key takeaways agile 2013 nashville conference presented by:

Key Takeaways Agile 2013 Nashville

ConferencePresented by:

Vinayak Joglekar, CTO @vinayakj

Hemant Elhence, CEO@HemantElhence

https://twitter.com/vinayakj


https://twitter.com/HemantElhence


www.synerzip.comConfidential

Conference Overview• August 5-9 in Nashville, TN

• Approx 1700 participants, 17 tracks, over 200 sessions, plus inspiring keynotes

• We attended 20 sessions each, plus Exhibit booths of about 40 vendors of tools and training services

• 3rd year of 1-day Executive Forum, with invited senior executives

• Like previous years, big sponsors like Google or Microsoft were absent or kept out giving more relevant companies a bigger share of the limelight

http://www.synerzip.com/

www.synerzip.com

Synerzip’s Top “10” TakeawaysNote: 40 sessions were attended out of 200 by Synerzip’s CEO Hemant Elhence and CTO Vinayak Joglekar. Where possible, the presenter’s name was mentioned.

Confidential


1. DevOps Focus

Confidential

$ 3000,0000,000,0000Three Trillion Dollars

www.synerzip.com


Gene Kim Keynote• Builds should have static analysis of code and asserts to

flag out misconfiguration or force https. Let builds break before production.

• Worldwide cost of IT failure is $3 trillion. Avoid large scale failures -chaos monkey(Netflix)-small, frequent failures

• Adrian Cockcroft― do more painful things more frequently• High performing DevOps teams deploy automatically and

infrastructure configurations are version-controlled; resulting in 30X more frequent releases and 12X MTTR

• In value stream Req-Design-Dev-Test-Deploy-Release fixing anything before or after the bottleneck doesn’t help

• Long release periods happen more because of time taken in queue; not while running

• Developers tend to ignore non functional requirements.

Confidential

Gene is a multiple award winning CTO, researcher and author. He was founder and CTO of Tripwire for 13 years.

www.synerzip.com


Continuous Delivery• Visibility: Big Charts-”Ready to release” instead of “Done”• Cross functional feature teams instead of DevOps team• Build pipeline slows down if risk management steps kick in on

account of complex code.• Architecting for reversibility and testability required for CD.• Ball of mud- too many dependencies make CD difficult. It takes

months to release due to architectural dependencies • Complex Architecture and lack of collaboration are blockers for CD• Automation tests the application and the process that deployed it• Feature toggles/ Branch by Abstraction decouple deployment and

release

Confidential www.synerzip.com


2. Lean Startups Everywhere

Confidential

Lean Startup

Most popular Topic

www.synerzip.com


Alline Watkins – Lean Startup• Empathy works better than online surveys• Steve Blank―Startups fail not because they don’t

have product but because they don’t have customers.

• Value proposition is why your product solves your customers’ problem better than your competitor

• The primary customer is the decision-maker. The payer and the user are secondary customers.

• More features don’t make your product better. 20% of them account for 80% of the utility.

• Early adopters give time, attention as they badly want your product to succeed.

• Patterns emerge after 20 ints.- time to think of soln

Confidential

Lean Agilista & JAVA/GWT Programmer

www.synerzip.com


3. Hard Data on Agile Impact• Data from Rally’s 9,629 projects. www.rallydev.com/agilemetrics• Using key dimensions of Software Development Performance Index

(SDPI): Responsiveness, Quality, Productivity, Predictability• Dedicated & stable teams work much better

– When people are dedicated to ONE team, that result in 2x higher Productivity– Stable teams result in 60% better Productivity, 40% better Predictability, and

60% better Responsiveness• Teams using story points & task hours have 3.5x better Quality

– No Estimate (3% of teams)– SP + Task Hours (79% of teams) << Best on Quality– Only SP (10% of teams) << Better overall (Productivity, Predictability,

Responsiveness)– Only Task Hours (8% of teams)

