Table of Contents

Contents

Preface   xviii

 

Acknowledgements   xxi

 

Introduction By Leslie Ekas   1

 

Who This Book Is For   1

What Is Our Approach?   1

What Does This Book Cover?   3

An Overview Of The Content   4

What Do You Have To Do?   6

What Benefits Can You Get from Reading This Book?   6

Who Are We?   6

Join the Conversation   7

 

Chapter 1 Whole Teams   9

 

Being agile requires whole teams because the synergy derived from cross-disciplined and cross-component

teams working together enables teams to be more productive than working in isolation. By Leslie Ekas

 

Principles   10

   What Is a Whole Team?   10

   Why Are Whole Teams Hard to Create?   11

   Cross-Component Teams   11

   Cross-Discipline Teams   12

   Cross-Geographical, Cross-Cultural, Large Teams   13

   Stable, Dedicated, and Protected   14

Practices   16

   Start with Whole Teams   16

   Maintain and Protect Dedicated Teams   16

   The Conversation   17

   Share the Same Truth   19

   No Partial Credit   19

   Offer Help   20

Metrics   20

Breakthrough   21

Summary   22

 

Chapter 2 Active Stakeholder Interaction   25

 

Being agile requires active stakeholder interaction because only your stakeholders can confirm that what you create actually meets their needs. By Scott Will

 

Principles   26

   What Is Active Stakeholder Interaction?   26

   Why Can It Be Hard to Get Active Stakeholder Interaction?   27

   Stakeholder Interaction Is Not a New Idea   29

   Stakeholder Interaction Is Not Optional   29

   Do What’s Needed—And No More   30

Practices   31

   Identifying Stakeholders   31

   Review Epics with Stakeholders   33

   Set Expectations   33

   Stakeholders Should Have Skin in the Game   34

   Make Stakeholder Interaction Compelling for Your Customers   35

   Doing Regular Demonstrations   35

   Reacting to Feedback Received   36

   When Is the Development Organization a Stakeholder?   37

   Customer Support Teams as Stakeholders   38

   Working with Customers in Countries Other Than Your Own   39

Metrics   39

Breakthrough   40

Summary   42

 

Chapter 3 Queuing Theory   43

 

Being agile requires embracing queuing theory practices because teams achieve greater efficiency and throughput by leveraging a steady flow of small work items. By Scott Will

 

Principles   44

   Why Does Waterfall Thinking Still Linger?   44

   Small Batches of Coordinated Work   45

   Frequent Feedback   46

   Ensure Sufficient Capacity   46

Practices  47

   Small Task Sizes: 4 Hours, 8 Hours, 16 Hours   47

   One User Story at a Time   48

   Short Iterations   49

   Metrics Should Support the Focus on Working Software   50

Metrics   50

Breakthrough   51

Summary   51

 

Chapter 4 No Multitasking   53

 

Being agile requires teams to avoid multitasking because teams are more productive when they focus. By Scott Will

 

Principles   55

   One Thing at a Time Is More Efficient   55

   Flow   56

   Stop Starting; Start Finishing   57

Practices   57

   Team Members Are Dedicated to a Project 100% of the Time   57

   One Project at a Time   58

   Be a “Firewall” and Stop Being a “Fast-Forward” Button   58

   Pair Programming; Pair Testing   59

   Calendar Ruthlessness   59

Metrics   60

Breakthrough   61

Summary   62

 

Chapter 5 Eliminate Waste   63

 

Being agile requires eliminating waste to realize significant efficiency, productivity, and quality gains. By Leslie Ekas

Principles   64

 

What Is Eliminating Waste?   64

   Why the Focus on Eliminating Waste?   65

   Technical Debt   65

   Project Debt   67

   Why Is It Hard to Eliminate Waste?   67

Practices   69

   Get Rid of Waste... One Way or Another   69

   Small Tasks   70

   Build Quality In   71

   Focus on Customer Value   72

   Expand “Done!” Criteria   73

   Handling Latent Defects   74

   Stop Writing Defect Records   74

Metrics   75

Breakthrough   76

Summary   77

 

Chapter 6 Working Software   79

 

Being agile requires always having working software because it validates progress, ensures the highest levels of quality, and enables regular feedback. By Leslie Ekas

 

Principles   80

   What Is Working Software?   80

   Why Is It Hard to Regularly Have Working Software?   82

   Working Software Extends Test Suites   82

Practices   83

   Short Iterations   83

   Continuous Integration and Automation   84

   Vertically Sliced Stories   85

   Evolutionary Architecture and Emergent Design   86

   In-House Deploys   88

Metrics   89

Breakthrough   89

Summary   91

 

Chapter 7 Deliver Value   93

 

Being agile requires delivering real value so that customers succeed with your product. By Scott Will

