S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Agile Software Development - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Agile Software Development Meets Corporate Deployment Procedures: Stretching the Agile Envelope David Leip Olly Gotel ibm.com Chief Innovation Dude Department of Computer Science Agile Methods Advocate Pace University, New York IBM Hawthorne, New York ogotel@pace.edu leip@us.ibm.com

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Outline • About the ibm.com Corporate Portal • First Steps into Agile Development • Retrospective • Problem Statement • An Agile Boundary • End-to-End Agile • Further Considerations • The Agile Golden Rule

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope About the ibm.com Corporate Portal • Advertising & marketing for IBM • Corporate webmaster team (global) • Waterfall pre-2004 • Ongoing change requests • Experiencing delays

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope First Steps into Agile Development • 2004 – XP training & trial • Partial implementation of practices • 7-week release cycles: – 3 iterations of 2 weeks; 1 week for deployment • Customers submit requirements, reformulated as stories, sized by development team, customer selects stories for iteration (based on business value & global development team velocity) • Nov 2004 roll-out

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Retrospective • Pros: – Increased communication with customer – Customer had more control – Addressing customer needs – Reduced development timescales • Cons: – Bottlenecks in delivering fully operational solution – Deployment (process back-loaded / knock-ons)

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Problem Statement • Requirements specification replaced by informal, ad hoc, individual communications • First formal notification – request for code review prior to deployment into staging (sometimes late, especially where review undertaken by development team) • No deployment stories or velocity • Deployment team has other corporate commitments • Development team under business pressure • Responsibilities for down-time

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope An Agile Boundary • Recognizing dual intermediary role of development team • End-to-end process (before & after): – Appreciation of wider remit, working practices & pain of all parties – Artifacts mediating communications / touch points – Information needs, timelines, strategies – Integration oversight • Does YAGNI apply?

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope End-to-End Agile • Simple organizational / process changes • Reduce cycle times in wider solution lifecycle -- “Steady Rate of Arrival / Steady Rate of Service” • Deployment not an afterthought (pre-assigned) • Time-boxes & velocities for deployment team • Development team: – Prioritize demands – Responsible for use of deployment resource

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope Further Considerations • Scaling up • How much slack? • Whole team concept -- team & sub-team velocities • Other stakeholders • Story types (interrelating development & deployment) • Story management via virtual story-wall

XP’07 S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope The Agile Golden Rule "What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others." — Confucius (ca.551-479 B.C.E.)