Abstract: Agile is far from new. Most organizations these days are "doing agile". Actually it has spread so far that it's spread too thin. When organizations with lots of legacy baggage implement agile they find it's really hard to do it right. Or are not even aware of what the right way to do agile for their context looks like. This created an "Agile Theater" epidemic out there where people are running through the motions to show they are "compliant" with agile but beyond the curtain you'll see the same old behaviors and not enough impact on the actual outcomes of the IT organization. We're now seeing a new style of agile. One that goes beyond the theater and changes things for real. It's harder for sure but organizations dead-set on achieving Quality and Velocity to enable their Digital/Transformations are realizing they don't have a choice. In this talk we'll discuss some examples of the agile theater as well as some best practices to help the enterprise organization become more agile despite all the legacy baggage it is carrying. 

1. The Agile Theater
Starring Scrum, The Scrum Master,
Product Owner, Agile Team, The Sprint.
Guest Appearance – The Waterfall
1

2. Achieving Real Agility
in the Digital Age
• The Agile Theater – What is
it, Why is it happening
• Real/Modern Agility
• Concrete Examples of
Theater vs Modern/Real
Agility behavior
• What can you do next
2
Yuval Yeret

3. About Me
• Help people spark Real business agility at scale.
• Allergic to Agile Theater (And Dust, and probably Dog/Cat hair)
• Senior enterprise agility coach at AgileSparks, an international lean
agile consulting company with offices in Boston, Israel, India.
• Blogging at yuvalyeret.com.
• Living in Newton, MA – heading business development and agile
consulting engagements for AgileSparks in the US.
• Email me questions/feedback/suggestions at
yuval@agilesparks.com or 857-218-9585.
• Slides already available at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalyeret.
3

4. Agile Team2
Agile Team1
Ongoing
Done
Features
Backlog
Develop
Feature/
Sprint
in
Progress
Story-level
Test & Fix
Deploy
ment
Done Ongoing Done
Stories
Backlog
Ongoing
Specify
Done
H.6
H.0
H.1H.2
H.3
H.4H.5
D2
D3
T2
T1
D1
P
1
H.7
T2
Implement Feature by Stories
How does an agile project/program looks like?
(by the book…)

5. Agile Team2
Agile Team1
Ongoing
Done
Features
Backlog
Develop
Feature/
Sprint
in
Progress
Story-level
Test & Fix
Deploym
ent
Done Ongoing Done
Stories
Backlog
End of
Release
Testing
Ongoing DoneOngoing
Specify
Done
H.6
H.0
H.1H.2
H.3
H.4H.5
D2
D3
T2
T1
D1
P1
H.7
T2
Implement Feature by Stories
UAT
Regression
Performance
Security
Functional
Progression
Exploratory
ATDD
Auto
Long wait for the
endgame
Real Life… Not so agile...
a.k.a WaterScrumFall
“Sprint is too short for
everything we need to
achieve DONE”
“Let’s leave the serious
testing for the release
testing phase”
Platform
Matrix
Real
Network

6. Ongoing
To Do Agile
Development
& Testing
Automated
Delivery
Auto
Deployment
Done Ongoing DoneOngoing
Agile
Planning
Done Ongoing Done
Real Business Agility
Frequent Feature Delivery
Continuous
Integration
Predictable, Repeatable,
Non-Event
Production

7. Ongoing
Production /
Done
Roadmap Agile
Development
& Testing
Release
Activities
Done Ongoing DoneOngoing
Release
Backlog /
Product
Requirements
Done
Ongoing
Deployment
Done
“Reasonable” Agile Development
V1V2V3
Continuous
Integration

9. Agile Theater Approach
to Teams
Henrik Kniberg
Client team
C C C
Test team
T T T
DB team
D D D
Server team
S S S
Feature team 1
C
C
S
D
T
T
C
S
D
T
Feature team 2
D
S
DB
Server
Client
User
Communities
of interest

10. Agile Theater – “Empowered Teams
and Individuals”

11. Agile Theater – “Sprint/Release Planning”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGfplQ1FUFs

12. Why?
See Kent Beck’s idea as described by Markus Gartner at http://www.shino.de/2010/11/04/software-g-forces-the-effects-of-acceleration/

13. 13
The Law of
Raspberry Jam: the
wider any culture is
spread, the thinner
it gets.
Alvin Toffler

