a process that generates the same output every time given a certain input.Ken Schwaber in Agile Software Development with Scrum
Provides and exercises control through frequent inspection and adaptationfor processes that are imperfectly definedand generate unpredictableandunrepeatable outputs.Scrum adopts an empirical approach accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined, focusing instead on maximizing the team’s ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements.
In reality you are only 80% through the planYou have no verified working/ releasable softwareRisk Snowball Effect Too late to remove scopeIllusion that we are on trackIn reality you are only 80% through the plan or estimated effort.But at this stage in a waterfall project you have no verified working/ releaseable software.Haven’t verified that requirements were correct,Haven’t verified that design was sufficient,Haven’t verified that the code worksRisk Snowball Effect - Lot’s of risk has been building up until this point until you start verifying things during the QA cycleIt is too late to remove scope if you start uncovering that there is risk to delivering on time.In waterfall we give ourselves the illusion that we are on track when we really don’t know until the end. And then it is too late to do anything about it.
5 minIn Agile, we measure progress only when features are completely through verificationWe work on features incrementallyWe work on high value items firstThis allows us to adapt if our estimates were off and still adjust scopeWe minimize risk by always being at a known quality state after every Sprint