On June 25^th, Rally hosted the Atlanta swing of the Agile Success Tour, where over 50 local software and IT leaders attended.   Those in attendance participated in  various discussions and group breakouts.  Some of the consistent discussion threads that developed are outlined here:

1)      Executing as a distributed Agile organization almost requires a tool

Many of the discussions focused on best practices for Agile adoption in a globally distributed team. One of the points that gained consensus among the attendees was that a distributed Agile team should use a tool as an ‘information radiator’.  The tool helps to provide visibility into the teams iteration and release status regardless of where each team member sits and in what time zone they sit.  Using a tool in a distributed organization helps to overcome some of the collaborative issues the group would otherwise face in the form of daily standups, blocking issues, and team velocity.  Also, the group agreed that nothing goes as far toward team building as getting the team together – even if it is just once a year at the beginning of a release or to do retrospectives.

2)      Agile can help quantify the case for additional resources – and understand why they are needed

My personal favorite discussion was when one group member asked “Does the team have to be a certain size in order to adopt Agile?”  We thought he was assuming that a large team or organization would have a difficult time adopting Agile.  Actually his question was based on the fact that his team was just two individuals.  As the discussion progressed, we all agreed that building a product backlog, then prioritizing and sizing the stories would allow him to articulate exactly what the two-some was capable of committing to in any particular iteration.  If that much value was not enough in the agreed upon timebox, perhaps the business should consider more resources for this team. 

3)      We’d like to adopt Agile - how do we ‘sell’ it internally?

Many of the folks participating were anxious to get started – even before they came to the event.  Where they were getting stuck was in how to articulate the ‘why’ to the business.  Some of the best points:

·         Focus on the value of adopting Agile – and be specific.  Some great points that were shared were:

o   A recent study that was presented at the event, highlights the fact that Agile teams are more than 50% faster to market and 25% more productive compared to industry averages. 

o   Agile represents a fundamental shift in our approach to resourcing.  How the work is organized will depend on what software you are developing, but the key is the team will create greater visibility about priorities, and put those decisions back in the hands of the business. 

o   Avoid using Agile ‘jargon’.  Many people who don’t understand Agile will associate negatives with the words we all know and love:  Scrum, Sprint, Backlog, user story – these are all greek to non-Agile folks, and should be avoided when trying to gain buy in.  Create associations and use well known equivalents as you gain consensus to move forward.

o   With Agile, we focus on the shippable increment.  This point should resonate well with the business – when was the last time they got to see the product evolve every two weeks in demonstrations.  One shared example from our executive panel was that the team would e-mail stakeholders an AVI demo every month.  These folks could see the product demo (and it’s progress from one month to the next) on the plane, at their desk, on their time.  She knew success was at hand when the team didn’t send out a demo one time and an executive from the business called asking where his demo was – he was anxious to see it!

At the Santa Clara event many showed interest in attending other events similar to this within the area. Below are some details on events that we are aware of in the bay area and elsewhere.

View Upcoming Online Events

View Upcoming Events in the Region

San Francisco SFDC User Group Meeting - Thursday June 11th

Product Management in SFDC with guest Loic Le Meur

Sponsor - Rally Software Development

The featured speaker will be Loic Le Meur - Loic is the founder and CEO of Seesmic, the company behind some of the most popular Twitter applications (Seesmic Desktop and Twhirl), as well as the video conversation site Seesmic.com. Loic also founded and hosts the #1 tech event in Europe, LeWeb.net, with his wife Geraldine. LeWeb gathers together 2000 entrepreneurs from 40 countries in December every year.

Prior to Seesmic and LeWeb, Loic started several other businesses such as Six Apart Europe, RapidSite, a web hosting service (acquired by France Telecom in 1999) as well as B2L, an interactive agency in 1999 (acquired by BBDO). Recently, Business Week Magazine named Loic one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. Loic was also named “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He advises the World Economic Forum as well, and covers the Annual Summit every year in Davos.

