Spring 2006 Sample

8/9/2019 Spring 2006 Sample

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An information radiator for the Agile AllianceSpring 2006

3 Ways to Takethe XP PlungeDive in.

The waters fne!page 16

Plus...

Deliver true iteration quality

page 12

Create an agile organization

page 21

Dont demand pair programming

page 30
http://www.agilealliance.org/


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3/17

EditorRebecca Traeger

ProofreaderHeidi Amundson

DesignPixallure Design

Account ExecutiveAlison Kincaid

Technical AdvisorMIke Cohn

Departments

5 Face-to-FaceYoull want to mark your calendar

for these Agile events.

6 User Stories6 Cooking Up Some Agile Planning

by Laura M. Waite & Paul K. Goddard

9 Agile Gets Leanby Roman Pichler

26Through the Looking Glassby Lori Schubring

29 ContextEvery Agile project needs a solidbackground. Find out what MicheleSliger is reading to strengthen herAgile foundation.

30 RefactorIn this issue, Alex Pukinskis reects onthe wasted effort of selling reluctantmanagers and developers on thevirtues of pair programming.

Features

12 Checks and BalancesBring the power of QA to your Agile

processes to ensure that your itera-tive releases are production ready.by Damon Carr

16 Take the XP plunge!When youre ready to test the XPwaters, pick a style that suits you andventure in at your own pace. by KentBeck and Cynthia Andres

21 Informed ConsentUse the decision-making principles ofsociocracy to create an organizationthat is as agile as its software develop-ment practices. by Gareth Powell

AnAgileAlliancepubl

ication
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AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006

Editors Letter

Im so glad you downloaded the rst issue ofAgileDevelopment magazine. I hope you are as excited as we

are about the changes and the possibilities for the future.As you can see, the magazine is designed to be a virtual

whiteboard for the Agile Alliance. In its pages you will nd in-formation that is all relevant to the overall project we call Agiledevelopment. From features on delivering working software toarticles that show how individuals and interactions really arevalued above process and procedures, the concepts that werelaid down ve years ago in the now famous Agile Manifesto arebrought to life here.

Dont miss our regular sections: Face-to-Face (events

where you can meet with peers and experts), Context (reviewsof books and articles that discuss Agile topics), User Stories(tales from the Agile trenches), and Refactor (an Agile methodor process as seen from the perspective of hindsight).

If youd like to comment or contribute, please feel free toemail me at [email protected]. Id love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Traeger, Editor

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6 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006

Through the Looking GlassOur long days journey into Agile

by Lori Schubring, ADS Manager, Bemis Manufacturing

User Stories

They say a journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step. Our path to Agile

started back in early 2005 when I received

an invitation to a free half-day seminar on

Scrum. Intrigued, I attended. After the semi-

nar, my interest was peaked and the ball

was ofcially in motion.

My next step was to enroll in the

Certied ScrumMaster Trainingcourse pre-

sented by Ken Schwaber and Esther Derby

in Milwaukee. I invited two of my team

members along so they, too, could learn

what Scrum was all about. The course gave

me a valuable head start, but I still wanted

more information before I made a commit-

ment to change.

To further my Agile education, I read

Kens book,Agile Project Management with

Scrum. As I read, I found myself scrutinizing

the way we currently were approachingsoftware development. I wondered if it was

possible to make Agile work for our organi-

zation.

Who We Are

As the Application Development and

Support Manager for a large manufacturing

company, I am responsible for coordinat-

ing and managing the efforts of both oursupport team (help desk) and our project

development group. We support, maintain,

and enhance some 3300, mostly internal,

applications.

We use the traditional waterfall ap-

proach to our software development life-

cycle, with the requisite multiple hand-offs

and business and technical specications

that are often in the hundreds of pages. An

average project lasts anywhere from threemonths to three years. We currently pro-

gram in RPG IV. All of our testing is manual.

(Hey, at least we test.) All this is to say that

we are about as far away from Agile as one

can beall the more reason why Scrum

could be such an important change for us

to make.

Where Weve Been

About a year ago, we began to ques-

tion the value in our process. We encour-

aged our IS Applications Group to do the

same. Several years ago, we had very little

control or processthings were just short

of a free-for-all when it came to making

program changes and getting them into

production. In response, we went to the
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other end of the spectrum and became

so formalized that we hindered our abil-

ity to remain exible for the business. It

got to the point where we werent turn-

ing around project requests fast enough:

our process took so long people some-

times thought the project had died when

in fact we were still working on it!

