Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for Mile High PMI Workshop on November 15, 2008 Abstract: There are always people who want agile projects to fail. This will probably be the case until agile is the preferred process methodology used for projects. Are you one of them? In this workshop Bob Hartman will give participants a how-to guide for causing agile process failure. Attendees will learn various failure modes and how to cause them. There will be group discussions and exercises exploring how the failure modes can manifest themselves in real projects. At the end of this workshop each attendee should have the ability to cause agile project failure in a variety of ways and under a variety of conditions. Obviously the first paragraph is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully project managers do not want agile projects to fail, but they need to know how they could fail. This knowledge will translate into an ability to recognize the failure modes and take corrective action. Interestingly, many of the agile project failure modes are also failure modes in other project process methodologies. All project managers on agile projects or in organizations that are considering using an agile process should attend this workshop. Project managers in organizations which typically struggle with projects may also gain insight into their project failure modes.
Citation preview
Failing with Agile:A How-to Guide
Don’t end up with an apple instead of an Apple®!
Presentation Copyright © 2008, Agile For All, LLC. All rights reserved.
Presented byBob HartmanPresident, Agile For [email protected]
2
Before We Start
• Cell phones, pagers, PDA’s, etc. to silent• If you have a question, please ask it. Don’t
wait! It is better to answer the question while we are still in the same area than to go back.
• We will take a break after about 90 minutes
Failing with Agile
INTRODUCTIONS
4
Bob Hartman (Agile Bob)
• 30+ years of software industry experience
• Certified Scrum Practitioner• Bachelor and Masters degrees
in Computer Science• Roles included Tester,
Developer, Dev Manager, QA Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, VP…
• Started with agile in 1999
Failing with Agile
5
Who are you?
• Please introduce yourself including:– Name– Company and role– Agile experience
About
Me
Failing with Agile
FRAMING THE PROBLEM
7
Software project success ratesSoftware Project Success Rate
Report Date Success RateFirst CHAOS report 1994 16%“Extreme CHAOS” 2001 28%
CHAOS 2003 2003 31%CHAOS 2006 2006 35%
Source: The Standish Group
Success increasing by 1.7% per year. Will not reach 50% until 2014!
Failing with Agile
8
Industry realities
• Most “successful” projects were deliberately over-estimated at the start (Standish – 2001)
• The average project exceeds its schedule by 63% (Standish – 2001)
• 50% of project failures are due to missing or misunderstood requirements (Ravenflow – 2006)
• Executive support and customer involvement are the two biggest critical success factors in project success by far (many studies in the past 10 years)
Failing with Agile
9
More industry realities
• 56% of defects are attributable to missing or misunderstood requirements
• 82% of defect fixing time and dollars go to fixing requirements related defects
• NIST has estimated that 0.6% of the GDP is lost due to software defects
• NIST also estimates that 1/3 of that money could be saved by using a process allowing earlier detection and correction of defects
Failing with Agile
10
Things I sometimes ponder…• Why do we make all important decisions on projects when we
have the least information?• Why do managers always think things will take less time than
everyone else? Why do we let them estimate at all?• Why has the software industry never improved the ability to
estimate accurately?• If we know that an average of 30% of requirements will change
during a project, why do we use a process that is intolerant to change?
• Why do companies say that quality is important while internally they give QA less time than originally allocated to do their job?
• Why do developers always do the easiest things first?• If the customer is always right, why do we only ask them their
opinion AFTER we have completed the entire project?Failing with Agile
DOING THE RIGHT THINGBUT DOING IT WRONG
But this is supposed to work!!!
12
Getting things to “done” – sort of!• Iteration 1 – coded and tested! • Iteration 2 – coded and tested! • Iteration 3 – coded and tested! • Iteration 4 – coded and tested!
• Where’s the problem?
• No regression testing – “done” for an iteration means all previous testing passes as well! The above scenario leads to:
• Final validation testing – FAILS!
