Agile Cafe Boulder - Panelist and keynote slides

Editor's Notes

• #5: Two major phases to Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) Energy Distribution Design presented opportunity for a back to back comparison of waterfall and Agile First phase was electric distribution design using traditional waterfall and fixed price contract with Autodesk Consulting Second phase was gas distribution design with Agile approach and time and materials – CSU assumed the project risk Phases were nearly equal in scope and technology Both phases used a two weeks requirements gathering session to define the logic for the capture of material on the design and the actual ordering in the work management system.
• #6: Phase I – project was successful but we saw long lag times between requirements gathering and acceptance testing, resulting in a lot of rework Test cases written prior to code development, but were often wrong – lots of rework; our field engineers wrote all the test cases Code matched our logic from requirements but sometimes logic was incorrect – more rework Lots of churn in the project – some portions of the solution are uneven from a user perspective but workable (the spec was met) Had a disparate tool set – Excel and Word for requirements, Enterprise Architect for requirements and test cases, Mantis for defects Bob Buchan, CSU Project Manger, Tim Benedict, FE Manager, Jason Kagel, Spatial Network Solutions (main development group for Autodesk) and I met to discuss a better, more efficient approach for the second phase. We wanted a more robust solution that relied less on Autodesk Consulting for system changes.
• #7: Met with Autodesk Consulting and restructured contract to be T&M Hand picked the project team with 3 half-time field engineers, 2 full time developers from SNS, a ½ QA person from SNS, one system analyst and architect from CSU, scrum master – Jason from SNS, and a product owner from CSU Hired an Agile coach from Rally, Christopher Avery, to come in and “ground” the team at the beginning of the project; [I was a skeptic, no use cases! How can this possibly work?] Christopher returned at the end of first iteration to help us through the initial “we suck” blues Established a lot of special collaboration tools to deal with distributed team (St. Louis, San Francisco, 3 locations in Colorado Springs) Rally software Nefsis Conferencing and HD video cameras Livemeeting and Webex Two conference call lines Google Docs for all project documentation Special storage closet for our “stuff”
• #10: We had delivered our first release for review – it was very successful but… Logic was confusing, engineers were writing test cases for what they thought the results should be, and the code didn’t necessarily match either We stopped half-way through the 7 th iteration and decided to regroup; Team was discouraged
• #12: Spent one iteration with only the field engineers, analyst, and product owner to completely rewrite logic to take advantage of Compatible Unit structures available in our Maximo work management system Logic dropped by a factor of almost 4 in complexity Next iteration, all code was rewritten and all test cases re-crafted We were on a roll! Being Agile made this possible In another iteration, we learned from on of the Maximo consultants that it wasn’t necessary to have separate logic for labor and non-labor jobs We did it again – code rewrite, threw ½ our test cases away! The team had transformed itself into Agile evangelists!
• #13: First production release scheduled for week of February 7 th; this is approximately a month and a half early Costs are about 30% under budget Over 500 defects less than the electric phase A lot less code was written due to the redesign of the logic. Solution is now data driven, so changes can be made without any code changes Test case coverage is more thorough as the electric effort; test cases are higher quality Without the mid-course correction we would have been in a “change-order Hell’ cycle” now – probably without any idea of when the software could be installed; we could have risked a “shelf-ware” situation Process improvement on the material ordering side is immense – there are lots of pieces and parts to a gas design which makes the estimation and material ordering very time consuming and problematic Users love the software – even I can design a gas network!
• #14: Gas design software has an amazing usability factor – it works the way it should from the user perspective (this is one of the ‘ilities’ that is hard to measure but you know when you have it!) Project has a lot of visibility within CSU – huge interest in Agile Rally has provided scrum training for 18 folks Rally has provided Agile training for an infrastructure team which is kicking off an new upgrade project Electric field engineers want a follow-up project to rework some of the “klutzy” parts of the initial system Minimal project management expense from Autodesk (a couple hours of administrative cost) Project metrics are amazing! – they tell a great management story 69% fewer defects 30% lower project cost (this is the fixed price fudge factor) 50% less code 4x reduction in logic complexity 20% less test cases, but better test coverage
• #18: StoneRiver Date
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• #24: StoneRiver Date
• #30: I wrote this article based on all the bad practices or lack of practices I had seen by organizations who claimed that they were Agile. They weren’t Agile! AND they wanted to blame Agile for their problems
• #31: So, I dug around to learn some more about how Agile was failing. This can be dirty work, digging into many organizations large and small about their ability to adopt Agile.. What I discovered, is that……………
• #32: !!!
