Introduction to
Agile and Scrum
PMI Northeast Wisconsin Chapter May 3, 2011
Bob Schommer, CSP, PMP, MCTS Senior Project Manager
About Skyline Technologies
• Microsoft Gold Certified Partner supporting five practice areas including: Business Intelligence, Custom Software Solutions, Enterprise Portals, Online Marketing and IT Business Consulting.
• Skyline’s IT Business Consulting group:
– Builds IT strategies that transform IT from a cost center into a strategic asset;
– Integrates IT into official business processes so companies can exploit technology to drive profitable growth, control costs and improve customer service;
– Guides and mentors people in best of breed development methodologies, business analysis techniques and quality assurance programs;
– Provides certified (PMI and Scrum) program and project managers, senior quality assurance professionals and experienced business analysts.
• Proud sponsors of PMI-NEW and the Northeast Wisconsin Agile Users Group
Agenda
•
•
Agile Principles
Agile Principles
• The Scrum Framework
• Case Study: Crew Self Service
• Implementation Considerations
• PMI Agile Certification
What does it mean to be agile?
• Iterative and incremental development (IID)
– Working software in each iteration
• Evolutionary and adaptive
– Inspect and adapt – Visibility
• Iterative and adaptive planning
– Risk driven – Value driven
• Self managed and self organized teams
History
• 1957: IID was used on NASA’s Project Mercury • 1970’s: Successful use on numerous large,
life-critical systems (e.g. space, avionic, defense) • 1992: Canadian ATC system
• 1994: DoD adopts new standard that prefers iterative and evolutionary methods
• 1995: Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber first formalized Scrum
Agile Manifesto
“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing
it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”
www.agilemanifesto.org
Agile Principles
• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. • Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
Agile Principles
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.
• 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
Triple Constraint Does Not Go Away
Scope Cost Time Traditional Methods Scope Cost Time Scope drives budget and schedule Agile Approach Budget and schedule drives scope Prioritized by business valueAgenda
• Agile Principles
•
•
The Scrum Framework
The Scrum Framework
• Case Study: Crew Self Service
• Implementation Considerations
• PMI Agile Certification
Scrum Terms
Scrum Not an acronym. Sometimes used to refer to the daily stand up meeting
Sprint An iteration – typically 2-4 weeks in duration
Product Backlog
A prioritized list of product features with estimated effort
Sprint Backlog Detailed list of tasks that the Scrum Team has committed to deliver during a sprint
Scrum Board Used by Scrum Teams to track sprint progress – typically a white board with post-it notes
The Scrum Framework
Potential Deployment
Sprint Review Product Backlog &
Scrum Planning
• Sometimes called “Sprint 0”
• Primary work product is a healthy Product Backlog
– Typically in the form of user stories (product features)
• Whatever your company requires to initiate a project • Establish team, team rules, sprint length, space, …
– Co-located team is most optimal
• Do not try to define all requirements
The Scrum Framework
Potential Deployment
Sprint Review Product Backlog &
Sprint Planning
• Prerequisite: A healthy Product Backlog • Beginning of each sprint
• Part I: Selection and capacity assessment
– Time box at 1 hour per week in sprint
– Product Owner shares vision for the product and goals for the sprint
– Team members provide capacity for the sprint
• Part II: Decomposition and design
– Time boxed at 1 hour per week in sprint – Team decomposes user stories into tasks
The Scrum Framework
Potential Deployment
Sprint Review Product Backlog &
Daily Scrum
• Daily 15 minute meeting – usually stand up • Same place and time every day
– At a time when all team members can attend
• Team members speak, anyone else can observe • Three questions
– What have you done since last meeting? – What will you do before the next meeting? – What is in your way?
• Fourth question: How are we doing? • Updates on impediments and decisions • Sprint Burn Down updates
The Scrum Framework
Potential Deployment
Sprint Review
Sprint Review
• End of each sprint
• Assess how well the sprint goal was met
• Team Members demo each item in sprint goal • Not a formal presentation
– PowerPoint is prohibited!
• Updates to Product Backlog
The Scrum Framework
Potential Deployment
Sprint Review Product Backlog &
Team Retrospective
• Process improvement at end of every sprint
• What went well? What can be improved?
• Prioritized with input from team members
• Team comes up with solutions
Agenda
• Agile Principles
• The Scrum Framework
•
•
Case Study: Crew Self Service
Case Study: Crew Self Service
• Implementation Considerations
• PMI Agile Certification
Project Overview
• Objective
Offer remote access for all crew members where they can gather all essential information from one site
• Features
–Crew schedules –Hotel information
–Crew alerts and announcements –Schedule change requests
–Automated trip sign in
Expected Business Value
• Reduction in flight delays
– Real time schedule information – Automated sign in
• Productivity improvements for support staff
– Reduced phone calls and email requests
• Improved crew member satisfaction
– Hotel information
The Scrum Team
• Product Owner: Client Sponsor / BA delegate • Scrum Team
– Four Developers
– One client Developer
• ScrumMaster: 50% allocated
• Co-located two days each week
• SharePoint and IM for collaboration • Two week sprints
• Nightly builds
Project Retrospective
• Too much time spent in Scrum Planning
• Should have included more of the client team on the Scrum Team
• Legal process was not agile
• Product Owner delegate was over-allocated • Product Backlog was not always “groomed”
before Sprint Planning
Agenda
• Agile Principles
• The Scrum Framework
• Case Study: Crew Self Service
•
•
Implementation Considerations
Implementation Considerations
• PMI Agile Certification
What’s Wrong With Waterfall?
