This highly interactive, fast-paced talk will demonstrate the current state of agile, why agile won't succeed in changing the world, why Scrum Masters fail too often, why you still need a project manager in agile projects, and why sefl-organization is hard. Presented this talk during the Agile Holland Meet-up in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.

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The state of agile in ten easy lessons
Sander Hoogendoorn
Author of This Is Agile
@aahoogendoorn
BEYOND BREAKING BAD

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Sander Hoogendoorn
Me
Dad (3 + 2)
Programmer, trainer, mentor, architect
Books (3)
Articles (+250)
International conferences (+100)
Capgemini
Principal technology officer
Global design authority agile
Web
www.sanderhoogendoorn.com
www.smartusecase.com
www.speedbird9.com
@aahoogendoorn

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Why it fails
THE WATERFALL MODEL

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Waterfall?

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We’ve got a plan and we’ll stick to it

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Boehm’s Law. Testing is always too late

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Waterfall?

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The end of software development’s silver bullet
AGILE IS DEAD

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Trying something different

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The state of agile

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Manifesto for what again?

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Agile is dead

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Agile conferences…

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We are uncovering better ways to change the world?

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Lesson one
HAVING SOME PROCESSIS NOT A BAD THING

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We are uncovering better ways to change the world?

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Process? What process?

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What do you mean Scrum is not a process?

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FDD. Adding some process

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Smart. Adding some processCreateproject proposalWriteproject planDeliverworkingsoftwareStabilizesoftware

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DSDM. Adding more process

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WHAT MAKES A PROJECT AGILE?

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Boehm’s Law applied to iterations

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Lesson two
THE SCRUM MASTER ISN’T ALWAYS A MASTER
?

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Lowering our fences

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Lowering our fences

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Dogmagile

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Become a scrum master? A servant-leader-master?

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Scrumman

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Lesson three
LOOSE THE SCRUM BOARD

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WHAT’S THE REAL STATUS?

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VISUALIZE YOUR FLOW…

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…AND GO WITH THE FLOW

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Boehm’s Law applied to backlog items

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Not exactly like Kanban? Who cares. It works for us
LIMIT WIP?

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Lesson four
WE ARE NOT MANUFACTURING

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How long do you need to build this feature?
Eh .. I don’t know. It depends I guess
20 hours.

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Please for once give me an exact number you silly nerd!
Stop asking me these things I don’t really have an answer to

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We are using the wrong metaphors
How long do you need to build this feature?
buildthis

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Manufacturing? Construction?
Manufacturing and construction are linear processes
Software development is a creative process and it is very much non-linear
Software isn’t Built, it’s Invented
Coding is a creative problem. Every time a developer writes code, he is taking a non-deterministic path towards an unknown solution — a unique solution that has never been created before. If the work weren’t unique, he wouldn’t need to write it, he’d simply copy and paste it.

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Lesson five
SELF-ORGANIZATIONCANBEPRETTYTOUGH

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Magic!

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Drawing owls

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Lesson six
TRUST THE METRICS

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Those who do the work, do the estimate

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@aahoogendoorn
How long do you need to build this feature?
Eh .. I don’t know. It depends I guess
20 hours.

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With creative work estimates are rarely linear

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So no projects? No estimates?
LEARN TO LIVE WITH AMBIGUITY

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Lesson seven
YOU ARE NOT USAINBOLT

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Sprints. Scrum’s mini-projects
The team commits
to deliver

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The red sprint anti-pattern

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Yesterday’s Weather

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Reverse planning

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Trust the metrics

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Lesson eight
PROJECT MANAGERS ARE NOT A TOTAL WASTE AFTER ALL

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The traditional project manager
ProjectManager
Customer
Analyst
UI Designer
Architect
Developer
Developer
Tester

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Ask your team how you can contribute
“DO NOTHING” IS NOT AN OPTION
?

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PROJECT MANAGERS ARE PART OF THE TEAM TOO

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The agile team facilitator
Team
Customer
Analyst
UI Designer
Developer
Developer
Tester
ProjectManager

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Be part of the team
•Do-nothing isn’t good enough
•Be transparent
•Don’t hide your spread sheets
•Don’t fool with metrics
•Ask the team how you can contribute
•Make sure the what is covered.
•Don’t try to interfere with the how
•Manage the environment

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Lesson nine
MANAGE THE ENVIRONMENT

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Isn’t that what the scrum master does?

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Keep the politics out of the team, but don’t hide the politics from the team
“YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW”

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This is where a project manager comes in handy

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IN RETROSPECTIVE?

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In theory…
•The whole organization is already working agile
•You don’t need a steering committee
•Budget flows automatically
•Everybody wants to collaborate
•Teams are self-steering
•You don’t need a process
•No external parties are involved
•The product owner perfectly represents all stakeholders
•No project manager is needed
•The Scrum Master is our hero
•You always make the sprint
But in practice
You’re likely the first agile project in the organization
Management requires a steering committee
Budgets need to be guarded
People are conservative
Self-steering is hard
A little process is unavoidable
There are always external parties
The product owner only represents a sub-set of all stakeholders
Yes they are needed!
The Scrum Master is too junior
Sprints “fail” all the time

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Lesson ten
THERE IS NO SO THING AS ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL AGILE

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Agile is a sliding scale
Ceremony
Agility

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THERE’S VALUE FOUND IN ALL AGILE APPROACHES. AND EVEN IN WATERFALL

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www.sanderhoogendoorn.comwww.smartusecase.comwww.speedbird9.com
sander@ditisagile.nl
@aahoogendoorn
REFERENCES AND QUESTIONS