Failing with Agile
13
Identifying tasks – but not all of them
Failing with Agile
14
The daily stand-up of death
Yesterday I did that, today I’ll do this, nothing blocking me. Next…
Failing with Agile
INADVERTENT SABOTAGE
Hurting by helping!
16
Working aheadI know we are only in
iteration 1, but I did story3 and knew that story 322
depended on it, so I did thatone too! Cool huh!
Failing with Agile
17
The return of command and control
I thought agile was supposed to
empower us?!?
Failing with Agile
18
Hmm, how should I do this?
I don’t really know how to solve this, but that’s ok, I’ll just think like a customer
Good developers will try to think like a customer – THEN they will make the wrong decision!
Failing with Agile
19
Invite complexityMr. Product Champion, which way should I go?
It doesn’t affect the user, so pick
either!
Complex – Yeah!Failing with Agile
20
Small Group Exercise
Describe inadvertent sabotage you have experienced. What were the results and
how it was first detected?
Failing with Agile
FAILURES CAUSED BY MANAGEMENT
22
Lack of sufficient agile trainingDilbert knows agile!
Or, maybe not
Failing with Agile
23
Asking “How are we doing?”
Hey George, how are we doing?
Apparently executives and managers have no eyes!
Failing with Agile
24
Early hiccup = total failure
See! Iteration 1 wasn’t perfect. I
told you agile wouldn’t work!!!
Failing with Agile
25
Seeding doubt
Psst. Be careful. I’m pretty sure this agile stuff will fail.
Failing with Agile
26
Always follow the chain of command!
I don’t care if it worked. This is the org chart and you should
have asked me (even if it would have taken 5 extra days).
Let’s make some spaghetti to show this in action!
Failing with Agile
27
Small Group Exercise
List a few different forms of management failure you have
experienced and what happened.
Failing with Agile
FAILURES CAUSED BY WASTE
29
What is waste?
Anything that does not add value!
Meetings, research that is never utilized, unfinished code, untested code,
undocumented/unusable features…
What else?Failing with Agile
30
Building what you don’t need
Never Used45%
Rarely19%
Sometimes16%
Often13%
Always7%
Source: The Standish Group
Question: What percentage of software features are NEVER used?
Failing with Agile
31
Poor requirements gathering technique
Failing with Agile
32
Building infrastructure first
Layers = Allwork done
Slices = lesswork to do
Which is easier to change?Failing with Agile
33
Being dogmatic about process
Agile says we have to have daily stand-ups. It doesn’t
matter that part of the team is in Sri Lank 12.5
time zones away!
Failing with Agile
34
Small Group Exercise
What are some types of waste in your organization that you can start to
eliminate immediately?
Failing with Agile
TEAM FAILURE MODES
36
Play the blame game
It’s your fault!
Failing with Agile
37
It’s ok to move things to the next iteration
This didn’t finish, so move it from iteration 1 to iteration 2, no 3, I
mean 4.
Failing with Agile
38
Teams that are too largeWill this stand-up ever end?
Failing with Agile
39
Make silos even deeper
Testers vs. DevelopersIs anyone a team member any more???
Failing with Agile
40
Poor communication
Failing with Agile
41
Not my job
See, right there it says it isn’t my job to do that!
It’s not my fault the team failed the
iteration because I didn’t press “Run”
Failing with Agile
42
Small Group Exercise
Even successful teams are held back in many ways by the way they do things. What “failures” are your current teams
dealing with today?Failing with Agile
PRODUCT CHAMPION BASED FAILURES
44
Keep the plan in your head…
Don’t ever tell anyone else what the plan is. That way they need
to rely on you, right???Failing with Agile
45
Be efficient – have more than one role
It’s great being a team member, Scrum Master and Product Champion! All have
to bow to me!!! Oh, and all my stuff gets done first – sweeeeeeet!