• Nothing if your project is:
– Low-change – Low-novelty – Low-complexity
• Pushes high-risk, high-difficulty elements toward the end of the project
– Testing
– Integration of major components – Clarification of interfaces
– “Fail-late”
• Fosters “analysis paralysis”
What’s Wrong With Waterfall?
• Paperwork
– Analysis and design documents – Approvals
• Adverse to change
– Relies on accurate up-front estimates
– Complete definition of the product before anyone has seen it
• Which usually ends up being during testing at the end of the project
– Scope management procedures to govern changes
• Plan the work – Work the plan
– Comprehensive schedules – Baselines
Agile Methods
• Scrum
• Extreme Programming (XP) • Crystal Methods
• Unified Process (UP)
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) • Feature Driven Development (FDD)
• Lean Development
• Adaptive Software Development
What tool is best?
• That’s like asking what is better – a hammer or a screw driver
– Depends on the job you are trying to do
• Agile methods are often called lightweight
– Fewer constraints than traditional
• Some are more prescriptive than others *
* From Kanban and Scrum – making the best of both (Kniberg & Skarin 2009)
More prescriptive
Why is it so hard to be agile?
• Both top-down and bottom up support is needed • Old paradigms are hard to break
– Most leaders were taught waterfall in school
– “Best” practices can derail continuous improvement efforts – Emergent design can appear like “hacking” to some
– What made you competent before …
• The end state is unknown
– Requires “personalization” for your organization
• Almost everyone and everything is impacted
Agile Skeleton and Heart
• Skeleton – Build the right thing
– Fairly easy to implement – Within weeks for many
– Customers begin seeing improvement
• Heart – Build the thing right
– Can be more difficult
– Can take months or even years
IT Impacts
• Roles will change
– Project Managers – Business Analysts – Developers – QA – Middle Management • Change management • Technology enablers – Continuous build
– Test driven development – Automated testing
Organizational Impacts
• Sales • Human Resources • Finance • PMO • FacilitiesCo-Existing with Traditional Methods
• Possible scenarios
– Waterfall up front – Waterfall at the end – Waterfall in tandem
• Governance
– Stage-gates designed for waterfall
– Not evil – but should not dictate how project is run – Build trust
The Agile Business Case
• High Value Features
– Faster to market
– Adaptable to changes – even late in development – IKIWISI
– “Deliver what is needed, not necessarily what is requested”
• Higher Quality
– Test early and often
– Improvements to testing as you iterate
• On Time, On Budget, On Target
– Power of time boxing
– People remember slipped dates, not slipped features
The Agile Business Case
• Risk Mitigation– Agile is lower risk than waterfall development – Early risk mitigation and discovery
• Improved Visibility into Projects
– Predictability
– Meaningful metrics – working software
• Team Morale
– Confidence and satisfaction from early and repeated success – Self organized, self managed and empowered
– Face-to-face communications – No “death marches”
• Process Improvement
Agenda
• Agile Principles
• The Scrum Framework
• Case Study: Crew Self Service
• Implementation Considerations
•
•
PMI Agile Certification
PMI Agile Certification
Agile Certifications
• Scrum Certifications
– ScrumMaster (CSM)
– Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) – Scrum Developer (CSD)
– Scrum Professional (CSP) – Scrum Coach (CSC)
The Certification Debate
• Agile “purist” viewpoint
– Need less certification not more
– Discriminates against great people who are not certified
– Being certified does not guarantee competence
– PMI and PMBOK is what “agile-ists” rebelled against – I am already competent in agile, so why do I have to
get certified?
The Certification Debate
• Why PMI?
– Responsible project delivery across industries – PMBOK does not preclude agile
• PMI is not to blame for bureaucratic control freaks using the PMBOK to enforce standards that stifle creativity
– Credibility
• Over 400,000 registered PMPs
• More than 3 million copies of PMBOK in circulation • PMI appeals to a critical mass of project managers
Common Ground
• Both PMI and agile strive for successful projects and happy stakeholders
• 65% of PMI members are engaged in IT projects • Gartner predicts that 80% of software projects will
use agile methods by 2012
PMI Agile Certification Criteria
• Pass a three hour, 120 question exam • High school or equivalent education
• 2000 hours of general project management experience within the last 5 years
– Does not apply for anyone currently holding a PMP
• 1500 hours of agile project management experience within the last two years
– In addition to the 2000 hours of general PM
PMI Agile Certification Timeline
• Candidates can begin applying for pilot program in May 2011
– Open to anyone
• Examination Content Outline is available now
• Exam will be released during the third quarter of 2011
Agenda
• Agile Principles
• The Scrum Framework
• Case Study: Crew Self Service
• Implementation Considerations
• PMI Agile Certification
•
Themes to Take With You
• Have you added any tools to your toolbox lately? • Focus on features not tasks
• Working software – early, often and valuable • Embrace change
• Importance of individuals and the team – Involve your team
• Collaboration among the team and stakeholders
– Ideally co-located
• Continuously improve
– Best practices promote complacency
Challenge the Status Quo
• Agile is consistent with continuous improvement – Lean for software development
• Anything that slows down the team should be challenged
– Governance – PMO
– Even regulatory (Do “just enough” to pass)
Resources
• Web Sites – http://agile.vc.pmi.org – www.agilealliance.org – www.scrumalliance.org – www.mountaingoatsoftware.com • Books– Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide by Craig Larman – Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
– Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber
– Kanban and Scrum: Making the most of both by Henrick Kniberg and Mattias Skarin – Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn
• NEW Agile Users Group (www.newagile.org)
