Agile 2008 Retrospective
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The document outlines key experiences and insights from the Agile 2008 conference held in Toronto, Canada. It includes various presentations on agile project experiences, technical lessons learned, coaching skills, and prioritizing product backlogs, highlighting the importance of community, quality, and practical applications of Agile methodologies. Additionally, it emphasizes the evolution of Agile practices, the significance of craftsmanship in coding, and the need for effective release planning.
Agile 2008 Retrospective
- 1. Agile 2008 Retrospective & Slide Show September 2008 Agile Change Program 3rd September 2008
- 2. - 1 - 1/04/2017 Overview In Toronto, Canada to represent Suncorp and present two experience reports
- 3. - 2 - 1/04/2017 Three Little Pigs The first paper – Agile Project Experiences – The Story of the Three Little Pigs
- 4. - 3 - 1/04/2017 Three Little Pigs Experiences from EasyDoc, Guidewire & Promina Payments projects. People showed up!
- 5. - 4 - 1/04/2017 Dials To Eleven The second paper – Technical Lessons Learnt turning the agile dials to eleven. Paul King presented two other talks also on Groovy & performance tests
- 6. - 5 - 1/04/2017 Dials To Eleven – Coming Soon to InfoQ Info Q recorded the session and will be way on their website in November (only 18 out of 400 were recorded). http://www.infoq.com/agile2008
- 7. - 6 - 1/04/2017 Chasing Waterfalls Niagra Falls is 90 minutes down the road. Powerful waterfall right next to an agile conference??
- 8. - 7 - 1/04/2017 Niagra Falls
- 9. - 8 - 1/04/2017 AAFTT Day 1 Agile Alliance Functional Testing Tools Workshop
- 10. - 9 - 1/04/2017 AAFTT Lightning Talks • 5 mins • Video taped Open Space Sessions 3x3 • Narrative testing • Tool selection • Understandability for users vs the power of programming Futurespective • Positive (green) • Negative (red) • Surprises (purple)
- 11. - 10 - 1/04/2017 So Many Choices... • 19 stages – developer, testing, process, distributed agile, leadership,... • More than 30 choices per session
- 12. - 11 - 1/04/2017 The Wisdom Of Crowds Keynote: “The Wisdom Of Crowds” James Surowiecki • The aggregation of information in groups, results in decisions that are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group • Large organisations set up obstacles to the flow of information • Group average is usually very close and usually a large percentage of the group • Livestock example – crowd average 1197lb and actual weight 1198lb •At Agile 2008, for Visual Studio LOC – average guess 47 million, real answer 43.2 million, only 2/2000 better than group collective guess
- 13. - 12 - 1/04/2017 Ten Terrific Transition Tips “Ten Terrific Transition Tips” Joshua Kerievsky • Don’t sell pair programming – focus on risks of solo programming • Build community – bigger than you think, retrospectives build community • Celebrate chaos – you will get there soon • Empower experimenters – give things a fair shot • Start sooner! • Most people who don’t program don’t understand technical debt – demonstrate • Customers are really happier when focussed on quality and not features
- 14. - 13 - 1/04/2017 Code Metrics & Analysis For Agile Projects “Code Metrics & Analysis For Agile Projects” Neal Ford & Ram Singaram • Hawthorne Effect – Western Electric measured worker activity based on lighting level • Use metrics, don’t just collect, apply to codebase • Byte code analysis - Findbugs – run on Struts, found copy/paste bug 3 times • Source analysis – PMD, CPD, Simian • Coverage – Cobertura, Emma, nCover • Flog – for Ruby, adds up language values as you cannot measure static analysis • Effrent/Affrent coupling – number of classes used / use this class – Jdepend • Crap4J – crap threshold • Information Radiators - Panopticode
- 15. - 14 - 1/04/2017 Build Your Coaching Skills “Build Your Coaching Skills” Johanna Rothman • Don’t confuse coaching with feedback or teaching – feedback is longer term and about behaviour, mentoring is about milestones and achievements • Always have an end time for coaching – then re-evaluate • Coaching under the covers – spouses do it all the time • Coaches do not have to be a domain expert • Most organisations have blind leading the nearly blind • Every problem has 3 possible options – then move to goals • Exercises in coaching and listening
- 16. - 15 - 1/04/2017 Prioritizing Your Product Backlog “Prioritizing Your Product Backlog” Mike Cohn • Iceberg- well formed with small number of stories at the top • Spend 10% of iteration getting ready for the next • Kano analysis – exciter/delighter, mandatory/baseline, linear • Theme screening, Theme scoring, Relative weighting – ways to identify important features for next release • Break big projects into release horizons
- 17. - 16 - 1/04/2017 New Arrows For The Agile Quiver “New Arrows For The Agile Quiver” Jim McCarthy • Agile is common sense but not very common • Take the job offer to manage the dumbest group – only way is up • Shared vision works – 4 people on Excel vs 200 on Access! • Core Commitments for teams – doomed to be great if you follow them – a number of protocol checks – eg. “I propose” or “let’s act” means everybody should listen, promise not to do anything dumb on purpose, etc...
