Agile teams speak in points and iterations, but project and business managers think in terms of dollars and dates. This conceptual and language barrier makes strategic business planning, funding, and progress management a significant challenge for sustained large-scale Agile. This session will include multiple case studies from large-scale Agile adoptions that we were part of and have supported over the past 7 years and how Agile values/principles went beyond just the development organizational boundaries into strategic planning and management.

1. Dollars and Dates
are Killing Agile
Brent Barton But I really
DO have a
& good excuse!
Chris Sterling (in absentia)
Agile 2012
Wed Aug 15, 2012
1

2. Brent Barton
• Product Line Director, Rally
Software
• Formerly President,
Agile Advantage, Inc.
(acquired by Rally in 2012)
• Passionate about business being
able to take advantage of what
Agile has to offer
bbarton@rallydev.com
• Active practitioner delivering value www.rallydev.com.com
using Agile Blog: gettingagile.com
• Previous roles include: CTO, Twitter: @brentbarton
Development Manager, PMO
Manager, Agile Coach, Mentor,
Certified Scrum Trainer,
ScrumMaster, Product Owner
2

3. Agenda
" What is Business Value?
" How are Dollars and Dates Killing Agile?
" An Agile Business Roadmap
– Year 1: Reduce Carryover
– Year 2: Optimize Portfolio
– Year 3: Incremental Funding
" Questions & Answers
3

4. Value
4

5. An Agile Story…
Hi Mom!
5

6. Executive Feedback from Sonia
This is the best,
simplest, easiest to
use application we
have ever gotten in
both Customer Care
and the Retail Stores!
Whatever you all did,
I want more of that!
6

7. Pilot Agile Team Delivered Great Value
Cost
• Employee Satisfaction Savings
• Customer Sat Revenue New
Retention Revenue
• Cost Savings
• New Revenue
• through efficiency
Shareholder
Value Compliance
Value
Employee Customer
Satisfaction Satisfaction
7

8. * This diagram
shows Scrum.
Could be XP,
Kanban, etc
Agile*
8

9. Value
What’s
In-Between?
Agile
9

10. Value
Demand
Rhythm of the Business
Human
CFO Resources
Cost Constraints
People Constraints
Portfolio/Budget
10

11. Value
Demand
Portfolio/Budget
Perfection
Goes Here
Agile
11

12. ?
Conclusion:
(Except in cases of Perfection)
Adaptive Planning Stresses
Strategic Portfolio Planning
12

13. Typical Scaled Outcomes
• Business cannot take advantage of what
Agile offers
• It is decided that Agile can’t scale
• Suboptimal results
• Agile is restarted several times
– (this time it will be different…)
13

14. OK, SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
14

15. Triple Constraints – Recognize Agile does not
make constraints go away
Scope
Schedule Cost
15

16. Is Value Defined in Contracts?
• Time and Materials (T&M)
• Fixed Price
• Cost Plus
Incentive Fee
• IDIQ/Delivery orders
– or task orders
These are
cost-based!
16

17. Balancing Decision Indicators
Strategic
Value
Required to
make good Informs and
Decisions Guides
Quality Constraints
(Schedule, Cost, Scope)
Source: Jim Highsmith
17

18. Complexity Requires Adaptive Planning
• It is not possible to completely specify an
interactive system.
Wegner’s Lemma, 1995
• Uncertainty is inherent and inevitable in software
development processes and products.
Ziv’s Uncertainty Principle, 1996
• For a new software system the requirements will
not be completely known until after the users
have used it.
Humphrey’s Requirements Uncertainty Principle, c. 1998
18

19. Tip
Focus on value
delivery,
informed by
constraints
and quality
19

20. THE AGILE BUSINESS ROADMAP
20

21. Agile Business Roadmap
Year 1:
Reduce carryover
" Identify issues sooner
" Make decisions earlier
" Demonstrate progress frequently
" Focus on quality
21

22. Planning for the Whole Organization

23. m Roadmap
Program Roadmap – Holistic view of
Software, Hardware and Operations

24. Story Map
" Areas of functionality/capabilities on top
" Place associated user stories vertically
24

25. Story Map
" Draw line that represents viable release
– Customer features above the line are “in”
– Dotted line represents negotiability
25