After our brief exposure to the

world of Agile, we began to look for ways

to be more exible rather than letting

the process govern how we approached

our projects. If it didnt make sense to do

something for a particular project, we

encouraged the group to question it andthink outside the box. If we didnt need

a technical specication, we didnt write

one. If we could combine the specica-

tions into one document to minimize

the documentation, we did just that. We

started assigning the project team at

the beginning of a project to minimize

hand-offs and the learning curve that

goes along with them. We have begun tomove from narrative test plans to reus-

able test plans and would love to get to

the point where we can automate our

testing.

We have been taking some very

small steps, and have made some great

strides in improving our process with the

goal of delivering value to the business

Mike helped usmove to a muchmore progressive,business-friendly

approach that haspaid enormousdividends. I cantimagine goingback to the oldway of developingsoftware.

Mark Gutrich

CEO, ePlanServices

Mikes classes atYahoo! have beenincredibly useful.I recommend himto anyone whois serious about

implementingAgile in theirorganization.

Gabrielle

Beneeld

Director of Agile

Development,

Yahoo!

training. mentoring. consulting.

Mike Cohn, author ofAgile

Estimating and Planning and

User Stories Applied For Agile

Software DevelopmentandMountain Goat Software

specialize in the application

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fasterbut we still arent anywhere near

Agile.

Guides along the Way

In July 2005, several of us attended

Agile 2005 in Denver. It was a week of in-tense idea sharing and instruction that had

more energy and passion than any other

conference I have ever been to in all my

fourteen years in the industry.

We all have helpmates on our jour-

ney, and fate stepped in to give us one: in

one session, I happened to select a seat

next to Lisa Owens from ePlan Services. We

began to talk and, as luck would have it,she was already doing Scrum and her of-

ce was a block away from the conference.

She took us on a eld trip to better explain

their Scrum process and to show us their

Scrum board, burndown charts, retrospec-

tives, user stories, and other Agile tools. It

was a great opportunity to see Scrum in

action. She also spoke very highly of Mike

Cohn and suggested that if I was serious

about Agile I should nd a way to bring

him into our organization to help with the

implementation.

Lisa wasnt the only helpful partici-

pant; many people were willing to share

their experiences. I left the conference with

an armful of books and more excitement

about the potential Agile offered than I

had before. Unfortunately, despite all the

information I had received, I also left with

even more questions.

On the ight home, I began to real-

ize the challenges that lay ahead. I needed

to gain the support of our IT Director and

our Vice-President of Information Services.

I wanted to bring Mike Cohn in. I wanted to

change our structure and form Agile teams.

I needed to educate the business on what

the benets of Agile were. I would have to

convince my group that Agile was going to

be a positive change and I would have to

provide them with books and information

on what Agile and Scrum were all about.

I broke out in a sweat thinking about all

of the different things that needed to be

done.

Since then, for every one question I

have asked and had answered, ve more

questions have popped up. Luckily, every-

one I have been in contact with has been

very generous in offering suggestions

and guidance on books, articles, websites,

groups, and contacts to talk to and share

information with.

Mike Cohn has been instrumental in

getting me in touch with individuals who

have already gone down the path I am on.

He suggested I join several Yahoo groups

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9/17


on Agile planning and Scrum development,

so I did that and began posting my ques-

tions to the groups. I purchased several

copies of Mike Cohns User Stories Applied

andAgile Estimating and Planning to share

with my group. I am attempting to orga-

nize a Wisconsin-based Agile user group

(another new adventure for me). I even

created an Agile Corner complete with

whitepapers, diagrams, and other books

on Agile, lean software development, and

teambuilding. We add to the corner as we

come across new material.

I have received emails from different

individuals suggesting alternate reading,including Fit for Developing Software by Rick

Mugridge and Ward Cunningham, I have

also received information on the Wisconsin

SPIN Group, a group dedicated to software

process improvements who recently com-

pleted a four-part series on Agile. I have

spent countless hours reading books and

visiting websites trying to absorb as much

information as possible. I have had confer-

ence calls with complete strangers willing

to share their experiences. Its been great.

Thanks to all of the resources and the

helpful people we encountered along the

way, we have persevered and change is

happening.

Where Were Going

In October, I received approval to

implement Scrum. In early 2006, Mike Cohn

came to us and delivered four full days of

training and consulting. Were on the road.

I had no idea what I was getting into

when this all started. Some days, the pic-

ture is still as clear as mudwell, maybe a

little more watered down. Still, I am making

progress. Members of my group are start-

ing to get excited about what Agile has to

offer as well.

