Going Agile: benefits & challenges (J Bowes)

Editor's Notes

• #3: 21 months old3 directors, with a background of client side, agency side and vendor on the agency side ex Conchango and AKQA.Met implemengtingBarclays.co.uk on a Scrum project.I headed up web development at Cancer Research where I introduced Scrum for web development.
• #4: Talk through process, refer to some of what Jo said
• #5: Agile’s all about focussing on value – and so my starting point is what value it can bring to you. Now, despite my athletic figure I’m not a big sports fan,
• #6: So I’m not a big sports fan and I’m even less keen on sporting analogies in presentations but I was at a event recently and my business partner Curtis (who’s Australian and like all good Australian’s used to be in Home and Away) started talking to a guy from Cap Gemini about the cricket (that’s the sport this picture relates to), apparently England aren’t doing very well at the moment.Curtis is over there if you want to talk to him about that afterwards. So when applying this sporting analogy the traditional methods of project management can be a bit like being a fan of cricket team that’s obviously going to lose, the nature of waterfall project management makes you cling to a forlorn hope that while things around to change, wickets fall, you twist your ankle, your favourite sandwich filling runs out at teaThe way projects are traditional managed is done seeks to avoid or over control things that we know happen on projects – people change their mind, budgets get increased or cut sometimesAccepts things that we know happen on projects…People change their mind, we find out things that impact what we should create, gives something to see early, focuses on delivering working software
• #7: If you go straight in to using Scrum based on the certified course what you’ll have is two days worth of information about a series of tools you can use and some you don’t have to there are a number of ways of working and how to deal with certain situations that the course can’t give you…Backlog managementUser stories, writing, splitting, Technical meetingsHow to think in an Agile wayStory points in to a sprintMaximum task hoursProductive dayJudgement for ready/doneWhen to use what facets of a retrospective
• #8: Getting discovery right….
• #9: I often use Roman Pilcher’s product vision board when kicking off a project so that there’s a visual representation of what we’re trying to achieve that can be referred back to. I use this at release or project level as well as when defining a whole product.It’s a powerful tool for getting a shared understanding with a client of what they really want and what they’re really trying to achieve – you can then test requirements against and say – well how is X requirement actually helping us achieve the vision.
• #14: When there’s a shared understanding and belief in the approachWhere the client is actively participatingWhen early benefit is shownWhen people don’t get lazy
• #16: If the shared understanding of what you’re trying to achieve is lostWhen people just want everything including all of their new ideas.
• #19: Keep a shared understanding - Set goals at every level – revisit them, test everything you’re doing against themUse the process to your advantage – you’re given flexible tools and a lot of the skill is in using them to channel or take emotion out of delivery. Don’t always be a pureist – assess the nature, situation, appetite and understanding of your client and create a way of working that’s most likely to deliver success – and if Agile isn’t suitable for them don’t use it.Retrospective example…