Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

Quiz: Count the Fs

• Finished files are the resultof years of scientific studycombined with the experience of years ….

Quiz: Count the Fs

• Finished files are the resultof years of scientific studycombined with the experience of years ….

Answer = 3

Quiz: Count the Fs

• Finished files are the resultof years of scientific studycombined with the experience of years ….

Answer = 6

Quiz: Count the Fs`

• Finished files are the resultof years of scientific studycombined with the experience of years ….

Answer = 1 Sorry - I meant uppercase Fs

Agile Thinking Tip

Sometimes it is hard to get even the simplest things right.

So work in a way that assumes we can’t always get things right.

(e.g. if you have decades of experience showing that > 70% requirements change during the

execution of projects … then … work in a way that makes it easy to

change them)

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

James Watt Abe Lincoln Amancio Ortega Gaona

James Watt

His greatest invention?

An offer you can’t refuse …

Horse Power

=

Horse Power

=

= 6 HP

Which currently costs you £900 p.a.

I’ll charge you £300 p.a, saving you £600 p.a.

If you sign up for 20 years.

Watt = 22nd

1

100

Agile Thinking Tip

Figure out how to get what

you want, by getting others what

they want.

(Hint: They often want money).

Quiz – More staff for free? More money?

• What happens if you finish every project 25% sooner?

Before: AAAABBBBCCCC

After: AAABBBCCCDDD

• You gain 33% more staff, for free.• (Which is worth Wage-Bill * 33%)

• You can do 33% more work, for free.

• But do you have 33% more work to do?

What if you “sold” or “used” only half that 33% increase?

• Fixed Costs £1,000,000• Revenue per project £400,000• Before: 3 projects £1,200,000

• Profit: £200,000

• But now you can do 4 projects!• But you can only sell a small one, bringing in revenue of £200,000.

• Your revenue goes up to £1,400,000• Your profit £400,000

• Your profit has doubled!• You are a hero!

Quiz – Even earlier?

• If you could finish every project 25% sooner?• And every project previously took 4 months.• Then how much sooner does the 3rd project finish?

• 3 months:

Before: AAAABBBBCCCC

After: AAABBBCCCDDD– It not only finishes 1 month earlier; – it starts 2 months earlier.

Quiz – Even earlier

If each of those projects returned £150,000 per month, once live… How much more money have you made when you start D?

• 3 months:

Before: AAAABBBBCCCC

After: AAABBBCCCDDD

• £450K

= £150K from A and £300K from B

Agile Thinking Tip

Judge all decisions (even technical ones) according to the cost (in terms of costs

and revenue) of delay.

What should we do…?

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

Cash Flow:

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £

Cash Flow:

P1

P2

P3

P1

P2

P3

Project executionOptions Y

Project executionOptions X

What we should do…

A

x1 x1 x1

B

Resources:

P1 C D E F G H I J

P2

P3

A B C D E F G H I J

A B C D E F G H I J

20 weeks

28 weeks

36 weeks

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

Cash Flow:

What we do do…

A

x1 x1 x1

B

Resources:

P1 C D E F G H I J

P2

P3

A B C D E F G H I J

A B C D E F G H I J

48 weeks

50 weeks

52 weeks

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

£ £ £ £ £ £ £

Cash Flow:

Agile Thinking Tip

Focus on

Finishing more projects, not

Startingmore projects.

Hint: Don’t dilute your effort and delay your cash-flow.

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

James Watt Abe Lincoln Amancio Ortega Gaona

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

Abe Lincoln

Victim, not Hero.

1. This evening at about 9:30 p.m. at Ford's Theatre, the President, while sitting in his private box with Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Harris and Major Rathburn, was shot by an assassin, who suddenly entered the box and approached behind the President.

2. The assassin then leaped upon the stage, brandishing a large dagger or knife, and made his escape in the rear of the theatre.

3. The pistol ball entered the back of the President's head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal.

4. The President has been insensible ever since it was inflicted, and is now dying.

5. About the same hour an assassin, whether the same or not, entered Mr. Seward’s apartment and under pretense of having a prescription was shown to the Secretary’s sick chamber. The assassin immediately rushed to the bed and inflicted two or three stabs on the chest and two on the face. It is hoped the wounds may not be mortal. My apprehension is that they will prove fatal.

6. The nurse alarmed Mr. Frederick Seward, who was in an adjoining room, and he hastened to the door of his father’s room, when he met the assassin, who inflicted upon him one or more dangerous wounds. The recovery of Frederick Seward is doubtful.

7. It is not probable that the President will live through the night.8. General Grant and his wife were advertised to be at the theatre...

– New York Herald, April 15, 1865

“Inverted Pyramid” (Invented 19th Century)

NHS chaos exposed by new e-mails

Lead: A COMPUTER project costing £6.2 billion that is central to Tony Blair’s National Health Service reforms is in “grave” danger of being “derailed”, leaked Whitehall e-mails reveal.

1. The warning has been issued by Richard Granger, the £250,000-a-year civil servant in charge of what has been billed as the world’s biggest civil information technology project.

