Operational Governance Knowledge Flashcards No. 01/19

Agile

From the Operational Governance flashcard deck; today this discipline goes by BizOps. The original card is republished here as a field note.

01 What is it

It’s a management methodology based on collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers.

It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement — and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

It’s a hype word that the IT industry uses to describe an alternative method of project management.

The same card, being honest about both

02 When is it useful

Agile management reduces the common risks associated with the delivery, scope, and budget of a project.

It encourages collaboration between the customer and the team, offering mutual benefits in the mitigation of the high risks during the development of the software.

03 How to use it

Learn the Agile methodologies on Agile in a Nutshell.

04 The sprint, in one pass

  1. 1Product backlogThe ordered list of work to be done: features, bug fixes, non-functional requirements, user stories, etc.
  2. 2Sprint planningDiscuss and agree the scope, select backlog items for one sprint (the sprint backlog).
  3. 3Sprint backlogThe list of work, broken into tasks, that must be delivered during the sprint.
  4. 4Daily scrumFifteen minutes, same time and place: what did I complete, what do I plan to complete, any impediment?
  5. 5Sprint reviewPresent the completed work to stakeholders (demo) and plan together what to work on next.
  6. 6Sprint retrospectiveWhat went well, what did not, what could be improved — before the cycle repeats.
  7. 7IncrementThe shippable result of the sprint.

↺ back to the product backlog for the next sprint

Sprint planning

At the beginning of a sprint: discuss and agree the scope of work, and select product backlog items that can be completed in one sprint (the sprint backlog). 4 hours for a 2-week sprint, split in 2 parts.

Daily scrum

All members of the development team come prepared. Starts precisely on time, at the same time and place every day. Limited to fifteen minutes. Three questions: What did I complete? What do I plan to complete? Do I see any impediment?

Sprint review

Reviews the work that was completed and not completed. Presents the completed work to the stakeholders (demo) and plans together what to work on next. 2 hours for a 2-week sprint.

Sprint retrospective

Reflects on the past sprint, identifies and agrees on continuous process improvement actions. Three questions: What went well? What did not go well? What could be improved? 1.5 hours for a 2-week sprint.

The product backlog is the ordered list of work to be done — features, bug fixes, non-functional requirements, user stories, etc. The sprint backlog is the subset selected for the next sprint, broken down into tasks.

05 The companion card: Scrum

Scrum is a simple framework for effective team collaboration on complex software projects.

The deck’s second slide

Scrum follows the values and principles of agile, but includes further definitions and specifications.

With an emphasis on software development, it is designed for teams of 3–9 members who break their work into actions that can be completed within timeboxed iterations, called sprints.

Scrum works when

  • Requirements change frequently, even from month to month.
  • Work requires constant invention, so all steps are not known in advance, and estimates are not expected to be reliable.
  • The process is cyclic — it repeats every sprint.
  • No steps involve long lead times or lots of specialized resources.

Scrum works less when

  • Team members are geographically dispersed or part-time.
  • Team members have very specialized skills.
  • Products have many external dependencies.
  • Products are mature or legacy, or with regulated quality control.

Scrum is not a methodology — the deck insists on this.

06 Common pitfalls

  • It has been used to create sweatshops, with intolerably long working hours.
  • Some firms use Agile as a way to downsize and reduce headcount.
  • Scaling Agile as the fashion, rather than descaling complex problems into manageable pieces of work.

07 References and resources