ADAPTING AGILE TO THE ENTERPRISE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PHASE GATES? – AGILE EDGE CONFERENCE

SUPERIOR

PEOPLE

PRODUCT

PROCESS

AGILE-LEAN METHODS

NOT EASY.

SUPERIOR

PEOPLE

PRODUCT

PROCESS

PRODUCTIVITY CAN BE SPENT ON QUALITY OR DELIVERY DATE

AGILE-LEAN METHODS

Change is Organic

NOT EASY.

SUPERIOR

PEOPLE

PRODUCT

PROCESS

AGILE-LEAN METHODS

Process Overhead Reduced to 8-15%

(From 40-60%)

NOT EASY.

SUPERIOR

PEOPLE

PRODUCT

PROCESS AGILE-LEAN METHODS

Improved Team Morale due to Focus

and Rhythm

Improved Skills due to Pairing &

Shared Responsibilities

NOT EASY.

THE MATURING OF AGILE PRACTICE

AGILE-1ST GENERATION – AGILE FOR THE TEAM

– Emphasising the Human Factors in Development

– Emphasising Empowerment-to-a-Goal

– A Gaggle of Gurus

– Naïve Agile & Faux-Agile

AGILE-2ND GENERATION – AGILE FOR THE ENTERPRISE

– Emphasising Risk Management

– Emphasising Backlog Management

– Emphasising Visibility & Accountability

– Emphasising the Whole Solution Value Stream

HYBRID, BEST-PRACTICE

AGILE METHODS

BRANDED AGILE

METHODS

NOTE:

AGILITY IS A LARGE, SOPHISTICATED, AND SUBTLE BODY OF GOOD PRACTICES. THIS PRESENTATION IS ONLY A BRIEF, PARTIAL SKETCH.

THE AGILE MANIFESTO THE ORIGINS OF 1ST-GENERATION AGILE

Processes and Tools

Comprehensive Documentation

Contract Negotiation

Following a Predefined Plan

Individuals and Interactions

Working Software

Customer Collaboration

Responding to Change

VALUABLE MORE VALUABLE

Over

Over

Over

Over

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

THAT IS, WHILE THERE IS VALUE IN THE ITEMS ON THE RIGHT, WE VALUE THE ITEMS ON THE LEFT MORE.

THE DARK-SIDE OF THE AGILE MANIFESTO THE ORIGINS OF FAUX-AGILE & NAÏVE-AGILE

We Do This … We Don’t Do This?

Processes and Tools

Comprehensive Documentation

Contract Negotiation

Following a Predefined Plan

Individuals and Interactions

Working Software

Customer Collaboration

Responding to Change

EITHER/OR THINKING AND A FALSE DOCTRINE OF REJECTION.

DISCOVERING THE TAO OF AGILE-LEAN

DIMENSIONS OF ENTERPRISE AGILITY

• IT’S MORE THAN JUST BIG, DISTRIBUTED TEAMS!

INTEGRATED BACKLOG MANAGEMENT

• INDUCING A CONTINUOUS FLOW AND PLANNING RHYTHM FROM PRODUCT/PORTFOLIO MGMT. THROUGH RELEASE & ITERATION MGMT.

RISK PROFILING AND RISK-DRIVEN PROCESS

• IT’S ALL ABOUT RISK MANAGEMENT!

GOVERNANCE AS ACTIONABLE GLOBAL RISK MANAGEMENT

• STOP OBSTRUCTING! START INSTRUCTING!

“THE WISE MAN DOES LESS AND LESS, UNTIL HE DOES NOTHING AT ALL, AND YET NOTHING IS LEFT UNDONE.” – LAO TSE

PEOPLE

PRODUCT

PROCESS

SCALING AGILITY TO THE ENTERPRISE

LARGER

COMPLEXITY Architecture

Configurations

3rd-party Software

Stds Conformance

MORE PRECISE

COORDINATION Concurrent Devlpmt.

Version/Config. Mgt.