- 18. - 17 - 1/04/2017 Guerilla Agile “Guerilla Agile” Johanna Rothman • Lots of examples - Bring Me A Rock, Queen Of Denial, We Can’t Say No, etc... • Want management to think your resources are scarce – how do you free them up? • Happy Date – MS Project will tell you the first possible date you cannot be done • Releasable product does not mean walking out of the building • How little can you do to be successful? • Measure what is done, not just the milestones • Normally don’t recommend Monday to Friday iterations – people will use the weekend • 90% done – use inch pebbles
- 19. - 18 - 1/04/2017 Quintessence Keynote: “Quintessence” Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin • Political metaphor – Scrum is Obama and XP is McCain • Agile Manifesto needs a fifth value – “Craftmanship Over Crap” • Later changed this slightly to “Craftmanship Over Execution” – because we value craftmanship more than execution – we don’t value crap at all! • Jury is in – TDD works • Manual testing is criminal • Green Band – Clean Code – sold out!
- 20. - 19 - 1/04/2017 The Wisdom Of Experience Keynote: “The Wisdom Of Experience” Alan Cooper • The father of Visual Basic • Agile is a new toy – developers jump on new toys – but agile is unique • Mixing big ideas, design, engineering and construction is the most common source of failure • We can know what users need, interaction designers works with developers to discover this • Challenge management • Demand quality lines not deadlines • First to market is not better than best to market
- 21. - 20 - 1/04/2017 Dude, Where’s My Release Plan? “Dude, Where’s My Release Plan?” David Hussman • Product owners are usually slapped in the role because they know the system • Suggests use of big fat stories rather than epics or themes • Realise that somebody is rolling up your planning to a budget and converting your points to days • Release planning – involve all those who want a say, give management/sales a plan • Recharter when you don’t have a vision • Have a visible release plan / iteration map
- 22. - 21 - 1/04/2017 10 Ways To Screw Up With Scrum & XP “10 Ways To Screw Up With Scrum & XP” Henrik Kniberg • Don’t throw out stuff that works – don’t need it all at the start, start simple • Have an agreed definition of done • Guess velocity to get going • Do retrospectives well- look for mechanical, use a timeline to get started • Use a flashlight, make velocity visible • Deal with technical debt – stop making it happen, slow down, add definition of done • teamwork – can have specialists, ask team what they need to go faster • use product backlog • mergophobia
- 23. - 22 - 1/04/2017 After Dark Microsoft Function & Banquet
- 24. - 23 - 1/04/2017 Vendors a.k.a. Free Stuff Thoughtworks, GreenPepper, Microsoft, Borland, Version One, Rally, Electric Cloud...
- 25. - 24 - 1/04/2017 Explore Toronto
- 26. - 25 - 1/04/2017 Explore Toronto
- 27. - 26 - 1/04/2017 Key Items of Interest for Agilists • Strong focus behind quality testing and approaches to making things better • Clean code and craftmanship • Technical debt & legacy code • Agile practices over theory – Pragmatism has replaced religion • Mixed crowd – new to agile and experienced agile but much less why agile • Questions about what’s next in agile? • Enterprise and distributed agile learnings • Planning, planning poker cards & story points • Lots of practical learnings from practitioners • Prioritised backlog
- 28. - 27 - 1/04/2017 More Information??? • Check out the Agile 2008 website to see if there were items of interest – http://www.agile2008.org • Watch InfoQ for presentations and commentary- http:///www.infoq.com/agile2008 • Talk to the attendees from Suncorp - Craig Smith, Paul King, Phil Abernathy, Marina Chiovetti • Email me for access to slides or presentations – craig.smith@suncorp.com.au • Request brown bags on specific areas of interest from the conference THANK YOU!