AGILE FOR THE LONG RUN

Dimitri BAELI @dbaeli

Dimitri BAELI – IT Delivery

•  LesFurets.com a French insurance aggregator BGL Group

•  IT Team (20p) •  From User Stories to on Call Duty •  Feature Driven Delivery

•  Develop the dev team capacity for LesFurets.com •  Agile, Lean Kanban, Manager Tools •  Devops, Quality Engineering •  My product is the team

Not a classic dog

An Agile Sheepdog

Agile sheepdog

An Agile Sheepdog

•  An Agile Sheepdog •  I run everywhere, I speak a lot •  I’m able to surround a group •  But I need directions = business driven !

Don’t look at the dog, look at the result!

Agile History

Agile Manifesto

Agile Manifesto by

Thoughworks, eXtreme Programming, Unit Testing, Scrum, Clean Code, Wiki, UML Distilled, Technical Debt, …

Agile Manifesto Page 2 !

Agile for the long run

3 of the 12 principles

•  8/ Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

•  5/ Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

•  11/ The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

Agile for the long run

•  Able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely •  Projects around motivated individuals •  The best emerge from self-organizing teams

Agile Manifesto Principle 8 A constant pace

Constant pace in the bermuda triangle

Constant pace : facing danger

•  Which is able keep it’s pace in front of a danger ?

Roman turtle School of fish

Constant pace : facing danger

•  Which is able keep it’s pace in front of a danger ?

Roman turtle School of fish

Keep a constant pace

•  School of fish !

•  You have the same free space than the other •  No major difference between elements •  When a danger occurs : “go to the middle”

•  The group moves away from dangers

•  It’s an image, but being able to change is not easy

Keep a constant pace

•  5 Work streams with capacity •  Not five small agile teams ! •  Yes, it looks strange « by the book » •  We don’t feel like breaking the team in part

•  20 people in the same team, hoping 40 ! •  We can easily adapt the capacity •  Missing people is not painful

•  We’ll do, truly, our best to adapt to the demand

Agile Manifesto Principle 4 Principle Motivated individuals

Teams Evolution

•  Team are changing •  By a year 20-50% of a project members can change •  Inside your team or outside (connections) •  New roles, new members, new connections

•  At LesFurets.com

•  50% of the actual team is new within one year •  New people, new roles •  New projets, new connections

•  It’s not about turn over, nor HR

Digital Natives

•  New coders never met a Waterfall project •  Hard to be afraid of what you didn’t suffer •  It’s the reverse : « let’s try it ! »

•  You can’t say « we are in a Death March mode » •  I tried once in a meeting #big #fail •  Peter who ? Peter Brooks !

•  Let them discover : agile games are a good start •  The Marshmallow Challenge •  Lean Lego Game

Motivated individuals

•  Agile is hard to understand without experience •  Why shouldn’t we do like for a house, a bridge ?

•  Because like that Software is late or broken

•  A piece of the whole is usable • We can deliver really earlier than expected !

•  Agile has to be discovered by new coders •  But that’s 12 years since Agile Manifesto !! •  That 4 generations of new coders (3 years)

Evolutionary Team

•  By evolutionary team •  Team who care about peoples perspectives •  Avoid « old » or « by the book » rules •  People are willing to learn, feed them

•  Three steps for a long term evolution •  First : perspectives •  Two : food for thought •  Three : let them grow

1/ Perspectives : Dreyfus Model

1/ Perspectives

•  Build virtual sub-teams •  1 Expert, 1 Competent •  1 Novice, 1 Advanced Beginner

•  Let them talk/organize •  Bring questions and subjects

•  They will build a vision and share responsibilities •  They’ll see senior at work

2/ Food for thought

•  The power of books

•  Leave books in the rooms •  Suggest books •  Explain how they changed your life •  Take books back so they live

Frederick Brooks

•  Continues to be popular after 20 years •  « No silver bullet » •  Tool maker for the entire team

•  More programmers to a project running late may make it even more late

Joel on Software

•  Joel Sloppy Test •  It’s fun and teaches you stuff on the go!

•  Smart mind-set for a coder •  Key subjects from Unicode to Planning

I have a signed one !

How google test software

•  Right tools in the right hands

•  SET : Software Engineer in Test •  QA is there to build test tools for coders •  Coders deliver production ready code •  Coders takes care about testing •  Coders need logistics and focus

•  Thank you James Whittaker ! •  Please go to GTAC Conferences series

Lean Kanban :

•  kanban (small ‘k’) is a system to visualize the flow

•  Kanban (big ‘K’) is a way to improve

•  Limiting the Work in progress •  Care about the flow •  Shared rules and understanding •  Start where you are !

Product Development Flow

•  The principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen

•  Explains why agile or lean development techniques works •  Read it and forget it, ideas will come

•  Let’s look at that queue ! (queing theory) •  Let’s introduce some spare time (80% capacity utilisation)

Thinking Fast And Slow

•  We have 2 ways of thinking •  1 Fast : for action (delivery) •  1 Slow : for innovation (research)

2/ Food for thought

Read books !!

2/ Food for thought: conferencing

•  Conferencing activities at LesFurets.com •  Each developer will go to 2 conferences (avg 2 days)

•  on a subject he choosed to study •  From Scala to Responsive Design

•  Few days per year per person •  can have huge impact •  based on motivated request

2/ Food for thought: conferencing

3 levels of participations

•  Attend a conference : for all •  Discover subjects, meet other attendees/ideas

•  Speak at a conference : leaders •  Challenge your skills, meet other speakers

•  Organize an event : coaches/managers •  Learn responsibility, meet other organizers

3/ Then Let it grow !

Smart under constraints

Smart with freedom to grow

Three steps for a long term evolution

•  First : perspectives

•  Two : food for thought

•  Three : let it grow

Agile Manifesto Principle 11 Self-organizing teams

Self-Organizing

•  Mixed virtual sub-teams with juniors •  « Auto Organized » is not « free to do anything »

•  Free with rules and confidence •  Organized progress

•  Trust them !

Trust them !

Agile for the long run

Agile for the long term

•  Able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely •  Projects around motivated individuals •  The best emerge from self-organizing teams

Merci !