Projects can kill agile development by focusing teams on short-term functionality rather than long-term quality and architecture. Feature teams are often constrained by limited budgets, resources and timescales, causing them to prioritize immediate functionality over non-functional requirements and technical debt. To avoid these issues, teams should be aligned to products and components to promote code ownership, accountability and consideration of interfaces. Products should have separate backlogs and teams should treat each other as customers to encourage collaboration over isolationism.

1. PROJECTS KILL AGILE
DEVELOPMENT
CHRIS HOWE-JONES
@AGILE_GEEK
11TH AUGUST

2. PROJECTS KILL AGILE-DEVELOPMENT

3. sometimes
OR
Why Feature Teams SUCK!

4. WHY?

5. CONSTRAINTS
Limited budget - especially fixed price
Limited resources
Limited timescales

6. WHAT?

7. BEHAVIOUR
Focus on:
functionality teams formed for life of project
team members fungible
architecture/design 'third class' citizen

8. "I don't have to live with it"
Everyone is responsible, no one is accountable
monoliths rule Cost over value - what's the depreciation
Multiple teams - one code base

9. PRODUCT TEAMS

10. ALIGN TO PRODUCT/PLATFORM/COMPONENT
Promotes:
Code ownership Non functional requirements
Architecture matters "Live with it"

11. Interfaces to other products
Burn down tech debt

12. HOW TO AVOID…
"Throw it over the wall" syndrome Isolationism
1 Dimensional teams "Over gilding"

13. PRODUCT DELIVERY
Product Owner Separate backlog Build in feedback
Feed 'projects' into 'feature funnel'

14. Services (even in same team)
Shared vision across products
Treat channels as customers
Treat other teams as customers
'T shaped people (not 'resources')
Set percentage of 'technical payback' (or one week in 7)

15. CREDITS
Email: chris.howejones@gmail.com
Twitter: @agile_geek
Github: github.com/chrishowejones
Presentation:
github.com/chrishowejones/presentations
Blog: chrishowejones.wordpress.com