Integrating Quality into Portfolio Management

Brent BartonChris Sterling

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© 2009-2010,

Brent Barton - Sterling Barton, LLC

Partner, Sterling Barton, LLC

Former CTO. Active Agile Coach, Mentor, Certified Scrum Trainer

More than 15 years software development in many roles as both employee and consultant for organizations from small start ups to multinational corporations

Actively involved in Agile Rollouts from small Product companies to very large IT organizations

Scrum Articles

“AgileEVM – Earned Value Management in Scrum Projects”, IEEE

“Implementing a Professional Services Organization Using Type C Scrum”, IEEE

“Establishing and Maintaining Top to Bottom Transparency Using the Meta-Scrum”, AgileJournal

“All-Out Organizational Scrum as anInnovation Value Chain”, IEEE

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Email: brent@sterlingbarton.comWeb: www.sterlingbarton.com

Blog: gettingagile.comFollow me on Twitter: brentbarton

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© 2009-2010,

Chris Sterling – Sterling Barton, LLC

Partner, Sterling Barton, LLC

Consults on software technology, Agile technical practices, Scrum, and effective management techniques

Certified Scrum Trainer

Innovation Games® Trained Facilitator

Open Source Developer

Software architecture consulting for Agile Teams:

Continuous Integration

Source Code Monitoring

Release Management

Design techniques

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Email: chris@sterlingbarton.com Web: http://www.sterlingbarton.comBlog: http://www.gettingagile.com

Follow me on Twitter: @csterwa

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© 2009-2010,

A Story...

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Meet Earl - Strategic Planner

Earl just finished the annual portfolio budgeting process for the new fiscal year

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Meet Geoff -Project Manager

Geoff is in charge of the Saturn Project

Saturn is a key part of a company-wide strategy

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Portfolio Planning is Done for the year! (It is the beginning of our new Fiscal Year)

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Later, Some things aren’t looking as good

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Continuous Integration Helps Contain Defects

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Defect Containment is helping...not solving

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Meet Huang -Test Engineer

Huang is a Software Development Engineer in Test - SDET

Huang wants to proud of the quality of every release

How can I help?

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Meet Sonia - Program Manager

Sonia is a Program Manager

Uses Scrum well...good servant leader

How can I help ensure better

Quality?

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Definition of Done

Defines the work products that will be delivered with each item as it is ready for acceptance

Typical entries in Definition of Done

Code includes unit tests, reviewed, checked in

Tests described and executed

Build, release notes

Compliance documentation updated to include current functionality

What else?14

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Definition of Done as a Compliance Checklist

Acceptance defined criteria for each user story

Unit tests written and passed

Code compiles with no errors and no warnings

New code doesn’t break existing code

Test case review (Dev to review test case written)

Architectural impact assessed and artifacts updated if necessary

Comments in code

Error codes added

Code reviewed by peer

Code checked in with reference to US#/Task#

Tested on FE

Integration test written & passes

Test code reviewed

Environment requirements documented

Interface document updated/added and checked in to SVN

Acceptance criteria verified complete

All P1-P3 bugs for the story are closed

Test approves user story

Story demonstrated to product owner and accepted on Target Platform

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How does a “Release Definition of Done” help?

Every release should have clear quality criteria

With a “Release Definition of Done” you can understand targets better

Measure the gap between the teams’ Definition of Done and a Release Definition of Done.

This gap is a source of quality issues and represents significant risk to schedule

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Earl - Strategic Planner

What can I do better?

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Stop Focusing ONLY on Constraints

Scope

Schedule Cost

Source: Jim Highsmith

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Seek Value and Balance Quality with Constraints

Value

Quality Constraints(Schedule, Cost, Scope)

Source: Jim Highsmith

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Strategic Planners Manage Portfolios by

Working on most valuable releases

Deliver in most cost efficient manner

Re-allocate resources when

costs are too high or

value is not meeting expectations

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Leverage Agile

Prioritized work by business value

Take advantage of adaptive planning

Ask and expect known levels of Quality from each team

Support investment to make quality as visible as traditional constraints

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Agile addresses root causes issues of EVM

Agile teams are asked to deliver at a known level of quality

Agile teams state what quality means through the “Definition of Done”

Agile is great for adaptive planning while pursuing delivery of value

PROBLEM: Adaptation challenges strategic planners

The product AgileEVM was built to help organizations take advantage of what Agile has to offer

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