AgileManifesto anniversary - materials from AgileDays-2011

    Taking advantage of the anniversary - just in August, 10 years ago it was published [1]The Agile Manifesto once again propose now, in the summer lull, to upload a little Agile into the future (when the deadlines go, there will be no time for this).

    Namely, look-read the materials of reports from the AgileDays-2011 conference held in Moscow. Further, there will be a small explanation of why these materials are interesting, watchable and readable, as well as annotated thematic classification of reports, with links to materials - videos, slides, reviews, etc.

    1 Why is it interesting?

    Although the topic is no longer new, it is now possible to celebrate the anniversary - Agile Manifesto hit a dozen, "promotion to the masses" is still ongoing. And if before the struggle was on the front of corporate development, in the style of “Agile vs. Some Waterfall Unified Process ”and there he was more likely to get rid of unnecessary regulations and senseless work, then now he has reached the widest masses (website development, startups).

    And here, competing with the “methodologies” of “Bardak and Chaos”, “Code & Fix (?)”, And instead of getting rid of it, it brings some strange rituals very similar to the managerial cargo cult, which meets, let's say, a very skeptical reception from developers . Here are children's teasers , and even “anti-manifestos” ( [1] , [2]) It's fashionable to even blame Agile for the epic Nokia fail.

    Personally, I believe that development is ongoing in development (see, for example, “ Culture of software projects"), User needs are growing competing with the technical capabilities of developers, within the development, especially depending on the type of project, the importance of roles and specializations is changing:" developers "," managers "," testers "," analysts "," usability "and" sales ". And you need to understand how to balance it all. And the old rhetorical button accordion that "there is no silver bullet" among development methodologies already got me. Of course not! There are a lot of interesting, effective practices in development, analytics and organization, there is reflection when, where and how it works. And all this happens under the label “Agile”, probably because it is easier to unite under the obvious values ​​of the Agile manifest than under the certification of some Process Management Institute .

    And precisely because everything is dynamic and heterogeneous, the “cabinet way” - “read N books” is not very effective. It’s easier to learn the very simple rules and terminology of the most common Agile processes - SCRUM and Kanban, it will take a matter of hours, and then see what real, uninvented problems other developers have and how they solve them. And instead of reading a book that is unlikely to be written by a “combat” developer or PM (most likely it will be a Western coach belatedly and crookedly translating), look and listen to the fresh experience of teams of various types, to understand that “it's not for us to work will be ", but" it is needed here and now, otherwise these competing guys will tear us up. "

    At the Moscow AgileDays-2011gathered real, practicing managers and developers. And the reports were both on the “humanitarian” topic of management and other organization of processes, and on technical topics of effective design, development and testing.

    Of course, it’s also useful to communicate personally, but now the summer lull after the past AgileCamp , Agile Base Camp , and you can slowly, combining with passive rest, watch and reflect on the video from the reports.

    Next, I’ll say a few words why our video is worth watching, and then I will offer a thematic classification.

    2 Why is this video necessary or at least possible to watch?

    It's no secret that three years ago they were waiting for videos from any IT conference, hoping to “visit remotely” by watching the video. Recently, however, videotapes of conferences are often thrown with tomatoes (here's a habraxample ).

    Indeed, a muddy picture posted on the web (on some low-resolution video hosting) is in no way able to convey the video part of the speech, unless it consists of monosyllabic two-color slogans. The latter is often OK for “humanitarian” reports (“management”, “motivation”, “communication”), but anything non-trivial - code, schemes, models, screencasts and videos - cannot be transmitted.

    And in general, the idea that your operator on the video is controlled by a deeply vicious came from cinema television, where they teach to excite a relaxed audience with popcorn to constantly change plans: “close-up of the speaker”, “speaker from afar”, “scene interior”, “Close-up hall”, “the operator liked the operator”, and sometimes, occasionally, deign to take off the screen.

