how to successfully apply agile at scale in the enterprise © scott ambler + associates taking scrum...

© Scott Ambler + Associates

How to successfully apply agile at scale in the enterprise

Taking Scrum to the next level withDisciplined Agile Delivery(DAD):

Mark LinesManaging Partner

[email protected]_Lines

© Scott Ambler + Associates 2

Let’s explorea few important questions….

Are you struggling with the complexity of software development?Are you really agile?

Are you getting the results you expected?How can you address the gaps in mainstream agile methods?

How does disciplined agile work?How do teams work together on a disciplined agile project?

How do you govern agile projects?What do you need to do to succeed?

How we can help

ARE YOU STRUGGLING WITH DEALING WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF SOFTWARE

DEVELOPMENT?


4

State of Agile Delivery

• In 2001 Agile made great promises:– We were going to cut schedules in half– Increase developer productivity five fold– Increase quality two fold

• But what actually happened:– We achieved minor increases in productivity and quality in the

development of new silo applications– Chaos Report: In 2002 the success rate was 34% successful and 51%

challenged and in 2009 it was 32% successful and 44% challenged– Dr. Dobb’s Journal: In 2011 we found an Agile project success rate of

67% successful and 27% challenged and a traditional project success rate of 50% successful and 36% challenged

We need to do better


5

Why This is Hard: The New Environment

• The IT market is constantly changing– Pace of delivery is increasing– SaaS vendors dominating software acquisition model– Increased standards and regulations– Mobile devices ( different makes / different OSs)– Ubiquitous internet wireless– Too many project teams are suffering from Water-Scrum-Fall– More standards and methods to choose ( XP, Scrum, Kanban, DSDM, Unified

Process, …)– Information technology departments are losing control over budgets and

decision making

We need to make sense of it all


Why This is Hard: Delivery at Scale


motivates motivates

motivates

motivates

affects

varies by

varies by

motivates

affects

affec

ts

GeographicDistribution

Co-located

Global

OrganizationalDistribution

Single

Outsourcing

TeamSize

2

1000s

Domain Complexity

Straightforward

Very complex

Technical Complexity

Straightforward

Very complex

Compliance

None

Life critical

TeamCulture

Agile

Rigid

OrganizationalCulture

Agile

Rigid

Project Type

Agile-Friendly

Traditional

affects

ARE YOU REALLY AGILE?


What is Agile?

“Agile software development is an evolutionary (iterative and incremental) approach which regularly produces high quality software in a cost effective and timely manner via a value driven lifecycle.

It is performed in a highly collaborative, disciplined, and self-organizing manner with active stakeholder participation to ensure that the team understands and addresses the changing needs of its stakeholders.

Agile software development teams provide repeatable results by adapting just the right amount of ceremony for the situation they face.”

Scott Ambler


Organizational Opportunities

• Greater level of certainty to deliver results• Ability to respond to changes quickly• Improved communication• Skilled and flexible workforce• Increased employee satisfaction• Motivated and committed staff• Opportunity to create a competitive advantage

Value

Producing quality Software for the

customer

Operational Excellence

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Customer Intimacy


Agile Adoption and Success Rates

© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Question: To your knowledge, has your organization successfully applied agile techniques/strategies/processes on one or more

development projects?

Implication: 86% of respondents work in organizations that are at least trying agile techniques.

Source: Dr. Dobb’s Journal Sept 2012 State of IT Union Survey

Agile Failure Rates

SOME failed agile projects;

55%

No failures; 27%

Don't know; 17%

© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Question: To your knowledge, has the organization unsuccessfully applied agile techniques/strategies/processes on one or more

development projects?

Implication: Agile adoption isn’t always easy. However, the majority organizations are experiencing success with agile.

Source: Dr. Dobb’s Journal Sept 2012 State of IT Union Survey

Copyright 2011 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Why agile? Higher success rates

Traditional

Ad-Hoc

Lean

Agile

Iterative

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Successful Challenged Failed

Source: Dr. Dobb’s Journal 2011 IT Project Success Rate Survey


Why agile? It works betterScale of -10 to +10

Time

ROI

Value

Quality

-1.2

-0.4

2.0

-0.8

-1.4

-0.8

-0.5

1.0

5

4.4

5

4.8

4.7

5.4

6.3

4.6

4.6

3.6

5.2

4.6

Iterative

Agile

Lean

Traditional

Ad-Hoc

Source: Dr. Dobb’s Journal 2011 IT Project Success Rate Survey

The Agile Manifesto

We value:Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentationCustomer 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.