2. The scheme is central to the government’s plans to give patients wider choice by allowing GPs to book hospital appointments online with consultants throughout the country.

3. The problems have already caused a year-long delay in the booking system and now threaten to add millions to the cost of the project.

4. To date the system has made only about 20,000 appointments for patients. It was supposed to have made 250,000 by December 2004.

5. When it is fully operational the system is meant to be capable of making up to 9.5m first hospital appointments a year.

6. In the e-mail exchanges in September, Granger blames a senior civil servant in the Department of Health for the fiasco, criticising her repeated last-minute changes and failure to heed his advice.

7. …

Jonathon Carr-Brown, The Sunday Times, November 13, 2005 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1869851,00.html

Editors scissors

Cut according to space constraints

Time

priority

Six principles of Agile Development32

Promised Shipping

Date

RELE

ASE

All

features

time

Working Software = Potentially shippable

2: Deliver chunks of high-value, well engineered, Working software often

4: The Customer can add, delete or reprioritise features at any time. i.e. this is how we “embrace change”

1: Customer lists known requirements (to a high level), then prioritises them (£££).

prioritised

3: The Customer can release the software at any time they want.

££££££££££££££learn from the market

5: We protect schedule commitments, despite change

Backlog

6. We can review the project and the value it delivers at the end of each increment

“Inverted Pyramid” (Invented 19th Century)

NHS chaos exposed by new e-mails

Lead: A COMPUTER project costing £6.2 billion that is central to Tony Blair’s National Health Service reforms is in “grave” danger of being “derailed”, leaked Whitehall e-mails reveal.

1. The warning has been issued by Richard Granger, the £250,000-a-year civil servant in charge of what has been billed as the world’s biggest civil information technology project.

2. The scheme is central to the government’s plans to give patients wider choice by allowing GPs to book hospital appointments online with consultants throughout the country.

3. The problems have already caused a year-long delay in the booking system and now threaten to add millions to the cost of the project.

4. To date the system has made only about 20,000 appointments for patients. It was supposed to have made 250,000 by December 2004.

5. When it is fully operational the system is meant to be capable of making up to 9.5m first hospital appointments a year.

6. In the e-mail exchanges in September, Granger blames a senior civil servant in the Department of Health for the fiasco, criticising her repeated last-minute changes and failure to heed his advice.

7. …

Jonathon Carr-Brown, The Sunday Times, November 13, 2005 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1869851,00.html

Editors scissors

Cut according to space constraints

Time

priority

Agile Thinking Tip

Agile software projects make a different offer/promise.

Not: Fixed Scope, Fixed Duration, Fixed price, highly-variable

success.

But: Variable Scope, Fixed Duration, Fixed price, higher

likelihood of success.

Agile Thinking Tip

Don’t

Bury the Lead

Focus on

the benefits AND the features; the ½ inch hole AND the drill;

the what AND the how;

the forest AND the trees;

BONUS

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

James Watt Abe Lincoln Amancio Ortega Gaona

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

Amancio Ortega Gaona

The worlds 10th Wealthiest Man; Spain’s richest man.

Founder of Zara chain of “fast fashion” shops.

Very, very simple manufacturing & distribution systems.Very responsive.

Where his competitors take months to deliver a new range of fashion clothing; Zara takes weeks.

Rapid Fulfilment Most retailers• Manufacture overseas, lowest-

cost, with long delivery lead-times (many months)

• Manufacture to long-range forecast

• Low margins, missed sales.– Sell out of popular product– Sell unpopular stuff at huge

discounts (or dump)

• Lower profits

Zara• Manufacturer locally, fly the

product to the US & Japan, very short lead-times (1-3 wks)

• Manufacture according to real demand (i.e. what’s popular? Make and sell more of that)

• High margins, higher sales.– Sell more of the popular

product (at high prices)– Don’t manufacture the stuff

people don’t want.• Higher profits.

plant shop plant shop£

£

Agile ThinkingBy Clarke Ching

Amancio Ortega Gaona

Rapid-fire Replenishment needs: • careful prioritization (what do we manufacture next?)• flexible & adaptive manufacturing processes.

So does Rapid-fire SoftDev.

Prioritize-Deliver-Repeat40

Promised Shipping

Date

All

features

time

2: Deliver chunks of high-value, well engineered, Working software often

4: The Customer can add, delete or reprioritise features at any time. i.e. this is how we “embrace change”

1: Customer lists known requirements (to a high level), then prioritises them (£££).

prioritised

3: The Customer can release the software at any time they want.

Backlog

Agile Thinking Tip

Remember:

Prioritize

Deliver

Repeat

(The delivery/engineering part is the easy bit.)

Final Example

Before• New Kanban system• Better engineering!• Loads of work.• Barely profitable and …• … why won’t customers engage?

After• Proper Business oriented prioritization• Moving 1 item to the top of the list

changed everything.• Huge increase in profits.• More interesting work for Developers;

better equipment; more respect.

:( PRIORITISATION :)

Agile Thinking Tip

At the end of the day:

It’s all about:

Flow

Agile Thinking Tip

At the end of the day:

It’s all about:

And making IT the heroes.