Scrum Breakfast/Dec/Project Lighting Beacons

Once again, we are pleased to welcome to the Scrum Breakfast in Zurich speakers from abroad with real world experience introducing Scrum into large organizations.

Christoph "Krishan" Mathis and Simon Roberts will describe their approach to Enterprise Scrum based on their experiences introducing Scrum in traditional organizations in the UK and Germany. They will touch on the following topics during the talk:

• How to use the original unmodified Scrum framework
• How to augment Scrum by specific best practices for project chartering, agile engineering and embedding into the needs of corporate governance and control.
• How the introduction of Scrum inevitably has an impact on an organization’s culture, leadership style, job definitions etc.
• Scaling Scrum
• Managing the transition to Scrum from a change management perspective
• Pitfalls and key success factors for a successful transition

Using a metaphor of “Lighting Beacons” to describe their approach, they will tell the story of how they introduced Scrum to a major financial institution.

About Dr. Christoph Mathis

Based in Munich, Germany, Christoph is an experienced Scrum Coach, Mentor and Trainer with a strong background in software engineering, particularly with J2EE. Christoph has actively applied Scrum since 2003 and Extreme Programming since 2001.

Christoph is currently coaching as part of the Allianz Deutschland AG Scrum Center and consulting with Allianz on their Enterprise Scrum transition.

About Simon Roberts MBA

Based in Berlin, Germany, Simon is an experienced Scrum Coach, Mentor and Trainer with a strong background in software engineering. He has actively applied Scrum since 2002 and lightweight/agile methods since the late 1990s. His specializes in introducing and coaching Scrum in traditional Enterprises, particularly in the financial sector, in the UK and Germany.

Simon Roberts is currently coaching as part of the Allianz Deutschland AG Scrum Center and consulting with Allianz on their Enterprise Scrum transition.

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Afterward, the members of SwissICT Lean Agile Scrum Group can meet to discuss upcoming activities...

Registration

The Scrum Breakfast is organized in cooperation with the SwissICT Lean Agile Scrum Working Group.

As usual, namics provides location, coffee and croissants. swiss IT bridge will sponsor the webinar. Active and interesting discussions are a given!

Doors open at 8.00, Presentation starts at 8.35 (so you can catch a train which arrives at or before 8.30 and make the start of the presentation.


Register for the event (on-site)
Register for the Webinar (via Internet)

Recommendations

I am always happy when a customer says 'Thank you'. It's actually my top objective when I give a course or take on a consulting assignment.

Anton Schultschik took my course Agile Project Management for Scrum Teams a few months ago, and this is what he had to say about it:



If the image is jumpy, here is a low resolution version. And a German language version.
 
Thank you, Anton for taking the time to produce such a special recommendation!

Towards Agile Talking Points [was: Towards an Agile Litmus Test]

Last week, I published a poll which tried to identify criteria for an agile litmus test.  I wanted some talking points to complement the Nokia test as I start to coach a new agile project. There seem to be strong feelings against testing. The inquiry generated little enthusiasm on dzone, whereas Michael's criticism of these tests came up strongly positive.

As I started the above mentioned project, I discovered that the questions I proposed were not that helpful.  The real problems become obvious very quickly as I watched the team do its sprint retrospective and sprint planning. Reacting to what I see is more important than doing an academic evaluation.

As I write this article, 8 people have voted on the poll. Not exactly the wisdom of crowds, but you can get an idea of what people consider important. Here are the top vote getters:

1. Colocated: Is the team colocated? - 8
   
2. User Stories: Do you define the product in terms of user stories? - 8
3. Releases: Have you delivered running, tested, usable functionality to users at least twice in the last six months? - 7
4. Continuous: Do you do continuous build / test / deploy? - 7
5. Retrospective: Does you team conduct a retrospective after every iteration? - 7
6. Testers: Do you have testers? - 6
7. Bug DB: Do you have a bug database? - 6
8. Access: Does it take less than three days from when you have a question to when an expert answers it? - 6
9. Build: Can you build in a single step? - 6
10. Talk: Does everyone talk to each other, constantly? - 6
    

One of the more interesting suggestions in ensuing the discussions was, When starting a project, I should not be looking for practices, but rather but looking for smells (or symptoms). I could identify a couple from the questions in the poll:

• How many releases have you put out in the last 6 months? ( 0 or 1 is a problem)
• How much effort is required to build and test the software?
• Does fear play a role in deciding when to give the boss bad news?

