agile product development workshop

Agile Product Development Workshop

June 23, 2011

Sean Ammirati Adjunct Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, June 23, 2011

“Launch early enough to be embarrassed by your product’s first version”

Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder & Chairman LinkedIn

Source: Reid Hoffman - Rules for Entreprenuers SXSW 2012 http://vator.tv/news/2011-03-15-reid-hoffmans-rules-for-entrepreneurs-sxsw


http://vator.tv/news/2011-03-15-reid-hoffmans-rules-for-entrepreneurs-sxsw

http://vator.tv/news/2011-03-15-reid-hoffmans-rules-for-entrepreneurs-sxsw

Image Source: http://www.ratchetup.com/eyes/2004/01/index.html

“Demo or Die”


http://www.ratchetup.com/eyes/2004/01/index.html

http://www.ratchetup.com/eyes/2004/01/index.html

Agenda

• Quick Review from Lean Startup Workshop

• Key Scrum Themes

• Scrum Values

• Panel: Ian Paterson & Steve Fleck


Customer Development

+

Agile Product Development

=

The Lean Startup

Today’s Focus


Scrum is ...Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering.

Although the Scrum approach was originally suggested for managing product development projects, its use has focused on the management of software development projects, and it can be used to run software maintenance teams or as a general project/program management approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterative_and_incremental_development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterative_and_incremental_development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_product_development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_product_development



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5k7a9YEoUI




“If engineering practices are candy bars, then Scrum is a candy bar

wrapper. That is to say that Scrum is superimposed on and

encapsulated on whatever engineering practices already

exist.”

Pg 57 - Agile Software Development with Scrum


Scrum

Engineering Practices

This will be unique for each of you based on your team, type of solution

being developed and personalpreferences.

Could be: XP, Feature Driven Development, Crystal, Kanban or any other process your engineering team

is comfortable with.

(often pull aspects from each)


• Firsthand observed it transform & improve my last software company - mSpoke

• Being used at some of the largest technology companies in the world today (Google, Yahoo!, Adobe, etc ...)

• Provides a great framework for entire team to understand what is going on.

• Disclaimer: Still hard to build technology and not a silver bullet

Why we focus on Scrum?


Key Themes from Scrum


Scrum Process

Source: http://www.krishnabitla.com/post/2011/02/02/scrum-‐process-‐sprint-‐agile-‐software-‐methodology.aspx


http://www.krishnabitla.com/post/2011/02/02/scrum-process-sprint-agile-software-methodology.aspx

http://www.krishnabitla.com/post/2011/02/02/scrum-process-sprint-agile-software-methodology.aspx

Tips / Tricks on Implementing Scrum

• Important for everyone to buy in and get familiar with vocabulary

• Tools for implementing scrum (not necessary):

• Scrumworks - http://www.open.collab.net/products/scrumworks/

• Version One - http://www.versionone.com/

• Rally Software - http://www.rallydev.com/index.php

• Google Doc Template - https://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AoBzAQ22ynH5dEpRRkNBVGRCVU1HMmk2enBMYUZZSGc&mode=public

• 10 More Free Scrum Tools - http://knowscrum.com/10-best-free-scrum-tools/


http://www.open.collab.net/products/scrumworks/

http://www.open.collab.net/products/scrumworks/

http://www.versionone.com/

http://www.versionone.com/

http://www.rallydev.com/index.php

http://www.rallydev.com/index.php

https://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AoBzAQ22ynH5dEpRRkNBVGRCVU1HMmk2enBMYUZZSGc&mode=public




http://knowscrum.com/10-best-free-scrum-tools/

http://knowscrum.com/10-best-free-scrum-tools/

Product Backlog

• Prioritized list or queue of requirements

• Rough Estimates of level of effort to complete (not all estimates need to be equally thorough / higher priority can be more thorough)

• Ultimately Product Owner sets the priority

• Any one (customer, employee, board member, advisor) can add to product backlog

• Should be shared with the full-team


Tools / Tips for Product Backlog

• Everyone on team should easily be able to see the backlog

• I’ve found one “administrator” helpful logistically

• If not using a full scrum tool, you can do this easily in a shared spreadsheet (eg Google Docs)


Time Box / Sprint

• Each sprint:

• Lasts a defined number of days (time box)

• Has a specific set of requirements from backlog allocated to it (defined during “sprint planning meeting”)

• Has specific goals for the team to achieve (set up front) - “sprint goal”


Release Sprints

• In my experience, release sprints have been quite helpful.

• However, continuous deployment is becoming popular in some circles (Eric Ries http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/continuous-deployment-5-eas.html)

• If you do continuous deployment, Scrum still integrates fine to manage process (http://knowscrum.com/benefits-of-continuous-integration-in-scrum-best-practices-in-scrum/)


http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/continuous-deployment-5-eas.html

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/continuous-deployment-5-eas.html

http://knowscrum.com/benefits-of-continuous-integration-in-scrum-best-practices-in-scrum/




Tasks for a Sprint Backlog

• Based on the sprint goal - a list of tasks are created

• Task estimates should be roughly 4 - 16 hours of work

• Sometimes only a partial sprint backlog can be created (ie: if one task is define an internal architecture) - in this case leave reminders and estimate as soon as possible


Estimates

• All estimates are forward looking

• How much will it take to complete this feature / requirement?

• Increasing an estimate based on learned complexity is accepted by the team

• Sprint backlog estimates should be updated regularly


Velocity / Burn Down

• The average decrease in estimates for the total effort / time remaining is a sprint’s velocity

• Overtime velocity becomes very helpful for planning purposes

• The chart showing daily total of time remaining is called a burn down chart or sprint’s signature


Daily Scrum• Each Day Team Meets to have each team member

report:

• What have you done since the last daily scrum?

• What will you work on between now and the next daily scrum?

• What got in your way of doing work?

• Many very startups find “daily” to be overkill because of the small nature of the team- but regular communication still key


Sprint Review

• At the end of the sprint, the team demonstrates what they have built

• Compares against the sprint’s goals

• Retrospective to look for improvements at the end of the sprint


Sprint Review Jeff Sutherland discusses Demo or Die & the Sprint Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jhf7PcYrzY




• Commitment

• Focus

• Openness

• Respect

• Courage

Five Scrum Values

Image Source: http://www.implementingscrum.com/images/080324-scrumtoon.jpg


http://www.implementingscrum.com/images/080324-scrumtoon.jpg

http://www.implementingscrum.com/images/080324-scrumtoon.jpg

Four Letter Words @ 37 Signals

• Need

• Must

• Can’t

• Easy

• Just

• Only

• Fast

Source: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/439-four-letter-words

They are especially dangerous when you string them together. How many times have you said or heard something like this:

“We really need it. If we don’t we can’t make the customer happy. Wouldn’t it be easy if we just did it like that? Can you try it real fast?”


http://37signals.com/svn/posts/439-four-letter-words

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/439-four-letter-words

Steve Fleck & Ian Paterson


agile product development workshop

Technology

scrum approach

free scrum tools http

rally software http

scrum process source

agile software development

scrumworks http

team sprint backlog

product development