Agile

1. 
Practical Agile:
What’s Working for Stanford, Blacklight, and Hydra
Naomi Dushay
Stanford University

2. Management Might Start Here …

3. Stanford had …
40 projects
10ish “project managers”
8½ developers

4. 
Throughput
Transparency
Accurate Planning
Sustainable
(Some of our) Goals

5. Improving Productivity …

6. Max 2 Projects/Developer
Who Project 1 Project 2
Naomi Dushay SW – Course Reserves SW – Images
Jessie Keck SW – Course Reserves Hydra-Head
Willy Mene Puppetize Lyberservices DOR publish
service
Michael Klein Argo - something (Shark Dirigible)

7. Problem: Competing Priorities

8. Solution: Iteration
Planning
Backlog Now

9. One Month’s Goals

10. That was …
• 40 17 projects
• 10ish “project managers”
• 8½ developers

11. You MightTry …
• Extreme Display:
• All “Active” Projects
• Priorities
• Currently In Progress
• Refuse More Than Two Simultaneous Projects

12. Problem: Lack of Focus
Feature
Feature
Feature Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature

13. Solution: Focused Iterations
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Now
Backlog

14. Solution: SMART Goals
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

16. AgileTask Board
Backlog On Deck In Progress Done

19. You MightTry …
• Task Board
• “Public” View of Your Recent Work

20. Problem: Too Many Meetings

21. Solution: Developer Happiness Hours

22. Solution: DeadWeek

23. You MightTry …
• Block Out Times In Your Calendar
• Multi-Hour “Meetings” With Colleagues
• Suggest to Management
• They Have Non-Meeting Work Too!

24. Problem: Sharing Knowledge Locally
I wonder if
someone
can help
Eh, I’ll just
figure it out

25. Workspaces
Co-location
Open Sight Lines
 More People Per Room
 Less Wall Space for Whiteboards, Task Boards …
Easy Reconfiguration

28. Solution: Open Sight Lines
Hey Willy:
Have a sec? Jessie, can
you look
at this?

29. Solution: Non-Developers, too
Lynn, is this
what you
meant? This design is
tough to
implement; can
we revisit?

30. You MightTry …
 Demolish Cube Walls
 Temporary Co-Location
 Large shared office
 Conference Room
 Study Room
 Coffee Shop
 Lunch with Coworkers, Product Owners …

31. Flex Room

32. Pair Programming

33. Problem: Lack ofVisible Progress

34. Solution: Short Iterations
1 week or
2 weeks or
1 month or …
Short is:

35. Solution: Good Communication
• Regular Meetings
• Email List
• Wikis
• Tracking System (e.g. JIRA)

36. Solution: Planned Work is Public

37. Solution: Progress is Public

38. You May Need (JIRA) Foo
Versioning
Components
Workflow

39. Problem: Scrum Unrealistic
We have too many
simultaneous
projects
I can’t dedicate 5
developers to a
single project, even
short term

40. Solution: Take Pieces of Agile
• Short Iterations of Narrow Focus
• Communication Across Roles
• Co-Location
• Pair Programming
• Transparency
• …

41. Experiment!
• Scrum
• Short, Focused Iteration
• (2?) – 7 People
• Temporary Co-Location
• Task Board
• Pair Programming
• Daily Stand Ups

42. Problem: No LocalTDD
I’ve been
meaning to
do it…

43. Solution: Requirement of OSS
No Code
Without Passing
Tests!
OK

44. Open Source Software
True Group Ownership
Good Communication
Rotating Roles
Bigger (release manager for pieces)
Smaller (meeting moderator, notetaker)

45. Problem: Distributed Developers
(Eddie Shin)

46. Solution: Realtime Contact
Weekly Check-Ins
As Needed
Face to Face!

47. Problem: Developer Distrust
Their stuff is
always buggy
… if I
had time
I could do
this faster
myself …
I hate his
code

48. Solution: Good Development Practices
Automated tests
Continuous Integration
 Automatic Notifications
Code Coverage Data
Transparency
Documentation Coverage Data

49. Solution: No CodeWithoutTests

50. Solution: Test CoverageTransparency

51. Solution: AutomatedTest Runs

52. Solution: Test ResultTransparency

54. Solution: Auto Change
Notification

55. Solution: ChangeTransparency

56. Solution: Public, Shared Code

57. Solution: DocTransparency

58. Bonus Slides

59. Problem: Unhappy “Customers”
I didn’t realize
it would look
like this
This isn’t
what I asked
for
I
implemented
the spec

60. Solution: Collaborative Design

61. Solution: Behavior Driven Dev
When I am on the search results page
Then id 867 should be before 567
And if I select “title” from the search pulldown
Then id 567 should be before 867
It should …

62. Problem: Need StableTest Data
Tests keep failing
because the data
keeps changing

63. Solution: Mocks, Stubs, Fixtures
Fixtures: data for tests
Mocks: I don’t need an actual object, just a
placeholder with a little bit of the information
Stubs: I know I’m gonna call a method with certain
arguments, and I know what it returns and it isn’t
the method I’m testing right now

64. Problem: Endless Discussion
No, this
other
way
Is this
approach
okay w folks?
I think you
should do it
this way

65. Solution: Working CodeWins
I’m going to
do this
Suggestion
Suggestion

66. EstimatingWork is HARD
Larger Estimates are Less Accurate
Make it Relative, Not Absolute
Fibonacci?
Hours / Days / Weeks / Months?

67. New 80 / 20 Rule …
80% of the Work Happens in the Last
20% of Elapsed Time for the Project
(Tom Cramer)