    But here it’s not a series, not a slack - on the contrary, an active perception is needed, only the viewer decides whether he, with a frowning eyebrow, “ate” the diagram on the screen, listening to the speaker, or does he understand everything on the diagram, and it’s time to follow up for the gestures of an author explaining non-trivial points. Of course, sometimes they are advised to find slides and try to leaf through them in parallel, but this is stressful and there are a lot of things that cannot be imagined through slides - live demonstrations, live coding.

    Adds suffering and raw sound, especially if you have to listen to those who spoke without a microphone. The human ear is very sensitive, and quickly adapts to any volume - from a rumble to a whisper, but microphones can not do this, and you have to listen, constantly adjusting the volume - for example, to hear both the speaker and questions from the audience without a microphone.

    In the mind, you need to record both the screen and the speaker (well, or a discussing participant from the audience), and the sound, and process all this, clean it from noise (dynamic sound compression), reduce it, and mount it simultaneously to get truly valuable “canned food”.

    Such a video can be watched with pleasure, having the effect of presence, and even more!

    After all, the beholder has power over the video:
    • You can repeat the incomprehensible,
    • To squander the trivial
    • Speed ​​up or slow down your performance. For example, in VLC, by pressing the "]" key a couple of times, even the most boring and stuttering speaker will start to burn like Steve Ballmer (yes, I looked at many reports at "150%" speed). Conversely, you can slow down (in VLC it is "[") and make out an incomprehensible moment.
    • You can carefully examine the screen or vice versa, concentrate on the speaker’s expressive, much explaining gestures.
    • In such a record, you can even watch slide presentations that cannot be read even from the third row, or presentations on a black background made by a proud woman who decided to become like Steve Jobs (it is impossible to watch them in an unshaded room).
    But such installation is non-trivial, usually manual work, and when professionals take it, then they take a lot for it. And then, as a rule, it doesn’t work out very well. So, we, during the AgileDays-2011, took care of this issue, and learned to do it relatively quickly and efficiently. High-resolution video (1280 × 720), where there is always a screen accurate to a pixel, a presenter or a hall, depending on the activity of the latter, a whiteboard, if the presenter still tried to draw something on it.

    So, if the topic of the report interests you, it is highly likely that you will not look at it in vain. The video is also published in the web version to watch the beginning, familiarize yourself, and even watch through to the end (you can’t speed it up :(), and there are links to download the original video files to watch actively, with rewind or acceleration.

    Of the minuses, I must admit that the work of the videographers was not always successful - the fact is that we decided to shoot the video shortly before the conference, and our employees were the operators after a half-hour training a day before the conference started. This turned out to be Agile cross-functionality, not perfect, but on time and cheap!

    And besides the video, additional materials are also published,
    • as from the speakers themselves: annotations, slides,
    • and a very important thing - the reviews of the audience.
    So you have the opportunity, in a minute, by looking at both the annotation and the reviews on the other side of the barricade, to understand what to expect from the report and, in general, whether it is worth watching.

    And finally - for each author of the report, there is a link to his profile in an IT professional network, i.e. If you are interested, in a couple of clicks you can:
    • See "who are all these people", can you trust their opinion.
    • Contact the author, ask questions, thank, or disagree.


    3 Reporting Topics

    Since the conference has already passed, the grid program is no longer of any value, and readers are interested in a short guide, classification of speeches with a very brief review, to immediately understand whether it makes sense to dig further - read the annotation, reviews, watch or download video.

    Such a somewhat subjective guide, I will offer below. Almost [2]all reports are classified, plus a brief, twitter-style annotation. By the way, I made up my impressions of the reports only by watching the video, because at the conference itself I was so loaded with organizational questions that I wasn’t on almost any report.

