Research on Agile technical practices are few and far between. The research that exists often uses students as the test subjects so doesn’t necessarily reflect professional practice, particularly not by senior professionals. In 2006 I got my company of the time involved in some research on pair programming. What was different about this study was that the subjects were professional developers. The results were interesting as, in general, they didn’t bear out claims that pair programming improved quality or speeded up development. But pairing does take a lot more effort. This is why I am selective about encouraging pair programming, restricting my active encouragement to discovery mode.
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Category Archives: Experience
90% Complete not = Done
What do you do when a developer claims “I’m 90% complete”? Well, don’t rely on it and patiently wait for 100%.
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Daily Plan: Stand up to Plan the Day
“Stand up please”. Old habits die hard and because I started Agile with Extreme Programming I “Stand up”, I don’t “Scrum”. Otherwise the two types of meeting are pretty similar. “What have you done since we last met? What will you do before we meet again? Any impediments?”
Great meeting. Wrong questions.
As Mike Cohn explained back in 2006, and Matt Wynne reminded me last year, the daily meeting is a Planning session. It is part of Mike’s planning onion because the aim of the “Stand up” is to develop the plan for the day.
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Pair Programming is Best in Discovery Mode
Pair programming is one of the technical practices from Extreme Programming (XP). I have observed that pair programming works best when either member of the pair are in discovery mode. If there is little discovery going on, by either of the developers, there is little point in pairing.
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The Sign Off – An Example of Delegation and Decision Making
I had just joined a team as programme manager and was talking to the lead user experience (UX) designer about the latest version of the UX design. We’d not worked together before and this was the first time I’d seen the designs. They looked pretty good to me and I told her so. That is when it got a bit weird.
PgM: They look great.
UX: Okay, I’ll get everybody together to get sign off on the designs.
PgM: Um, who is everybody?
UX: <Lists names of the business representative, product manager, technical architect, business sponsor, technical sponsor, UX discipline lead for the department, development manager, portfolio manager, team assistant to take notes, and quality manager>. I hope they don’t want too many changes.
PgM: <Jaw drops>
No walls: What to do when you’ve no Walls for your Informative Workspace
You move into a lovely new office. Lots of light and open spaces. Beautiful. Modern. But no walls.
Agile kind of assumes you’ve got walls. Whiteboards. Sprint Plan. Product Backlog. Burn down Charts. Kanban boards. Cumulative Flow Diagrams. All prominently displayed to transform your office into an Informative Workspace.
So what do you do when there are no walls?
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Manage All Assumptions as Risks
Assuming something means taking it for granted. In other words you’ve got a more or less conscious theory (or, less charitably, a guess) that something is going to happen. The trouble is that the assumption might not be true.
That screams risk. And as a programme manager or project manager you need to manage risk.
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4 Objectives for an Automated Test Strategy
I recently explained to my team the objectives our automated test strategy had to fulfil:
- Provides “living” requirements documentation
- Results in a comprehensive regression test suite
- Ensures high functional coverage
- Runs fast for developers
Agile Programme Roles and Responsibilities
To go with my typical programme organisation I thought I’d describe the roles and responsibilities I expect on an Agile programme. Remember I’m interested in software delivery so I’m talking about programmes that have software development at the core. Non-software programmes would have a different mix of roles.
Some roles in an programme correspond to the roles in an project. The scale of responsibility is larger and emphasis on coordination greater but the nature of the roles is broadly similar. The Agile Programme Manager, Programme Product Owner and Technical Architect roles fit this mould, corresponding to Agile Project Manager, Product Owner and Technical Lead.
In addition a programme needs some roles that don’t appear at all in a project, in particular Programme Director and Business Change Manager. Again these roles are a result of the wider remit and increased communication necessary in a programme but also because of the focus on organisational transformation.
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Programme Organisation for Software Delivery
I thought I’d share the way I organise programme teams. I’m interested in software delivery so I’m talking about programmes that have software development at the core. Non-software programmes would have a different structure and mix of roles. I push Agile but the same organisation would work with a less nimble approach.
There is nothing mysterious or radical about my programme organisation. In fact it is entirely in keeping with the guidance from Managing Successful Programmes (MSP). If you didn’t know Organisation is one of the nine Governance Themes from MSP.
Although I tend to apply the same shape to all of my programmes I do adapt it to local conditions. The size of the team makes a big difference so I’ll show how I have organised large, medium sized and small programme teams. I’ll also take a quick look at a poor structure for a programme team – with role based teams – and explain why I don’t fancy it.
There are obviously other ways of structuring a programme team but this is what has worked for me.
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