An Introduction to Agility

© 2011 IBM Corporation

An Introduction to Agility

Martin Stenkilde, Rational Technical Executive, CEE


Building a smarter planet

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Agenda & Introduction

Introduction & Objectives

Why Agile?

How?

Key Aspect of Successful Agile Adoption

Scalability

Summary



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Agile Motivation: CIO study

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

16.0%

18.0%

2008 1998 0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

16.0%

18.0%

2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2001 2000 1999

Trend Line

15.0% 15.9%

9.7% 10.1%

2002

1.3%

0.0% 1.6% 2.5% 2.7%

3.2% 3.0%

Source: Gartner

Executive Programs CIO Survey

Increases in CIO Budgets Over Previous Year, 1998-2009 (Worldwide)

2009

0.16%

2011 Demand for IT Services

“The economic downturn forced deep cuts in IT budgets. Now, as CIO’s plan for the recovery,

they are facing unprecedented demand for IT services from the business. At the same time,

organizations are still keeping spending tightly under control.”

CIOUpdate.com August 3, 2010

http://www.cioupdate.com/budgets/article.php/3896646/How-to-Get-the-Budget-You-Need-in-2011.htm

The Key: Improve delivery with the resources you have



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Agile Motivation: Benefits of Being Agile



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What Agile is NOT !!



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Agile Principles

Working Software

Individuals Interactions

Customer Collaboration

Source: www.agilemanifesto.org

Comprehensive Documentation

Processes and Tools

Following a Plan

Contract Negotiation

over We value

Responding to Change



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Agile principles

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Source: www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

(Continued…)



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Agile principles (continued)

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers,

and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing

teams.

12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then

tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Source: www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html



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What is agile?

Agile is a highly collaborative, evolutionary, quality focused approach to

software development.

Agility gives you..

– Focus on collaboration

– Focus on quality

– Focus on working solutions

– Agilists are generalizing specialists

– Agile is based on practice, not theory



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•Just enough planning

• Time-boxed iterations

• Velocity

• Alternate Routes

• Handling Surprises

• Retrospective

• Team work

• Motivating the Team

• Differing Stakeholder Goals

• Workspace Considerations

• Repeatable, Sustainable Iterations

Agile Characteristics – Example, the family trip



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Principles of Lean Software Development

Eliminate Waste Defer Commitment

Keep options open

Deliver Fast

Queuing theory

Optimize the Whole • Systems thinking

Build Quality In

• Foundation Disciplines

• Continuous Validation

Focus on Learning

Product & process

Respect People

• Teams

• Partners

• 20-80 Rule

• JIT



12 IBM Internal Use Only : With Thanks to Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Agile and Lean are complementary

Agile

– A philosophy that concentrates on delivering things that have value to a

customer

– Avoid things that have no value to the customer

– Don’t believe in the “big detailed plan”

Lean

– Started as a management approach for streamlining production.

– Avoid all waste

– Get the customer involved at the earliest opportunity Avoid

waste!!

Deliver

value!!!



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Agile Practices



14 Copyright 2009 IBM Corporation

Scrum



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Agile Modeling



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Kanban (Lean)



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Key Aspects of Successful Agile Deployment

Methodology

Tools

People



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People

Individual Creativity

1 + 1 = 3

Consider:

–Training

–On-going mentoring and coaching

–Culture

Business stakeholder involvement



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Methodology

Decide for an agile methodology

Good to start from small and let it grow with you

Methodology should be tailored for your local needs

Think about the model you work

– one team, internal development

– more teams, internal development

– internal development, a lot of people working on bodyshopping

– some internal, some external work

– internally mainly requirements&testing, all the rest is subcontracted

– ...



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Tools

NO AGILITY WITH RIGID TOOLS

Tools Should Enable Key Agile Practices

Removing the Administration



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How to Start Right

Establish a sprint heartbeat via short iterations

Establish executive commitment and involvement

Create a dedicated, cross-functional rollout team

Focus on automation

Provide radical transparency and over-communicate

Leverage existing Agile training

Get outside coaching early

Prioritize build and test infrastructure early

Be clear about what the Agile “rules” are

Encourage peer-to-peer communication

Think about tools to track progress

Be inclusive

Be patient and expect to make mistakes



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Is Agile Measurable? ~ How Agile are we?

http://jazz.net/blog/index.php/2011/01/26/what-is-your-agile-fitness



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Is Agile Measurable? ~ How Agile are we?

1. Value: Produce a consumable solution on a regular basis which provides value to stakeholders.

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

3. Stakeholders: Work closely with their stakeholders, or a stakeholder proxy, ideally on a daily basis.

4. Self-organization: Are self-organizing and work within an appropriate governance framework.

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

Source: Scaling Agile: An Executive Guide, ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/sa/wh/n/raw14211usen/RAW14211USEN.PDF



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Can Agility be Scaled?

Domain Complexity

Straight -forward

Intricate/ Emerging

Compliance requirement

Low risk Critical, Audited

Team size

Under 10 developers

1000’s of developers

Co-located

Geographical distribution

Global

Enterprise discipline

Project focus

Enterprise focus

Technical complexity

Homogenous Heterogeneous,

Legacy

Organization distribution (outsourcing, partnerships)

Collaborative Contractual

Disciplined Agile

Delivery

Flexible Rigid

Organizational complexity



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What is Disciplined Agile Delivery?

Unified Process

(UP)

Extreme

Programming (XP)

Scrum Agile

Modeling

Disciplined Agile

Delivery (DAD)

DAD is a hybrid process framework adopt best practices and philosophies from several methodologies



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The Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) life cycle

The Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) process framework is a people-first, hybrid

agile approach to IT solution delivery. It has a risk-value lifecycle, is goal-

driven, and is scaleable.



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What is disciplined agile? Disciplined agile delivery is an evolutionary (iterative and

incremental) approach that regularly produces high quality

solutions in a cost-effective and timely manner via a risk and

value driven lifecycle.

It is performed in a highly collaborative, disciplined, and self-

organizing manner within an appropriate governance framework,

with active stakeholder participation to ensure that the team

understands and addresses the changing needs of its

stakeholders.

Disciplined agile delivery teams provide repeatable results by

adopting just the right amount of ceremony for the situation which

they face.



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Scaling Agility: Agile Scaling Model (ASM)

Core Agile Development

Focus is on construction

Goal is to develop a high-quality system in an evolutionary,

collaborative, and self-organizing manner

Value-driven lifecycle with regular production of working sw

Small, co-located team developing straightforward software

Disciplined Agile Delivery

Extends agile development to address full system lifecycle

Risk and value-driven lifecycle

Self organization within an appropriate governance framework

Small, co-located team delivering a straightforward solution

Agility at Scale

Disciplined agile delivery and one or more scaling factors



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Stay Agile

What are the meeting points?

How much Project Office could be involved?

Is ITIL around, can we integrate it?

Gantt Charts versus Agile Planning

Think Business

Business Value $0M $15M

Operational Efficiency 0% 100%

Practice Adoption 0% 100%



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Summary: AGILE IS GREAT IF YOU...

Focus on 3 Aspects

– Methodology at the Right Scale

– Tools Supporting Agility and Colaborating With the Rest of the World

– People Getting Support and Motivation From the Mentors/Coaches

Learn from Experienced and Utilize Mentoring/Coaching

Understand Agile Adoption as a Project and Plan it

Get Support of Your Stakeholders



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Visit our training courses and earn your PMI points:

– RPV51 Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery

– RP252 Advanced Disciplined Agile delivery

Technology

An Introduction to Agility