    3.1 Getting Started

    In this block I collected introductory training reports, however, the level was not quite childish, so even if you heard about Agile / Lean / TOC, it will be quite useful to look.
    • " For those in the tank - what is Agile " was conceived as a quick educational program for people new to Agile, and as an alternative to the opening report of Henrik Kniberga. The Program Committee thought that those who are “in the subject” will definitely go to the “guru”, and those who remain should be “introduced into the subject”. However, suddenly a full audience was crowded into the report, of which there were only three people “off topic”, so the educational program turned out to be quite deep, it’s not a shame to look, even if you are a practitioner. You can recommend to those whom you would like to interest in Agile values ​​- new employees, old managers and young HR-sham ...
    • Lean Software Development ” and “ Application of Lean principles across the enterprise ” is better to watch in a block and in this sequence is an introduction to the newfangled [3]industrial culture of " lean manufacturing " in the application to the development of software. In a sense, Agile is a special case of implementing a more global LEAN approach, which can be used to tackle tasks such as reforming and optimizing an entire company (rather than just implementing Agile in one of its divisions).
    • " Flexible Theory of Constraints " - an overview story about the " Theory of Constraints ", another philosophy of management, in a way complementary to LEAN.


    3.2 Managerial



    3.2.1 Process
    • What does“ Finish! ”Mean application of the Definition of Done practice ” - why should there be a DoD? Because it is only due to such rigid elements that flexible processes can be built. Without introducing the binary state of tasks, it makes no sense to count any metrics ("100 tasks are 99% ready"), evaluate, predict and correct something. “If you don't have a DoD, then you have anything, just not SCRUM.” What DoD should be, how to formulate it for tasks of different levels, where to store, etc.
    • Retrospectives. We set up our development process ”- retrospectives are one of the oldest and most effective methods for improving any process, they are not only in programming, but also in production, and even in the army (“ retrospective after the battle ”). But how to make them interesting and effective so that they do not turn into an “event for show”, and vice versa, so that active criticism does not lead to the collapse of the team, which, in addition to simple facts, can be fixed (maybe emotions?), How can this not be revealed facts. By the way, all this can be interesting not only in connection with Agile, but also for those who are interested in brainstorming practices.
    • I’m going through the instruments! Practical advice on visualization of works ”- in terms of title and annotations, something about visualized metrics is presented, but the report is a little more general. The fact that there is an important problem of a common understanding (process, expected result, timing), and usually everyone gives advice on speeding up communication (“you need to communicate more”), at the same time, correct visualization will make everything (process, artifacts, requirements) transparent and it will be much more effective.
    • Lean Startup - a systematic approach to the development of new products ”, a little confusing name, because with the word “Lean”, for example, I immediately see the slow and methodical optimization of a huge mossy company. There is also a conversation about the priorities of values ​​in startups, for example, that startups do not need to save on trifles, drive the perfect code and are worried about technical / organizational scaling, but need to look for potential buyers. And in general, a report on sales and promotion.



    3.2.2 Assessment and planning
    Although in Agile all planning approaches are made as simple and reliable as possible (usually “greedy” algorithms for prioritizing tasks, etc.), difficulties remain. After all, you need to plan at different levels (bugs, tasks, story, marketing features, release, etc.) and to different consumers (developers, marketers, customers, users). And planning is impossible without evaluations, and although not everyone believes in the mantra “You Can’t Manage What You Don't Measure”, reliable metrics are also discussed here, which can be obtained cheaply and without “side effects” on the measured object.
    • Three-level planning in Agile ” - experience of planning at the levels of “quarter → Release → Sprint” and the fight against technological debts and changing requirements.
    • Agile with a fixed cost is real! »- what to do when the most inconvenient case for Agile development: a customer who is willing to pay only a fixed price and for a certain amount. Unfortunately, nothing magical, basically, how to insure yourself against risks, how to document it (“change request only for a few big money”), etc.
    • Preliminary evaluation and planning of Agile projects ” - A look at the Agile seasoned oldschool manager, a lot of diverse personal experience in large and long-lived projects (not only planning and evaluation). Everything under the motto “It’s better to get on an adult rake twice than once on a child’s rake” (this is about the Agile & FixedPrice case, developing the theme “ Agile with a fixed cost - it's real! ”).
    • Agile Distribution Risk Score - plan the distribution consciously ” - “Distribution” is another well-known inconvenience for Agile development (for anyone, but especially for Agile). But how inconvenient is it? Does it make sense to “send to the aid” of the distributed team another “one squad”, or will it finally drop the efficiency? Here we propose an empirically developed formula for dozens of projects.
    • Release Planning in Rapid Development Methodologies ” is the insider experience of release management from large companies such as Amazon and Microsoft.


