Presentation for Mile High PMI Workshop on November 15, 2008 Abstract: There are always people who want agile projects to fail. This will probably be the case until agile is the preferred process methodology used for projects. Are you one of them? In this workshop Bob Hartman will give participants a how-to guide for causing agile process failure. Attendees will learn various failure modes and how to cause them. There will be group discussions and exercises exploring how the failure modes can manifest themselves in real projects. At the end of this workshop each attendee should have the ability to cause agile project failure in a variety of ways and under a variety of conditions. Obviously the first paragraph is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Hopefully project managers do not want agile projects to fail, but they need to know how they could fail. This knowledge will translate into an ability to recognize the failure modes and take corrective action. Interestingly, many of the agile project failure modes are also failure modes in other project process methodologies. All project managers on agile projects or in organizations that are considering using an agile process should attend this workshop. Project managers in organizations which typically struggle with projects may also gain insight into their project failure modes.

1. Failing with Agile:A How-to Guide Don’t end up with an apple instead of an Apple®! Presented byBob HartmanPresident, Agile For All303-766-0917bob.hartman@agileforall.com www.agileforall.com Presentation Copyright © 2008, Agile For All, LLC. All rights reserved.

2. Before We Start Cell phones, pagers, PDA’s, etc. to silent If you have a question, please ask it. Don’t wait! It is better to answer the question while we are still in the same area than to go back. We will take a break after about 90 minutes Failing with Agile 2

3. Introductions

4. Bob Hartman (Agile Bob) 30+ years of software industry experience Certified Scrum Practitioner Bachelor and Masters degrees in Computer Science Roles included Tester, Developer, Dev Manager, QA Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, VP… Started with agile in 1999 bob.hartman@agileforall.com 303-766-0917 Failing with Agile 4

5. Who are you? Please introduce yourself including: Name Company and role Agile experience AboutMe Failing with Agile 5

6. Framing the problem

7. Software project success rates Source: The Standish Group Success increasing by 1.7% per year. Will not reach 50% until 2014! Failing with Agile 7

8. Industry realities Most “successful” projects were deliberately over-estimated at the start (Standish – 2001) The average project exceeds its schedule by 63% (Standish – 2001) 50% of project failures are due to missing or misunderstood requirements (Ravenflow – 2006) Executive support and customer involvement are the two biggest critical success factors in project success by far (many studies in the past 10 years) Failing with Agile 8

9. More industry realities 56% of defects are attributable to missing or misunderstood requirements 82% of defect fixing time and dollars go to fixing requirements related defects NIST has estimated that 0.6% of the GDP is lost due to software defects NIST also estimates that 1/3 of that money could be saved by using a process allowing earlier detection and correction of defects Failing with Agile 9

10. Things I sometimes ponder… Why do we make all important decisions on projects when we have the least information? Why do managers always think things will take less time than everyone else? Why do we let them estimate at all? Why has the software industry never improved the ability to estimate accurately? If we know that an average of 30% of requirements will change during a project, why do we use a process that is intolerant to change? Why do companies say that quality is important while internally they give QA less time than originally allocated to do their job? Why do developers always do the easiest things first? If the customer is always right, why do we only ask them their opinion AFTER we have completed the entire project? Failing with Agile 10

11. Doing the right thingbut doing it wrong But this is supposed to work!!!

12. Getting things to “done” – sort of! Iteration 1 – coded and tested!  Iteration 2 – coded and tested!  Iteration 3 – coded and tested!  Iteration 4 – coded and tested!  Where’s the problem? No regression testing – “done” for an iteration means all previous testing passes as well! The above scenario leads to: Final validation testing – FAILS!  Failing with Agile 12

13. Identifying tasks – but not all of them Failing with Agile 13

14. The daily stand-up of death Yesterday I did that, today I’ll do this, nothing blocking me. Next… Failing with Agile 14

15. Inadvertent sabotage Hurting by helping!

16. Working ahead I know we are only initeration 1, but I did story3 and knew that story 322depended on it, so I did thatone too! Cool huh! Failing with Agile 16

17. The return of command and control I thought agile was supposed to empower us?!? Failing with Agile 17

18. Hmm, how should I do this? I don’t really know how to solve this, but that’s ok, I’ll just think like a customer Good developers will try to think like a customer – THEN they will make the wrong decision! Failing with Agile 18

19. Invite complexity Mr. Product Champion, which way should I go? It doesn’t affect the user, so pick either! Complex – Yeah! Failing with Agile 19

20. Small Group Exercise Describe inadvertent sabotage you have experienced. What were the results and how it was first detected? Failing with Agile 20

21. Failures caused by management

22. Lack of sufficient agile training Dilbert knows agile!  Or, maybe not  Failing with Agile 22

23. Asking “How are we doing?” Hey George, how are we doing? Apparently executives and managers have no eyes! Failing with Agile 23

24. Early hiccup = total failure See! Iteration 1 wasn’t perfect. I told you agile wouldn’t work!!! Failing with Agile 24

25. Seeding doubt Psst. Be careful. I’m pretty sure this agile stuff will fail. Failing with Agile 25

26. Always follow the chain of command! I don’t care if it worked. This is the org chart and you should have asked me (even if it would have taken 5 extra days). Let’s make some spaghetti to show this in action! Failing with Agile 26

27. Small Group Exercise List a few different forms of management failure you have experienced and what happened. Failing with Agile 27