• Teams of 7 +/- 2 have the most balanced performance


http://www.rallydev.com/agilemetrics


4. Agile Mindset/ People Focus• A lot of discussion on the soft skills side of Agile• “Focus on the people side, and forget about process and tools” • Intra-team communication• Trust & transparency as fundamental building blocks• Servant leadership model• Conflict Resolution• Developing coaching skills• Negotiation and persuasion skills• Follow-up sessions by Linda Rising (2011 Keynote speaker)



5. Empathy

Confidential

Empathy In Mobile Apps Design

www.synerzip.com


David Peter Simon―Mobile strategies based on empathy• People focus to evolve mobile projects• MFP for human rights activists in Africa• Thinkaloud walkthrough and observing

people to validate their stated belief• What can help people instead of what can be

built• 3 learnings― context centered design,

augment existing answers, create-destroy.• One eyeball‒one hand. Actions like shaking

the phone to lodge a complaint by Google Maps.

• Focus on people instead of hardware features like speed, screen size, durability, signal strength etc.

Confidential

ThoughtworkerAt the heart of my work is a deeply held belief in technology's liberating capacity for society, attacking the most pressing problems of our time: social and economic inequality, energy, health care, participatory democracy and human rights abuse.

www.synerzip.com


6. Agile Adoption

Confidential

85%Troubled Agile Adoptions

www.synerzip.com


Open space― Dan Mezick• Imposing against Agile principle of self-

determination & “people over process”• Open space― 5 principles &1 law (2ft).

Whenever, wherever, whoever, whatever.

• People design agenda. Rows=time, columns=place

• Purpose of open space is to generate stories to understand people & culture

• Agile adoption is a game. Games generate happiness. Open spaces tell you care.

• Leadership evolves― passionate and having sense of responsibility speak up. Success succeeds.

Confidential

Dan coaches executives and

teams in Agile &Scrum

www.synerzip.com


7. Enterprise Agile• Large-scale Agile is still a big topic of discussion• Major theme in Executive Forum• Leffingwell’s SAFe framework seems widely accepted and practiced,

but some skeptics• Scrum of scrum “sort of works”• Other enterprise agile frameworks:

– Scott Ambler’s Disciplined Agile Delivery (www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com)

– Eliassen/Damon Poole’s Enterprise Agility Model



8. Technical Debt• Israel Gat’s session• More mature and well developed in theory and in practice• Vicious cycle of TD: biz pressure >> TD >> reduced velocity >> missed

time-line >> more biz pressure• TD is not the problem, it is just a symptom of the problem• When Business Demand > Team Capacity, you end up incurring

technical debt• 3 main components of TD, with different impact

– Principal – one time refactoring cost– Recurring Interest – increase in on-going support/maint. costs– Compound Interest – created by practices like copy & paste, has

exponential effect• Useful metaphors: Financial Debt, Rusty Car, Toxic Code: software

where technical debt to value ratio is >100%



9. Scaling Agile

Confidential

Hierarchies Biggest impediment for scaling Agile

www.synerzip.com


Dan LeFebvre – Circles & Links• Precondition-self organizing teams-

– 1) Equivalent elements – 2) External source of energy – 3) Happiness due to perceived control/

progress, connectedness and being a part of something big.

• Multiple scrum teams result in lack of equivalence, visibility and no sense of belonging

• Disconnected teams>broken system― Conway’s law

• Requirements: bottom-top-bottom―Chinese whispers.

• Red status turns amber/green as it reaches the top.

• Decisions are best made at team level as freshest info is available there

Confidential

Executive Coach and Agile Coach at FreeStanding Agility

www.synerzip.com


Dan LeFebvre – Circles & Links• Scrum of scrums- sharing of status- no action• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFE) – difficult to implement.• Self organizing delivery circles create and deliver. elect

members to join co ordinating circles that provide infrastructure, requirements, architecture

• Equivalence, visibility , external source of energy.• Consensus vs consent to live with a decision.• Community circles where functionally similar members

improve skills, coach others.



10. User Research

Confidential

Lies What most users tell when asked

www.synerzip.com


Aviva Rosenstein-Rapid Research• Rapid research helps UX designers to keep up with Agile iterations.

