Presented at CodeMash 2015. By Paul Holway. Regardless of how you feel about felines, dead cats stink. What also stinks is what is happening to agile development practices. What started as a movement to increase quality and usefulness of code written, has been professionalized into certificates and ceremonies that are only marginally helping the process. Instead of blaming political and organizational forces, this humorous and irreverent talk focuses on what team members can do to overcome these corporate obstacles and to get to the spirit of agile through a focus on architectural innovation and personal improvement. Attendees should expect to laugh, to learn from the experience of implementing dozens of real world enterprise agile teams, and to come out with proven new techniques to try to bring more satisfaction to how they do their work and to bring the focus of agile back to software development.

1. NOTICE: Proprietary and Confidential
This material is proprietary to Centric Consulting, LLC. It contains trade secrets and information which is solely the property of Centric Consulting, LLC.
This material is solely for the Client’s internal use. This material shall not be used, reproduced, copied, disclosed, transmitted, in whole or in part, without
the express consent of Centric Consulting, LLC.
© 2014 Centric Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved
Reclaiming Agile Development
paul.holway@centricconsulting.com
314-265-3403
Twitter: @paulholway

2. WHY GO AGILE?
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Bluetooth enabled - Moxie Shower by Kohler

3. Why is agile adoption rising?
Version One 2013 Survey of Agile Results:
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Top 5 Reasons to Adopt Agile
• Accelerate Time to Market
• Manage Changing Priorities
• Better IT/business alignment
• Increased Productivity
• Better Quality
Top 5 Benefits Realized
• Manage Changing Priorities
• Increased Productivity
• Improved Project Visibility
• Improved Team Morale
• Better Quality

4. Budget
Scope Time
The Real Reason
50- 70%* of Technology Solutions industry-wide fail to meet
the business user expectations
Some cited reasons:
• Lack of business involvement
• Executives find it difficult to find information**
• Features un-used
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•Gartner: 2012 Business Intelligence still subject to non-technical challenges
•** Business Week Research Services

5. Technology is changing at a rapid pace
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Sensors invade and expand Big Data use

6. http://connectedco.com/
BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY ARE CHANGING AT AN INCREASINGLY RAPID PACE
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7. Back to Basics
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8. The Agile Mindset
• Business involvement throughout the project
• Empiricism and experimentation
• Change that leads to value is encouraged
• Build working technology frequently within a short, fixed timeframe (i.e. timebox)
• Small team size
• Transparency
• Architecture is constantly tested
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Agile is not only a project approach but also a mindset based on the principles of the agile manifesto. To
be successful with agile, there needs to be cultural a shift, not an imposed afterthought. Below are just
some of the paradigm shifts that take place when transitioning to agile.

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Components Of a Successful Agile Execution
Today, few technology managers or developers will admit to not understanding agile. The Agile Manifesto*
serves as an excellent foundation, but we know there’s more to delivering on budget, on schedule, and with real
people. You need 4 things:
Companies often start
(and stall) here
Processes Technology
Practices
Organizational
Interfaces
Adopting an
Agile Culture
How do we use
technology to
maintain agility?
How do our role’s
change? How do
we create an agile
organization?
How do we talk to the
rest of the
organization in a
way they
understand?

10. In an agile project, the first thing to getting started is establishing a cadence.
• Prioritization
• Estimation
• Learning and Adapting
• Garnering Feedback
• Releasing
• Keeping in Sync.
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Establishing Cadence
Often we receive so many ideas and requirements, because users are afraid of
missing the “Feature Bus”. They will not get your attention back again. By
establishing cadence, you effectively install more stops that they can get on/off.
Why is cadence is so important?

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A sample cadence
Governed By
Release Owner
Governed By
Product Owner
Governed By
Steering Committee
Portion of Release delivered to
business users.
Program Cycle Release
Each Cycle consists of:
Plan
Execute
Done
Feedback
Are releases meeting business goals
Which releases to fund
Release coherency
Release coordination
Fulfilling daily commitments
Removing Obstacles
Iteration
Daily Standup

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Centric's Agile Approach – Agile Technology Practices
Many Agile transformations focus solely on the Agile process. But the technologies used to execute successful
Agile delivery are equally important. Early Sprints need to define the technologies and the extent to which
they will be used. Do not attempt to do this on the fly!
Organizational
Interfaces
Change
Management
Processes
Technology
Practices
Components of a Successful Agile Execution

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How is Agile Architecture Different - Refactoring

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$postImportsStatus = $this->InteractionsLoad->postImportCSV();
// TODO: fix the comparison
// if ($importStatus && $postImportsStatus) {
// return true;
// }
return $importStatus;
Define Done