Product Integration

WIDER

DIVERSITY People & Cultures

Disciplines & Skills

Sites & Timezones

IMPROVED

ACCOUNTABILITY Satisfaction-of-Need & Maturity Timeliness & Health Quality & Fitness-for-Release Efficiency & Productivity

QUICKER

RESPONSIVENESS Scope Chg. Mgmt. Half-Life of Reqs. Time-to-Market

BROADER

RISK PROFILE Regulatory Compliance Security & Reliability Enterprise Governance

CLOSER

ALIGNMENT To Business/Market To Strategic Plan

AGILE DYNAMICS – FLOW & FEEDBACK

Product

Backlog

Project & Release

Planning

Risk Profiling

AGILE PLANNING & GOVERNANCE

Daily Burn

Scrumboard

Iteration Planning

Risk

Valu

e

Fitness

Daily standup Meeting (“Daily scrum”) DAILY

(NANO-LEVEL)

Pairing and Peering

Iteration Retrospective

Build-Integration-Test- Acceptance Automation

DEMO

Release Retrospective

Doc as needed

PRODUCTION

RELEASE

Fitness- for-Release

Testing

Iteration Backlog

Product Backlog

Release Backlog

Scope Change Mgmt

Progress to Goal

IN THE BEGINNING …

THERE WAS THE STORY.

The essential unit of Agile scope.

The fundamental unit of Agile planning.

The concept around which we define actionable and done.

A bit of a mystery, in practice. ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA • The credit card should be rejected if it

is a type not accepted by the store. • The credit payment charged should

be for the exact amount due. • Confirmation of successful or

unsuccessful credit clearance must be displayed prior to receipt generation.

• If successful, customer signature must be indicated by the cashier explicitly before finalizing the sale.

CREDIT CARD PAYMENT

As a Cashier, when processing a sale, I want to process a credit card payment in order to settle the sale transaction such that confirmation of credit transaction clearance is confirmed before finalizing the sale.

Size-Effort = 5 Risk = 4.7

Actor

Action Context

Action

Business Context

Constraint

SCOPE

Re

qu

iremen

ts

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ACTIONABLE?

SPECIFIABLE - has been refined sufficiently to understand how to satisfy the story.

IMPLEMENTABLE - can be elaborated to the next level so that further SEIVing can occur.

ESTIMABLE - has reduced & bounded uncertainty so effort can be reasonably projected.

VERIFIABLE - can specify acceptance criteria to determine satisfaction of the story.

EACH SEPARATELY

Wrong question! “Epic” is an adjective, not a noun.

The question should be, “What makes a story epic?”

The answer: it fails on one or more of the SIEVe properties.

There are several kinds of epic-actionable things.

WHAT IS AN EPIC?

REFINEMENT

Specifiable AND Implementable AND Estimable AND Verifiable

NOT 1 or more of: Specifiable OR Implementable OR Estimable OR Verifiable

Actionable Thing

Epic Thing

RESOLVED: “STORY” IS A GENERIC TERM.

There are different kinds of stories, i.e. units of scope, depending on your level of detail and focus.

• 4 KINDS OF STORIES:

– Goals – representing the objectives or initiatives of the business.

– Features – “If the system would only do X, then we would make progress on the goal Y.”

– Functions – “To provide the feature X, the system needs to do: A, B, C, Q, & W.”

– Tasks – “To implement Q, we need to build U & V, modify the W & X screens, update the Y schema, and write a Z audit record.”

User Story or

Scenario

Epic User Story or Use Case

Business Goal

Goal = Unit of Strategy Feature = Unit of Value Function = Unit of Capability Task = Unit of Work

SIEVING EPIC STORIES TO DERIVE ACTIONABLE STORIES

EPIC GOAL

EPIC FEATURE

EPIC FUNCTION

ACTIONABLE GOAL

ACTIONABLE FEATURE

ACTIONABLE FUNCTION

TASK

ELABORATION is the identification and definition of stories at the next lower level of detail.

REFINEMENT is the decomposition into more detailed stories of the same kind such that the SEIVe properties are satisfied by those stories at that level.

THIS IS THE FOUNDATION FOR AGILE TRACEABILITY AND THE DEFINITION OF “DONE”.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL TRACEABILITY

“Done” with children means done with their parent.

