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Understanding The Agile Manifesto

“ A Brief & Bold Guide to Agile” ASUG Author Series - Larry Apke

John Choate – PMMS SIG Chair

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES (PMMS) SIG AMERICAS’ SAP USERS GROUP (ASUG)

PRESENTATION CONTENT AGILE VALUES

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Introduction

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Author Series

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

ABOUT THE PMMS SIG •

Agile & PMI/PM

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6 Business Benefits of Agile

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Core Ingredients

AGILE PRINCIPLES

AUTHOR

KEY TAKE AWAYS

AGILE & PMI/PM •

Agile management, or agile process management, or simply agile refer to an iterative, incremental method of managing the design and build activities for engineering, information technology, and other business areas (Supply Chain, Marketing, etc.) that aims to provide new product or service development in a highly flexible and interactive manner; an example is its application in Scrum , an original form of agile software development. It requires capable individuals (CSMScrum Team) from the relevant business, openness to consistent customer input (CSPO), and management openness to non-hierarchical forms of leadership. Agile can in fact be viewed as a broadening and generalization of the principles of the earlier successful array of Scrum concepts and techniques to more diverse business activities. Agile also traces its evolution to a "consensus event", the publication of the “AGILE MANIFESTO", and it has conceptual links to lean techniques, Kanban and the Six Sigma area of business ideas.

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Agile methods are mentioned in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) under the Project Lifecycle definition: Adaptive project life cycle, a project life cycle, also known as change-driven or agile methods, that is intended to facilitate change and require a high degree of ongoing stakeholder involvement. Adaptive life cycles are also iterative and incremental, but differ in that iterations are very rapid (usually 2-4 weeks in length) and are fixed in time and resources.

6 AGILE BENEFITS FOR BUSINESS 1) Developing a measurable business advantage – Agile makes companies faster and more effective.

2) Developing the ability to “self-benchmark” against your stated business goals – Agile is all about defining measurable achievements so your company will actually know if it’s successful. 3) Having a more deliberate method of identifying the right way to progress ideas through the organization – People are naturally resistant to change, but less so if you’re introducing change effectively. Incremental delivery gives you the tools to help the organization rally behind a good idea and build momentum instead of shooting it down.

4) Strengthening the ability to deliver goods and services to market much faster – Agile streamlines the decision-making process and increases collaboration. 5) Improving ability to integrate feedback – The reduced time to get a product to market allows for faster feedback from your customers, which helps you to better refine the product or service.

6) Improving overall return – An agile operating model allows for more targeted products and services because of the rapid feedback it enables. By reducing the size of projects into smaller improvements to gain feedback from customers, the market and your own operations, you can better manage risks and returns from a portfolio of investment.

UNDERSTANDING THE CORE INGREDIENTS

4 KEY VALUES • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Software development is complex and relies heavily on communication. While processes and tools are important, the nature of the work dictates that concentrating on processes and tools will not be as effective as making sure individuals can function in the complex environment.

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

A lot of people misinterpret this to mean that Agile does not have documentation. Obviously, this is not the case, but we always need to remember that documentation needs to be subservient to working software and not the other way around.

4 KEY VALUES • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

The flexibility to work directly for customer value is much more effective in driving meaningful solutions. Collaboration puts us on the same side of the table. Contract negotiation puts us on opposite sides.

• Responding to change over following a plan

In a complex environment, there is no way to understand all

contingencies upfront. Things will change and responding to the change is a business advantage.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

One of the biggest (and often hidden) costs is the cost of delay. Delivering software quickly allows value to be realized. This principle also speaks to making sure that we identify value. We may not deliver all items, but we certainly can deliver the most valuable ones incrementally.

• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

The world of business is changing all the time. Companies that can change will win at the expense of those who cannot

change.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • Deliver working software frequently, from couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

The more we deliver software that works, the more feedback we have in the system. Having to deliver frequently forces us to create the infrastructure in order to deliver frequently. Deployments go from being a stressful event to something routine.

• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

This principle is the most prescriptive. It not only says who and when, but it says “must”. It is the collaboration between business and development that allows for high quality software to be delivered quickly.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

Science tells us that in knowledge work individuals are not

motivated in the same way as in mechanistic work. In knowledge work, people exhibit autotelic ("having a purpose in and not apart from itself”) motivation.

Most software development is complex. Communication and

• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

feedback is critical to success and, therefore, should be synchronous. Also, we know a great deal of communication is conveyed outside of the words themselves. Face-to-face conversation allows for these two aspects of communication.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • Working software is the primary measure of progress.

All things that we measure are merely proxy variables. The

main thing is that software is delivered, is valuable and is functional.

• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

In a mechanistic system, we sometimes work people to

exhaustion. In knowledge work, pushing workers does not result in a better outcome. In fact, studies show that quality of the work declines with increased hours. Technical debt is a silent killer.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

This principle also speaks to technical debt. Agile is not

just about speed, but quality. While we don’t do BUFD (Big Upfront Design) that does not mean design in Agile is haphazard. There are ways to do emergent or evolutionary design to preserve speed, flexibility AND

quality.

• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

When we do BUFD we have a tendency to prematurely optimize systems. This is what Lean would refer to as “waste”. We need to do what is needed today because trying to anticipate to far in the future has diminishing

returns.

12 GUIDING PRINCIPLES • The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Those who do the work have the best understanding of

the work and what needs to be done. Allowing them to self-organize around the work will result in the best designs.

In a complex world, not only do we not know sometimes

prior to beginning the work what will be most effective, but what works for one team at one time may not work for another team at another time. The team adapts through proper retrospection not letting the perfect be

the enemy of the good.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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The Agile Manifesto was a reaction to the predominant Waterfall methodology, applying empiricism to the problem of software development

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Agile is simply 4 values and 12 principles, a philosophy and not a particular methodology

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The popular methodologies (scrum, XP, kanban, etc) are merely ways to realize the underlying philosophy

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Agile outperforms Waterfall in relation to complex, knowledge-based work

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If I could choose one word to describe why Agile works it would be feedback

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Larry

ASK THE AUTHOR

PMMS SIG SIG CHAIR

This SIG provides a comprehensive ETE “integrated” life cycle management focus (O2C), ranging from applying a Top level Management Strategic framework and Roadmap to business initiatives to tactically optimizing and John Choate

upgrading the Business by SAP Enterprise Software applications.

The ASUG Program Management & Maintenance Strategies (PMMS) SIG is SIG PROGRAM CHAIR

SAP POC

to enable all levels within an Organization hierarchy (Business/Technology) involved, the opportunity to communicate and learn from one another so that they can translate to their work environment to enable their business and increase team productivity thru Technology Innovation. Now and in the Future.

Tom Dulaney

Joanne Slover

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Larry Apke is the Agile Practice Director at 10XP Solutions and SIS,

Inc. and a recognized leader in the Agile community and a frequently

sought-after expert speaker, giving presentations to many different

groups such as the Scrum Users Group, Java Users Group, Desert

Code Camp and others. Larry is Co Founder of the Meetup group,

[email protected]

Silicon Valley Agile for C-Level Executives.

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Understanding The Agile Manifesto

“ A Brief & Bold Guide to Agile” ASUG Author Series - Larry Apke

John Choate – PMMS SIG Chair

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES (PMMS) SIG AMERICAS’ SAP USERS GROUP (ASUG)