S

Speaker: Rachel Davies

www.agilexp.com
 What’s this talk about?
• Understanding industry
context that’s useful to
know when you are
adopting agile.

• What Agile teams are

doing that might be hard to
work out from the books.
 Why does it matter?

Because books, training and conferences talk about

agile methods with labels like Scrum, XP, DSDM,
etc.

I’ll be talking about the form of Agile which I see

teams actually do.
 My experience?
• XP practitioner since 2000.

• Consulting agile coach since 2003. Coached

teams at BBC, CODA, Egg, Lloyds TSB, Nokia,
Orange, Roche, Screwfix, and many more.

• Agile community work includes Agile Alliance

board, Experience reports for Agile2007/2006,
Agile2008 conference chair, Agile Business
conference, BCS SPA, Retrospective
Facilitators Gathering, Scrum Gathering open
space facilitator, XPDays, XTC, etc.
Your experience?
Methodologists United!
“I kicked off "The Lightweight
Process Summit" with a 10
minute plea for a manifesto, and
then watched with awe and glee
as these people, with some deep
philosophical differences, found
themselves in fundamental
agreement with the notion that
what we shared in common was
more important than our
differences.”
Bob Martin re: Agile Manifesto
 Method Camps remain

Scrum Crystal
XP

DSDM LEAN
 Banging the Drum

Keeping a method simple makes

it easy to transmit and easy to
understand.

Agile methods can help you get

started but you have to fill in
the gaps.
 What am I seeing teams do?
• I work with Scrum teams who use XP practices
like Velocity, Test-Driven Development and
User Stories describe their Product Backlog.
• I work with XP teams who use Burndown
charts, Retrospectives and Daily Scrum format.
• I work with Lean teams who use a mix of the
above.
• It seems a generic Agile mashups are emerging.
 The 13th Practice?

Sorry, No again!
Work out new Agile practice gradually through Retrospectives
Teams create their own agile “mashups”

Mashup Zone

XP
SCRUM

Corporate
Culture Agile Transition
 How XP are you?
Can you claim to be an XP team ..
• if you don't use index cards?
• if you don't write code test-first?
• if you don't program in pairs?
• if you don't sit together?
• If you don’t have an onsite customer?
It seems that some practices are more optional
than others
 How Scrum are you?
Can you claim to be a Scrum team ..
• if you don't have a Sprint Review?
• if you don't deliver a Product Increment at the
end of each Sprint?
• if you don't have a Sprint Retrospective?
• if you don't have a visible Sprint Burndown?
• if you don't have a defined Sprint Goal?
• if your Product Backlog is not prioritized?
Maybe there’s a good reason why you don’t?
 Typical Agile Practice List
 Daily Scrum/Standup X Pair Programming
 Iterations/Sprints X Product Increment
 User Stories X Sit Together
 Release Plans
 Test-Driven Development
 Velocity
 Burndown Charts
 Team boards
 Retrospectives
 Continuous Integration
Agile Roles
 The Team

Between 5 and 10 team members

• Cross-functional including at least one tester
• Self-organizing
 The Truth

Split the Customer (Product

Owner) role
The Truth works with support of
committees, management,
customers, sales people, but is the
only person that makes decisions
about priorities
With a trusty sidekick …
 The Voice of the Customer

The Voice of the Customer

is typically an analyst who
works closely with the
team to make sure that
user stories and
acceptance tests are
consistent, valuable and
useful.
 Agile Project Manager
and Scrum Master
Responsible for:
• Facilitating meetings
• Reporting progress
• Shielding the team
• Working with the team to remove
obstacles
• Preparing the road ahead
 Whole Team

Current Iteration Future Iterations

Agile Cycle
Start from

Ziffer (Zero Feature Iteration) -- Michael Hill

Projects start with an Iteration Zero

 Two Week Cycle

D
P E
L D D D D D D D D M
A E E E E E E E E O
N V V V V V V V V R
E E E E E E E E
D E
L L L L L L L L
E T
O O O O O O O O
V R
P P P P P P P P O

Most teams set their iteration/sprint length at 2 weeks

 Start the Day around the Board
• Teams start the day with a Daily Standup by their
Project Board using the Scrum question format.
• The Project Board shows what the team are working
on today and how much is left.
 Release Cycle
Releases

I E E
N X X
T P T P T
E O E O E
Z R R R
L L
F N N N
I I
R A A A
S S
L H L H L

Sprints/ Sprints/
Iterations Iterations
 Conformity?
• Scrum says “Inspect & Adapt”
• Manifesto says “the team reflects on how to become
more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior
accordingly.”
• Your team will be different and that’s OK :-)
 Agile Books

• Use as source of ideas

• Not “religious” texts
• Read more than one!
 Unified Agile v2.0?

No, I’m not suggesting we need this.

Project are too varied so we need loose Agile.
The Agile Manifesto already serves the purpose
of a framework.
Any Questions?
 vies
Rachel Da

l @ a g i l e x p.com
rache
g i le xp.c om/
w .a
htt p://ww