Some might criticize our slow imple-

mentation, but I purposely chose not to

rush into anything. Instead, I planned care-

fully and considered our team structure

and skill sets, ofce layout, company cul-

ture, and potential issues that might arise.I am learning from others experiences and

am trying to take it all in. The good thing

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10/17


(or bad thing depending on how you look

at it) is that there is no cookie-cutter solu-

tion. There is no silver bullet. Each of us has

to determine what works best for us and

our particular environment and situation.

It is important to listen to what others have

to say, yet it is equally important to realize

that what might work well in one company

may not work for us.

It is quite challenging trying to lead at

the same time that you are learning. Agile

is a whole new way of looking at thingsit

is both scary and exciting at the same time.

I have learned and pushed myself outside

of my comfort zone many times during thisdiscovery process and I am hoping that my

group will also do the same.

In a future article, I will report back to

you on how well our implementation is go-

ing. In the meantime, I hope our story will

help those of you who are interested but

unsure of how to approach Agile in your

organizations. If we can do it, anyone can. I

am truly convinced of that. Believe meweare about as far away from Agile as the

North Pole is from the South Pole. You may

have to stretch yourself and think outside

the box but there are plenty of people and

resources available to help you along the

way. You will never meet a greater group of

people than those who are involved in the

Agile movement. Good luck to you.

Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

July 23-28, 2006

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11/17

Take the XP Plunge!Want to go eXtreme but cant decide where to

start? Stop worrying and start changing.

XPpromises relief from the pitfalls

of traditional development projects. But,when youre ready to test the XP waters,

how do you begin moving from how you

work today toward an XP style of develop-

ment? You want to start in the right place,

convince the right people, and do it right

so you can reap all the benets. However,

this need to do it right can keep many

teams from doing anything at all. XP is a

way forward; a way to nd the courage

to embrace the challenges of change. XP

starts when you start and where you start.

Eight years of observing and coach-

ing the application of XP has convinced me

that there are as many ways of starting and

sustaining change as there are ways to get

into a swimming pool. Lets stick with that

analogy, as introduced in Extreme Program-

ming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd Edition,

to describe three stereotypical ways teamstake the XP plunge: Toe Dip, Cannonball,

and Racing Dive.

Toe Dip

Some people and teams value con-

tinuity. They dont want to let go with one

hand before they have a rm hold with the

other. When they begin XP they introduce

one practice at a time. They rmly instill

that one practice before adding the next,

while the rest of their development process

remains intact. They are toe dippers.

The gradual path into XP has many

entrances. Some toe dippers make a point

of programming together in a conference

room several hours a day. Others have

developers write some automated tests as

they code. Some start by simply dividing a

big risky release into two smaller releases.

Still other toe dippers begin by working onXP individually if the team is not ready.

The sidebar XPs Safe Starts (page

18) lists thirteen practices that are safe

places to start (covered in detail in XP

Explained, 2nd Edition). Any one of these

places will provide some immediate im-

provement, with minimum risk.

If you are a toe dipper, think about

the area you would most like to improve,nd the practice that addresses that issue,

and implement it on a trial basis. After a

month or two, evaluate the effects of this

change, barriers you met, and successes

you had, and share your experiences with

your support community. Then, rene or

repeat the process to add the next most

valuable practice.

ByKent Beck &Cynthia Andres
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8


12/17


Cannonball

Some teams want quick results and

are willing to deal with the chaos of radi-

cal change as long as they are in control

of the changes to their software process.These are the teams that start doing every

XP practice they can at full throttle. The

result is, predictably for the short term,

chaos; but it can be constructive chaos.

Everyone is learning new techniques

every day and those techniques interact

in unpredictable ways. Some days work

smoothly. Others days are akin to driving

in bumper-to-bumper trafc. After a sharplearning curve, things settle into a much

more highly interactive and rened team

that is able to leap small buildings in a

single bound. They produce more, make

fewer mistakes, and have condence in

their ability to handle challenges.

The cannonball is attractive when

you want a fresh start and there wont be

any catastrophic effects from the ensu-ing chaos. If you are beginning a release

thats scheduled to take nine months, for

instance, a cannonball might be a good

choice. Conversely, it is not a good choice

if you have just two weeks left before

deployment.

Amplied positive interactions

between practices, quick turnaround, and

the condence boost the team gets from

gaining control on their own are all good

reasons to try a cannonball. Some of the

chaos of the cannonball is mitigated by

the synergies between the practices. For

instance, the practice of developer-written

tests is invaluable

when incrementally

improving the de-

sign of the system.

