Lessons Learned in Agile Development

1. Lessons Learned in Agile Development Jim Smith PDX, Inc.

2. Disclaimer: • I am not a consultant! (not that there’s anything wrong with that) • I am: • Developer, by trade. • Been in management for the past eleven years. • Oversee development of four complex product lines. • Approximately 250 programmers, QA testers, Software architects and DBA’s.

3. Context • PDX. . . • The original PDX Agile project. . .

4. Lesson #1 • Everybody thinks they’re already Agile.

5. Lesson #2 • Enabling developers to commit has spectacularly good effects: • They own it! • They manage their own overtime! • They drive teammates! • They escalate!

6. Lesson #3 • Managers get to do good things: • Coach/mentor • Strategic organizational and infrastructure enhancement and fixes (e.g. – switch from proprietary bug tracking system to Jira) • Audit • Get and stay plugged into business • Keep foot soldiers educated • Give morale maintenance the care and feeding it deserves • Talk to each other

7. Lesson #4 • Write good user stories. • Good user stories are beautiful. • Apply the “no system” litmus test.

8. Lesson #5 • The industry feels that pre-planning is necessary.

9. Lesson #6 • TDD: a way of life

10. Lesson #7 • At all levels, currents push us back toward waterfall: • More docs • More time up front • More time for regression testing • Email, IM and bug record correspondence

11. Lesson #8 • Even the best and brightest have trouble with collaboration. • It’s a required skill in today’s software development shop.

12. Lesson #9 • The team will gladly turn in slackers.

13. Lesson #10 • [Lean] documentation is still good.

14. Lesson #11 • “Nothing is over! Nothing!” –John Rambo

15. Lesson #12 • The team must understand: You can’t do everything that falls out of retrospectives.

16. Lesson #13 • Although not ideal, team members can be scrum masters.

17. Lesson #14 • You can get executive, managerial and customer buy-in with your first demo and through training on user stories

18. Lesson #15 • Customers and other stakeholders at demos = bueno!

19. Lesson #16 • Let the scrum team stay focused; retain a production support team.

20. Lesson #17 • Get your DBA team to agree to an SLA.

21. Lesson #18 • Break down those user stories!

22. Lesson #19 • Keep noisy managers and executives out of kick offs.

23. Lesson #20 • The stand up is for all.

24. Lesson #21 • The PO must appreciate the value of paying technical debt. • 20%

25. Lesson #22 • The PO is not the team owner.

26. Lesson #23 • People won’t talk? Slamming doors? Putting up walls? = dysfunctional Agile team.

27. Lesson #24 • Parties and other rewards after demos == bueno!

28. Lesson #25 • Don’t let a sprint go longer than five weeks.

29. Lesson #26 • Train your developers to sign off on user stories early.

30. Lesson #27 • The PO position is a fulltime job, for a member of the business, who can appreciate technical debt.

31. Lesson #28 • Co-location of sprint team members is good! • At a minimum, members of a given sprint team should live on the same continent (except business analysts and architects)

32. Lesson #29 • Your development and test environments are production environments. • Enormous waste when they’re down. • Many grumpy people when they’re down; they’re missing deadlines to which they committed!

33. Lesson #30 • Don’t treat your India folks like warm bodies. . .or they’ll act like warm bodies.

34. Lesson #31 • Sashimi is a great idea, but not always 100% possible.

35. Lesson #32 • Velocity steadily increases when your team rosters are constant, and working on the same product(s). • If you frequently change team rosters, then abandon hope that velocity will increase.

36. Lesson #33 • The product ought to be ready for production after every sprint. • Although not always practical, strive for it with every sprint!

37. Lesson #34 • The Scrum Master is a strong servant leader.

38. Lesson #35 • Plaster that product backlog EVERYWHERE! • The whole team needs to know it! • The company brass needs to know it! • Customers need to know it!

39. Lesson #36 • Developers are professionals – not privates in the army. Treat them as such.

40. Lesson #37 • “Scrum” is not an acronym.

41. Q&A

42. www.synerzip.com Hemant Elhence hemant@synerzip.com 469.322.0349 84 • 42

43. Synerzip in a Nutshell • Software product development partner for small/mid-sized technology companies • Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies, typically venture-backed companies in growth phase • By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients • Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment • Dedicated team of high caliber software professionals for each client • Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency • Stable teams with very low turn-over • NOT just “staff augmentation”, but provide full mgmt support • Actually reduces risk of development/delivery • Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline • Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined • Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage • Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option

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