14. http://www.agilesparks.com/AS%20Way

15. So how can we close the curtain on
the Agile Theater and start to establish
Real Business Agility? 15

16. House of Lean
LEADERSHIP
Respectfor
peopleandculture
Flow
Innovation
Relentless
improvement
VALUE

17. Agile Team2
Agile Team1
Ongoing
Done
Features
Backlog
Develop
Feature/
Sprint
in
Progress
Story-level
Test & Fix
Deploym
ent
Done Ongoing Done
Stories
Backlog
End of
Release
Testing
Ongoing DoneOngoing
Specify
Done
H.6
H.0
H.1H.2
H.3
H.4H.5
D2
D3
T2
T1
D1
P1
H.7
T2
Implement Feature by Stories
UAT
Regression
Performance
Security
Functional
Progression
Exploratory
ATDD
Auto
Long wait for the
endgame
Real Life… Not so agile...
a.k.a WaterScrumFall
“Sprint is too short for
everything we need to
achieve DONE”
“Let’s leave the serious
testing for the release
testing phase”
Platform
Matrix
Real
Network

19. Improvement
Traditional
Processes
Agile w/o
Eng Practices/CI
Reduce Batch Size Further
WITH
Great automation and
leaner processes

20. The result - only a limited amount
of feedback is early and effective
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
done
done done
40% 60%
Identify coverage that happens
outside the sprint.
Which is the biggest quality risk if
found late?

21. Agile Team2
Agile Team1
Ongoing
Done
Features
Backlog
Develop
Feature/
Sprint
in
Progress
Story-level
Test & Fix
Deploym
ent
Done Ongoing Done
Stories
Backlog
Ready
For
Feature
Test
Test
Feature-
level
Ongoing Done
End of
Release
Testing
Ongoing DoneOngoing
Specify
Done
T
T
T
H.6
H.0
H.1H.2
H.3
H.4H.5
D2
D3
T2
T1
D1
P1
H.7
T2
Implement Feature by Stories
UAT
Regression
Performance
Security
Functional
Progression
Exploratory
Try - Slowly shifting left towards Continuous
Quality and adding the Feature-level testing
stage in the pipeline
Add Feature/Epic level
testing
1. Add Feature/Epic/
Iteration level
testing.
2. left-shift more and more testing through
automation, enabling teams using
environments/tools/knowhow and more.

22. •Most expensive automation to develop, run &
maintain, so minimize!!!
•Move majority of E2E testing coverage to
Service/API layer
•QTP/UFT/Selenium/PerfectoMobile/etc.
UI
•“The Workhorse” of enterprise agile
testing
•Created by testers & developers on
agile teams supported by
frameworks/guidance by
Automation CoE
•soapUI, etc.
Acceptance
(Service/API)
•Leverage Agile Teams
developer testing to
reduce coverage needs
•Ability to automatically
detect (through coverage
tools etc.) what is
covered
Unit Testing
Manual
http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/the-
forgotten-layer-of-the-test-automation-pyramid

23. ©2008-2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.
23
Teams manage
iterations using
Stories Board
Programs manage feature E2E Flow (all
the way to OPS) using Features Board
Business Units/Portfolios manage
Epics/Initiatives using Portfolio Boards

24. Implement Lean/Agile Principles/Practices
beyond the team
Expand one
level

25. Agile Theater Approach
to Teams
Henrik Kniberg
Client team
C C C
Test team
T T T
DB team
D D D
Server team
S S S
Feature team 1
C
C
S
D
T
T
C
S
D
T
Feature team 2
D
S
DB
Server
Client
User
Communities
of interest

26. If it’s too much to create “Feature Teams” at least
create “Feature Trains”
Business Product
Mgmt
Hardware Software Testing
A G I L E R E L E A S E T R A I N
Agile Teams
PMO DeploymentSys Eng.

27. 27
Credit - Udi Weinberg – HP Software

28. Best Practice – Agile Testers DRIVE quality

29. ATDD = Acceptance Test Driven Development -
Build Quality Into Design – preventing defects
rather than just finding them
Elaborate
Requirements
Test Design
Technical
Design
Coding / Unit
Testing
Test Execution
+ Fixing
Done
1. ATDD Thinking
Use test scenarios to guide
design (which can then
happen using TDD, or
not…)
http://www.agilesparks.com/test-first-reading-list
Test Automation

30. The Agile Theater
Starring Scrum, The Scrum Master,
Product Owner, Agile Team, The Sprint.
Guest Appearance – The Waterfall
30

31. Achieving Real Agility
in the Digital Age
• The Agile Theater – What is
it, Why is it happening
• Real/Modern Agility
• Concrete Examples of
Theater vs Modern/Real
Agility behavior
• What can you do next
31
Yuval Yeret

32. http://bit.ly/safectperfecto
Use
PM20
20%
discount
until 4/16

33. 33
http://bit.ly/scaledagiletestingboston
Use
PM20
20%
discount
until 4/21

34. Questions?
• Email me questions/feedback/suggestions at
yuval@agilesparks.com or 857-218-9585.
• Slides already available at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalyeret.
• Would love to help you move beyond the Agile Theater in your
context.