Source: www.agilemanifesto.org


http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

But… DAD Extends Agile Thinking


Solutions, not just software

Stakeholders, not just customers

The organizational ecosystem, not just development teams


Some “Radical” Agile Ideas• Do the simplest thing possible and no more• Changing requirements are a good thing• Teams should have all the skills and knowledge required

to get the job done• Less is often more – Keep all artifacts as lightweight as

possible• Capture detailed requirements and designs as executable

tests, not written documents or models• Collaboration is critical to your success• Test often and early, and better yet test first• Non-solo development is more effective than people

working alone• Too much up front modeling and planning increases

project risk• Learn from your experiences, and evolve your strategy as

the project progresses• Stakeholders have greater visibility into an agile project

and greater opportunities to guide the team


Criteria for a Disciplined Agile Team

Businessvalue

Produce a working solution on a regular basis which provides quantifiable value to stakeholders

Validation Do continuous regression testing, and better yet take a Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach

Collaboration Work closely with their stakeholders, or a stakeholder proxy, ideally on a daily basis

Self organization

Are self-organizing and work within an appropriate governance framework

Improvement Regularly reflect on, and measure, how they work together and then act to improve on their findings in a timely manner

17


How Agile Are Teams Claiming to Be Agile?Teams Claiming to

be AgileTeams Moving to Agile

Businessvalue

91% 83%

Validation 88% 69%

Collaboration 99% 94%

Self organization

72% 51%

Improvement 92% 90%

All Criteria 65% 39%

18

Source: SAA 2013 How Agile Are You? Survey

ARE YOU GETTING THE RESULTS THAT YOU EXPECTED?



Defining Success• Time/Schedule

– 20% prefer to deliver on time according to the schedule– 26% prefer to deliver when the system is ready to be shipped– 51% say both are equally important

• Return on Investment (ROI)– 15% prefer to deliver within budget– 60% prefer to provide good ROI– 25% say both are equally important

• Value– 4% prefer to build the system to specification– 80% prefer to meet the actual needs of stakeholders– 16% say both are equally important

• Quality– 4% prefer to deliver on time and on budget– 57% prefer to deliver high-quality, easy-to-maintain systems– 40% say both are equally important

• Only 12% of respondents indicated that their definition of success on their most recent project included all three of delivering according to schedule, within budget, and to the specification.


Are you experiencing any of these pain points?

• Requirements backlogs that seem to keep growing• Defects found late in the project• Poor quality and hard to maintain code• Never ending projects• Misunderstanding with business about the value of agile• Agile being viewed as uncontrolled “hacking”• Inconsistency with corporate standards in the areas of

architecture, database, governance• A Project Management Office (PMO) that wants detailed

plans, requirements, and specifications that agile doesn’t have

HOW DOES DISCIPLINED AGILE DELIVERY (DAD) ADDRESS THE GAPS IN MAINSTREAM AGILE

METHODS?


23

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a process decision framework

The key characteristics of DAD:– People-first– Goal-driven– Hybrid agile– Learning-oriented– Full delivery lifecycle– Solution focused– Risk-value lifecycle– Enterprise aware


Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

Disciplined Agile Delivery:The Foundation for Scaling Agile


Scrum LeanKanban

XP Agile Modeling

And more…SAFeOutside In Dev.

Team SizeGeographicDistribution

Compliance Domain Complexity TechnicalComplexity

OrganizationalDistribution

DAD leverages proven strategies from several sources,providing a decision framework to guide your adoption and

tailoring of them in a context-driven manner.

25

Scrum


Practices• Product Backlog (work item list)• Value-driven lifecycle• Daily Scrum meeting (coordination

meeting)• Release Planning• Sprint planning (iteration planning)• Sprint review and demonstration• Sprint retrospective• User story driven development


Full Delivery Lifecycle: A High-Level View

27

The Scrum-Based Basic/Agile Lifecycle


DAD Lifecycle: Advanced/Lean

28© Scott Ambler + Associates

The Phases Disappear Over Time


First release: Inception Construction Transition

Second release: I Construction T

Third release: I Construction T

Nth+ releases: C CT C C TT T

.

.

.