 

Principles   94

   Why User Stories?   94

Practices 97

   The “So That” Clause   97

   Vertically Sliced Stories  98

   Acceptance Criteria  99

   Using Velocity Effectively  100

Metrics  103

Breakthrough  103

   What Exactly Is a Zero-Gravity Thinker?  104

   A Real Example  106

   Zero Gravity Thinking in Sum...  106

Summary  107

 

Chapter 8 Release Often  109

 

Being agile requires releasing software often so that teams learn fast and customers succeed sooner. By Leslie Ekas

 

Principles  112

   Why Release Often?  112

   Do Just Enough  113

   Defer Commitment  114

   Why Can It Be Hard to Release Often?  116

Practices  117

   Start with Shorter Release Cycles  117

   Epic Stories  117

   Evolutionary Product Design  119

   High Value First  120

   High Risk First   121

   Value-Driven Development: the Outworking of Frequent Code Drops  123

Metrics  124

Breakthrough  125

Summary  128

 

Chapter 9 Stop the Line  129

 

Being agile requires that teams stop the line to solve critical problems at their core so that they do not lose time by dealing with the same problem again and again. By Leslie Ekas

 

Principles  130

   What Is Stop the Line?  130

   Why Is Stop the Line Hard?  131

Practices  133

   Fix Blockers  133

   Reflections as a Guide  133

   What if the Problem Is Too Big to Stop the Line?  133

Metrics  134

Breakthrough  139

Summary  141

 

Chapter 10 Agile Leadership  143

 

Being successful with agile requires leaders who learn, participate in, and experiment with agile so that they lead with an agile mindset and react with agile instincts. By Leslie Ekas

 

Principles  145

   Agile Leadership  145

   Why Is Agile Leadership Hard?  146

Practices  147

   Learn Agile, Experience Agile, Develop Agile Instincts  147

   Enable and Protect  148

   Help Your Team Learn, Let Your Team Fail  149

   Set Priorities, Provide Boundaries, and Let the Team Figure Out How  151

   A Single, Visible View of the Truth  153

Metrics  154

Breakthrough  154

Summary  155

 

Chapter 11 Continuous Improvement  157

 

Being agile requires continuous improvement because teams that continue to learn, adapt, and evolve are more productive and competitive. Agile is a never-ending journey of getting better. By Scott Will

 

Principles  158

   Why Is Continuous Improvement Important?  158

   Why Is Continuous Improvement Hard?  159

   There Is No Such Thing as “100 Percent Agile”  159

   Realize That You Will Learn New Things as a Project Progresses  160

   You Need to Set Time Aside to Sharpen Your Axe  160

   Focus on Small, On-Going Improvements  161

   Learn from Your Mistakes; Don’t Make Them Again  162

   Fail Fast  162

   Management Needs to Actively Promote Innovation  162

Practices  164

   Reflections  164

   Value Stream Mapping  166

   Addressing Reluctance  167

   The “Art” of Continuous Improvement  167

   Share  169

Metrics  169

Breakthrough  169

Summary   170

 

Appendix By Scott Will  173

 

Exploring Your Agility: A Brief, Annotated Questionnaire  173

What Would You Be Willing to Give Up?  174

Questions on Various Agile Practices  175

   How Long Are Your Iterations?  175

   How Often Do You Build?  176

   What Disciplines Are on Your Teams?  176

   Do You Carry a Defect Backlog?  176

   What Do You Automate?  177

   Do You Conduct Status Meetings?  177

   Are You Delivering Value to Your Customers?  178

   Do You Get to “Done!” Each Iteration?   178

   Are You Getting Better?  178

Concluding Thoughts  178

 

Index  179

About the Author

Leslie Ekas has worked in software development for over 20 years as a developer, manager, and agile coach. Her industry experience ranges from a startup, to a mid-sized company, and now IBM. She has led multiple products to market successfully over the years. She has managed teams of all sizes and many disciplines and across broad geographies. Leslie helped start the IBM Software Group Agile Center of Competence after her team’s early success transforming to agile. After coaching for several years, she returned to development to lead the worldwide Rational ClearCase team. In her new job as the Smarter Infrastructure Portfolio Manager, she is helping the business team adopt an agile operational approach.Scott Will has been with IBM for more than 22 years, the last six as an agile consultant. His experience ranges from providing consulting for small, co-located teams to teams with hundreds of engineers scattered across the world. Previously Scott was a successful programmer, tester, and customer support team lead, and he was in management for years. He is a contributing author to the book Agility and Discipline Made Easy, an IBM Master Inventor with numerous patents, a former Air Force combat pilot, and a graduate of Purdue University with a triple-major in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis. He also completed his MBA while in the Air Force.