Agile Fundamentals

HISTORY & MINDSET
1.1. HISTORY
1.1.1. Origins of Agile

• Many people entering the Agile world see the Agile Manifesto as the beginning of
• the world, where it was really the summing up of much previous work.
• Anchor the ideas of Agile development in earlier work, giving the learners continuity from the past to the present.

1.1.2. Agile Manifesto

• The 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development is still the anchor document for all forms of Agile development.
• Make clear that the Agile Manifesto is a set of values, not a prescription for a
• particular type of process. Also, learners should be introduced to the fact that the
• values on the left are preferable to those on the right.

1.1.3. Agile Beyond Software Development

• Agile is gaining increasing adoption throughout the organization.
• Agile methods can extend beyond software development.

1.2. CULTURE & MINDSET
1.2.1. Understanding the Agile Mindset

• Many people come to Agile looking for “the Agile process”. However, while some
• processes and methodologies may be more supportive or common in Agile organizations than others, the mindset must come first.
• Introduce Agile as a mindset and explain that agility is achieved through both “being” and “doing” Agile. The Agile mindset is characterized by things like valuing early failure for learning, collaboration, continuous improvement,
• continuous discovery, etc.

1.2.2. Establishing the Agile Mindset

• Experiencing the Agile mindset is the best way to establish it in a learner Allow the learner to experience situations in which the Agile mindset is likely to be different from their current way of working, so the learner can internalize the
• difference experientially, not just in concept.

1.2.3. Agile in Context (As a Journey)

• The level of knowledge and experience held by individuals, teams and
• organizations can affect behaviors, processes and adoption.

INDIVIDUALS & INTERACTIONS
2.1. CREATING SHARED UNDERSTANDING
2.1.1. Developing Soft Skills

• Soft skills such as attitude, community, trust and morale have traditionally been left out of team-based design. Agile brings them to the fore.
• Highlight how changing community drivers affects work outcomes.

2.1.2. Understanding Communication Barriers

• Projects can be impacted when organizations underestimate the cost of physical and cultural separation.
• Review the costs of physical and cultural distances, and introduce ways to
• successfully address the communication barriers these can raise.

2.1.3. Sharing Knowledge

• When teams ignore tacit vs. documented knowledge, they are not able to make conscious decisions about sharing information.
• Discuss options for sharing knowledge with current and future team members.

2.1.4. Physical Work Environments

• It is easy to set up work spaces that hinder rather than help the team.
• Illustrate concepts of setting up Agile working environments that are conducive to swarming, collaboration and teamwork.

2.1.5. Collaboration Techniques

• Collaboration needs to be experienced, not just talked about.
• Let learners experience techniques for improved collaboration.

2.1.6. Techniques for Shared Understanding

•  The Agile community has adopted several tools and techniques to support shared understanding.
• Experience the advantages created by tools and techniques that improve shared understanding.

2.2. SHIFTS IN ROLES
2.2.1. Shifts in Roles

• The term “self-organizing” can create concern for individuals and organizations because it infers shifts in traditional power structures. Agile learners and organizations need to define and align old and new role definitions.
• LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Define what is meant by “self-organizing” and “self-managing,” and where the
• learner fits in an Agile organization.

VALUE-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
3.1. INCREMENTAL DEVELOPMENT
3.1.1. Incremental Development

• One anchor of Agile development is incremental development.
• Introduce the concept and value of incremental development, and how it differs from effort-based or task-based management.

3.1.2. Value-Based Work

• Many people, even understanding the idea of incremental development, can’t see
• how to break work into small, value-centered work items and track their progress.
• Develop and practice techniques for breaking problems into value-based parts and
• tracking progress against them.

3.1.3. Retaining Quality

• It is easy to lose sight of the cost of rework in incremental-iterative development.
• Introduce and highlight why Agile developers need to keep an eye on design quality.
• even (or especially) when working incrementally and iteratively.

3.2. WORK-IN-PROGRESS (WIP)
3.2.1. Work-in-Progress (WIP)

• Work-in-Progress (WIP), a term from lean manufacturing, seems to many people a
• strange concept to introduce outside of manufacturing, but WIP shows up in
• incremental development.
• Describe WIP, demonstrate how it maps to design work, to incremental.
• development, to multi-specialist and multi-department teams, where it hides on a
• design project and why it is useful to track and reduce WIP.

3.2.2. Continuous Integration

• Continuous integration is a valuable goal in software development, non-software.
• projects can still use the more general concepts of frequent integration.
• Introduce the concepts of early, frequent and continuous integration, and link them.
• to project effectiveness.

3.2.3. Cost & Benefit of Frequent Delivery

• Delivering is not merely giving a demo; it includes costs as well as benefits.
• Discuss the benefits, challenges and costs of delivering frequently.

CUSTOMER & USER INVOLVEMENT
4.1. INCLUDING CUSTOMERS AND USERS
4.1.1. Defining the Customer

• The literature and common usage can be confusing in defining the customer.
• Clarify customer-side roles and how they are referred to in Agile methods,
• particularly sponsor, buyer and user; relate these roles to actual people who need to be satisfied by the project and product.

4.1.2. User Involvement

• Product/project success correlates with end-user involvement. Many teams face resistance to getting end-users to participate in a project, which then can fail even if the team practiced every other Agile habit besides getting feedback from real users.
• Convey the importance of end-user involvement within, as well as at the end of, iterations.

4.1.3. User Feedback

• Ongoing user feedback is important for maximizing customer value.
• Provide the learner with one or more techniques for soliciting feedback from users
• and sponsors during an iteration or project.

PLANNING & ADAPTING
5.1. PLANNING AND ADAPTING
5.1.1.Planning

• A misconception of Agile development is that it involves no planning and no promises.
• Review different planning stages and timeframes, separating release-level planning from daily & task-level planning.

5.1.2. Estimation

• Agile teams understand the value of collaborative estimation during planning.
• Introduce the learner to the power of relative estimation using the wisdom of the
• crowd; Incorporate different Agile estimation techniques for different granularities and time scales.

5.1.3. Status

• A team and its sponsors need to know how the work is progressing.
• Provide two or more techniques Agile teams use to track and show the status of
• the project and the team.

5.2. PROCESS & PRODUCT ADAPTATION
5.2.1.Process Adaptation

• A common mistake is to imagine that there is a single process that can fit all projects & situations; even a good process becomes mismatched to the team over time.
• Illustrate to the learner how products/projects in different contexts need different methodologies, processes or strategies, and why it is important to adapt processes even within a single product, project or team.

5.2.2. Product Adaptation

• Products need to be adapted based on learning and feedback, however an
• unprepared team can suffer from reacting too vigorously to change requests.
• Introduce ways to receive feedback and balance responding to change with
• product stability and work predictability. These might include not accepting new
• work during an iteration, having a disciplined Product Owner who re-prioritizes for
• the team in ways that do not disrupt ongoing work, etc.

• Developers
• Testers
• Project Managers
• Scrum Masters