    3.2.3 Motivation
    Work in the clerical style of "I'm the boss, you are a fool" in Agile, where delegation and self-organization is maximized, is impossible, therefore it’s crucial: motivation, leadership and the selection of the right people.
    • Everyone likes change, but nobody likes to be changed ” - Report (in English, without translation!) On the implementation of changes from the guru-ajail. The importance of personal leadership in making changes, how to determine the true goal and choose specific steps leading to it.
    • Agile Leadership Culture ” - leadership as a new type of management, replacing the usual hierarchical-directive. A manager must be a charismatic leader and a patient teacher, and even “responsible for those who tamed” - after all, even delegation does not relieve responsibility!
    • And yet, programmers are children! »- Integration (according to Adizes) and People Management are very similar to raising children, and modern (namely advanced!) Views on child development provide a key to understanding and effective team management. “Freedom and mentoring” instead of “Nanny who corrupts the team.”
    • In search of a flexible developer ” - The right choice is an alternative to the torment of raising an effective team player. What qualities do you want from candidates, which is really important and cannot be fixed after purchase? And how to organize this input "culling"?


    3.2.4 Experience
    Positive and negative experience of different companies and projects.
    • Spontaneous Agile in the corporate environment ” - how it is inside Embarcader (by the way, they are Delphi's mainteners). A bit messy, “about everything”, a bunch of different cases.
    • Lean principles and the development of an outsourcing company ” - they have a happy situation, there are so many new projects that they have to optimize their launch and acceleration. Marya Ivanovna, everyone would have your problems ...
    • Extreme agile - everyone dances ” - “SCRUM chaos”! All involved in product development, including marketers, analysts, usability experts, in one team! Moreover, in one room! All 18 people! The product (SAAS-bookkeeping) is very interesting.
    • Captain Flint ’s legacy - difficulties and mistakes of Scrum implementation on the example of Promedichi ” - here is the very example of negative experience, not to say that Agile, like dolphins [4]save everyone drowning. Everything was started there long ago, and the introduction of SCRUM turned out to be euthanasia. “A terrible end is better than horror without end.”
    • Kanban vs Scrum - whose kung fu is stronger ” - If SCRUM is too hard for you and is overloaded with rituals, then it’s better not to castrate him to death, complexing from the fact that you have “not a real SCRUM”, but go directly to a full-fledged Kanban (total three rules!).
    • Jam session ” - free discussion of topics “Implementation of TDD”, “Agile and the state customer”, “Electronic Scrum-board”, “Long boring Daily Scrum team of 18 people” (guess who ^ _ ^).
    Separately, I highlight three reports about SCRUM in Luxoft:

    3.3 Technical

    Now about the technical reports. In my opinion, they are mainly focused on the so-called "corporate development", with bold databases, weighty "business logic" that drives money, goods and everything that wasn’t hidden, and thousands of cookie cutters to which doomed business users However, there were reports from the gaming industry and even from embedded applications.

