How and why Agile scales, and it is Waterfall that does not scale

1. Vasco Duarte, Scrum Gathering Lisbon 2011 Agile scales, Waterfall doesn’t

2. Vasco Duarte @duarte_vasco http://bit.ly/sglx11_blog http://bit.ly/vasco_slideshare

3. Vasco

7. Disclaimer I’m experienced, but that means: I understand your questions Not: I know all the answers!

8. This is where the talk starts…(wake up… please…)

9. Ready? Here we go…

10. <talk start>

12. System.out.println( “Hello world” );

13. How?

14. What does “scaling” mean?

15. “Large Scale Scrum”? Craig Larman, Bas Vodde 2009

16. “Scale Scrum”? Schwaber, 2004

17. “Multi-teams project”? Cohn, 2006

18. “Distributed”? Sandra Durasiewicz, 2008

19. A definition for “scaling” Yours truly, now

20. Scaling = Process Property

21. A Software Development Processs scales if (and only if) the effort it takes to manage a project increases at a slower pace than the amount of work being managed!

22. Relative Effort needed to manage a project when the project size increases Effort to Manage Does not Scale Neutral Scales Work being managed

23. Proposition 1:Scaling Property needs to apply to all “things” we manage in a project

24. Experiment Count “things” to manage Assess effort needed to manage those “things” If work to manage them increases faster than the number of things => process does not exhibit the property of Scalability

25. Growth in effort to manage those “things” Growth in number of “things” >

27. x = effort to manage 1 requirement

28. Nx = effort to manage N requirements

29. Nx = effort to manage N requirements without dependencies

30. When was the last time you saw a simple list of requirements without dependencies?

31. Effort to manage N requirements with pair-dependencies

32. Relative effort to manage a flat list of N requirements Effort to Manage Work being managed

33. In Plain English: Waterfall Requirements Management does not scale!

34. This is the cost of a non-scalable Requirements Management Process

35. Question 2: Does Agile Requirements management scale?

36. N Requirements organization in Agile User Stories 100

37. N Requirements organization in Agile 10 Features User Stories 100

38. N Requirements organization in Agile 1 Epics 10 Features User Stories 100

39. N Requirements organization in Agile 1 Portfolio Items – Customer marketable Epics Longer term planning (more than 1 iteration) 10 Features Where the rubber meets the road – what we do in one iteration User Stories 100

40. Different content abstractions for different stakeholders Product Marketing and Portfolio Portfolio Items – Customer marketable Epics Longer term planning (more than 1 iteration) Product Owner + Architect + UX Features Where the rubber meets the road – what we do in one iteration User Stories Team + Product Owner

41. As a Project Manager I want … 1 Epics 10 Features User Stories 100

42. As a Project Manager I want … 1 Epics 10 Features Less stuff to manage, so that I can keep my sanity!

43. Effort to manage N requirements with an Agile Requirements model Nx/102 Where N = number of requirements/user stories

44. The mental sanity graph…(BTW: lower = better) Waterfall Effort to Manage This is the difference between Agile and Waterfall The bigger the project gets… Where you want to be: Work being managed

45. Epics Features User Stories

46. Venues Transportation Accomodation Marketing

47. Different size = Different solutions Size does matter! Don’t solve problems you don’t have!

48. Blue Team Red Team (good guys) (bad guys)

49. “The first thing I told my staff is that we would be in command and out of control.”(US General Paul Van Riper, from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell)

52. Recap:Agile Scales, Waterfall doesn’t And hopefully you understand why now :)

53. Currently an Agile Project Coach in Nokia, Vasco Duarte is an experienced product and project manager, having worked in the software industry since 1997. Vasco has also been an Agile practitioner since 2004, he is one of the leaders and a catalyst in the adoption of Agile methods and an Agile culture at Nokia and previously at F-Secure. Vasco's contributions to the improvement of the software development profession can be read in his blog: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.blogspot.com. You can follow Vasco on twitter: @duarte_vasco Photo credits: Flickr users http://www.flickr.com/photos/8867029@N07/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/_at/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/quenerapu/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/privatenobby/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotopakismo/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkelstone/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamibu/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesbooth/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dungodung/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/puppydogbites/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/talios/