DAD Lifecycle: Continuous Delivery



DAD is Goal-Driven

32

Goal Driven Approach

Goal IssueAdvantagesDisadvantagesConsiderations

* OptionDefault Option

*

Form theInitial Team

SourceTeam sizeTeam structureTeam membersGeographic distributionSupporting the teamAvailability

Co-locatedPartially dispersedFully dispersedDistributed subteams



Goal: Develop Common Vision

Another example - Goal: Secure Funding


Goal – Secure Funding


Goal – Secure Funding (cont.)



Scrum Roles

ScrumMaster

TeamMember

ProductOwner

IndependentTester

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) Roles

38

Team Lead TeamMember

StakeholderProductOwner

ArchitectureOwner

Specialist DomainExpert

TechnicalExpert

Integrator

PrimaryRoles

SecondaryRoles

(for scaling)


39

Primary Roles on DAD Teams

• Team Lead– Agile process expert, keeps team focused on

achievement of goals, removes impediments• Product Owner

– Owns the product vision, scope and priorities of the solution

• Architecture Owner– Owns the architecture decisions and technical

priorities, mitigates key technical risks• Team Member

– Cross-functional team members that deliver the solution

• Stakeholder– Includes the customer but also other stakeholders such

as Project Sponsor, DevOps, architecture, database groups, governance bodies


40

Secondary Roles on DAD Teams• “The secondary” DAD roles typically occur at scale

• Specialist– Someone in a specialist role, such as business analyst,

program manager, or enterprise architect• Domain Expert

– Someone with deep knowledge of the domain, such as a legal expert or marketing expert who is brought in as needed to share their expertise

• Technical Expert– Someone with deep technical knowledge, such as a

security engineer or user experience (UX) professional, whose help is needed for a short period

• Independent Tester– A test/quality professional outside of the team who

validates their work.• Integrator

– Someone responsible for the operation of the overall team build


HOW DO DAD TEAMS WORK?



The DAD Inception Phase

• Also known as: project initiation, startup phase, iteration zero

• Summary of goals:– Clarify business problem– Identify viable technical solution– Plan the approach– Setup the work environment and team– Gain stakeholder concurrence that it

makes sense to proceed with chosen strategy

• The average agile team invests about four weeks performing these activities*

* 2009 Agile Project Initiation Survey, Ambler


Industry Data: Inception Activities

High-Level Release Schedule

Initial Estimate

Justify Project

Initial Architecture Modeling

Initial Requirements Modeling

65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%

Source: Ambysoft 2009 Agile Project Initiation Survey

The Agile 3C (Coordinate-Collaborate-Conclude) Rhythm

44

Release rhythm

Iteration rhythm

Daily rhythm CoordinationMeeting Daily Work Stabilize

A few minutes Several hours Varies

Iteration planning Development Iteration wrap

up

A few hours Several days A few hours

Inception Construction Transition

Day to weeks Several iterations Hours to weeks

Coordinate Collaborate Conclude


The Inception phase



The Construction Phase

• Goals:– Produce a potentially

consumable solution– Address changing

stakeholder needs– Move closer to

deployable release– Improve quality– Prove architecture

early

The Construction phase



Construction Iteration LengthsThe average construction iteration length is 2.3 weeks for experienced teams

> 4 weeks

4 weeks

3 weeks

2 weeks

1 week or less

2%

10%

15%

51%

15%

Heuristics:• Shorter is generally better than longer• Teams at scale may require slightly longer iterations

Source: Ambysoft November 2010 Agile State of the Art Survey

A Construction Iteration


A Typical Day of Construction



The Transition Phase

• Phase goals– Ensure the solution is

consumable– Deploy the solution

• Ongoing goals– Fulfill the project mission– Improve team process and

environment– Grow team members– Leverage and enhance existing

infrastructure– Address risk


12+ weeks

9-12 weeks

7-8 weeks

6 weeks

5 weeks

4 weeks

3 weeks

2 weeks

1 week or less

1 day or less

7%

14%

7%

9%

2%

10%

3%

7%

12%

24%

Transition/Release Phase on Experienced Agile TeamsAverage = 4.6 weeks

Source: Ambysoft November 2010 Agile State of the Art Survey

The Transition phase


HOW DO YOU GOVERN AGILE PROJECTS?