Failing with Agile
TESTING FAILURES
47
Confusing unit tests and acceptance tests
Acceptance Tests
Business Intent (Design of the Product)
UsabilityTesting
ExploratoryTesting
Unit Tests
Developer Intent (Design of the Code)
PropertyTestingResponse, SecurityScaling,…
from Brian Marick
Technology Facing
Business FacingSu
ppor
t Pro
gram
min
g
Criti
que
Prod
uct
Automated(QA)
Manual(Anyone)
Automated(Developer)
Tool-Based(Expensive)
Durin
g Ite
ratio
n
When
possible
Failing with Agile
48
Testing at the end of an iteration
Coding Testing
Day
1D
ay 2
Day
3D
ay 4
Day
5D
ay 6
Day
7D
ay 8
Day
9D
ay 1
0
Code Freeze
Q: What are developers doing during the testing period?
Failing with Agile
49
Coding in one iteration, testing in the next
• Each tester– 40% of time writing tests for current iteration– 20% of time running tests for current iteration– 40% of time regression testing
• Iteration 1 this tester has 40% slack time• Iteration 2 this tester has 20% slack time
– 40% writing new tests, 20% running new tests, 20% running tests from iteration 1
• Iteration 3 this tester has 0 slack time– 40% writing new tests, 20% running new tests, 20% running tests from
iteration 1, 20% running tests from iteration 2• Iteration 4 we can no longer complete all testing!
• This is most often caused by dependence on manual testing
Failing with Agile
50
Lack of automated testing
Failing with Agile
Regression Deficit Disorder
51
Group discussion
What testing challenges currently exist in your organization?
Failing with Agile
FAILURES DUE TOLACK OF TRUST
53
Measure inappropriately
DILBERT: © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
You will get what you measure!!!
Failing with Agile
54
The “no power” Product Champion
I know you told the team to do that, but I’m your manager and I
think it’s wrong, so change it!
Failing with Agile
55
Agile in name only
Here is the scope and the date, now be agile and deliver it all on time!
Failing with Agile
56
Micromanagement
This project is important and as CTO, I want to make sure we’re
measuring up every day!Failing with Agile
PROCESS FAILURES
58
Changing process before it is understood
This is a simple process, why do we need to meet each day to discuss things?
Failing with Agile
59
Lack of commitment to improvement
Woohoo! A new record! That retrospective only took 2 minutes!!!
Failing with Agile
60
Watching metrics, not the people
Great job! Another successful iteration.
Failing with Agile
FIXING FAILURE
62
Small Group Exercise
Talk about some fixed failures and how they were fixed. Talk about some
failings that are not yet fixed and what might be done to fix them.
Failing with Agile
AGILE EXPECTATIONS
64
What others are seeing
Failing with Agile
65
VersionOne Survey Results (2008)
Improvement Noted >10% improvement >=25% improvementIncreased productivity 89% 56%Reduced software defects 84% 56%Accelerated time-to-market 83% 54%Reduced cost 65% 30%
Survey asked people: Please try to estimate SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS you have actually realized from implementing Agile practices.
Source: VersionOne 2008 State of Agile Development Survey
NOTE: All 2008 data is within 2% of 2007 data implying these numbers are not one-time anomalies
Biggest causes of company-wide agile failure: Company philosophy or culture could not be overcome – 23% Lack of experience with agile – 21%
Failing with Agile
66
Agile is a Proven ApproachSome Agile Companies (there are MANY more)
Failing with Agile
RESOURCES
68
Places to go for help
• My website! www.agileforall.com• Organizations– Agile Alliance (www.agilealliance.org)– Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN –
www.apln.org • Yahoo Groups– PMI Agile (pmiagile) – giving direction to people that
will be responsible for the Agile PMI Virtual Community to be formed in 2009
– Agile Denver (agiledenver)– APLN Denver (apln-denver)
Failing with Agile
RETROSPECTIVE
70
Help me out!
• I’m doing this again at the PMI Mile Hi Symposium in March 2009 and I want to make sure it is as good as possible!
• What went well?• What went less well?• How can I improve things next time?
Failing with Agile
FINAL QUESTIONS?
THANK YOU!Please fill out evaluation forms
Get on my mailing list if you want to receivea PDF of this presentation via email
