S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

Agile Software Development Meets Corporate Deployment Procedures:

Stretching the Agile Envelope

Olly Gotel Department of Computer Science

Pace University, New York ogotel@pace.edu

David Leip ibm.com Chief Innovation Dude

Agile Methods Advocate IBM Hawthorne, New York

leip@us.ibm.com

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

Outline

•  About the ibm.com Corporate Portal •  First Steps into Agile Development •  Retrospective •  Problem Statement •  An Agile Boundary •  End-to-End Agile •  Further Considerations •  The Agile Golden Rule

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

About the ibm.com Corporate Portal

•  Advertising & marketing for IBM

•  Corporate webmaster team (global)

•  Waterfall pre-2004 •  Ongoing change

requests •  Experiencing delays

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

First Steps into Agile Development

•  2004 – XP training & trial •  Partial implementation of practices •  7-week release cycles:

–  3 iterations of 2 weeks; 1 week for deployment •  Customers submit requirements, reformulated as

stories, sized by development team, customer selects stories for iteration (based on business value & global development team velocity)

•  Nov 2004 roll-out

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

Retrospective

•  Pros: –  Increased communication with customer –  Customer had more control –  Addressing customer needs –  Reduced development timescales

•  Cons: –  Bottlenecks in delivering fully operational solution –  Deployment (process back-loaded / knock-ons)

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

Problem Statement •  Requirements specification replaced by informal, ad

hoc, individual communications •  First formal notification – request for code review prior

to deployment into staging (sometimes late, especially where review undertaken by development team)

•  No deployment stories or velocity •  Deployment team has other corporate commitments •  Development team under business pressure •  Responsibilities for down-time

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

An Agile Boundary

•  Recognizing dual intermediary role of development team

•  End-to-end process (before & after): –  Appreciation of wider remit, working practices &

pain of all parties –  Artifacts mediating communications / touch points –  Information needs, timelines, strategies –  Integration oversight

•  Does YAGNI apply?

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

End-to-End Agile

•  Simple organizational / process changes •  Reduce cycle times in wider solution lifecycle --

“Steady Rate of Arrival / Steady Rate of Service” •  Deployment not an afterthought (pre-assigned) •  Time-boxes & velocities for deployment team •  Development team:

–  Prioritize demands –  Responsible for use of deployment resource

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

Further Considerations

•  Scaling up •  How much slack? •  Whole team concept -- team & sub-team velocities •  Other stakeholders •  Story types (interrelating development & deployment) •  Story management via virtual story-wall

S t r e t c h i n g the Agile Envelope XP’07

The Agile Golden Rule

"What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others."

— Confucius (ca.551-479 B.C.E.)