Introduction to Agility

Key Points

Bill and Bob share a captivating story. Bill, who is committed to traditional methods, represents a conservative, while Bob plays a modernist, always looking for experimentation and new approaches. The renowned video game company, Namco, calls on the joint expertise of these two individuals. Explore agility by delving into Bill and Bob’s story to understand how each approached this project.

Table of Contents

FirstHeading

Key Points

Bill's one-man show of project management and lessons learned

Bill the Conservative

The guys at Namco® contact Bill.
Bill, like a project manager
Bill analyzes the work that needs to be done
Then he goes to the team and assigns tasks to them
Each person works on their part and only on it.
After 2 months
As the deadline approaches, the team starts to lose confidence...
An infinite grid
This was not planned in the specifications
The end is near
Even so
At the end
Bill is satisfied
Here's how Bill sees the project
What is the problem?

Progress to Increased Agility with Bob

2nd attempt
BoB the Modernist

They contact Bob from ACTic
Bob suggests working in iterations, but before that, what is the product vision?
The «product backlog»
And he asks the guys from Namco® to list the stories by priority.
Together, they review the user stories at the top of the backlog and add some details to ensure the team can start working on them.
Before starting, they all agree on what 'done' actually means...
The team itself estimates the effort to complete these stories; Bob and the guys from Namco® are only there to answer their questions...
The team tries to imagine how much work they can accomplish in one iteration.
From the estimated user stories, we take the top priorities up to the constraint given by the team.
The team starts the work by taking the stories one by one.
Meanwhile, Bob and the Namco guys add more details about the upcoming user stories.
When the team thinks a story is "done", the client can see it, try it out, and give feedback.
Not satisfied? The team immediately changes the functionality, taking into account the user's feedback.
The client has another idea: PacMan can teleport when he eats a magic fruit.
"No problem," Bob adds the user story to the backlog; it will be included in the next iteration.
At the end of the iteration, the team demos what has been "done" during the iteration.
Then they gather for a retrospective to see what worked well and what could be improved.
And they start a new iteration with the next top priorities.
When they reach the final project deadline, there are still a few stories left in the backlog, but the client is delighted with the product.
That's it, that's "Agile".

The keys to the success of the project with Bob's team

Okay but

At the beginning
Together with Bob, they defined a product vision.
With Bob, the client wrote some user stories, starting from a macroscopic perspective and then adding details.
OK, stop, what is a user story?
It's a story... for a user.
From these user stories, they created a product backlog.
Then they prioritized it according to the importance of the gains obtained with each story.
Together with the development team, they clarified what "done" meant.
What did we address with that?
Then ?
Bob asked the team to estimate the effort required to complete each story.
Bob asked the team to estimate effort using "story points"
The team assigned story points using "planning poker".
Then the team was asked to estimate its "velocity".
How many can you eat in 1 minute?
Based on the velocity, Bob asks the client to propose the iteration content.
The team agrees to commit to delivering everything by the end of the iteration.
What did we address with that?
And now?
They created a task board.
By looking at the work to be done for each story.
Every morning, the team gathered in front of the task board for a "stand-up" meeting.
The team members organized the work as they wished.
Some worked in pairs.
They also organized code reviews.
Meanwhile, the client with Bob's help detailed new stories.
Whenever the team thought they were "done," the client could test.
Finally...
At the end of the iteration, the team would do a demo of everything that had been "done" during the iteration
The client "accepted" all the "done" stories
And all the "done" stories could go into production.
After the demo, Bob led a retrospective to improve the way of working.
What did we address with that?
Celebrate
…and iterate
...until there was no more budget.
...or earlier if the client is satisfied.
At the very last iteration, the final demo...
We hold a retrospective of the entire project.
And Celebrate !
Bob didn't manage the project; he facilitated collaborative work.
What did we address with that?

But what does it really mean to be Agile?

Values and principles
The benefits of agility
Definition of Agility
The Role of the Scrum Master
The role of the Scrum team
The role of the product owner
The course of the Sprint
Agility from a distance

Bill’s one-man show of project management and lessons learned

Bill the Conservative

Read the story to the end by navigating left and right

The guys at Namco® contact Bill.

He works at a well-known software development company: RaftingSoftware

Bill, like a project manager

Commits to a piece of content, to be delivered by a certain date, and therefore has a certain budget.

Bill analyzes the work that needs to be done

Then he goes to the team and assigns tasks to them

Each person works on their part and only on it.

After 2 months

The team says it’s on schedule, but it’s not over yet…

As the deadline approaches, the team starts to lose confidence...

An infinite grid

The guys at Namco just came up with a big idea: an infinite grid…

This was not planned in the specifications

Bill starts negotiating…

The end is near

It’s time to put a little pressure on the team… Come on guys, we can do it!

Even so

Not enough… The evenings are long…

At the end

We still provide what was requested… Yet the customer is not happy

Bill is satisfied

He respected the deadlines, the budget, the requested content… The project is a success!

Here's how Bill sees the project

What is the problem?

At the end, the request was met.

What went wrong with Bill’s methodology:

The customer is not satisfied
The team didn’t have a chance to speak, and the team suffered
The demand was set at the outset and has not changed
The changes were hard-fought
Bill alone decided on the work of the team members
The team worked from information filtered by Bill
The risk of delay could not be identified until very late
The team has been working overtime and some members are resigning
The team took shortcuts to finish on time

Progress to Increased Agility with Bob

2nd attempt

But for Namco® money is not really the issue, they want to try another provider…

BoB the Modernist

Read the story to the end by navigating left and right

They contact Bob from ACTic

Bob suggests working in iterations, but before that, what is the product vision?

The «product backlog»

Together Bob and the guys at Namco® write user stories, all of which form the product backlog

And he asks the guys from Namco® to list the stories by priority.