I attended the Agile Success Tour in the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara in CA, and the attendee response was overwhelmingly surprised that this was not a vendor pitch and valuable on numerous levels.  I noticed 5 themes to the discussions:

1.       For Agile to be Successful, you must gain consensus and commitment

When rolling out new agile teams you must get consensus both from the team members converting to agile, and your management, so all involved understand the growing pains that will occur, ultimately lead to a higher performance.  In addition, you must “dive in” and get started with a “burn the boats” mentality that prevents anyone from considering turning back.

2.       Distributed teams, though popular, are hard to make successful

With obstacles like quality of life, cultural & time zone differences, and drag from waiting for decisions, distributed teams pose special challenges that require agile teams to inspect and adapt with respect to all.  Team building at each location, enhancing communication, mentors, travel, group pictures, and sharing the load help break down barriers that can prevent Agile teams from reaching their potential.

3.       Product Owners are very important

Waterfall product marketing will find it difficult to adapt to the new responsibilities of agile teams, unless they learn what is expected of the Product Owner.  An absent or uneducated product owner can handicap a project before it gets started.

4.       Successful Agile adoption can help companies realize quantifiable benefits

Jean Tabaka shared how companies who are adopting Agile are seeing significant cost savings in their development organizations with faster ROI, improved time-to-market, and increased productivity. In tough economic times, speeding up Agile adoption and helping helps companies realize cost-savings quickly is more critical than ever before.

5.       An Agile Community is a valuable tool

Agile may have simple values, but it is not easy, so capitalizing on the “wisdom of crowds” and learning from each other’s experiences is key to avoiding common pitfalls.

I attended the April 2nd event at the Williams Club in NYC. We had a really great audience who were engaged and clearly excited by the potential of Agile. Here are some of the key points I took away ...

1 - Where's the 'any' key?

When Homer Simpson started working from home, in order to log onto his new computer, he was instructed to "press any key." To which he replies, "where's the 'any' key?" Whether people are just getting started with Agile or trying to mature their team, it's hard to know what the first step is. In terms of Agile adoption, where is the 'any' key? Panelists provided perspective on what projects are a good fit for initial Agile adoption - projects which need to be the most innovative, projects most subject to change, and distressed projects (such as one that has been offshored for 9 months with no discrenable results).

2 - The foot is on the gas in terms of Agile adoption

Everything about the current climate - from the global financial crisis to cloud computing - is accelerating Agile adoption. As Israel Gat noted, Agile adoption being driven in part by ability to speed deployment through technologies such as cloud, SaaS and virtualization. One  example is Flickr, which refreshes its servers every 30 minutes. Agile is also applicable to projects once thought unsuitable, such as Legacy or projects that must comply with Sarbanes Oxley.

3 - Education is key

Successful Agile adoption is very dependent on education. For AOL, this included a minimum of 2 days of scrum training for every team member (totaling 700-800 people). In addition to this, they provided for knowledge transfer between teams and a focus on learning from both good and bad experiences. AOL’s adoption was driven top down and allowed for rewarding successful adoption.

4 - Don't boil the ocean

Panelists from past success tours have debated rollout practices from team-by-team to a "flash-cut" approach. BMC adopted agile for 350 team members in the first year and almost 1000 in 3 years. Israel's advice …  don’t boil the ocean, and start with 2 teams. A hyper productive team becomes a tool that is extremely valuable to the business. His “secret sauce” has the following ingredients. Leadership - “Intentionality“ … expect to have setbacks, everyone will be doing Agile (there is no going back), this is not a passing fad. Flexibility - There is going to be a change in process and organization. Patience - Agile will reward you.

5 - Address the "business upstairs"

Several of the panelists spoke to the importance of selling to the business upstairs, i.e., the executives. One panelist used collaborative techniques like planning poker. Another focused on release planning, so management took note of the clear deliverables in shorter increments.

Thanks to the panelists, attendees and Rally team for making this event a success. Do you have your own reflection on key takeaways? I would love to hear them.