One of the

challenges of man-

aging the cannon-

ball is that groups

outside the teamquickly feel the

ripples (or in some

cases, waves) from

the teams changes.

All of a sudden,

the team will ask

for communication

sooner and more

directly than theyused to. They will

likely break exist-

ing power chains,

skipping across the

organizational chart

to nd the informa-

tion they need to

succeed. Whether

a cannonball results in lasting improve-

ment depends not only on how the team

does its work but also on how the rest of

the organization responds to their change.

Outside support can encourage a team to

stick with their changes long enough to

XP: Dive Right In. The Waters Fine!

What You Get: Fewer defects More predictability Greater exibility Closer conformance between delivered features

and actual needs Shorter lead time for new features

How It Works: There are weekly milestone releases, each of

which is technically ready to deploy. Programmers, testers, and business experts write

automated tests that are exercised continuously. The whole team sits together in an open work-

space. Project information is up-to-date and prominently

displayed.

Whats Hard: The radical departure from the way some histori-

cally have developed software The creative management necessary for large proj-

ects requiring more people than t comfortably inone room

Taking active responsibility for your work


13/17


see improvement and form new habits.

Executive support for the change is es-

sential for breaking organizational log

jams. Otherwise youll have a frustrated

team unable to grow because they cant

get the help they need.A limitation of learning XP on your

own is that teams sometimes cant imag-

ine how far they can take XP principles

and practices. I have pair programmed

with self-taught XPers for whom test-rst

programming and refactoring were a

revelation. They didnt realize just how

tiny the steps could be, how many tests

could protably be written, and howoften they could be run.

Teams that do cannonball success-

fully have a sense of pride and con-

dence in their accomplishments and

exibility. They know they can adapt to

whatever circumstances they encounter.

Racing Dive

Teams that want quick results and

are willing to trust outsiders often turnto XP coaches to learn a new style of

working without the chaotic splash. A

good coach can smooth out the rough

edges of your teams entry and save you

some of the pain of learning. By diving

in with professional support, teams that

use a professional coach still experience

rapid change, but they have the support of

someone who has been there before and

who has the experience to eliminate some

of the pain and accelerate the learning.

The racing dive is a good choice for

teams who want quick results but cant af-ford as much oundering and chaos as the

cannonballers. It is also a good choice for

teams who want the effects of XP but dont

have the courage or persistence to make

and sustain change on their own.

The main difculty for the racing

dive is nding a compatible coach. Good

coaches can be hard to nd. You need to

nd someone you are willing to work withand whose advice you trust. The biggest

downside I have seen to engaging a coach

is the tendency to fall back on old author-

ity patterns, treating the coach as the ex-

pert. It is all too easy for a team to give up

responsibility for their work to the coach.

Finding Your Style

Each of these strategies has its place.

Since people have very different appetitesfor change; a team may not even agree on

which strategy they are usingafter all,

one mans toe dip is another mans cannon-

ball. Here are some questions to help you

nd a style and pace of change that will

meet your needs. Taking the time to think

about and discuss these issues will smooth

XPs Safe Starts Whole Teamthe team includes

people with all the skills and con-nections it needs to succeed.

Sit Togetherthe team sits within

eye contact of each other. Pair Programmingtwo people

share programming conversations. Informative Workspaceplaster

the walls with up-to-date informa-tion about the project.

Weekly Planningchoose func-tionality to implement each week.

Quarterly Planningset quarterlythemes to be addressed by theweekly iterations.

Slackinclude some optionalitems in any schedule.

Test-frst Programmingcode bywriting a failing test, then makingthe system satisfy the test.

Incremental Designinvest inthe design only what is needed tocomfortably support todays sto-ries.

Storiesplan and track in incre-

ments of business functionality. Ten-minute Buildautomaticallybuild and test as much of the sys-tem as you can in ten minutes.

Continuous Integrationinte-grate your changes with the sharedcode every couple of hours atmost.

Energized Workwork and live soyou can bring energy to your work.


14/17

http://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epf


15/17


your transition.

How quickly do you need results?

How dramatic do they need to be?

What is the budget for outside help?

How strong are the relationships bothwithin the team and also between the

team and the rest of the organization?

Regardless of the style you choose,

once you make a change, beware of the

pressure to change back. When you make

a change, it puts a strain on surround-

ing people, resources, and organizations

related to that change. It takes awareness

and persistence to stick with a change and

follow through on its consequences in the

face of pressure from those around you to

make their lives easier by changing back.