SOME DIMENSIONS

• Goal -> Feature (Set) for Demand Mgmt

• Feature -> Function -> Subfunction for Planning & Reporting

• Function -> Version for Complexity Mgmt

• Function -> Task for Work Allocation & Execution

Feature Feature Feature

THE DIFFICULTY OF DEFINING “DONE” IS A MAJOR CATEGORY OF ANALYSIS RISK.

HIERARCHY OF BACKLOGS

EPIC GOAL

EPIC FEATURE

EPIC FUNCTION

ACTIONABLE GOAL

ACTIONABLE FEATURE

ACTIONABLE FUNCTION

TASK

PRODUCT BACKLOG

RELEASE BACKLOG

ITERATION BACKLOG 4 STORIES TYPES IN PAIRS

GENERATES 3 NATURAL BACKLOG TYPES

DEFINITION OF “PLAN”

“PLAN” v. (a) to add (delete or modify)

stories to a backlog,

(b) to allocate stories from one backlog to another.

“ANALYZE” v. (a) to refine or elaborate a story.

“MANAGE” v. (a) to plan and to analyze the stories in a backlog.

DEFINITION OF “PLAN”

EPIC GOAL

EPIC FEATURE

EPIC FUNCTION

ACTIONABLE GOAL

ACTIONABLE FEATURE

ACTIONABLE FUNCTION

TASK

PRODUCT BACKLOG

RELEASE BACKLOG

ITERATION BACKLOG

Release Planning

Iteration Planning Product

Mgmt

Release Mgmt

Iteration Mgmt

BACKLOG NETWORK

Each Backlog subsumes its own (potentially unique) Analysis & Planning Disciplines

CUSTOMER BACKLOG

PRODUCT LINE

BACKLOG

PRODUCT BACKLOG

DIVISIONAL BACKLOG

RELEASE CONFIG

BACKLOG

RELEASE BACKLOG

SUBSYSTEM BACKLOG

COMPONENT BACKLOG

ITERATION BACKLOG

QUEUING NETWORK

– Analyze Flow

– Optimize by Lean Principles

COORDINATION-INTEGRATION TASKS

– Generates a Hierarchy of Scrums

– Attach Governance to “Natural” Gates, Flows, & Activities

MATURE AGILE PROCESS ESTABLISHING RHYTHMS FOR SUCCESS

Regular RHYTHM ensures Sustainability

Regular FEEDBACK ensures Fidelity

Multiple levels of Rhythmic Feedback for Risk Management & Scope Change Mgmt

CATCH RISKS WHEN THEY ARE LITTLE,

AND THEY WON’T GROW UP TO BE BIG ISSUES.

INCREMENTAL DEVELOPMENT

Iterative Dev

MATURE AGILE PROCESS ESTABLISHING RHYTHMS FOR SUCCESS

DAILY

ITERATION

RELEASE

IF YOU HAVE A RISK, YOU HAD BETTER DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! IF YOU DON’T HAVE A RISK, THEN DON’T DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

THE AGILE RAZOR – IT’S ALL RISK MGMT

All PROCESS is about RISK MANAGEMENT. If it isn’t, then it is mere formality, i.e. waste.

Every element of process must justify itself – in the specific case of each development initiative, not just in general.

PROCESS SHOULD ADAPT PROPORTIONALLY TO THE RISK PROFILE OF THE INITIATIVE.

PROCESS IS JUSTIFIED BY RISKS-MANAGED

BUSINESS RISK ANALYSIS RISK

Roles

Reviews

Business Case

Relationship Risk Regulatory Risk Profitability Risk

Backlogs & Scope Chg Mgmt

Analysis Artifacts

Accept. Criteria

Scoping Risk Requirements Risk Verification Risk

MARKET RISK TECHNICAL RISK

Vision & Business Case

Schedule

Demand Risk Time-to-Market Risk

Prototyping

Training/ Coaching Plan

Automation

Process Plan

Test Plans

Development Risk Technology Risk Environmental Risk Process Risk Quality Risk

RESOURCE RISK

Staffing Plan

RFP, Evaluation Criteria

Capability Risk Procurement Risk

DEPENDENCY RISK

Comm. and Integ. Plan

Risk Management Plan

Coordination Risk Consequential Risk

Process is even driven by Risk … and Value and Fitness.

