Program Management School

Agile & ADDIE Add-Up (AAAU)

Elliott Masie’s Learning 2012

October 21-24, 2012

• Jeff Kachik – Program Manager, Program Management School

• Deborah Gadsden – Director of Operations, Program Management School

Presenters

1. Undefined and changing requirements

2. Lack of stakeholder/executive involvement

3. Clear measures of success are undefined

4. Too much in too little time

5. Financial estimates are poor

Why Projects Fail

Agile is a framework that focuses on teams that can adapt to change and deliver products early, often and consistently, in accordance with business priorities.

What is Agile?

AGILE• Scrum Master• Product Owner• SME’s• Development Team

Agile Terminology

We value:• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools• Completed functionality over comprehensive

documentation• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation• Responding to change over following a plan

“While there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”

The Agile Manifesto: What Does It Mean?

• Documentation is not necessary• Processes are not necessary• No need to follow a plan• Agile cannot be audited

• Ill-disciplined means of development• Testing is not needed• Agile is always the best approach

Misconceptions About Agile

• Recognize problems sooner

• Incremental development

• Stakeholder involvement early in the process

• Focused attention on work/deadlines

• Build efficiencies daily

• Urgency

• Continuous improvement

• Quality

Benefits of Agile

• Based on a 7 year study of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory

• Observed people in 21 organizations

• Studied communication patterns of some 2,500 plus people for six weeks at a time

Key to Agile Effectiveness – Great Teams

Harvard Business Review, April 2012

• Collected “Sociometrics” or measures of how people interact

• A team’s success can be predicted by simply looking at data without even meeting it’s members

• MIT found that: “The most valuable form of communication is face-to-face. E-mail and texting are the least valuable.”

Key to Agile Effectiveness – Great Teams Cont’d

Successful teams share several defining characteristics:

• Members talk and listen in equal measure

• Members face one another; gestures are energetic

• Members connect directly with one another – not just the team leader

• Members carry on back channel or side conversations within the

team

• Members break, go exploring outside the team, and bring back

information

Talent contributes far less than communication skills!

Key to Agile Effectiveness – Great Teams Cont’d

Applying Agile – Where Do We Begin?

• Represents what customers need and value• Ideally, each backlog item should answer:

– Who is the user?– What does the user need to do?– Why does the user need to do that?

In the simplest terms, the Backlog answers the questions,

“What are we building, and why are we building it?”

Building the Backlog

• Based on Scrum in Rugby• Advancing “the ball” together• Conducted daily• Should last no more than 15 minutes• Scrum answers three questions:

– What I did yesterday?– What I’m working on today?– Are there barriers inhibiting my work?

Scrum

• Backlog review

• Extreme focus on work

• Completion of Backlog

• Time focused - 2 to 3 weeks

• Resourcing

• Team publicly commits work

• Product owner and development team select user stories to meet iteration goal

Sprint

• Release is a stand alone measure of value

• Release planning answers three questions:

– When do we want to release?

– What is the priority of each story?

– What would you like in the release?

MoSCoW Rules

• Must have

• Should have

• Could have

• Won’t have this time

Release Planning

• Backlog• Work in progress• To do• Acceptance testing• Done

Using Kanban Boards vs. Software Tools

Agile ADDIE Add Up

Agile & ADDIE Add-Up (AAAU)

Learning Story

• Develop the course in three months

• Meet certification requirements• Use Agile-ADDIE for complex 32-

hour course• No standards - No processes -

No templates • Contractors brand new to VA and

to each other

20

The Challenge

• Take the best of classroom methodology and make it virtual– Interactive learning environment– Problem-based learning activities– Highly engaging– Visually appealing– Innovative– Integrate instructor led with

e-learning characteristics– Go green

21

The Vision

• Test your technology

24

Evaluation Results

Scale 1 to 5 with 5 being the best

Creativity beyond the norm

Evaluation Results Cont’d

Delivered 6 sessions and 2 pilot sessions to over 150 participants

Questions