An antidote to chang-ing back is being account-

able to a supportive com-

munity. If the whole team

decides that they are going

to integrate their changes

every hour, and how often

people integrate is public

knowledge, its much easier

to keep integrating ofteneven if it feels uncomfort-

able or seems inconvenient.

Even if you are the only one

making a change, you will

nd it easier if you partici-

pate in an online commu-

nity or attend your local

area users group meeting.

In time, rhythm replaces

strength.

Where you need to go to get support

will be very different depending on your

position in the organization and where the

impetus for change began. In the early days

of XP, almost all those wanting to apply it

were programmers out to improve their

own work. Project managers and customers

had little motivation to change their style

of work until the programmers had demon-

strated improvement. Programmers had to

get started with the parts of XP that were

purely technical: test-rst programming,

pair programming, continuous integration,incremental design. If you are a program-

mer wanting

support for

changing

your style of

work, show

why the

change is

good both foryou and for

those from

whom you

want support.

Share the

benets you

know about

and what you

have learned

from others.

Get a com-

mitment for

a trial. When

you have tried

the change,

report back to

your support-

Lane Markers

Guiding principles to

keep your project glid-

ing along:

Human speedpeo-

ple can only change

so fast. When that

speed is exceeded,they revert.

Self-interestpeo-

ple need to see why

the changes are in

their best interest.

Grow or die

change must spread

through an organiza-

tion. If not, those

who have changedwill be forced to

recant or leave.

Safetypeople need

to feel safe. They

need organizational

support through both

the hiccups and the

successes.

Flotation Devices

No matter where you start, these devices will

help you make the change to XP successfully.1. Read XP Explained, 2nd Edition. This will

give you a shared vocabulary for the tech-

niques you are about to try.

2. Share what you have learned with others.

Change happens best with the support of a

like-minded community.3. Make a public commitment to change. Call-

ing your shot in public is a great motivator to

stick with it when it gets hard.

4. Make a plan for your changes. XP-style

planning is a good way to prioritize when

you have many changes to make all at once.

Start with the area you can best leverage.


16/17


ers about how it went and what you would

like to do next.

Increasingly, it is the business spon-

sors who are asking for XP because they

want to be able to see clearly into their

projects, to detect problems early, and to

be able to manage the scope of the system

as it evolves. For customers, the rst prac-

tices to implement might be those related

to planning: weekly and quarterly planning,

stories, and slack. To improve on-time deliv-

eries, the technical people on the team will

need to begin applying the technical prac-

tices, but establishing a shared understand-

ing of the evolving scope of the system canbe a big step toward working together.

Some people are in the position of

being forced to apply XP. If this describes

you, youll need to decide how you are

going to treat XP. You can resist or you can

make XP your own. Here is the case for try-

ing XP when your instincts compel you to

resist. One of the principles in XP is mutual

benet. As Gandhi said, Only that solutionis just that is in the best interest of all par-

ties. Changing to XP will likely be uncom-

fortable at times, but it should serve your

interests as well as those of the team and

the whole organization. Take advantage of

the opportunity to use XP to improve your

own work and practice. Take a look at the

practices listed in XPs Safe Starts. If one

of them reminds you of times youve been

especially effective at software develop-

ment, embrace it. Try it out yourself. Find

a buddy to try it with. Convince the team

to try it early. The result will be a change

process that intentionally meets your

needs, instead of one driven solely by other

peoples agendas.

Whatever your circumstances

whether you go in fast or slow, whether

you make a big splash or just a few ripples,

whether you have help or notXP has

something to offer you. Now is the time to

get started. Find a style of improvement

that suits you and begin the process today.

Software development has just begun to

create value in business. These improve-

ments are available to you as soon as you

begin applying XP.

AUTHOR BIOS: Kent Beckhas programmed for

thirty years. He lives in rural southern Oregon

with his wife (and co-author) Cynthia Andres,

four of their ve children, and a variable num-

ber of domestic fowl.

Cynthia Andres has spent twenty years

observing the evolution of programming

culture. She works as a change facilitator.

She is co-author ofExtreme Programming

Explained: Embrace Change 2nd edition.

InsideAgileImmersive Training & Project Delivery

XP is more craft than science; it is only truly

learned by ex perience.Brian Robertson

Work hand-in-hand with our Agile experts to

deliver your high priority project. Avoid the

pitfalls. Experience an environment where

Agile thrives. Visit www.InsideAgile.com

The best way to learn Agile is to live it!
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17/17

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Documents

Spring 2006 Sample