28. Failures caused by Waste

29. What is waste? Anything that does not add value! Meetings, research that is never utilized, unfinished code, untested code, undocumented/unusable features… What else? Failing with Agile 29

30. Building what you don’t need Question: What percentage of software features are NEVER used? Failing with Agile 30

31. Poor requirements gathering technique Failing with Agile 31

32. Building infrastructure first Slices = less work to do Layers = All work done Which is easier to change? Failing with Agile 32

33. Being dogmatic about process Agile says we have to have daily stand-ups. It doesn’t matter that part of the team is in Sri Lank 12.5 time zones away! Failing with Agile 33

34. Small Group Exercise What are some types of waste in your organization that you can start to eliminate immediately? Failing with Agile 34

35. Team failure modes

36. Play the blame game It’s your fault! Failing with Agile 36

37. It’s ok to move things to the next iteration This didn’t finish, so move it from iteration 1 to iteration 2, no 3, I mean 4. Failing with Agile 37

38. Teams that are too large Will this stand-up ever end? Failing with Agile 38

39. Make silos even deeper Testers vs. DevelopersIs anyone a team member any more??? Failing with Agile 39

40. Poor communication Failing with Agile 40

41. Not my job See, right there it says it isn’t my job to do that! It’s not my fault the team failed the iteration because I didn’t press “Run” Failing with Agile 41

42. Small Group Exercise Even successful teams are held back in many ways by the way they do things. What “failures” are your current teams dealing with today? Failing with Agile 42

43. Product Champion based failures

44. Keep the plan in your head… Don’t ever tell anyone else what the plan is. That way they need to rely on you, right??? Failing with Agile 44

45. Be efficient – have more than one role It’s great being a team member, Scrum Master and Product Champion! All have to bow to me!!! Oh, and all my stuff gets done first – sweeeeeeet! Failing with Agile 45

46. Testing failures

47. Confusing unit tests and acceptance tests Automated(QA) Business Facing Manual(Anyone) UsabilityTesting ExploratoryTesting Acceptance Tests Business Intent(Design of the Product) When possible Support Programming Critique Product During Iteration PropertyTesting Response, SecurityScaling,… Unit Tests Developer Intent (Design of the Code) Automated(Developer) Tool-Based(Expensive) Technology Facing from Brian Marick Failing with Agile 47

48. Testing at the end of an iteration Code Freeze Day 10 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Coding Testing Q: What are developers doing during the testing period? Failing with Agile 48

49. Coding in one iteration, testing in the next Each tester 40% of time writing tests for current iteration 20% of time running tests for current iteration 40% of time regression testing Iteration 1 this tester has 40% slack time Iteration 2 this tester has 20% slack time 40% writing new tests, 20% running new tests, 20% running tests from iteration 1 Iteration 3 this tester has 0 slack time 40% writing new tests, 20% running new tests, 20% running tests from iteration 1, 20% running tests from iteration 2 Iteration 4 we can no longer complete all testing! This is most often caused by dependence on manual testing Failing with Agile 49

50. Lack of automated testing Failing with Agile 50 Regression Deficit Disorder

51. Group discussion What testing challenges currently exist in your organization? Failing with Agile 51

52. Failures due tolack of trust

53. Measure inappropriately You will get what you measure!!! DILBERT: © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Failing with Agile 53

54. The “no power” Product Champion I know you told the team to do that, but I’m your manager and I think it’s wrong, so change it! Failing with Agile 54

55. Agile in name only Here is the scope and the date, now be agile and deliver it all on time! Failing with Agile 55

56. Micromanagement This project is important and as CTO, I want to make sure we’re measuring up every day! Failing with Agile 56

57. Process failures

58. Changing process before it is understood This is a simple process, why do we need to meet each day to discuss things? Failing with Agile 58

59. Lack of commitment to improvement Woohoo! A new record! That retrospective only took 2 minutes!!! Failing with Agile 59

60. Watching metrics, not the people Great job! Another successful iteration. Failing with Agile 60

61. Fixing failure

62. Small Group Exercise Talk about some fixed failures and how they were fixed. Talk about some failings that are not yet fixed and what might be done to fix them. Failing with Agile 62

63. Agile Expectations

64. What others are seeing Failing with Agile 64

65. VersionOne Survey Results (2008) Survey asked people: Please try to estimate SPECIFIC IMPROVEMENTS you have actually realized from implementing Agile practices. Source: VersionOne 2008 State of Agile Development Survey NOTE: All 2008 data is within 2% of 2007 data implying these numbers are not one-time anomalies Biggest causes of company-wide agile failure: Company philosophy or culture could not be overcome – 23% Lack of experience with agile – 21% Failing with Agile 65

66. Agile is a Proven ApproachSome Agile Companies (there are MANY more) Failing with Agile 66

67. Resources

68. Places to go for help My website! www.agileforall.com Organizations Agile Alliance (www.agilealliance.org) Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN – www.apln.org Yahoo Groups PMI Agile (pmiagile) – giving direction to people that will be responsible for the Agile PMI Virtual Community to be formed in 2009 Agile Denver (agiledenver) APLN Denver (apln-denver) Failing with Agile 68

69. Retrospective

70. Help me out! I’m doing this again at the PMI Mile Hi Symposium in March 2009 and I want to make sure it is as good as possible! What went well? What went less well? How can I improve things next time? Failing with Agile 70

71. Final questions?

72. Thank you! Please fill out evaluation forms Get on my mailing list if you want to receivea PDF of this presentation via email