Customers don’t share knowledge , values, assumptions and interest. Need to elicit truth.

• Before-Interviewing/shadowing.During- card sorts, tree sorts.After- pdt experience feedback

• Personas-user roles, characteristics, situations• Empathize with user’s pains and frustrations.• Users interest -cash, sneak peak, being heard• Observe-don’t ask. Don’t interrupt. Open ended q’s.• User research-too important to be left to user researcher



Rapid Product Design• Michele Ide-Smith’s team built an MVP in a 3-day exhibition event.

(Source Control for D/b schema)• Red Gate (.Net+D/B). Customer interaction difficult• No visibility into user environment and context.• Predefined w/flow 20 ints before. Interviewing at conference booth.

Three days- 9 mini sprints.• Bootstrap prototype- 25 User feedback sessions in 2.5 days. Paper

prototyping extensively used.• Empathy map for customer needs. Affinity map to avoid repetitive/

similar feedback. Sketching env.• 600 beta users signed up .



Summary1. DevOps Focus2. Lean Startup Everywhere3. Hard data on Agile Impact4. Importance of Agile Mindset & Soft Skills5. Mobile Strategy Driven by Customer Empathy6. Open Spaces to Facilitate Agile Adoption7. SAFe Framework for Enterprise Agile8. Pushing Understanding of Technical Debt9. Org Hierarchy is the Main Impediment to Scaling Agile10. User Research is Too Important to be Left to Researchers



Confidential

Contact Information• Hemant Elhence (Dallas based)

– [email protected]– @HemantElhence– Cell Phone: 214.762.4873

• Vinayak Joglekar (India based)

– [email protected]– @vinayakj– Blog: http://vinayakjoglekar.wordpress.com/

• HQ and US office in Dallas, TX– 14228 Midway Rd, #130, Dallas, TX 75244– Office Tel: 469.322.0349

• Development center in Pune, India.

www.synerzip.com

mailto:[email protected]



mailto:[email protected]



http://vinayakjoglekar.wordpress.com/


Beyond The “Top 10”



11. Agile Contracts• A number of sessions on Agile contracts

– Gabriella Benefield & Ryan Shriver– Simon Bennett– Consensus that traditional contracts don’t work for

software development– More developed topic, with real contract templates

http://flexiblecontracts.com– Value or Outcome based payments– A combination of Business Terms agreement, along with

multiple Statement of Target Outcomes


http://flexiblecontracts.com/


12. Architecture & Architect Role• Scott Ambler session on Continuous

Architecture and Emergent Design– “Architecture is so important in Agile, that we do

it throughout, not just in the beginning”– There needs to a role of Architecture Owner,

similar to Product Owner



13. Feature Based Release Teams• Mehernosh Patel’s lightening talk

– Organize each scrum team around a feature

– Have one production trunk, and let each team work on the branch

– Who ever finishes first, gets to integrate to trunk. But has to also deliver automated tests for their feature.

– All others, need to now pull that trunk and integrate

– The process repeats

– Creates healthy race towards delivering the feature fast!



14. Stable Teams vs. ROI• From Executive Forum

– Stable (and dedicated) teams are significantly more productive

– Senior mgmt should fund development capacity (and prioritize project), rather than look project-by-project ROI



15. Agile Metrics• Many guidelines, but no single prescription• Vanity metrics vs real metrics - velocity alone is not a good

metric• Monitor balanced metrics, e.g. Velocity, Quality, Hours, and

Team Joy• Be aware of Hawthorne effect and gaming• Where possible, try to measure UP, i.e.

– Measure the team, not the individual– Measure the business, not the team– Measure UP, start with the customer – Net Promoter

Score



Other Soundbites• Retrospectives are NOT optional in Agile

• TDD is like teenage sex – more people talking about it than actually doing it!

• Capex vs. Opex classification can be handled at story level, e.g. new feature (capex) vs. maintenance story (opex)



key takeaways agile 2013 nashville conference presented by:

Documents

cto vinayak joglekar

devops teams

cto of tripwire

devops focusconfidential

secondary customers

customers problem

features dont

account of complex code