AGILE

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AGILE

• Presenter
• CRAIG COLLINS
• Project Director
• August 2008

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AGILE

• Thoughts on successful projects
• Happy customers
• expectations are met or exceeded
• System works and users are happy
• Project budget is not exceeded
• Beneficial use delivers value
• System is in place when required on time
• Can this be achieved?

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AGILE

• Formal methodologies and the success rate of
  software projects
• Everyone has a story of a failed software project
  or at least, a software project where the
  deadlines were exceeded and the customer was not
  happy

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AGILE

• Formalising what works
• The Agile Manifesto
• Individuals and interactions over processes and
  tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
• While there is value in the items on the right,
  we value the items on the left more

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AGILE

• Agile Principles
• Highest priority is to satisfy the customer
  through early continuous delivery of valuable
  software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in
  development. Agile processes harness change for
  the customer's competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a
  couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a
  preference to the shorter timescale.
• Business people developers must work together
  daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give
  them the environment and support they need, and
  trust them to get the job done.
• The most efficient effective way of conveying
  info within a dev team is face-to-face
  conversation.
• Working software is the primary measure of
  progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development.
  The sponsors, developers, and users should be
  able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and
  good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of
  work not doneis essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs
  emerge from self organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to
  become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its
  behavior accordingly.

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AGILE

• Agile Software Imperative
• Agile organizations concentrate on the rapid
  flow of value
• High Productivity
• 80 of the value of most systems is delivered by
  20 of the features, and up to two-thirds of the
  features of most systems are rarely used.
• Rapid Response
• How fast does your organization routinely respond
  to a customer need? Are your competitors faster?
  
• Superior Quality
• The fundamental discipline of lean software
  development is testing.
• Lasting Value
• 80 of the code in any system is developed after
  first release to production.

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AGILE

• Lean Software development
• Eliminate Waste
• Extra Features,
• Unnecessary paperwork that no one reads (huge
  spec documents),
• Management Activities - sophisticated tracking
  and control systems and Authorization systems
• Amplify Learning or create knowledge
• Learning Cycles -iteration, quality and
  integrity, Prototype, Feedback, Show progress,
  Concurrent development
• A predictable organization does not guess about
  the future and call it a plan it develops the
  capacity to rapidly respond to the future as it
  unfolds.
• Embody the current best known practice in
  standards that everyone follows, while actively
  encouraging everyone to challenge and change the
  standards
• Build Quality in
• Write executable specifications instead of
  requirements. Comment in code is excellent
  documentation

(Mary and Tom Poppendieck Lean software
development -An agile toolkit
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AGILE

• Lean Software development
• Decide as Later as possible (defer commitment)?
• Abolish the idea that it is a good idea to start
  development with a complete specification.
• Use Concurrent Development
• Avoid repetition
• Schedule Irreversible Decisions at the Last
  Responsible Moment. Learn as much as possible
  before making irreversible decisions.
• Deliver as fast as possible
• Lists and queues are buffers between
  organizations that simply slow things down.
• Companies that compete on the basis of speed have
  a big cost advantage, deliver superior quality,
  and are more attuned to their customers' needs.
• Drive down cycle time with small batches and
  fewer things-in-process.
• Empower the team, Respect people and partners
• Engaged, thinking people provide the most
  sustainable competitive advantage.
• Teams Thrive on Pride, Commitment, Trust, and
  Applause. What makes a team? Members are mutually
  committed to achieve a common goal.
• Effective teams have effective leaders who bring
  out the best in the team.

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AGILE

• Agile approach to business issues
• The Warehouse Stock take
• Why do we do two counts and not show the staff
  what is on hand, even when we know the count
  won't balance.
• Why not find a way to make them want the stock to
  be accurate and let them find the items and solve
  the problems there and then
• Why count once a month -perpetual counts
  (iterations) every day work better
• Peer review and visibility of count progress and
  accuracy will create work ethic and pride
• At SBH cotton mills, the stock controller always
  took flak for inaccurate stock. He now does
  perpetual stock counts, has a 100 accurate
  warehouse of over 30000 uniquely identified rolls
  of material. He is really proud if this and it
  gives him satisfaction to keep it that way.

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AGILE

• Agile approach to business issues
• Sales processes
• The process of selling is filled with waste
  Proposals, reviews, renegotiations, contracts,
  revised proposals, board approvals, more revised
  proposals, presentations followed by more
  presentations for higher level people, peoples
  ego's, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork
• Deliver the prices as fast as possible -don't
  write a proposal and waste time if the customer
  cannot afford the expense.
• Have you taken an order by SMS/text message yet?

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AGILE

• Agile approach to business issues
• Order fulfillment and invoicing Typical process
• Order arrives on rep's desk,
• She writes out an order sheet
• It is given to order processing
• Order processing captures the sales order on the
  system.
• Someone places a purchase order request to
  buying.
• A buyer gets pricing (this has already been done
  at the proposal stage).
• The buyer writes or types the order, places the
  order on a supplier (who also goes through this
  process).
• Buyer captures purchase order on the system.
• Receiving gets a delivery and checks with buyer.
• Ticks off delivery note and sends to goods
  receiving data capture.
• They check pricing to quote and type in on the
  system.
• The goods are now in stock.
• We must be able to do this better!

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AGILE

• Agile approach to business issues
• Contracts (Specifically software) -
• Paper that no one reads is waste -it is only
  needed in the event of something going wrong.
  Rather put that effort into preventing something
  from going wrong.
• Trust relationships trust the fairness,
  stability and predictability of the customers
  processes.
• Trust is defined as One parties confidence that
  the other party will fulfill its promises and not
  exploit its vulnerabilities Dyer -collaborative
  advantage
• Marbles

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AGILE

• The changing face of business
• Change is given
• Velocity is essential and expected
• Work Volume is increasing in relationship to
  company growth
• Expectations of companies press us to work after
  hours -how else can they continue to grow above
  inflation
• Internet has made everything quicker
• Information skimming is the new way of working
• Continuous growth is essential for survival
• Value for shareholders is driving this

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Conclusion

• AGILE is a way to deal with and respond to the
  rapidly changing world
• AGILE is a LEAN software methodology
• AGILE works for software
• I believe that AGILE is the only way to keep up
  with the demands of the pace of business today