1. Hard-Agile Effective Software Development in the 21st Century
“Agile is for wimps”
Hard-Agile Effective Software Development in the 21st Century
Alistair Cockburn

2. Developing software. consists of People. making Ideas concrete
Developing software consists of People making Ideas concrete in an Economic context

3. inventing, deciding, communicating,
People
inventing, deciding, communicating,
Solving a problem they don't yet understand
which keeps changing
Creating a solution they don't yet understand
Expressing ideas in languages they don’t understand
which keep changing
To an interpreter unforgiving of error
Making decisions with limited resources
and every choice has economic consequences

4. Software development is a Cooperative Game

5. Games have positions, moves, strategies
Career Management
Infinite
Organization Survival
Product Line Management
Open-ended
King-of-the-hill
wrestling
Poker
Jazz music
IT Systems
Finite
goal-directed
Rock-Climbing
Theater
Journalism
Exploration
Software
Development
Swamp game
Tennis
Chess
Competitive
Cooperative

6. Two conflicting subgoals:
Deliver this software
Set up for the next game
Three moves:
Invent
Communicate
Decide
and the situations (almost) never repeat!

7. Adapt to your situationC6
C20
C40
C100 D6
D20
D40
D100 E6
E20
E40
E100 L6
L20
L40
L100
Project Classification Scale:
Comfort
Essential
moneys
Life
Discretionary
Criticality X X
Number of people coordinated
1 - 6
- 20
- 40
- 100

8. Face-to-face is the most effective - Try Video
2 people at whiteboard
(Courtesy of Thoughtworks, inc.)
2 people on phone
(No Question-Answer)
Communication Effectiveness
Videotape
(Question-and-Answer)
2 people on chat
Paper
Richness of communication channel

9. Distance is expensive 12 people: = $100,000 / yr penalty Kim
Pat
Programming in pairs
Kim
Pat
12 people: = $100,000 / yr penalty
12 people = $300,000 / yr penalty
Kim
Pat
“Managing the Flow of Technology” “Distance Matters”

10. People issues determine a project’s speed
Can they easily detect something needs attention?
(Good at Looking Around)
Will they care enough to do something about it?
(Pride-in-work; Amicability)
Can they effectively pass along the information?
(Proximity; face-to-face)

11. Software development is a Craft

12. Craft teaches us to pay attention to our skills and to the medium
Major crafts:
1 Deciding what to build
2 Managing (people and projects)
3 Modeling
4 Designing the external view
5 Large-scale design (architecting)
6 Fine-scale design (programming)
7 Validating the work

13. People learn skills in 3 stages
Shu: Learn a technique
Ha: Collect techniques
Ri: Invent / blend techniques

14. Use Lean Processes

15. Software = manufacturing if Inventory = Decisions!
I wish they’d decide what style they want!
I wish they’d decide on the UI design already!
A decision
UI Designers
Every line of code is a decision
Users & Sponsors
I wish they’d decide what functions they want!
Programmers
I wish they’d think a bit more carefully before coding!
Business Analysts
Testers

16. You can (almost) do away with one loop: buggy code
Programmers
Testers
(from Stefan Roock’s )

17. From Lean Manufacturing: watch your queues
Enough Users & Sponsors
UI Designer
A few Business Analysts
Lots of Programmers
Single, solitary Database designer
Enough Users & Sponsors
Many Business Analysts
Not enough Programmers
Some Testers
Users & Sponsors absent
UI Designers
Business Analysts
some Programmers
Database designers
Tester

18. From Lean Manufacturing: aim for continuous flow
# of design decisions
Testers
100 lines of code show up for testing
How long this line of code / screen / use case / decision sits in the testing queue
Decisions arriving
Decisions being validated or broken
time

19. Design is Knowledge Acquisition

20. Waterfall is a late-learning strategy
Growth of knowledge with big-bang integration
cost
Knowledge comes at the “moment of truth”: final integration.
Delivers nearly no knowledge
(or risk reduction)
time

21. We can pay to learn early in the project
Growth of knowledge with early, continuous integration
Delivers knowledge
(risk reduction)
Development sequence
indifferent (with respect to knowledge)
cost
time

22. Develop for business value once risks are down
Business value growing
Knowledge growing (risk reduction)
cost
Growth of
business value
time

23. “Trim the Tail”: Deliver by value or date
Trim to deliver
on-time (or early)
Delay to get more
or better

24. In the 21st century, software engineering will use craft, cooperative game & lean principles
Craft developing skills in a medium shu - ha - ri
Cooperative game of invention and communication teamwork, communication, strategies
Lean processes (“unvalidated decisions = inventory”) small queues, cross-trained people, varyied processes
Design as knowledge acquisition early integration pay to learn trim the tail