• #33: What I discovered is that there are BEAUTIFUL of how to adopt Agile, patterns of practices that the way I have seen organizations Adopt Agile and not slip into those failure practices
• #34: There are beautiful patterns we can embrace that lead to success. This success with Agile is vital be on the top in the 21 st century global economy.
• #35: Be prepared to make big changes! Invest to win. These patterns are a fundamental shift in how we work. But, we have no choice. To be sustainable, we have to be prepared to change our world. And in return for the hard work, we discover that we we change our world in a way that rewardds us and brings great benefits! 2009 Servant Leadership Jean Tabaka - Rally Software
• #40: So don’t abandon Agile as I have seen these other organizations do! They believed Agile was the problem their adoption was the problem. And so they never really derived the great benefits available. They are just GIVING UP!!!!! Today, I want you to consider truly believing in these patterns and their practices. If you are willing to do so, I believe there are wonderful benefits for you and your teams and your customers.
• #41: BENEFITS YOU WILL DERIVE Servant Leadership Jean Tabaka - Rally Software 2009
• #42: 3 categories of success patterns
• #46: 3 categories of success patterns
• #48: We don’t just do Agile because it is cool to say, or that we are just tired of Waterfall. We have to have a reason.
• #50: Really what is driving YOUR organization to do Agile? 12 Agile Adoption Failure Modes Jean Tabaka - Rally Software 2009
• #51: Are you in a crisis? Or are you in a culture in your company that is always lookiing for ways to improve. Or do you want to be a company that gets out of being reactive to crisis and instead DRIVE the market by constantly improving, constantly being innovative. Think of some of the companies Mary mentioned yesterday: Amazon, Google, Tandberg. They were workiing out of a culture of improvement and innovation.
• #53: When you are working out of crisis, it is be cause you have fallen behind in the market place and you need to catch up. You are losing and so you are working out of a sense of scarcity. Agile helps us move to working out of a goal or expansion. There is so much to do, so many great ideas, how can we bring our great idea to market faster!?
• #54: That means you really have a vision for where you want to go, and how you’ll know you have been successful. Rally, every year, we evaluate our goal. When we started, there were very few Agile project management tools. Agile was new! Waterfall and Rational Unified Process were MUCH more popular and widely used. Did we choose to go into those markets and grab scarce resources? NO! We choose to go into a market where we beileived there was great opportunity. This is what Apple has done with each of its products. It has set a high level vision and it has set it out of a sense of the expansive market that lies out there.
• #55: Our second patter in the “Getting Started” patterns. It’s no good having a great vision if you don’t have an engaged executive sponsor, someone who is prepared to defend your move to Agile to the rest of the company. Again, Agile isn’t easy and a lot of companies will say GREAT! Do Agile but I expect you to be successful RIGHT away. When you learned to ride a bike, it would be like your parent saying, “Great! When you hop on that bike, I want you to be able to ride immediately and perfectly! Otherwise, you have to go back to walking everywhere because it is just too hard.” No we need someone who will help us learn and be successful.
• #57: I worked with Israel at BMC in 2005. He had worked with Rally before rolling out Agile. When he moved to a much larger company and was responsible for rolling out a very complex product set, he knew that there was only one thing he could do. The product line was in a crisis mode and he needed to save it. So he asked his group of 500 people to have faith in him, to be willing to dramatically change their world.
• #58: He called this his Agile Social contract. A good Engaged Executive sponsor creates a social contract with their employees. Their leadership is about want to help their employees and to help them understand why it is valuable to adopt AGILE and to do the hard work
• #59: In your Agile social contract, you are able to help your employees understand “What’s In It for me?” Why should I do this? Why can’t I just keep doing things the way I always did. Leave me alone! The Executive sponsor has an ability to hold the vision for the group and to help them understand either the crisis or the opportunity for innovation and expansion that is out there for them if they are willing stick with him or her to adopt Agile. And when they are part of a team that is successful at Agile: -- intrinsic reward -- professional growth -- sustainable software development that doesn’t demand that you give your life away. This has been important to us at our company and is something we coach executives about all the time when we talk with them about adopting Agile
• #61: Our 3 rd “Getting Started” pattern is to create a “Planning framework for rollout” How can we build more opportunity of success into our Agile adoption while we are getting started.
