getting to the heart of agile

GETTING TO THE

HEART OF AGILEJamie Strachan

@jamiestrachan

OUR STORY

• Slow to market• Lack of quality• Struggle with scope creep• Weak stakeholder relationships• Poor internal communication• Siloed teams

ISSUES

We hired consultants

We got Agile training

• Scrum• Small, cross-functional teams• 3 Roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master,

Team Member• 2 week sprints• User Stories• Maintain a Product Backlog• Ceremonies

PRACTICES

• Planning Poker

• Story Points

• Velocity

•Daily Scrums• Backlog Grooming

• Sprint Planning

•D

em

os•Retrospectives

We lived happily ever after

Let’s go further

MANIFESTO FOR

AGILESOFTWARE

DEVELOPMENT

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

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

“The word ‘agile’ has been subverted to the point where it is effectively meaningless, and what passes for an agile community seems to be largely an arena for consultants and vendors to hawk services and products.

So I think it is time to retire the word ‘Agile.’”

AGILE BACKLASH?

“I think it is time to retire the word ‘Agile.’”

Agile Is Dead (Long Live Agility)Dave Thomas, March 2014

“[T]here is danger in such a wide range of ‘we are Agile because we implement L with X, Y, Z’. We need to worry about how diluted the meaning of agile is becoming, and focus on real quality.”

Agile at 10 – A State of ContradictionMike Beedle, May 2011

“If you are dogmatically following along with a handful of agile practices, but don’t really ‘get’ the intentions behind the agile mindset, you may be disappointed in your results.”

Agile Schmagile: The Backlash Against Agile

Jon Kern, March 2011

CARGO CULT AGILE

“intentions behind the agile mindset”

?

CONSULTANTS

Michael Sahotahttp://agilitrix.com

Paul Heidemahttp://paulheidema.com

THE HEART OF AGILE

EXPERIMENT

LEARN

1. Observe2. Form a hypothesis3. Establish parameters4. Run the experiment5. Analyze the results

EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS

It’s not an experiment if there is:• No scheduled reassessment•More than one thing being tested• No success criteria

EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS

HOW DOES EXPERIMENTATION

FIT?

User Stories: experiments on your product

Retrospectives: experiments on your process

YOUR TEAMSOLVES

YOUR PROBLEMS

Individuals and interactionsover processes and tools

ACTIVITY INSTEAD OF

SPECULATION

Working softwareover comprehensive documentation

EXPERIMENTATION IS

EXPERIMENTS CANNOT

BE DONE IN ISOLATION

Customer collaborationover contract negotiation

CONSTANT EXPERIMENTATION

INSTILLS ACULTURE OF ADAPTATION

Responding to changeover following a plan

FEAR CHANGE

ACCEPT CHANGE

EMBRACE CHANGE

Experimenting with Waterfall

is more agile than

blindly following Scrum

Stop doing Agile

Start being agile

EXPERIMENTON EVERYTHING