    3.3.1 Architecture


    3.3.2 Development


    3.3.3 Testing
    • Firmware testing: an alternative to classic TDD (Dmitry Ovechkin, AgileDays-2011) ” - in development for devices, if there is no simulator and before starting each binary you need to flash the assembly again on a small flash memory - there is no room for classic unit tests. But the device (unlike the complex GUI) has clear interfaces, and using them you can write a bunch of cheap and flexible automated script tests.
    • Why I do not like cucumbers and fitness - the pros and cons of BDD and ATDD (Alexey Barantsev, AgileDays-2011) ” - Attack on Fitnesse and Cucumber tools, which seem to make life easier for testers (and fire many of them), but in practice as a “guinea pig” - do not make life easier for customer analysts, and do not replace testers. Not only the report is interesting, but also the heated discussion after that - there were many actively dissenting people in the audience who had successful experience in using these tools.
    • How to prevent the service department from becoming a bottleneck (Yulia Nechaeva, AgileDays-2011) ” - Agile accepted that testers within teams, and the separate “testing department” or “documentation department” are classic antipatterns, “how to create deadlock from scratch "(No one in the hall, for example, already had this). Well, what to do for those who nevertheless have this? ("... We ourselves know that she has no solution," said the Junta, bristling immediately. "We want to know how to solve it. ©"). Useful practices - how to test even before development, how to beat the weaknesses of developers, to wrap builds with bugs back as quickly as possible, etc. And by the way, only at a non-test conference from the tester can you hear the truth that "testing is not self-sufficient."


    3.4 Blitz reports

    I will single out blitz reports. For those who are accustomed to the brevity of YouTube videos, 8-10 minute reports that can be viewed in one go.
    • Poisson burning of terms (Andrey Bibichev, AgileDays-2011) ” - The best (IMHO) blitz report. Why is everyone mistaken in their estimates? Why do grades need to be multiplied by PI? Strict mathematics will prove that you are not guilty of a deadline! (Close to the Black Swan, for those in the know).
    • Agile. The path from chaos to flow (Nikolai Alimenkov, AgileDays-2011) "-" First there was Chaos, ... then it thickened and Agile appeared, evolution began, and Abraham gave birth to Isaac ... Agile gave rise to Lean ... ". A look at the evolution of methodologies from those who in the "pre-jail" period did not have "RUP / CMMI 5 level / SixSigma", but a real mess of Chaos, and finally some sane processes appeared.
    • Agile - view from the gym window (Alexey Solntsev, AgileDays-2011) ” - “If you want to lose weight and implement SCRUM - ask me how!” © The author was in a situation when he realized that he had lost his form and the company that was losing his last customers . → ... → And the result → -15kg, + girl → wife, + company, in which it is not a shame to work.
    • Achilles and the tortoise. A sensible approach to working on large client projects (Yuri Gugnin, AgileDays-2011) ”- Designer Manager about the horrors of gigantic addiction of large customers, leading either to epic failures, or to another HS in a single corporate style. The alternative is “eat the elephant in parts”, maximizing creativity and customer satisfaction in each part .
    • Agile and Life (Alexander Kalugin, AgileDays-2011) ” - how to agile work, but non-project tasks - infrastructure or personal career development. And it was proposed not to fence two scrams in parallel (“project and non-project”), but to put all this into the main, project “Scrum”: both the employee’s personal backlog and the company's strategic backlog.
    • Why do we need this? or How to sell an Agile team! (Mikhail Karpov, AgileDays-2011) "- The author also noted that the movement towards Agile comes from two sides: from companies tormented by narzan with tough" CMMI "waterfall, when they are freed from a heap of meaningless work - but this is mainly in the West, us only in very large companies. But in Russia, the movement comes from a mess, and selling “Agile freedom” is pointless, you need to sell a solution to problems (“extra work due to a mess with requirements, etc.”), and do it gradually.
    • DISC Behavioral Model in Agile Projects (Kirill Klimov, AgileDays-2011) ” - Yet Another (in addition to MBTI / Myers-Briggs / Adizes / Belbin / Jung ...) DISC-classification of people, like most others ( including the theory of blood groups ...), from the middle of the last century, when it seemed that if you decompose a multidimensional person into some kind of basis, then beyond that with the simplest linear algebra and arithmetic these people can effectively steer. Plus practical conclusions on how to use this in SCRUM team building.








    1. Although the historical assembly took place in February 2001, the manifest was published in the August issue of Software Development Magazine
    2. From several reports the video was not preserved, I could not watch them and therefore did not include it in this classification. But they can be found in the category , see slides or reviews
    3. Newfangled of course with us. In the world it is already a classic.
    4. Obviously, only those whom they push towards the shore tell about “saving dolphins”

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