Making Agile Work

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Making Agile Work
Patrick Cooney, Tesco.com
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Agenda

• Agile at Tesco.com
• Overview of Tesco.com
• Adopting XP
• Agile pitfalls
• Hype cycle
• Cost of change
• Code like hell
• Making agile work
• When to apply agile methods

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About Tesco.com

• 500m online retailer
• About 20 programmers
• Web site and supply chain apps
• Adopted XP in 2002

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About XP
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XP at Tesco.com
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Hype cycle
Peak of inflated expectations
Plateau of productivity
Visibility
Slope of enlightenment
Trigger
Trough of disillusionment
Time
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Cost of change
Waterfall
Cost
XP
Time
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Code like hell

• Deadlines can challenge XP
• Paired programming
• Test-first
• Refactoring
• Panic and code like hell?

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Agile people

• What makes a great agile programmer?
• Paired programming
• Desire to learn
• Different ability levels
• Refactoring and design
• High conflict / high respect
• Pragmatists not zealots
• Iterations and planning
• Great estimators

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Agile projects

• Which projects work with agile methods?
• Difficult requirements
• Changing
• Complex
• Incremental
• Right size
• About 6 - 8 developers
• Right payoff
• Need that customer!

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Agile organisations

• Which organisational traits support agile?
• Recognise XP values
• How are programmers graded?
• Is this aligned with XP values?
• Good IT / business relationship
• Not payback mode
• Able to manage change
• What happens to QA team? Analysts?

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Agile practices

• Which agile practices are crucial?
• Assess each practice in context
• Risks and mitigation when altering
• Invest in automation