26. PATTERNS FOR SCALING
AGILE DELIVERY
26

27. Component Teams
" “Component Team” structure
" Separate Product Backlog
" Managing dependencies is
often serialized
" Problematic integration issues
are typically faced if multiple
components are required to
release
" Use an “Integration Team” to
pull components together
" Causes more rework than
“Feature Team” structure
27

28. Feature Teams
" “Feature Team” structure
" Uses common Product
Backlog
" Integration is done in parallel
" Requires high levels of
communication across teams
to resolve integration issues
" Forces Product Owners to
be more coordinated
" Sprints should be synchronized
" Cross team fertilization is a
requirement to successfully
deliver in parallel
28

29. Definition of Done - Assert Quality
" Acceptance defined criteria for each" Code checked in with reference to
user story US#/Task#
" Unit tests written and passed " Integration test written & passes
" Code compiles with no errors and no " Test code reviewed
warnings
" Environment requirements
" New code doesn’t break existing documented
code
" Interface document updated/added
" Test case review (Dev to review and checked in to SVN
test case written)
" Acceptance criteria verified
" Architectural impact assessed and complete
artifacts updated if necessary
" All P1-P3 bugs for the story are
" Comments in code closed
" Error codes added " Test approves user story
" Code reviewed by peer " Story demonstrated to product
owner and accepted on Target
Platform
29

30. Release Definition of Done
" Every release should have clear quality
criteria
" With a “Release Definition of Done” you can
understand targets better
" Measure the gap between the teams’
Definition of Done and a Release Definition
of Done.
– This gap is a source of
quality issues and
represents significant
risk to schedule
30

31. Forming the Meta-Scrum
“Establishing and Maintaining Top to Bottom
31
Transparency Using the Meta-Scrum”, AgileJournal

32. Agile Business Roadmap
Year 2:
Optimize Project Portfolio
" Identify emergent value
" Compare performance across portfolio
" Increase overall value/cost ratio
" Lower cost of compliance
" Deliver smaller batches
" Reduce stabilization periods
" Coordinate across groups
32

33. PROCESS AUTOMATION &
OPTIMIZATION WITH ADDITION OF
APPROPRIATE “SLACK”
33

34. Traditional Source Control
Code
Management
Complete
Version
1
Integrate
for
Branch
Version
2
Debt
Main
Branch
Death
March
{
Debt
accrues
quickly
within
stabiliza7on
periods
34

35. Flexible Source Control
Management
Version 1
Version 2
Main Branch
{
Not Easy! Must have proper infrastructure to do this.
35

36. Continuous Integration
36

37. 37

38. Agile Business Roadmap
Year 3:
Incremental Funding
" Safe-fail environment
" Use experimentation as a competitive advantage
" Combat competitive threats
" Integrate technical & customer feedback promptly
" Aggressively use commit/transform/kill for
portfolio optimization
" Pull initiatives through teams rather than pushing
resources to projects
38

39. Source: Johanna Rothman
“Manage Your Project Portfolio”
http://www.amazon.com/Manage-Your-Project-Portfolio-first/dp/B004SMU0OW
PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
DECISIONS:
COMMIT, TRANSFORM, KILL
39

40. Balancing Decision Indicators
Value
Quality Constraints
(Schedule, Cost, Scope)
Source: Jim Highsmith
40

41. Estimates are Unreliable
and Still Useful
" Estimate using relative size
" Affinity Estimating technique*
Affinity
Es7ma7ng
How-­‐To:
hJp://www.geMngagile.com/2008/07/04/affinity-­‐es7ma7ng-­‐a-­‐how-­‐to/
41

42. Portfolio Level Interactions
42

43. Transform
43

44. Early Warning Signs
Early
Warnings:
• Broken
Builds
• Broken
Automated
Tests
• Broken
Custom
Thresholds
44

45. Early
Warnings:
• Design
Debt
in
Duplica7on
(DRY)
• Technical
Debt
in
Code
Complexity
• Quality
Debt
in
Bug
DB
(Break/Fix)
• Other
Custom
Thresholds
45

46. Quality – Technical Excellence
Enhances Agility*
Interaction Design
Collaboration Build Monitors
Target Hardware
46

47. Project Portfolio Kill?
Early
Warnings:
• When
transform
and
re-­‐”commit”
is
not
a
valid
op7on:
• “Kill”
should
be
an
op7on
on
the
table
MORE
47

48. • Thank you!
• Questions & Answers
48