Agile Project Management - coClarity

“War Stories”
Experiences applying Agile in many types of business

gerard.hartnett@coclarity.com

Enterprise Ireland,
Dublin, IRELAND.
23-Nov-2009

Overview
Introduction
Patterns, PLOPS and OOPSLA
Scrum
eXtreme Programming
GTD and 4HWW
Conclusion

Copyright © 2009 coClarity Ltd. 2

Introduction
20-years SW experience
Currently: coClarity, Limerick
Intel, Basis & Tellabs, Shannon
Digital, Galway
Motorola, Cork, & USA
QC-Data, Cork & Canada


Conclusion
Great ideas cross boundaries between
disciplines
Software has Borrowed from Everywhere
Agile techniques can be applied in any kind of
business
Customer Focus, Deliver Early & Often,
Simplicity (Product & Plans), Self-Organising


Patterns, PLOPS and
OOPSLA

Patterns
Reusable solution to a
common problem
Borrowed from
Architecture (Alexander)
1987 OOPSLA, Beck &
Cunningham
1994, Gang of Four


PLOPs

Pattern Languages of
Programs
Conferences Started 1994
PLOP-2, paper on
Episodes (Cunningham)


OOPSLA 98
Birds-of-a-feather
session
100s arrived
One page handout of
the key practices
Diagram of how they
related to each other


Overview

A light-weight methodology
For small-to-medium-sized teams
Vague or rapidly-changing requirements
Values: communication, feedback, simplicity,
courage and respect


Practices
Quick Plan Pair Programming
Small Releases Collective Ownership
Metaphor Continuous Integration
Simple Design 40-Hour Week
Testing On-Site Customers
Refactoring Coding Standards


A-La-Carte

The books warn against a-la carte approach
We tailored it out of necessity
Didn’t really use: Metaphor, On-site Customers
Modiﬁed: Scrum for planning, Collective
Ownership within Team


Pair Programming

Photo credit ﬂickr.com/people/lucadex

Pair Programming our
Experience
The most controversial practice
Some components pair programmed
Lowest defect rates
Smaller code sizes
Small sample set


Pair Lessons Learned
No Keyboard Wrestling, Large Fonts
Think about neighbours
No editor wars
Set key objectives
Not as useful during bug-ﬁx phase
Can be done remotely (gotomeeting)


New New Product
Development Game
Article in Harvard
Business Review 1986
Study of companies in
Japan & US
Fuji-Xerox, Canon,
Honda, NEC, HP, 3M


Six Characteristics
Built in instability - broad challenging goal
Self-organising teams
Overlapping Development Phases
Multilearning
Subtle Control
Organisational transfer of learning


Scrum

• Computer guys
borrowed from
“New New...”

• Called it Scrum

• I suspect they were
never in a real Scrum

Photo credit ﬂickr.com/photos/bohane/

Scrum Overview
You can manage any kind of project with
Scrum
I’ve used on tiny and large projects
Not rocket science or expensive (although
an “industry” has popped up)
It works & viral


“Opportunities”
All projects have chickens
and pigs
Pigs are happy: no status
reports or boring meetings
Chickens are happy: they
know what’s happening
without getting in the way

Copyright © 2009 coClarity Ltd. 21 Photo credit ﬂickr.com/photos/7326810@N08

The Theory
Software engineering is complex adaptive
system
Traditional planning - illusion of control
Empirical process not a “deﬁned process”
Complexity theory - better to do frequent
samples and small adjustments
Adaptability is better than predicability


The Team

Should be small (6 max) - if bigger, split
Ideally co-located (can work distributed)


The Project

Diagram by Lakeworks http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Scrum_process.svg

• Punctuated Equilibrium - balance team focus, management
visibility, and adaptability

The Sprint

Easier for team to focus on something a
month away
Daily short meetings
At the end - write-up or demo


The Daily Meeting
KISS - 15 minutes max, same time & place
3 questions
• what did you do? (binary - all or nothing)
• what roadblocks?
• what will you do by tomorrow?
Everyone responsible for their own tasks


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Loads of Post-its stuck
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Consequence of “Loads
of post-its”
Low effort - visualisation of progress
Preparation is fast - post-its on monitors
Occasional trips to the “big sheet”
Not great for distributed teams
3M make loads of money


Planning
More KISS
No complex Gannt chart
Plan is a series of sprints
Dependencies only at a sprint level
Can use sophisticated estimation techniques
Shorter sprints at the start and end


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Planning - Full Project
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Planning - Sprint
At the start check project plan & look at
new backlog items
Allocate to individuals - could use simple
spreadsheet
Efforts based on “ideal days”
Inside/Outside end-date
At the end: write-up, demo, release


The Big Chickens
Start to trust it - less reporting needed
Can show up at daily meetings - must
remember they are chickens
Can add new items to backlog
Other possibilities - earned value, wide-
band-delphi, comparison to estimates


Scrum Conclusion
Simple, low-overhead, adaptable any kind/
size project
Everyone gets involved in planning and
tracking, team “gells”
The chickens can actually contribute
Scrum was more sticky than eXP


GTD
Getting Things Done
A new cult for the info age -
Wired
Levels: Actions, Projects,
Areas,Yearly, 5-Year, Life
Collect, Process, Organise,
Review, Do

Actions and Projects
Action: always something that needs to be
done ﬁrst
Each action has a context
Project: requires more than one action
Don’t need to plan projects in detail but
deﬁne outcome
Choose actions based on context


4HWW

The 4 Hour Workweek
80/20 Rule
Decide two meaningful
things to accomplish
Email twice a day


Common Patterns
Bottom Up Planning (take care of days...)
Simple Top Down Plan - it will change
Adaptable more important than predictable
Don’t Just React - Make Active Choices
Feedback Loops
Encourage self-organisation


Conclusion
Great ideas cross boundaries between
disciplines
Software has Borrowed from Everywhere
Agile techniques can be applied in any kind of
business
Customer Focus, Deliver Early & Often,
Simplicity (Product & Plans), Self-Organising


Ideas X Execution
Derek Sivers [7]

• Awful -1 • None $1
• Weak 1 €13.71 • Weak $1,000
• So-So 5 • So-So $10,000
$500k
• Good 10 • Good $100,000
• Great 15 • Great $1,000,000
• Brilliant 20 $200M • Brilliant $10,000,000

Next Steps
Decide what aspects you are interested in
Read about them on wikipedia
Read the paper: Fitzgerald, Hartnett “Agile
inside Intel” (short.ie/uehtqv)
Try some of the Patterns even on your
personal work
Consider trying Scrum with your team


Thank You
Happy to talk about
SCRUM Startups
GTD
coclarity
Goshido Web-collaboration
OO Design
Entrepreneurship Ruby on Rails


Agile Project Management - coClarity

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