Agile in the Ivory Tower: How patterns & practices builds guidance

Blaine WastellProgram ManagerMicrosoftSession Code:

Session Objectives And Takeaways

Session Objectives: Learn how p&p uses agile techniques Learn the experience from practitioners using agile process in over a dozen projects Why is agile important and what is unique about p&p’s perspective?Understand the challenges and techniques used to scale agile in a distributed team environment

Key Take-aways:Walk away with an understanding about what has worked well and consistentlyWalk away with justification for using these practices in your (customer) teams

Our Ivory Tower

Future Project Lifecycle

Research Project Planning

Code & Guidance Development

Code Release

Vision & Scope M0CTP

Weekly code & guidance dropsGuidance Release

Media Release

FINALRelease

Understanding the Problem Building the Solution Describing the Solution

NOTE – Team stays together after code release to build media and guidance based on code. A project is considered DONE when all of the features have been released

Planning Code Development Testing Guidance Development Media & Marketing Dev Final Production & Release

Flow

Effort

Candidate architectureUser Stories

Conchango Diagram

Customer Connected Engineering

Communication Breadth: Codeplex communitiesDepth: Customer Advisory Boards

Think in terms of stories not featuresSoftware from the customer perspective

Frequent checkpoints with customersUsing frequent drops to the communitiesCustomer workshopsAdvisory meetings

Planning and EstimationBe date driven Maintain prioritizedstory backlogChoose initial t-shirt sizePlay the planning gameMonitor velocityPlan for iteration zero

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Low-Fi Iteration Planning: Warm

Hi-Fi Iteration Planning: Still Warm

Team Formation

Program managementDev lead + developersTest lead + testersTechnical Writer(s)Domain experts (SMEs)

Core teams with consistent membersConsultants available

But it’s about what you do, not job titles!

Team Tasks… The Game What do you do on the team?

Product Portfolio

Customer

Design and CodingRisk Assesment

Business

ArchPdMDevPgMTest

Distributed TeamsThis is the reality of software development todayMaximize communication

Join project kick off iterationMore formal story management

There is only one team not local and remoteEveryone participates in daily stand-ups

Frequent on site visits Time zones harder to manage than distance

pig > chicken > cow

Quality

Done Dungvs Donvs

Quality – Done (Feature Level)A story is done when:

The acceptance criteria are agreed upon

The team has a test/set of tests (preferably automated) that prove the acceptance criteria are met

The code to make the acceptance tests pass is written

The unit tests and code are checked in

The Continue Integration (CI) server can successfully build the code base

The acceptance tests pass on the bits the CI server creates

No other acceptance tests or unit tests are broken

Documentation is written for the feature

The customer proxy signs off on the story

Process Agnostic PracticesUnit testing (tests are assets not liability)Test-Driven Development (TDD)Continuous Integration (CI)Acceptance testing (automate what makes sense)Iteration planningDaily stand-upsRetrospectivesSustainable pace

You don’t have to be agile to get benefits…

Challenges

Too many cooksRewarding teamsTeam continuity

Teams should feel empowered and encouraged to address their challenges within the team

Learn from us!

Come see the p&p space

Questions?

Related Content

Microsoft patterns & practicesmsdn.microsoft.com/practices

Codeplex communitiescodeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=patterns%20%26%20practices

SummaryAgile is not a silver bullet p&p successfully uses Distributed Agile

Find ways to connect with your customer early and oftenContinuous integration gives confidence to respond to changeAgile works because of short delivery cycles and constant improvementWhere possible work with someone that successfully applied agile on a previous project

question & answer

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS,

IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.