Agile In Practice Benjamin Booth Spring 2010

2 Proprietary 2 5 Programmer/Architect

3 Proprietary 3 Author/Blogger benjaminbooth.com

4 Prescriptive-style History Restrict change to improve predictions Drive with the plan Communicate with documents 4

Waterfall Is Expensive!

6 Waterfall Not all Bad 6 Space shuttle flight control system Requirements are well defined Unlimited resources Useful for < 5% of all software projects

7 Typical Requirements The site shall have a ‘nice looking’ menu page for an existing restaurant’s seven year old website. (Nice looking is defined by the customer.) The system shall have the ability to edit the menu online. Current menus are stored in a MS Word document. The site shall have a ‘Suggestion’ capability. Users can use a form to submit suggestions which get stored and also ed to the owner. 7

8 Agile People (users) are the focus Measure success with working software Expect and embrace change Use small, skilled, motivated teams agilemanifesto.org 8

9 Agile - SCRUM Style Japanese origin Whole team 1995 OOPSLA, by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber Skeleton of practices and roles 9

10 Proprietary SCRUM Workflow

11 SCRUM Roles 11 Product Owner: Manages the backlog Scrum Master: Coach the process Team Member: Write code

12 Practice Tip Create User Advocates Include User Advocates in: Story creation Priority setting Interaction design sessions

13 SCRUM Artifacts Backlog Sprint Burn Down Sprint Backlog Past Backlogs 13

14 Practice Tip Store Backlogs electronically Use physical Task Boards

15 Proprietary Backlog Sprint Backlog Taskboard Sprint Burn Down Artifacts

16 Proprietary Backlog Sprint Backlog Taskboard Sprint Burn Down Artifacts

17 Proprietary Artifacts Backlog Sprint Backlog Taskboard Sprint Burn Down

18 Proprietary Artifacts Backlog Sprint Backlog Taskboard Sprint Burn Down

19 Practice Tip Create min/max scale. Ex: Id your easiest, medium, and hardest stories. Easiest = 1 point Medium = 50 points Hardest = 100 points

20 Practice Tip Keep old Sprint Backlogs & Burndowns Keep old tasks Use for velocity calculations Helps identify trends 20

Each developer has a set of cards with estimation values A user story is presented Each developer picks the card representing the number of story points the user story should take Everyone then shows their cards Discussion happens until agreement on a number Repeat for each user story Schedule a sprint with the required number of story points based on your team’s velocity 21 Planning Poker

22 easily navigate to the menu from the home page so that I can make a phone order (delivery) be able to make suggestions for improvements to my overall dining experience 22 As a patron, I want to...

23 As the restaurant manager, I want to... create, update and delete menu items so that it stays interesting and keeps people coming back generate a PDF of the menu so that I can give it to the printer for creating ‘real’ menus get customer feedback ed to me so I can quickly respond to problems and also pass on compliments to the staff 23

24 Agile Challenges Access to real customers Large, distributed teams Industry misperceptions Command-and-control culture 24

25 Summary Waterfall or nothing still predominant Agile is highly adaptive, people centric SCRUM is an effective Agile process skeleton If your process isn’t working adapt it 25

26 Practice Tip Introduce incrementally Business strategy and architecture a must Get everyone speaking the same language 26

27 Practice Tip Allocate QA time explicitly Keep PM simple but do it Keep improving your process 27

Q&A

References

As a patron, I want to easily navigate to the menu from the home page so that I can make a phone order (delivery) As a restaurant owner, I want patrons to be able to make suggestions so that I can improve their dining experience. As the restaurant manager, I want to create, update and delete menu items so that the menu stays interesting. As the restaurant manager, I want to generate a PDF of the menu so that I can give it to the printer for creating ‘real’ menus. As the restaurant manager, I want to get customer feedback ed to me so I can quickly respond to problems and also pass on compliments to the staff.