15. +Claim Severity()
+Claim Duration Days()
+Claim Processing Days()
+Claim Count()
+Claim Notification Days()
+Claim Last Close Date()
+Claim Last Complete Date()
+Claim Class()
+Claim Type()
-Claim Number
-Loss Date
-Reported Date
-Current Claim Status : Claim Status
-Claim State : State
Claim
+In Force Policy Count()
+In Force Policy Premium()
«signal»-Cancellation()
«signal»-Inception()
«signal»-Renewal()
-Policy Number
-Current Primary Rate State : State
-Company : Company
-Policy Original Effective Date
-Policy Segment : Policy Segment
Policy
-Payment Amount
-Check : Check
-Cost Center
-Payment Type : Payment Type
-Payment Subtype : Payment Subtype
-Claim Element : Claim Feature
0..1 0..*
1
0..*
-First Name
-Last Name
Adjuster
-State Code
-State Name
-Country Code
State
-Feature Loss Type Code
-Feature Loss Type Description
Feature Loss Type
0..1
0..*
-Claim Status : Claim Status
-Claim Status Date
-Claim : Claim
Claim Status History
1
1..*
-Claim Status Type
-Claim Status Description
Claim Status1
0..*
1
0..*
-Feature Status : Feature Status
-Feature Status Date
-Feature : Claim Feature
Feature Status History
1
1..*
-Feature Status Type
-Feature Status
Feature Status
0..*
1
0..*
1
0..*
-Check Number
-Check Payee 1 1..*
-Payment Type Description
-Payment Subtype Code
-Payment Subtype Description
Payment Type
1
1..*
+Feature Severity()
+Feature Duration Days()
+Feature Duration Weeks()
+Feature Processing Days()
+Feature Count()
+Feature Original Open Date()
+Feature Last Close Date()
+Net Loss Reserve()
+Gross Loss Payments()
+Gross Loss Reserve Change Avg()
+Gross Loss Reserve Change Count()
+Gross Loss Reserve Change()
«signal»-Open()
«signal»-Close()
«signal»-Reopen()
-Current Feature Status : Feature Status
-Feature Loss Type : Feature Loss Type
-Claim : Claim
-Coverage : Coverage
-Loss Reserve
Claim Feature
0..1
0..*
-Adjuster Effective Date
-Adjuster Expiration Date
-Primary Adjuster Flag
-Adjuster : Adjuster
-Feature : Claim Feature
Feature Adjuster History
1 0..* 0..1
0..*
1
1..*
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Visualizing Increments
Show current
iteration against
the vision.
Organizational
Interfaces
Stories,
individually, may
not clearly
demonstrate the
big picture of
how the solution
builds.

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Understand more than your application

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Agile does not mean faster or with less quality. In fact, quality takes a larger role in agile.
-Quality is a first class citizen in the conversation.
-Testing is included in the iteration
-Is this testable? How?
How will we perform regression as time goes by? The push for automation. Lack of automation is a major
source of agile failure.
Build Quality In

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Automate Everything
From Continuous Integration to Continuous Deployment…

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Adopting an Agile Culture
Agile is very different than traditional development approaches – different roles, different interactions, different
reporting structures. We see similar concerns on across many different engagements when taking on an Agile
approach. Types of concerns and reasons for them differ by role.
Technology
Practices
Organizational
Interfaces
Processes
Components of a Successful Agile Execution
Adopting An
Agile Culture

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Centric’s Agile Approach – Organizational Change Management
Managers Non-managers
Loss of power and control Lack of understanding around the vision and need for change
Overload of current tasks, pressures of daily activities and
limited resources
Comfort with the status quo and fear of the unknown
Lack of skills and experience needed to manage the change
effectively
Corporate history and culture
Fear of job loss Opposition to the new technologies, requirements and
processes introduced by the change
Disagreement with the new way or skepticism about the need
for change
Fear of job loss
Common reasons for being concerned about moving to an agile development approach.
Role Concerns About Agile
Business Analyst "A big requirements document is no longer my focus, what is?”
Developer "Agile changes how projects are planned, but shouldn't impact how I write code, right?”
Quality Analyst "Why do I need to be involved so early in the process? What do I do?”
Resource Manager "If developers are fully allocated to a single team and are self-organizing to tasks, what role do I
play?”
"Do performance evaluations need to be different now?”
PMO Lead “Why shouldn't we have agile teams follow the same phase gates as the other projects?”
Stakeholder "They have new questions for me every other day. Why not spend a week at the start of the project
and talk all of this out?”
Common concerns when going from a traditional approach to an agile approach.

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Traditional approaches often ignores two important factors. Organization inertia makes it difficult to change budgets, resource
allocation and executive willpower needed to kick-off data governance.
Challenge of Traditional Approach
Program Cost
Benefit
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
ExecutiveTimeCommitment
ENGAGEMENT
FRUSTRATION
DISILLISIONMENT
DISENGAGEMENT
ProgramEndsINSTALLING AN TOOL!

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Agile Approach
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
ExecutiveTimeCommitment
INSTALLING AN TOOL!
Program Cost
LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
AWARE OF VALUE
WILLNG TO INVEST
FULLY ENGAGED
Benefit
User Story
This approach may technically be less efficient
but it is much more likely to succeed.
EXPANDING SCOPE

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What we are after…

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What to do next?
Do not:
• Focus on Process only
• Let the simplicity of the philosophy
be misinterpreted
• Code for the demo
• Say, “we do that”
Do:
• Pick a pilot team/project and learn
what works for your org
• Get a coach
• Embrace architecture
• Start from the team, not
management
• Invest in testing
• Invest in automated builds / deploys
• Run retrospectives
Processes Technology
Practices
Organizational
Interfaces
Adopting an
Agile Culture

25. Questions?
Follow @paulholway
Follow @centric
Stop by Centric’s booth
Make sure to visit talks this afternoon by :
Bill Klos – Micro-locating with Beacons
Joseph Ours – Thinking Fast and Slow
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