I still think it is useful to have some tools and approaches, readily available in my backpack, for "debugging" an agile development project. Some would be used when talking to management about their problems, to convince them of the need to do something. Others might be asked of the team in the course of a retrospective. Still others might find their way into an Agile RFP, so that non-agile companies don't make the cut.

Question for you, gentle reader: What are the symptoms and smells of bad software development and especially bad agile development?

Towards an Agile RFP

Yesterday I attended an open space session at the Stockholm Scrum Gathering on Agile Contracting. My work on creating an Agile Request for Proposal fell on very interested ears. So as promised, here an overview on the series on planning big agile projects, which concludes with the sub-series on the Agile RFP:

• How to get your agile project approved
  
• The Big Development Project: How much should it cost?
• Creating the Scrum Product Backlog: Start with the Users!
• Filling the Product Backlog: Go For Excitement
• Prioritizing the Product Backlog

The articles on the RFP process -- Finding a Partner to Trust -- are the last three in the series:

• Using Scrum to Create an Agile RFP
• Contents of the Agile RFP to Outsource a SW Development Projects
• Using Competitive Sprints to find a SW Developer
  

Quick Poll: A Litmus Test for Agile Development

This summer, I asked how many teams are doing Scrum according to the minimal definitions of the Nokia Test. 74% of Scrum Teams responding are doing what Jeff Sutherland now calls Scrum-Butt - "we're doing Scrum, but for some reason, we can't do all of Scrum." According to Jeff, even Scrum-Butt companies may improve their revenue, but those who go beyond Scrum-Butt do much better financially than those who accept dysfunctions. Jeff has extended the Nokia test to identify the factors which help companies achieve this "hyper-productive" state.

Most of my clients are not yet ready to extend the envelope. They are trying to achieve the basics of good agile management and development. For these companies, the Nokia test is a good place to start, an early milestone, but not the final goal. (BTW - Alistair Cockburn's 7 Crystal Properties also look like a good starting point, and some of his points are raised in the candidate list below).

The next question is how is software engineering doing? I want a litmus test, i.e. a short list of questions for challenging developers and their management on their engineering practices.

My question to you: What questions make a litmus test for "pretty good agile development?" My goal is to come up with ten to fifteen yes/no questions.

The Joel Test was an early example, but is now dated. There have been several attempts at more agile definitions of the test (e.g. confused of calcutta and jbrister), but these have not been validated. All of these lists contributed to the list of candidates, below.

This week, I ask for your help in picking the questions. Next week (or so), I will summarize and then conduct a survey based the questions you select.

Here is the poll: Which questions make up the Litmus Test for Pretty Good Agile Development?

1. Source Code: Do you use source control?
2. Build: Can you build in a single step?
3. Daily Build: Do you make daily builds?
4. Bug DB: Do you have a bug database?
5. Fixing: Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
6. Sched: Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
7. Spec: Do you have a spec?
8. Quiet: Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
9. Tools: Do you use the best tools money can buy?
10. Testers: Do you have testers?
11. Intervew: Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Hallway: Do you do hallway usability testing?
13. Wiki: Do you use a Wiki?
14. Continuous: Do you do continuous build / test / deploy?
15. TDDev: Do your tests drive your development?
16. Pair: Do your developers pair and support each other?
17. Talk: Does everyone talk to each other, constantly?
18. Hiring: Does the team select its new members?
19. Colocated: Is the team colocated?
20. Testing: Can you test in a single step?
21. Releases: Have you delivered running, tested, usable functionality to users at least twice in the last six months?
22. Deploy: Can you deploy in a single step?
23. Integration: Do you integrate the system at least twice per week`
24. News: Can you give your boss bad news?
25. Access: Does it take less than three days from when you have a question to when an expert answers it?
26. Improvement: Did you get together within the last three months to discuss and improve your group’s working habits?
27. Retrospective: Does you team conduct a retrospective after every iteration?
28. User Stories: Do you define the product in terms of user stories?
29. Acceptence: Do you define acceptence tests before you write code?

BTW 1:All questions are in the form key-word:question. The keyword is there to help readability of the poll in doodle.

BTW 2: I will be at the Scrum Gathering in Stockholm and look forward to meeting as many of my readers as possible! Please let me know if you're coming!