• #62: I’ve discovered that it is vital to create a rollout plan. You and your team need to have some ability to look out beyond today or tomorrow and say, “”How are we going to do this?” We have a hundred teams. Let’s just start right now…EVERYBODY
• #63: The large insurance company I worked with. We have been working with eBay in the United States and India. It has been important for the executive team to create a plan for what they will do with Agile. For each business goal that you have, what will you measure to see if you are being successful (number of teams at a certain level of expertise?
• #64: What this really looks like is not so much steps as overlapping waves. One of the early decisions you make is about how far you want to go and how fast. how far – not all the way agile? a program? how fast – how much learning? how much appetite for change?
• #68: For each “wave” or “release”, what teams will we target. What are the goals for each release. What support/training will we provide. After each “release”, run a retrospective to identify what about the rollout is going well, what’s not going well, what adjustments should we make. After each release, plan the next release. Update roadmap as needed.
• #69: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #70: What other companies have been doing this successfully? Help your organization learn about these success stories?
• #72: Books are not enough alone. It is so valuable to find others who have done this and know what the practices are that bring success and what the practices are that invite failure.
• #74: I have seen too many organizations not invest enough in training for EVERYONE. What does the team need to learn that is new? What will the Scrum Master do that is different? How will the business engage differently? How will managers act more in service to the team?
• #76: 3/4/09 - 3/5/09 Implementing Agile Teams Rally Software
• #77: Learn from a few teams and then apply your successes from there.
• #78: We’ve developed a framework that reflects what we’ve seen be successful in large-scale agile rollouts. FPI Steps reflect that it is iterative and incremental. Also reflects failure modes we’ve seen—like trying to scale “amateur” agile, or staying at the team level but never putting together the structures that support scale.
• #80: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #87: Agile Scales by Replicating number of x-functional teams. We don’t increase Agile team size! Agile improves collaboration across all roles with greater transparency into work in progress, quality, readiness and costs.
• #88: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #92: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #94: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #95: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #96: As we launch new teams (expansion), we continue to pay attention to maturity Ag teams, so that teams don’t get frustrated and so that we introduce the discipline to help teams deliver consistently.
• #97: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #99: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #100: As we launch new teams (expansion), we continue to pay attention to maturity Ag teams, so that teams don’t get frustrated and so that we introduce the discipline to help teams deliver consistently.
• #102: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #104: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #105: --Communication support -- collaboration support -- configuration management -- automated testing environment -- continuous integration -- high visibility -- transparency in everything!!! Agile, Lean and the PMO Better Software 2009 Jean Tabaka - Rally Software
• #106: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #108: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #109: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #110: Certified ScrumMaster Training V15.5- JET3 Certified ScrumMaster training - v14.13 © 2007 - Rally Software Development Corp
• #111: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #112: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #113: Not the Worker
• #114: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #115: 3/4/09 - 3/5/09 Implementing Agile Teams Rally Software
• #116: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #117: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #119: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #121: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #122: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #126: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #127: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #129: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #130: Corporate Planning meeting in 2007. Grown a little since 2006, still using Rockefeller, Gazelles, and Rocks. Added some facilitation, me 
• #132: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #134: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #135: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #136: 3/4/09 - 3/5/09 Implementing Agile Teams Rally Software
• #137: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #139: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #141: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #142: For each “wave” or “release”, what teams will we target. What are the goals for each release. What support/training will we provide. After each “release”, run a retrospective to identify what about the rollout is going well, what’s not going well, what adjustments should we make. After each release, plan the next release. Update roadmap as needed.
• #143: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #144: Pairing in success, pairing in learning and improving
• #147: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #148: There are beautiful patterns we can embrace that lead to success
• #149: YOU have an opportunity to take what I’ve presented here today and apply it in your life RIGHT NOW. 12 Agile Adoption Failure Modes Jean Tabaka - Rally Software 2009
• #151: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #152: Patterns of success, beautiful patterns will bring you success, be on the top in the 21 st century global economy
• #153: BENEFITS YOU WILL DERIVE Servant Leadership Jean Tabaka - Rally Software 2009
• #156: Be prepared to make big changes! Invest to win. These patterns are a fundamental shift in how we work. But, we have no choice. To be sustainable, we have to be prepared to change our world. 2009 Servant Leadership Jean Tabaka - Rally Software