At the Agile India 2010 conference, Sandeep and I ran a workshop to shed some light on the kind of aping that’s taking place in the software companies trying to be Agile.
Clearly we don’t have all the answers. Nor do we know the best way to build software in the right way (if there was one.) But we do know one thing:
The right way doesn’t involve mindlessly following practices just because some “expert” says you need to.
In this workshop we took a critical look at various “agile” practices and tried to highlight the dogma and ceremony that has creeped in. We also questioned if the practices defined a decade ago are still applicable? If yes, have they evolved since? What are some of the original creators of these processes practicing today?
A prioritized user story backlog helps to understand what to do next, but is a difficult tool for understanding what your whole system is intended to do. A user story map arranges user stories into a useful model to help understand the functionality of the system, identify holes and omissions in your backlog, and effectively plan holistic releases that delivery value to users and business with each release.
How do you know you are ready to start iterating? In some cases, very little is needed before the first iteration. In other cases, rushing to iterate (because you were told to) can lead to weeks of time wasted overly focused on delivering a poorly understood product.
In this presentation by David Hussman titled Getting Ready to Produce at Agile Mumbai 2010 Conference, David provides concrete tools for discovering your product context and assessing whether you are ready to start building and / or iterating. Participants learned tools for defining how much process you need and tools for truly understanding what you are building and why, as well as who will use it, why they will (or will not) use it and why.
10 years after the introduction of agile methods, many communities are succeeding in their adoption while others are struggling or failing. Why? Many struggle because agile methods were introduced in an overly prescriptive manner. People were told to follow a set of practices instead of learning to use the agile practices and values to amplify their existing strengths and address their challenges.
In this talk, David Hussman shares successful coaching techniques he uses to grow sustainable agility that lasts beyond the early iterations or the first few agile projects. David begins with a series of tools to help you build a solid foundation: assessments, pragmatic practice selection, chartering and product planning tools. He then moves on to discuss ideas for finding a groove of discover and delivery that is best suited to your project community.
As a full time working coach, David uses coaching stories and experiences to discuss establishing strong cadence while also building the essence of coaching and coaches in your community Whether you are new to agile methods or you are a seasoned players, this session will help you grow your coaching skills and your ability to truly discover and deliver real value.
In this 60 mins tutorial presented by Tarang Baxi, Chirag Doshi and Dhaval Doshi at the Agile Mumbai 2010 conference, he demonstrates and discusses various business analysis anti-patterns, particularly as they apply to and impact agile projects. These anti-patterns range from BA behavior with customers to BA behavior with their own team members.
How to apply Theory of Constraint [ToC] to identify the bottlenecks or issues the teams are facing during their agile adoption?
Once we identify the bottleneck, how we delivered knowledge and experience to the teams, just in time to apply that knowledge to eliminate the bottleneck, using the Just-In-Time practice concept?
David starts off saying “Agile communities know that the sooner they deliver a working product the sooner they can determine the value it provides. Yet while the ability to deliver frequently is valuable, if you don’t know where you are going, it is easy to iteratively not get there.”
In this talk David RI-examines the balance of discovery and delivery techniques in use by agile communities today. He specifically, discusses how can design thinking help agile communities discover deeper product value before iterative delivery begins. Also, after the first iteration, how can agile communities use design tools to keep the users alive and well and part of every story, acceptance tests, and iteration of development and delivery.
Jeff Patton’s Keynote at Agile Mumbai 2010 Conference titled: “Outside the Code – Using Agile Ideas to Drive Product Success“. This short talk focuses on the techniques we use outside the software to collaborate and plan with our customers and users. You’ll learn about concepts and techniques for effectively talking about and representing your product ideas, for understanding the people who use your software, and how to leverage iterative and incremental development to learn faster and reduce risk.