AFTER STRATEGIC PLANNING, THERE IS

ONLY ONE CONTINUOUS ACTIVITY OF ITERATIVE

DEVELOPMENT, THE TACTICAL EXECUTION

PHASE.

ONE ENGINE, THREE FUEL MIXES.

AGILE MACRO-RHYTHMS: PLANNING & RELEASE CYCLE

Agile Release Cycle

Project/Release Planning

incl. vision, roadmap, release plan, strategic estimates, risk profile

Foundational Iterations

incl. requirements & development for high-risk & architecturally-significant

features, reforecast due date

Primary Iterations

incl. requirements & development for high-value, moderate- to low-risk features,

on-going level-1 & level-2 acceptance testing

Finalization Iterations

incl. activities ensuring fitness-for-release and

final acceptance

Deployment to Production

Feasibility

Risk 80% – Value 20%

Fitness 80% – Risk 20%

Agile Development Priorities

Value 80% – Fitness 20%

DIFFERENTIATED BACKLOG

INCLUDE IN YOUR BACKLOG ALL THE ITEMS (FUNCTIONS & TASKS) THAT CONSUME YOUR TEAM’S TIME & ENERGY.

IF IT IS NOT TRACKED, IT IS NOT ACCOUNTABLE.

“OH YEAH! WE’VE BEEN WORKING

REALLY HARD … WE JUST CAN’T SAY ON WHAT,

EXACTLY.”

New Reqs Story

Reqs Change Story

Quality Attribute Story

Reqs. Clarification

Business Value Stories

Level-2 (NFR) Tests

Design Refactoring

Technical Value Stories

Risk/Issue Mgmt Task

Committed Defect Repairs

Governance Activity

AGILE APPROACH TO GOVERNANCE

TRADITIONAL GOVERNANCE IS OBSTRUCTIVE. We cannot tolerant interruptions in the flow, …

But, we have to admit there is a place for governance

when we conceive it as

Enterprise Risk Management

complementing to our Project Risk Management.

BUT, AGILE GOVERNANCE IS DIFFERENT! We embody Governance Activities as Stories!

“Don’t stop our rhythm! Just tell us what you need to know. We will add the stories to our backlogs and plan them into the appropriate iterations.”

NOW, WE CAN EVEN TRACK THE EFFORT

AND SCHEDULE IMPACT OF GOVERNANCE!

THE VARIETY OF (KINDS OF) STORIES

Fundamental Story Types

GOALS → FEATURES → FUNCTIONS → TASKS

Story “Colors” • Value Features, Functions & Tasks:

New Requirements, Requirement Changes, Quality Attributes

• Overhead Features, Functions & Tasks: Reqs. Clarifications, Defect Repairs, Level-2 Tests, Design Refactoring, Risk/Issue Mgmt Task, Governance Activity

Story Templates: • Parameterized Stories (applied to stories or arch. components)

• Periodic Stories (performed every n iterations or releases)

• Supplemental Acceptance Criteria (special ACs added to a story)

RHYTHM & FLOW – THE ESSENCE OF AGILE-LEAN

Agile Non-Phases

Project/Release Planning

incl. vision, roadmap, release plan, strategic estimates, risk profile

Foundational Iterations

incl. requirements & development for high-risk & architecturally-significant

features, reforecast due date

Primary Iterations

incl. requirements & development for high-value, moderate- to low-risk features,

on-going level-1 & level-2 acceptance testing

Finalization Iterations

incl. activities ensuring fitness-for-release and

final acceptance

Deployment to Production

Feasibility

Risk 80% – Value 20%

Fitness 80% – Risk 20%

Agile Development Priorities

Value 80% – Fitness 20%

“The Wise Man does less and less, until he does nothing at all, and yet nothing is left undone.”

?

ANY QUESTIONS …

info@valtech.co.uk

http://www.valtech.co.uk

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