Agile at the Financial Times - Jagdeep Singh - Head of Software development

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Agile at the Financial Times

An Overview of Agile Development Practices

Jagdeep Singh Bhambra, PhD

Head of Software Development

Financial Times, London

23rd January 2013

Agile at the Financial Times

…AND TODAY’S SPECIAL IS…

• Prologue

• The Dynamic Landscape

• Cooperation is the Key

• Promoting the Agile Lifestyle

• Are We Done Yet?

• In Debt

• The Toy Shop

• The Advert Break

• This is Africa – Premium

• Some Challenges

• Epilogue

Jagdeep Singh Bhambra

Jagdeep Singh Bhambra Agile at the Financial Times

PROLOGUE

“..and (they) should bring about the commencement of what is not done, the carrying out of what is

commenced, the improvement of what is being carried out, and the excellence of (the execution of)

orders, in the case of works..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Modern businesses such as the Financial Times require software development technologies and

processes that are:

• global

• adaptable

• evolving

• measurable

• supportable

• in line with consumer technology trends


THE DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE

“..during the remaining parts of the day and night, he should learn new things and familiarise himself with

those already learnt, and listen repeatedly to things not learnt..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

• Software development is highly accessible

• Increasing change cycles

• Feedback and analytics are faster

• Collaboration is fuelling innovation

• Social media and social CRM is altering behaviour at many levels

• Exponential adaption of new technologies

• Windows of opportunities are shortening

• Consumption and exchange of information is becoming more rapid

• Workforce is global, multi-skilled and multi-disciplined

• Governance, compliance, certifications and standards are changing

• Delivery frameworks are diverse


COOPERATION IS THE KEY

“..let us two, build a fort..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Keeping things visible:

• between teams and individuals

• measuring progress and status

• processes and methodologies

• within software

• utilising engineering principles

• through communicating

• across disciplines


PROMOTING THE AGILE LIFESTYLE

“..in war there are losses, expenses, marches away from home, and hindrances..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

The key is to adapt rapidly to changes in an efficient manner. This is a lifestyle – not just a process, tool or policy.

The need to maintain agility requires:

• focus on the entire lifespan

• defining and measuring current delivery capabilities

• determining the end (realised) benefits

• developing and evolving the frameworks to support such a lifestyle

According to Gartner (2012), “Agile is still seen as an issue for Governance”. The research continues to highlight key

areas where agility should be addressed: application and portfolio management. staffing, skills and sourcing, financial

analysis and budgets, vendor management, architecture management, software processes, service delivery, operations

and support, security frameworks, compliance and standards..


PROMOTING THE AGILE LIFESTYLE CONT’D

“..the king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army, and the ally are the

constituent elements of the state..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

What do we need to promote such a lifestyle?

• advocates championing the cause

• self-management and self-organisation

• managing dependencies

• cross-skilling and training

• simplifying team / organisational structure

• short iteration cycles

• frequent communication and collaboration

• enabling adaptability and rapid change, and feedback mechanisms

• the right tools, technologies, processes, principles and governance structures


ARE WE DONE YET?

“..he should declare, without loss of time, what is in the King’s interest..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

When defining ‘done’, we should consider:

• the lifecycle

• the code

• unit tests

• functional, integration, and acceptance tests

• demos and retrospectives

• documentation


IN DEBT

“..a (king) without a treasury should collect a treasury, when difficulties concerning money have arisen..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

The development process generates code and technical debt, the aim is to determine:

• the quantity

• minimising the quantity and its impact

• addressing it at a given point

How can we minimise it:

• use of good design patterns

• maintaining high quality coding standards

• encouraging peer-reviewing

• code refactoring

• use of automated acceptance test suites


THE TOY SHOP

“..a calamity of a constitution, of divine or human origin, springs from ill luck, or wrong policy..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Without the right tools, technologies, and an understanding of their consumption, agility will be compromised.

• providing the right hardware, software and platforms

• understanding the diversity of (current, new, emergent) languages: J2EE, PHP, Python, Clojure, Groovy, Scala, etc.

• GPUs are overpowering CPUs

• parallel computing: BigData

• energy efficiency

• as scalability increases, accuracy diminishes

• open source vs commercial

• JavaScript is an expanding universe: ‘just-in-time’ (dynamic) translation of Ruby, Python, Lisp, etc.

• code is less tangible

• the ‘walled’ garden of Eden


THE ADVERT BREAK

“..just as elephants are needed to catch elephants, so does one need wealth to capture more wealth..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Objective: To enable changes to the online advertising proposition the FT is able to offer

Lifespan: estimated, end 2013

Team size: 7, and 2 staff from Operations

Methodology: Mixture of Scrum and Kanban

Reporting / Sprint Cycle: 2 weeks

What is ‘done’: in review

Kanban allows for: removal of waste, visualising the work,

managing the entire flow through to the delivery of business value

Scrum allows for regular reviews and progress updates


SOME CHALLENGES

“..there is no country without people, and no kingdom without a country..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Style has encouraged the business to think flexibly and to review their priorities - which in the world of Advertising

change rapidly.

• High dependency on third parties, so timescales can often be impacted

• Other teams need to implement changes to the site to enable functionality, e.g. Advert sizes, positions, etc. – which

means jousting for position in the priority queue

• Being geographically diverse, integration of team members can prove difficult especially due to time zones, limitations

of collaboration software and logistics (availability of meeting rooms)

• Limitations of software (Rally) where it is difficult to identify which initiative a story belongs to in Kanban or Iteration

view, and AntHill Pro (primarily due to the amount of FT-specific customisation)

Some positives:

• Retrospectives (once a month)

• Switching from Skype to Google+ proven to be more reliable


THIS IS AFRICA - PREMIUM

“..never attempt a long journey alone..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Objective: TIA Premium is a database of Information on Africa, aimed at bringing transparency to emerging African

Markets

Lifespan: estimated, Phase I (6 months)

Team size: 16

Methodology: Scrum ‘Hybrid’ (dependent on multiple data sources being in place before user stories can be fully defined)

Reporting / Sprint Cycle: monthly (reporting), 2 weeks (sprint)

What is ‘done’: When positive and negative tests are applied against the epic and user stories. At project level, it refers to

a completed a shippable project. Definition of done per sprint includes feasible analysis, code completion, performance

testing and user acceptance (wherever possible)

Scrum allows for regular reviews and progress updates, and the ability to estimate changes to stories and delivery times

Some challenges:

The remits of Business Analysts and Product Owners often gets blurred

Working with third party developers based in Ukraine proves difficult on occasion – utilisation of collaboration tools helps

Restrictions on network security means workarounds are in place, e.g. for code repositories (Gitblit and GitHub)


EPILOGUE

“..time comes but once to a man waiting for an opportunity; that time is difficult for that man to get again

when he wants to do his work..”

- Chanakya, 3 BC

Enabling agility depends on key areas:

• communication and collaboration

• self-empowering and self-organisation

• technology choices

• architecture, development, and testing principles

• resourcing and training

• teams and communities

• analytics and metrics

• processes, policies, frameworks and standards


THANK YOU

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Agile at the Financial Times - Jagdeep Singh - Head of Software development