This document introduces adopting agile practices in enterprises. It discusses challenges with traditional waterfall approaches and benefits of agile like adapting to changes and prioritizing working software. The document outlines the agile manifesto's values and compares project fit with different organization types. It provides tips for selling agile internally and common mistakes like making waterfall promises or not incorporating feedback. Overall, it advocates for agile when the right team and project are chosen and management is supportive.

1. Introducing Agile to the
Enterprise
Getting your company to give up the Gantt
chart and learn to love software development

2. Who Am I?
• Kendall Miller
• One of the Founders of Gibraltar Software
– Small Independent Software Vendor Founded in 2008
– Developers of VistaDB and Gibraltar
– Engineers, not Sales People
• Enterprise Systems Architect & Developer since 1995
• BSE in Computer Engineering, University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
• Twitter: @KendallMiller

3. What Do We Do?
The easy-to-deploy, SQL Server-
compatible, pure .NET embedded database.
Advanced logging and analysis of
errors, performance, and usage patterns for
.NET web apps, desktop apps and services

4. Fair Warning

5. Development
Team

6. Development
Team

7. Why Agile?

8. Why Agile?
• No idea or control over cost or schedule
• Constant rework and re-testing
• Ongoing distractions
• Contention between business units

9. Agile Manifesto
Individuals and Interactions
Processes and Tools

10. Agile Manifesto
Working Software
Comprehensive
Documentation

11. Agile Manifesto
Customer Collaboration
Contract Negotiation

12. Agile Manifesto
Responding to Change
Following a Plan

13. Hard Stop
Agile Isn’t Coding Without
a Plan or Requirements

14. “I love that you were able to demo
functionality so early on and make the
changes we wanted. Now you just
need to tell us exactly when the
remaining functionality will be
completed”
- A Senior Program Manager

15. “You built exactly what we asked
for, but now that we see it, it’s all
wrong. Can you do redo it in the next
two weeks?..
.. Why can’t you say when everything
else will get done?”
- A Senior Customer Stakeholder

16. Business Goals
• Create and Follow a Plan
• Predictable Cost and Schedule
• Clear agreements between parties
• Clear accountability
• Easy status reporting and monitoring

17. How’d We Get Here?

18. How’d we get here?
Control Cost through
Eliminating Waste
• Code once
• Test once
• Don’t code unnecessary stuff

19. How’d we get here?
Processes Embody a
Method to Achieve A Goal
Follow the process and you can’t help but
achieve the goal

20. How’d we get here?
Processes are a Surrogate
for the Goal
• Hard to argue against doing things
• No one is really sure what would happen
if they were changed or removed

21. How’d we get here?
Processes Stand In for Trust
• I can trust the Process not the People
• We can Blame the Process
• Easier than doing the hard work of
Managing your People

22. Hard Stop
Political Problems Can’t be
Solved with your Software
Development Process

23. Organization Fit
Process Risk

24. Process Organization Fit
Risk
NASA

25. Process Organization Fit
Risk
Typical Enterprise

26. Hard Stop
The higher the P/R
ratio, the more
management Buy-in you
must have

27. Is Agile a Fit for my Shop?

28. Organization Fit
Values Results over
Compliance
• Can you read the Agile Manifesto
without laughing?
• Organization needs to Want to Ship

29. Organization Fit
Can see unfinished work
• Without punishment for it being
unfinished

30. Organization Fit
Can Collaborate across
Teams
• Everyone it takes to build the solution
• Everyone it takes to publish the solution

31. Organization Fit
How Much Trust?
• Find a project team that has the trust of
the business and go with them first.
• Less trust requires more formal
agreements (until Agile is impossible)

32. Hard Stop
If you can’t find the Team
and the Project, it’s the
wrong Time.

33. Selling Agile to the Business

34. Agile Selling Points
You Will get Everything you
Need
• We’re working on your most important
items (says you) each sprint

35. Agile Selling Points
You have a Buying Choice
every Sprint
• If it’s good enough, we can stop
• If it’s no longer a good investment, we
can stop

36. Agile Selling Points
We can change on a dime
• How often does your business climate
change?
• How transformative is the project?

37. Agile Selling Points
No surprises on what it
does
• No disappointment it isn’t all you hoped
for

38. Agile Selling Points
Build confidence in the
Solution instead of the Process
• No disappointment it isn’t all you hoped
for
• Nothing beats real users with real data
on real servers

39. Things that Don’t Sell

40. Agile Selling Points that Fail
Lower Cost
• Visible rework and chaos

41. Agile Selling Points that Fail
Done Sooner
• You can’t give them date certainty
• Iterations instead of measure twice cut
once

42. Agile Selling Points that Fail
Higher Quality Solution
• Quality is subjective
• Businesses rarely prioritize User
Experience over Cost & Schedule

43. Ways Teams Sabotage Agile

44. Agile Anti-Patterns for Devs
Not providing a Project Plan
• Track interactions between development
and external dependencies
• Team, not individual assignments
• Externally observable results

45. Agile Anti-Patterns for Devs
Making Waterfall Promises
• Work out rolling UAT options
• Buffer external dependencies
• Evangelize advantages of rapid iterations

46. Agile Anti-Patterns for Devs
Ignoring Project
Documentation
• Document expectations and outcomes
• Project History (for larger projects)
• What would you want to inherit?

47. Agile Anti-Patterns for Devs
Not Accommodating Product
Feedback Immediately
• Changes/Defects/New Features are
equally valid for work
• Get to Done-Diddly-Done-Done-Done

48. Critical Lessons Learned
• Political problems can’t
be solved by process
• High Process requires
Enthusiastic
Management
• Pick the right Team and
Project

49. Additional Information:
Websites
– www.GibraltarSoftware.com
– www.eSymmetrix.com
Follow Up
– Kendall.Miller@eSymmetrix.com
– Twitter: kendallmiller