A view on Agile Development from a management, software development and business analysis perspective. Using the Fluency Model to understand what level your company needs to be at in order to be a truly Agile organisation.

1. At BSG, we believe in being a proactive force for positive change,
making a difference in everything we do.
Tackling the
fallacy of “Agile”
How to maximise the benefits
on your journey to Agile excellence
27th November 2013
Clinton Bosch, Sandra Rheeder and Daniël Maree
Unlocking potential. Accelerating performance

2. Agile origins
Plan-driven derived from
other engineering
Heavy on initial planning
Over time more information
is uncovered
Software development is
not civil engineering
Requirements guaranteed
to change
Agile | a reaction to plan-driven methodologies like RUP

3. Agile fluency
distinct stages of agile, each with specific benefits
and challenges
“Star”
system
3
1
Entire teams fluency –
not individuals
2
Fluency at all
previous levels
Teams evolve in a
predictable order
4
Fluency | how a team develops software when it’s under pressure

4. One-star create business value
•
•
•
Management pillar
Easiest
Focus on team success
team
Benefit:
Greater visibility into team’s work; ability to redirect
Investment:
Team development and work process design
Core Metric:
Team regularly reports progress from a business value
perspective
Achievement:
45%
Time:
2 - 6months
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

5. Two-star ship at will
•
•
•
Technical pillar
Deliver to market cadence
Technical skills take time & effort, reduce productivity
EXTREME PROGRAMMING
“moments to learn, lifetime to master”
Benefit:
Low defects and high productivity
Investment:
Lowered productivity during technical skill development
Core Metric:
Team ships on market cadence
Achievement:
35%
Time:
3 - 24months
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

6. Three-star
•
•
Deliver the most value possible for your investment
Understand what market / business needs
•
•
•
•
optimise value
Delivers MVP
Value added vs. opportunity cost
Pivot if not producing sufficient value
Cross functional teams
Benefit:
Higher value deliveries and better product decisions
Investment:
Social capital expended on incorporating business
expertise into team
Core Metric:
Team provides concrete business metrics
Achievement:
5%
Time:
1 – 5 years
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

7. Four-star
•
•
•
•
optimise system
Understand organisational priorities and business direction
Support the needs of a product critical to business success
Cross-pollination between teams
Bleeding edge of agile practice
Benefit:
Alignment with organisational goals, synergistic effects
Investment:
Significant effort in establishing organisational culture, inventing new practices
Core Metric:
Team reports how its actions impact the overall organisation
Achievement:
Very few
Time:
unknown
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

8. Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html
In summary

9. Path through Agile fluency
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

10. Agile management
/ˈadʒʌɪl manɪdʒm(ə)nt/

11. Management at one-star fluency
Stakeholders
Interpreting
Collaborating
Adapting to the situation and environment
Principles > process
Team
Welcome change
Short feedback loop
Demonstrating the benefits
Engaged customers = happy customers

12. Management at two-star fluency

13. Management at three-star fluency
Where
becomes

14. Management at four-star fluency

15. Agile Principles …………
…………………………………
……………………………
………….
Scrum. Scrum. Scrum.
Scrum. Scrum. Scrum.
Scrum. Scrum. Scrum.
Scrum. Scrum. Scrum.
Learning
Organisation
Who drives Agile excellence?

16. Respect
Agile framework
Feedback
interrelated
Communication
values
Courage
Simplicity
key principles
•
•
•
•
•
•
Long-running, multi-functional teams
Small batch sizes (which are regularly released)
Continual review and prioritisation
Embrace cheap failure
Self-similarity across all levels in the organisation
Fix time and cost, not scope (but within a broader context)
specific practices
•
Adopted and customised by
teams as they move through the
fluency model

17. What about the BA?
What is my
role?
I hear there is no
documentation…
requirements don’t
get signed off??!!
The developers are
talking directly to
business and it’s
working! What am I
going to do??
Extreme
programming is
not really my
thing…
“…the Agile Business Analyst will rely much
more on people facilitation skills than they may
have on traditional projects. The BA’s role is to
facilitate a discussion between the Product
Owner and the technical team”
“…the agile BA needs to think about the
software development process in new ways.
Agile encourages us to decouple the breadth
of the solution from the depth of the solution in
order to continuously deliver smaller
increments of production-ready code”
Source: “The Agile Business Analyst” white paper, Mike Cottmeyer, V. Lee Henson
(www.versionone.com)

18. Fluency and BA skills
A shift from documenting exhaustive detailed
requirements up front, to documenting asneeded priority requirements per iteration
Focus on new skills
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Creating clear direction in terms of the
“breadth” of scope
Conceptual domain / business
understanding
Facilitation of discussions between
business and developers, especially in
terms of courageous feedback
The ability to question and unpack the
requirements which will deliver specific
business value in the short term, and meet
longer term objectives
Writing specific, detailed user stories
Understanding how to “slice the cake
vertically”
User experience design skills

19. Fluency and BA skills
A shift to become an “extension”
of business, a strategic questioner
to allow for a pivot in approach
based on feedback across the
board
Focus on new skills
•
•
•
Driving the concept of a minimum viable product (MVP) – the simplicity value
Deeper understanding of and alignment with business
Strategic business understanding

20. Ask why the analytical role
Evolutionary change
“Don’t do the wrong
things righter…”
Implementation the “doer”…
•
•
Focus on efficiency and adjusting to
feedback
Question how and functional relevance to
modules as a whole
Translation
vs
Team Participation
Revolutionary change
Definition the “requester”…
•
Alignment the “questioner”…
•
Are we doing the right things in the
medium term?
•
•
Prioritisation
Focus on effective delivery in terms of
business value
Shorter-term rollout of needed requirements
Source: http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html

21. UXD and Lean
Learn

22. Adoption of Agile
•
•
•
•
Agile means business value-oriented
Encourage change
Change requires refactoring
Minimise risk of refactoring
Refactoring | a technique where you improve the design of your
code without adding functionality to it

23. Xtreme programming
•
•
•
Big decision
Initial investment cost
Buy in from ALL senior stakeholders
CORE PRACTICES
Team forms around
a “customer”
Small fullyintegrated releases
Continuous
integration, code in
a consistent style
Pair programming,
simple design,
improvement
Extreme Programming | communication simplicity feedback

24. The sooner you test,
the cheaper to fix
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Design
Implementation
Simple
Test
rule
Post Release

25. Cost of change
Cost of Change
A critical concept that motivates full lifecycle testing is the cost of change
Traditional
TDD / Agile
Development Time
By retaining the minimum amount of project artefacts required to support the
project, there is less to update when a change does occur

26. Initial slowdown
There is
an initial
cost!
Ongoing extra effort mitigated over time

27. Unused code
Waterfall requires users list ALL requirements
Agile focused on business value
Always,
7%
Frequently,
13%
Never, 45%
Sometimes,
16%
Rarely, 19%
Standish Group | Features used on failed projects

28. Does it really work?

29. In summary
The Fluency model = representation of Agile maturity
1 Star fluency is the first step enabling stakeholders to adapt to
change. This is NOT the end goal
2 Star fluency is the necessary next step allowing the system
technically to keep up with this change
3 Star fluency seeks to maximise delivery of business value
and minimise accumulation of liability software
BSG believes this should be the goal

30. Contact Us
Talk to us about how we can unlock your potential
Jurie Schoeman:
jurie.schoeman@bsg.co.za
C: +27 83 302 7169
T: + 27 11 215 6666
Johannesburg office:
33 Fricker Road
Illovo Boulevard
2196
www.bsg.co.za
www.bsgdelivers.com