What went wrong with Agile

and

what you can do about it

#0 Who am I?

Piotr Stapp

Unique name - just sing a song: "Don't Stapp me know" ;)
ex - Senior software/DevOps/Architect @mBank/@FinAi/@Allegro
Own company (small consulting + workshops)
SAFe System Principal Architect @ Demant Technology Center
M.Sc (distction) Oxford Brooks University in Web Tech
M.Sc. Warsaw University of Technology in Computer Science

https://www.linkedin.com/in/piotrstapp/

Attention

All opinions are my own

and

do not necessarily reflect

the views of any companies.

Sources

The Scrum Alliance: What It Is and Why It Matters - Plutora - https://www.plutora.com/blog/water-scrum-fall
Scrum Team - https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-team
Why Scaling Agile Doesn't Work (and What to Do About It) - Jez Humble - https://www.programmingtalks.org/talk/why-scaling-agile-doesnt-work
Who decides what product to build in a tech company? - Quora -
https://www.quora.com/Who-decides-what-product-to-build-in-a-tech-company
Cost of Delay (Maersk Case Study) - https://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of-delay/
Making sens of MVP - https://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp
about:mbank - https://stapp.space/about-mbank-devs-for-devs-bstoknet/
Agile - When does it work well, and when doesn't it? - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3001627/agile-when-does-it-work-well-and-when-doesnt-it
CI/CD the journey of a dummy team | by Javier Lopez | Medium -
https://javi-kata.medium.com/ci-cd-the-journey-of-a-dummy-team-f51a061684bc
Four agile ceremonies, demystified - https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/ceremonies
Insights Discovery part 1: The 4 colors -
https://www.mudamasters.com/en/personal-growth-personality/insights-discovery-part-1-4-colors

#1 Who brings $$$?

Source: https://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of-delay/ - Maersk Case Study

Source: https://www.plutora.com/blog/water-scrum-fall

What Benefits Come From Breaking Out of Water-Scrum-Fall?

Applying a more iterative approach [...]
Deploying to production and getting genuine feedback[...]
Shifting toward a continuous delivery mechanism [...]
[...] Team members will no longer be bound by traditional “budget, plan, build, deploy” approaches.
Getting rid of Water-Scrum-Fall will most likely enable the business to respond to market shifts, capitalize on opportunities, and evolve business capabilities in a way that allows the organization to dominate its market space.

Source: https://www.plutora.com/blog/water-scrum-fall

Key points

The cost of the team can be 💰💰💰.
Prioritization is hard.
Agile "inside" != agile "outside"
Money doesn't grow on trees (unless you have a startup 😅)

#2 Let's do something BIG!

Source: https://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp

about mBank (~2012-2013)

6 milestones
8 dev teams in "light-side factory"
18 months
171 SLN files
983 used packages in internal repo
5045 JS files
12766 CS files
71613 versions of packages produced
712143 package downloads
~4700000 lines in CS, JS, HTML & CSS files

Allegro Pay (3 years ago)

change in Allegro mobile app
change in Allegro web app
migrate all stuff from FinAi + add a lot of new functionality
- 10-20 integrations
- validations
- processing
Do it FAST

Demant (now)

Migrate from native to Xamarin/MAUI
Frontend is not a real problem rather communication with Hearing Instrument is a reason

Ralph Stacey's complexity matrix as illustration of the sweet spot for Agile

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3001627/agile-when-does-it-work-well-and-when-doesnt-it

Simple Tasks

These tasks are well-defined and straightforward. Examples include everyday activities like “Brushing your teeth” or “Riding a bike.”
The approach for simple tasks is: “Just do it!” You don’t need extensive planning; the solution is clear.

Complicated Tasks

Complicated tasks are not entirely straightforward. They require some thought and planning.
An example of a complicated task is “Planning your trip to Breslau.” Here, you need to sit down, create a plan, and then execute it.

Complex Tasks

Complex tasks involve uncertainty in both requirements and technology.
These tasks don’t have a clear path, and the solution emerges through experimentation, adaptation, and collaboration.
Agile practices are particularly effective for complex tasks because they allow flexibility and iterative development

Anarchy

Anarchy represents situations where nothing is predictable. Examples include natural disasters like tsunamis or volcanic eruptions.
We lack information about what will happen, when it will happen, and how to prevent it.
In anarchy, we must respond dynamically, adapt rapidly, and focus on survival.

Key points

Architecture or application (r)evolution more naturally aligns with "anarchy" than with "complex" and "complicated"
"Structured agile" isn't universally applicable,
"Chaos" poses challenges from a management perspective
Different approaches for different context e.g. Kanban + Scrum can work together in one team.
Money doesn't grow on trees 😅

#3 Let's do something small

Buzzwords to the rescue

Version Control: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, ...
CI/CD Automation: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Argo, ...
Hosting: Cloud Native, K8s, Serverless, OpenShift, ..
Tools: Jira, Monday, Click Up, Azure DevOps, GitHub, ...
Approaches: Event Sourcing, Event Driven, (No)SQL, Microservices, Modular Monolith, ...
Config management: Terraform, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, SaltStack, ...

How long it takes?

clone the project (1s)
create a feature branch with the name of the task (1s)
develop your changes with tests (1 week)
test your changes locally (20m)
push your code to the remote repository (1s)
ask for a code review (5m)
the code review is started by some colleagues (1 hour), this includes to test the code locally or in a test environment
the code review is passed (2 days)
merge your branch to master and resolve conflicts (1 day)
create a release to go to production (10m)
qa test the release in a pre-prod environment (1 hour)
deploy your changes in production (10m)

Source: https://javi-kata.medium.com/ci-cd-the-journey-of-a-dummy-team-f51a061684bc

How long it takes?

Source: https://blackswanfarming.com/cost-of-delay/ - Maersk Case Study

How long it takes?

After CI/CD + test automation + no branching:

clone my git project (1s)
develop, push and test your changes (1 week) in pairs
changes are deployed automatically to production (10 m) in the middle of the week.

In the end we saved: 2 out of 7 days

Why? Why? Why?

To sleep well at night
Bus factor
CDD - CV-Driven-Development

Key points

When you need a change, strong arguments pave the way:
- reducing 2 days in 46 weeks - is an impactful change
- Buzzwords won’t magically reduce the bus factor or any other problem
- CDD isn’t an excuse, but "sleep well at night" is a worthy goal.
Money doesn't grow on trees:
- Without data you're just another person with an opinion

#4 Who will do that?

The people on the Scrum Team

The fundamental unit of Scrum is a small team of people, a Scrum Team. The Scrum Team consists of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner, and Developers. Within a Scrum Team, there are no sub-teams or hierarchies. It is a cohesive unit of professionals focused on one objective at a time, the Product Goal.

Scrum Teams are cross-functional, meaning the members have all the skills necessary to create value each Sprint. They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how.

Source: https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-team

But who are they?

Source: https://johnpyron.com/6-benefits-of-disc-profile-assessment/

But who are they?

Source:
https://www.mudamasters.com/en/personal-growth-personality/insights-discovery-part-1-4-colors

Who am I?

Key points

Knowing who you work with is essential:
- Team Task Compatibility
- Individual Task Suitability
Conflicts are a natural way of working
Money doesn't grow on trees
- Trick: Scrum Master as a Junior Dev

#5 Scrum Meetings
(sorry Kanban)