Introduction to Agile Project Management Presented by Maury Richards, CSP

Traditional PM - Waterfall  Plan Your Work – Work Your Plan  On Time + On Budget = SUCCESS!  Stabilize the Plan – PLAN BETTER  Up-front requirements  Change control boards  Sign-offs

Why Agile?  ADAPTIVE PLANNING  People are unpredictable – clients and the team  “A last minute requirements change provides a competitive advantage.” – Mary Poppendieck

DEFINED vs EMPIRICAL  Defined = Step-wise  Empirical = Inspect/Adjust  When there are many unknowns using a Defined process is actually quite DANGEROUS

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: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Manifesto Revised Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah : Individuals and interactions blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Two common types  Scrum  Time boxes  Sustainable pace  Predictable velocity  Kanban  Limiting work in progress  Monitoring throughput  Fostering communication

Commonalities of Both  Roles – Scrum Master, Product Owner, Team  Iterative  Constant Communication  Adaptive  Transparent

Roles  Scrum Master  Product Owner  Team – Cross-functional. Do you have all the hats?

Iterative  Create a repeatable process  “Its not our process that is important it is our process for improving our process that is important.”

Constant Communication  Within the team  Co-location  Daily Communication  Between team and stakeholders  User acceptance as work is completed  Regular demos of completed work  Dedicated middle-man in the PO

Adaptive  It’s not fair for me to ask you everything that you want at the beginning.  Reduces risk.  Flexibility for the stakeholder.  They can put a new most important thing at the top of the list at any time.

Transparent  We have nothing to hide.  Daily constant communication.  Product owner as a dedicated role.  Sprint demo

Scrum

Scrum Rituals  Sprint Planning  Daily Scrum/Standup  Backlog Grooming  Story Point Estimation  Sprint Demo  Sprint Retrospective

Sprint Planning  Generate commitment for work to be completed in next iteration.  Only the team can commit – not PO, scrum master or stakeholders.  Work from top down.

Daily Scrum/Standup  What did I complete yesterday?  What will I complete today?  Is there anything in my way?  Share understanding of goals.  Coordinate efforts.  Share problems and improvements.  Identify as a team.

Backlog Grooming  Keeping the backlog in healthy shape. Responding to change.  Add stories.  Reorganize stories.  Define acceptance criteria – what does it mean to be done?

Story Point Estimation  Generates understanding for team.  Assign relative sizing to stories.  Identify epics for breakdown.  Provides the team’s input to long-term planning.

Sprint Demo  Fosters constant communication with stakeholders. Customer collaboration.  Demonstrates fully complete work items.  No smoke-and-mirrors or work in progress.  DONE-DONE  HAPPY CUSTOMERS!

Sprint Retrospective  Builds in continuous improvement.  What did we do well? Celebrate success.  What didn’t go so well? What do we need to improve.  What are we going to do better? Explicit plan of how to improve ourselves.

Metrics  Predict vs estimate  Measure to produce an outcome  Budgeting around the timebox

Getting Buy In  Sell transparency and continuous improvement.  Delivering regularly reduces risk and allows for return on investment to start earlier.  Its not fair for me to ask you at the beginning of the project what your requirements are.

Pitfalls to Watch For  Changes the way you work - requires discipline  Requires commitment from stakeholders  Will not fix your organization but will shine a spotlight on its deficiencies  Running before you can walk – do it right the first time (engage a coach, take training, hire experienced)

TraditionalAgile SequentialIterative DefinedEmpirical Plan-drivenResult-driven Big-bangIncremental Specialized teamsCross-functional teams Test at endTest-first In Summary

A little something for each of you Personal Kanban and the Pomodoro Timer Create some order to your chaos! Try it at