Intelligent People. Uncommon Ideas.

Our Journey Down the Yellow Brick Road

(Agile Adoption @ Directi)

By Bhavin Turakhia (CEO) & Naresh Jain (Agile & Community Evangelist)

Directi (http://www.directi.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike Noncommercial

Agenda

• Why Agile is important to us?

• Our Journey

• General Tips and Observations

• The Road ahead

Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense System

• 1969-1975, 5407 person years

• Hardware designed at the same time as software specs being written

• Late changes in requirements not an option

• The project was delivered according to specifications

• Cost: $25 Billion (not adjusted)

‘By the time the 6-year anti-missile system project was completed, the new missiles were faster than the anti-

missile missiles’

Operational for 133 days - Project terminated in 1978

reqmts20 %

design20 %

code &unit test

18 %

integrationtesting42 %

In Conventional Software Development Processes

• Features are fixed

• Release spec is fixed

• .. and in theory ... time and cost is fixed

• Feature creep is a bad word

QualityQuality????

Cost/Resource

TimeSc

ope

The Reality is – Change is the only Constant

• Agile as the word suggests Acknowledges that uncertainty and change exist Recommends being open to change and evolving Is feedback driven Encourages ongoing and open communication Discourages over-engineering Encourages lean thinking KISS, DRY, YAGNI

Introducing Agile …

Agile is not a process. It is a philosophy / set of values

Our Journey

• Observations Maintain a heartbeat of the project Serve as quicker feedback loops (what works / doesn’t work) Maintain deadlines and focus / minimize timeline deviations Identify hurdles quickly Create a sense of urgency Demonstrate progress Motivate members Get a sense of performance amongst team members Communicate and trickle down vision regularly Create a sense of team ownership and collectiveness .. and they take almost no time

• Challenges Common time

Daily Stand up meetings

Weekly Iterations & Monthly Releases

• Implementation Time box each release to a month Schedule weekly demos Concept of iteration and completeness

• Observations Regular Stakeholder participation Reduces Business Risk Enables adaption to avoid delays Effective Prioritization Focus / Clear Targets Motivation Long enough to get stuff done Short enough to maintain predictability

• Challenges Chances of Burn out, lack of slack

eXtreme Programming• Implementation

TDD Refactoring Continuous Integration

• Observations Code coverage - safety net Drives better design Taking baby steps The last 5% doesn’t end up taking 95% time Early Feedback Reusable Test framework (Safety Net) Lets face it ... manual testing is boring Tests as Training documentation Lower cumulative testing cost

• Challenges Learning curve Easy to fall back to older habits

Add a TestAdd a TestAdd a TestAdd a Test

Run the Run the TestTest

Run the Run the TestTest

Make a Make a little little

changechange

Make a Make a little little

changechange

Run the Run the TestTest

Run the Run the TestTest

RefactorRefactorRefactorRefactor

Fail

Pass

Fail

Pass

Release Retrospective • Implementation

Discuss macro lessons learnt / process evolution / challenges

• Observations What worked / What didn’t work / What needs improvement Inspect and adapt Process evolution

• Challenges Not everyone is comfortable speaking up

Raising the Bar

• People matter *much* more than process

• Pair Programming during Interviews

• Very high focus on technical excellence / communication skills

• Diversity in skill-sets

We spend extra time in making sure we hire the RIGHT people,

so we don’t have to spend time in making sure the job gets done RIGHT

General Tips / Observations • Tips

You need local champions/ambassadors for percolation Don’t start out with 100% adoption - prioritize the practices Requires changes to your infrastructure and facilities Cross-functional agile adoption vs dev team only Only buy-in not sufficient / dedicated involvement and

commitment required Embrace tools Learn by Activity / Knowledge Percolation strategies

• Observations A fundamental shift in thought process Everyone is really excited!! (Moral Boast / Motivation) Higher visibility / greater transparency through the

organization

The Road ahead

• Pair Programming

• Automated Acceptance Testing

• Identify right metrics to measure

• Informative Work-spaces and Information Radiators

• User Stories or Clarity in terms of Feature Granularity

• Regular Cross Pollination and Rotation of Team members across different products

• Less Cubical more Dinning Table style seating arrangements

What’s been your experience?

Intelligent People. Uncommon Ideas.

Questions??

bhavin.t@directi.com naresh.j@directi.com

http://directi.comhttp://careers.directi.com

Download slides: http://wiki.directi.com