55

Governance Should Address a Range of Issues

• Team roles and responsibilities• Individual roles and responsibilities• Decision rights and decision making process• Governing body• Exceptions and escalation processes• Knowledge sharing processes• Metrics strategy• Risk mitigation• Reward structure• Status reporting• Audit processes• Policies, standards, and guidelines• Artifacts and their lifecycles• Funding


56

Why Traditional Governance Strategies Won’t Work


Traditional assumptions that conflict with agile:– You can judge team progress from generation of artifacts– Delivery teams should work in a serial manner– You want teams to follow a common, repeatable process– Projects should be driven by senior IT management

57

Aspects of Effective Agile Governance

• Trust and respect are the foundation of effective governance• Be stakeholder driven• Collaboratively define your governance strategy• Be transparent• Motivate, don’t dictate• Enable, don’t enforce• Optimize the “IT whole”, not the “governance part”• Optimize corporate performance• Collaboratively set reasonable guidance• Collaboratively define rights and responsibilities• Be suitable to task• Automate wherever possible


58

DAD Milestones

Milestone Fundamental Question Asked

Stakeholder consensus Do stakeholders agree with your strategy?

Proven architecture Can you actually build this?

Project viability Does the project still make sense?

Sufficient functionality Does it make sense to release the current solution?

Production ready Will the solution work in production?

Delighted stakeholders Are stakeholders happy with the deployed solution?


59

DAD Practices that Support Governance

• “Standard” agile practices: – Coordination meeting– Iteration demonstrations– All-hands demonstrations– Retrospective– Information radiators/Visual management

• Disciplined practices:– Risk-value lifecycle– Explicit light-weight milestones– Follow enterprise development guidelines– Work closely with enterprise professionals– Development intelligence via automated

dashboards


60

Measuring Agile Teams

• Talk to people; don’t manage to the metrics• Measure teams, not individuals• Collect several metrics• Trends are better than scalar values• Empirical observation is important but limited• Prefer automated metrics• Some metrics must be gathered manually• Prefer pull versus push reporting• Beware scientific facades• Measure the value of your metrics program• Be prepared to educate people• The value of many metrics diminishes over time• If you collect no metrics at all you’re flying blind• If you collect too many metrics you may be flying blinded


61

Potential Metrics

• Acceleration• Activity time• Age of work items• Blocking work items• Build health• Business value delivered• Change cycle time• Code quality• Defect density• Defect trend• Effort/cost projection• Iteration burndown

• Lifecycle traceability• Net present value (NPV)• Ranged release burndown• Release burndown• Return on investment (ROI)• Risk mitigation• Stakeholder satisfaction• Team morale• Test coverage• Time invested• Velocity



Why Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)?

• Increased productivity– Enterprise awareness leads to better solution fit– Risk-value lifecycle streamlines development – Reduces “surprises” late in the

project– DAD optimizes the solution delivery whole, not just the agile programming

part• Easy to tailor

– Goal-driven approach provides easy-to-follow advice– Avoids the “one size fits all” approach of other agile methods

• Scalable– Enterprise awareness leads to better organizational fit– Goal-driven

• Palatable– Answers many of the questions experienced agile teams are still struggling

with– Reflects actual practice, not theory– The next step for teams currently doing Scrum

WHAT DO YOU NEED TODO TO SUCCEED?



Why Change is Hard

65

Impediments You May Encounter

• People may resist:– Collocation– Transparency– Accountability– Sustained pace of agile– Collaborative work

• Common cultural challenges:– Perfectionist behavior (gold platers)– Resistance to building without a detailed specification– Over specialization of roles– Preference for a traditional/serial process– Different cultures within teams


Adoption Primary Challenge is Culture Change• Demonstrate early success

– Invite stakeholders to participate at every opportunity, level of transparency and accountability may surprise them

– Invite them to coordination meetings, explain the charts and models on the walls

• Focus on delivering visible value to stakeholders regularly– Specialists can struggle with this at first– Invite stakeholders to regular demonstrations, this may be new to them

• Focus on high-value activities– Many traditional “best practices” are abandoned

• Agile teams are self organizing– Many existing managers struggle with this, and some people like being directed

• Disciplined agile teams are governed appropriately– Your IT governance strategy will need to change

• Quality focused– Quality is everyone’s job


67

Agile Champions/Sponsors

• Agile champions external to the team can help support and promote change

• Help to accelerate agile “transformation” in the organization

• Without executive sponsors in it for the long term it is very unlikely your adoption will succeed


