you don't have do scrum to be agile

About me

  • first job 1999 - 2004 - no methodology
  • only waterfall encounter 2004-2005
  • first scrum encounter 2006-2007 then 2012-2015







@arnaudroger, github, blog, SimpleFlatMapper


Set the scene

Set the scene

Set the scene

Set the scene

  1. 2 years of requirement gathering
  2. 6 months of ivory tower design
  3. 3 year of programmers work
  4. 1 year of QA
  5. Client unhappy for life

 

  • Change is costly in time and money
  • Requirements are always locked in the past
  • Dev/QA might misunderstand req

=> even in case of "success" there a few chances of happiness

The Agile manifesto

Agreed by a small group of people in the montains in Feb 2001

"

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

 

That is, while there is value in the items

on the right, we value the items

on the left more.

"

 

So Scrum?

So Scrum?

So Scrum?

"Scrum Theory

Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is known. Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and control risk.

Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation."

So Scrum?

"

In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] It is one of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasises the role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, over the idea of innate ideas or traditions;[2] empiricists may argue however that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sense experiences.[3]

"

So Scrum?

"

Scrum Theory

Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is known. Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and control risk.

Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation."

Agile vs Fragile

You have to follow the process!

Otherwise you're FRAGILE

Standup

  • What did I do yesterday
  • What I will do today
  • Blockers?

Standup

  • It was brillant made so much progress!
  • I'll still be working on the same story
  • spending time repeating myself, and waiting for people to tell me what I already know

Why are you waiting for the standup to raise blocker?

Why are waiting for ceremonies to communicate?

Velocity

  • Story points
  • burn down chart!!!

Sprint

I should really clean up my stories!

  • after 2 weeks we can calculate release date! here we go  number of story points / velocity !

JIRA

  • Transparency!
  • more like a way for manager to monitor without having to talk to the team!
  • jira tickets become more important than actual software delivery!

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

The definitIon of DONE

  • Something we should agree on in less than 5 minutes
  • the source of so many philosophical discussion....

SHIP IT!

RETROSPECTIVE

  • Learn from your mistake
  • feedback

Why wait end of sprint?

end up being a 2 hour venting session or banalities

  • we talk to each other, good job!
  • integration is hard, who would have guessed?
  • lets write some action item nobody will do anything about

 

RETROSPECTIVE

SPRINT PLANNING

Team commit to story it will deliver.

 

Junior, Senior, Intern on same level.

Really? who take the blame when fail?

Where is the manager?

 

=> people undercommit

SPRINT PLANNING

Sprint?

Let's run for 2 weeks every 2 weeks!

if we fail to deliver sprint is broken !! broken!!!

 

you need 2 more hours to finish, but those stand up lasted for 30 minutes because somebody keep rambling on...

really?

 

Continuous delivery anyone?

Story point

It's not time! it's a weird thing that represent the wave function.

but we use it to schedule how much we are doing?

 

planning poker, where everyone is trying to guess what everybody else will say...

 

Manager : I want you to double the velocity of the team

Team : let's double the story points!

Scrum master

The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values.

The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.

so why scrum?

  • availability heuristic
  • great from a manager perspective
    • more monitoring tool
    • less work
    • less responsibility
    • if it does not work they did not to do it properly!
  • very nice narrative
  • we trust process more than people
  • industrialization of processes
  • we need to do something about it!

What about the team?

  • more responsibility
  • but no more decision making
  • more meetings, who is looking forward to the retro?
  • what about personal development?
  • more admin

What about the team?

Except sometimes :

 

The car

The car

The car

If no scrum then how can we be agile

  • Our job is to deliver software!
  • Iterate and get feedback
  • release often
  • talk! as soon as possible
  • we need leaders not scrum masters

If you still have to do scrum

Let's do Scrum fiction

keep the veneer of scrum to keep people happy

Story does not fit? just create another story in next spring to finish and say it was out of the scope of previous one

If you still have to have Methodology

Try to get Kanban

 

And if there is no pipeline - dev/qa/release by same person -, it's even better as it's just a backlog then.

nidev18

By Arnaud Roger