BTW 3: Voting closes Midnight (UTC) on October 25. So vote now!

Have I missed anything important? That's what comments are for ;-)

Thanks for your help!

Are there really situations for which agile is unsuitable

Last Wednesday, Dani Tobler of Zühlke gave his take on the virtues of agile and non-agile (i.e. RUP) approaches to product management.

Dani brings his experience developing embedded software and teaching students at a "Fachhochschule" (Technical University) to the table. Applications for which electronics, mechanics and software all play are role. Incremental releases and feature driven development seem less natural to the world of embedded systems.

An interesting analogy: Project planning compared to mountain climbing. If you are trying to climb Mount Everest, you plan, staff and budget quite differently than if you are planning family trip to nearest park (in our case, the Uetliberg). So the approach to large SW Project might/could/should be different than for small projects.

He presented decision criteria which Zühlke used to use for deciding whether Agile was appropriate:  Size, Criticality, Team Skills, Change and Culture. And proceeded to debunk all of them. Only two cases where agile is really challenged:

1. The team or management really does not want to do it 
2. All of the developers are really junior and need to guidance on what to do. This case applies particularly to a university context in which students are just learning the tools of the trade.
   

Agility  brings discipline and effective communication into the development process. RUP offers proven practices (e.g. the development phases, risk first development strategy which do have value.

The discussion afterward was as usual spirited and interesting, including a discussion of complex vs. complicated systems (which I will attach the German language correspondence in a comment).

Materials

• Dani's Presentation (Mind Map, PDF)
• Thought for Day: What is Agile? PDF

November Scrum Breakfast: SwissICT and the Journey to Agile

The SwissICT, largest IT and Communications association in Switzerland, has agreed to support an initiative from Ueli Kleeb, Reto Maduz (to name just of few the the interested people at Zühlke) and myself to form Specialist Group ("Fachgruppe") Lean-Agile-Scrum.

The November Scrum Breakfast will serve double duty as the founding meeting for the Lean-Agile-Scrum Group. All people interesting in promoting and developing Agile and related practices are invited to join us.

For a special event, a special keynote: Manfred Reindl, Vice President Engineering for Borland’s Lifecycle Quality Management division in Linz will discuss with us:

The Journey Towards Agile

While agile practices are starting to make their way into large enterprises, in most instances this has been a “bottom up” movement driven through grassroots efforts. But, as success stories draw attention to the benefits of agile practices, an increasing number of executives are considering making a company-wide agile transition of the R&D organization.

What does an agile transition look like when it comes as a mandate from the top? How do you scale agile principles from a single team to an enterprise with multiple teams working on multiple projects? How can the use of development tools help to implement Agile in an organization? How to track the progress on agile maturity?

Manfred Reindl shares practical answers to these questions, addressing issues such as the role of management in creating an agile culture, establishing new roles such as Scrum Masters and Product Owners and how to introduce Agile in geographical distributed organizations. Manfred provides insight that can help you translate agile principles from theory into practice for your enterprise.


Bio – Manfred Reindl

Manfred Reindl is Vice President Engineering for Borland’s Lifecycle Quality Management division, driving the development of tools and solutions for Test Management, Functional Testing and Load Testing. He is a key contributor for the transition of Borland’s Engineering to Agile development.

Prior to Borland, Mr Reindl ran at Segue Software an Engineering lab for the development of software testing tools, and as the SVP Engineering he was a key participant in the development of Segue's corporate strategy. Mr. Reindl brings over 25 years experience in the software development industry. In 1992, he co-founded ARC - developing and marketing SQLBench, one of the first load testing products for client/server applications. Prior to forming ARC, he was Assistant Professor in the database group at the Institute of Economic Informatics at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. Mr. Reindl holds an MS in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Business Informatics.

Location:

Date: November 5, 2008
Doors open: 8.00
Presentation: 8.35 to 9.20, followed by discussion until 10.00
SwissICT Lean-Agile-Scrum group founders meeting, 10.00 to 12.00.
Location namics ag, konradstrasse 12/14, 8005 Zurich (ZH, Switzerland) 
Language: English or German

Registration: 

Please register via xing.

If you cannot attend in person, this talk will be broadcast live as a webinar

Please register separately for the SwissICT Lean Agile Scrum Founder's Meeting.