AGILE DNA

WHY AGILE WORKS

3

P M I W D C – W a s h in gto n C i r c l e L u n c h e o n S e r i e s

Chris Girolamo
Vice President, Foreign Affairs Group
STG, Inc.
PMP, CSM

October 23, 2013

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…Agen.da ….large and mature body
……

There is a large and mature body of knowledge that describes, explains and
documents agile practices, processes, training and lessons learned. But one
question we should also ask is, “Why does agile work?” What is it about
agile practices that makes them so effective especially when compared with
more traditional methodologies? This presentation will explore the
underlying product development principles that are the basis of, or the DNA
of agile. These include: working in small batches; effective queue
management; distinguishing project management from product
development; building in quality; and self organizing teams. For agile
adoption and transformations to be effective, teams and organizations need
a perspective which is steeped beyond what agile is, they need to
understand why agile works. All rights reserved
PRODUCT | PROJECT

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EMPIRICAL DEFINED

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RPURLO
ERJ U
EC
O TI N
LF E CV
O H EA
F CRR
ESA CC
RET TE
A RT
IN I SA
YTI INCTSY
MANAGEMENT APPROACH

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THE EFFECT OF SMALL BATCHES

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SMALL BATCHES|INDUCED DESIGN

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WHAT IS DESIGN?

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YOU CAN ALWAYS GET WHAT YOUR WANT

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THE FALLACY OF UTILIZATION

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QUEUES KILL

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 M U L T I T A S K I N G … T H A N K Y O U H E I N R I C K K I N B U R G

T A S K 1 T A S K 2 T A S K 3 T A S K 4 T A S K 5

A S Y N C H R O N O U S Cooper Tory Cullen Clare Cade

S
Y T A S K 1 C T C C C
N
C
T A S K 2 O O U L A
H T A S K 3 O R L A D
R
O T A S K 4 P Y L R E
N T A S K 5 E E E
O
U T A S K 6 R N
S

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INVENTORY

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FAST FEEDBACK

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CONTINUOUS DELIVERY

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 A DAY IN THE LIFE

TDD

Defect?
Defect?
Defect?
Integration Testing Acceptance Test
Defect? Potentially
Environment Production Replicate
Deployable
Daily Code Check In Release
Scrum Commit Stage
Delivery Detected Automated Acceptance
Build Commences Pass Automated Pass Pass Regression
Pass
Installation Scripting
Commit Testing Testing
and Testing

9:00 AM 11:00 11:05 11:15 11:45 12:15

Continuous Delivery Pipeline

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REGENERATIVE

Fast
Feedback

Queue Small
Discipline Batches

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SYSTEMS THEORY

SDLC 3.0 – Beyond a Tacit Understanding of Agile

Mark Kennaley
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PRODUCT | PROJECT

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 REFERENCES

1. Cohn, Mike. User Stories Applied, Addison-Welsley, 2010.

2. Hillel Glazer, Entinex, Inc. Jeff Dalton, Broadsword Solutions Corporation, David Anderson, David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.
Mike Konrad, SEI Sandy Shrum, SEI. CMMI® or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both! Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts: Software, 2008
Engineering Institute.
– Provides a perceptive historical perspective on CMMI and illustrates the underlying reasons that CMMI can be a false positive as well as the
misinterpretations that almost always occur in CMMI implementations that are unhealthy to project and product development.
3. Humble, Jez., Farley, David. Continuous Delivery. Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Addison-Welsley, 2010.
– Describes in detail how to extend continuous integration across the full lifecycle to be continuous delivery. Tons of information , exacting detail, tools
reviews and great insights on a diverse array of topics including automating acceptance testing and deployment scripting; and hammers the theme, “it it’s
hard, do it a lot.”
4. Kennaley, Mark. SDLC 3.0 Beyond a Tacit Understanding of Agile, Fourth Medium Consulting, Inc., 2010.
– A discussion with a proposed framework, eponymously named SDLC 3.0, of a tailored hybrid of lean, agile and unified process as a consolidated lifecycle
approach. The theme is to dispense with the advantages/disadvantages debate driven by competing approaches. Additionally there is compelling chapter
that systems theory which provides applied scientific and mathematical proof that agile is more stable and effective than waterfall.

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 REFERENCES

4. Poppendieck, Mary and Tom. Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash. Boston: Addison-Welsley,
2006.
5. Poppendieck, Mary and Tom. Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are Not the Point. Boston: Addison-Welsley,
2010.
6. Reinertsen, Donald G. The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Developent. Redondo
Beach: Celeritas Publishing, 2009.
7. Willis, Carol and Donald Friedman. Building the Empire State Building. New York: The Skyscraper Museum, 1998.
– Though not specially mentioned in the presentation, this book provides a fascinating summary of the construction of the Empire State building which
amazingly was built from cradle to grave in one year. This feat was accomplished with agile and lean concepts such as careful management of queues,
management of work in progress and strategies to achieve .

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