68

The Use of Agile Coaches Increases Your Chance of Agile Adoption Success

Role and responsibilities of an agile coach– Provide advice to the team– Provide opportunities for people to

learn, even through mistakes– Pair with the people they are coaching

to provide detailed mentoring, especially team leads, product, and architecture owners

– Help teams to solve problems– Negotiate conflicts within the team– Promote self organization and self

discipline within the team– Help foster self awareness for

improvements within the team– Motivate teams to deliver on their

commitments


69

General Adoption Advice for Team Members

• Be prepared to pair with others to transfer your skills to them and to pick up new skills from them

• Accept that “the rules” have changed and you need to as well

• Accept the idea that your traditional role may not exist anymore although the activities of your traditional role still occur

• Be prepared to work in an evolutionary and collaborative manner

• Be prepared to move away from a specialist role to become a generalizing specialist

• Be prepared to deliver a potentially consumable solution every few weeks


Agile Changes Your Relationship with the Business

• Your business and IT processes must reflect one another– Plans must be high-level with the details coming just in time (JIT)– Emphasize delivery of value via a consumable solution rather

than transitory work products of questionable value– Schedules and estimates must be given in ranges– Traditional business approaches will eliminate most benefits of

agile• The new relationship with the business:

– They must be actively involved with development all the way through the lifecycle

– The greater visibility and control that they now have implies the need for greater accountability on their part

– They often don’t understand the implications of what they ask for, you need to educate them

– You need to demonstrate that disciplined agile delivery is not cowboy programming. It is very likely far more disciplined than their current processes


71

Anti-patterns of Adoption

Thinking you’re already agile Thinking that you’re in a special situation

where agile can’t help Trying to adopt too many agile practices

at once Focusing on a subset of the delivery

process Focusing on individual roles one at a time Believing that one agile process is

enough (such as Scrum or XP) Following any agile process prescriptively Assuming agile team members with agile

experience on their resume or a certification are agile experts and don’t need coaching


WE CAN HELP!

A SELECTION OF COURSES AND SERVICES


BOOTCAMP: MOVING FROM SCRUM TO DAD

• A boot camp is a short path to avoid common pitfalls organizations experience when they rely solely on Scrum

• Build the foundation for your success with details on the full delivery lifecycle, including the Inception and Transition Phases


PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT

• A comprehensive look at strengths and blind spots may be just what is required... from a fresh set of eyes

• Experts versed in disciplined enterprise agile transformations offer the best way to mitigate risks and maximize the gain from your investment


TRAINING: DISCIPLINED AGILE FOR EXECUTIVES

• Learn how to go beyond Scrum to take a disciplined agile approach to solution delivery that provides a foundation from which to scale

• To help cut through some of the agile rhetoric, industry statistics will be discussed throughout this workshop


PRACTITIONER TRAINING: A DISCIPLINED APPROACH

• Training courses, based on agile thought leadership, are the most disciplined path to innovation and excellence

• Sample: Agile Model Driven Development, User Stories, Acceptance Criteria, Agile Architecture, Agile Database Techniques and Business Modeling with BPMN


DAD COACHING: PILOT PROJECT

• When piloting DAD for the first time, you may require an experienced guide to bring fresh perspectives, fill knowledge gaps and meet the challenge at hand

• Our experts supervise and drive your transition to a positive conclusion


Disciplined Agile Certificationwww.DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org

Disciplined Agile Yellow Belt – Indication that the person is new to disciplined agile but eager to learn– Beginner certification– Credit for existing certifications such as CSM, SAFe

Disciplined Agile Green Belt– Indication that the person is striving to be a professional– Potential to be a junior coach– Intermediate certification

Disciplined Agile Black Belt– Indication that the person is an expert– Often a senior coach, instructor, or agile transformation lead– Expert certification– Active in the DAD community


http://www.disciplinedagileconsortium.org/

Got Discipline?

DisciplinedAgileConsortium.orgDisciplinedAgileDelivery.com

ScottAmbler.com

Context Counts

Recommended Resources


http://www.ambysoft.com/books/managingAgileProjects.html

http://agilemodeling.com/

http://www.ambysoft.com/unifiedprocess/agileUP.html

http://disciplinedagiledelivery.com/

http://enterpriseunifiedprocess.com/

http://agiledata.org/

how to successfully apply agile at scale in the enterprise © scott ambler + associates taking scrum...

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