Together, they review the user stories at the top of the backlog and add some details to ensure the team can start working on them.

Before starting, they all agree on what 'done' actually means...

The team itself estimates the effort to complete these stories; Bob and the guys from Namco® are only there to answer their questions...

The team tries to imagine how much work they can accomplish in one iteration.

From the estimated user stories, we take the top priorities up to the constraint given by the team.

The team starts the work by taking the stories one by one.

Meanwhile, Bob and the Namco guys add more details about the upcoming user stories.

When the team thinks a story is "done", the client can see it, try it out, and give feedback.

Not satisfied? The team immediately changes the functionality, taking into account the user's feedback.

The client has another idea: PacMan can teleport when he eats a magic fruit.

"No problem," Bob adds the user story to the backlog; it will be included in the next iteration.

At the end of the iteration, the team demos what has been "done" during the iteration.

Then they gather for a retrospective to see what worked well and what could be improved.

And they start a new iteration with the next top priorities.

When they reach the final project deadline, there are still a few stories left in the backlog, but the client is delighted with the product.

That's it, that's "Agile".

The Project as seen by Bob

The keys to the success of the project with Bob’s team

Okay but

How did they do that at ACTic?

At the beginning

Together with Bob, they defined a product vision.

With Bob, the client wrote some user stories, starting from a macroscopic perspective and then adding details.

“As a player, I want to be able to move PacMan in all 4 directions so that I can apply my strategy”

OK, stop, what is a user story?

It's a story... for a user.

As a <role>
I want to <take action>
In order to <get a payoff>

From these user stories, they created a product backlog.

Then they prioritized it according to the importance of the gains obtained with each story.

Together with the development team, they clarified what "done" meant.

What did we address with that?

The customer is not satisfied
The team didn’t have a chance to speak
The demand was set at the outset and has not changed
The changes were hard-fought
Bill alone decided on the work of the team members
The team worked from information filtered by Bill
The risk of delay could not be identified until very late
The team worked overtime
The team took shortcuts to finish on time

Then ?

Bob asked the team to estimate the effort required to complete each story.

Bob asked the team to estimate effort using "story points"

The team assigned story points using "planning poker".

Then the team was asked to estimate its "velocity".

How many can you eat in 1 minute?

Based on the velocity, Bob asks the client to propose the iteration content.

The team agrees to commit to delivering everything by the end of the iteration.

What did we address with that?

The customer is not satisfied
The team didn’t have a say++
The demand was set at the outset and has not changed
The changes were hard-fought
Bill alone decided on the work of the team members
The team worked from information filtered by Bill
The risk of delay could not be identified until very late
The team worked overtime
The team took shortcuts to finish on time

And now?

They created a task board.

By looking at the work to be done for each story.

Every morning, the team gathered in front of the task board for a "stand-up" meeting.

The team members organized the work as they wished.

Some worked in pairs.

They also organized code reviews.

Code review

Meanwhile, the client with Bob's help detailed new stories.

Whenever the team thought they were "done," the client could test.

Finally...

At the end of the iteration, the team would do a demo of everything that had been "done" during the iteration

The client "accepted" all the "done" stories

Definition of Done

And all the "done" stories could go into production.

Go Live

After the demo, Bob led a retrospective to improve the way of working.

What did we address with that?

The customer is not satisfied
The team did not have the floor ++++++
The demand was set at the outset and has not changed
The changes were hard-fought
Bill alone decided on the work of the team members
The team worked from information filtered by Bill
The risk of delay could not be identified until very late
The team worked overtime
The team took shortcuts to finish on time

Celebrate

party

…and iterate

...until there was no more budget.

...or earlier if the client is satisfied.

At the very last iteration, the final demo...

We hold a retrospective of the entire project.

And Celebrate !

Bob didn't manage the project; he facilitated collaborative work.

He was a Scrum Master

What did we address with that?

The customer is not satisfied
The team did not have the floor ++++++
The demand was set at the outset and has not changed
The changes were hard-fought
Bill alone decided on the work of the team members
The team worked from information filtered by Bill
The risk of delay could not be identified until very late
The team worked overtime
The team took shortcuts to finish on time

But what does it really mean to be Agile?

Values and principles

People and interactions
rather than procedures and tools
Software that works
rather than extensive documentation
Collaboration with the client
rather than contract negotiation
Embracing change rather than sticking to the plan

We recognize the value of the latter, but favor the former.

The benefits of agility

The benefits

Definition of Agility

THE ABILITY OF AN ORGANIZATION TO CREATE VALUE AND DELIGHT ITS CUSTOMER, WHILE PROMOTING AND ADAPTING – IN TIME – TO CHANGES IN ITS ENVIRONMENT

(GROSJEAN, 2011)

The Role of the Scrum Master

+Ensures compliance with Scrum values and principles

+Removes obstacles

+Ensures that the Scrum team is fully functional and productive

+Allows the team to organize their work

Coaches the team and the Product Owner

+Ensures close cooperation between all team members

+Protects the team from external disruptions

The role of the Scrum team

+Creates the product increment

+Self-organized, empowered, and autonomous

+Size: 3 – 9

+Cross-functional – all the skills needed to deliver a product increment must be present

+Selects the requirements to be achieved in a Sprint and commits to the goal of the Sprint

+Responsible for delivering on this commitment

+Demonstrates the new product increment at the end of the Sprint

The role of the product owner

Authority: Product Owner

Define the vision of the product.
Head of Communication:
- Participate in the definition of the communication strategy towards users
- Organize a user feedback loop upstream of projects
- Communicate about the Product and highlight the teams
Prioritize Stories

Knowledge: Product Backlog Owner and User Stories Validator