Fragile Agile The top 10 mistakes made by

Fragile Agile The top 10 mistakes made by new agile teams (And how to avoid doing them) Priya Sinha & Ben Mancini

Agenda • • Who are we… Fragile – an overview The top 10 What we have learnt

Who are we? Ben Mancini Losing my (agile) religion Priya Sinha Passionate about high-performing team

Fragile – this is just some jokey play on agile being fragile isn’t it?

1. Mindset • ‘Doing agile’ but practicing something else • Top down/ bottom up drive to do agile • Dependency on other teams ‘doing agile’ Consider… • Start small, experiment and adapt • Remember it’s individual and interactions over process and tools! • Leadership backing

2. No focus on customer • Forgetting what the team is here for • Gold plating • Not breaking down work sufficiently Consider… • Bigger the release, higher the risk, reduce the size, reduce the risk • Plan at different level MVP, V 1, V 2… • Understand real ‘business priorities’

3. Unhealthy focus on estimation • Estimating because that’s what the team have always done • Relative estimation is relatively useless for some team • Software products are difficult to estimate accurately Consider… • Understand who are you estimating for and what they need? • Consider other alternatives such as ‘release train’.

4. Metrics over value to user • Talking just about metrics • Comparing velocities across teams Consider… • Accept teams are different and will perform with variance • Burndown is not equal to delivering value to users

5. Wagile • Silo thinking • Late surprises • Change request process Consider… • Keep your priorities in check • Don’t mix project Gantt charts with Scrum/ Kanban boards • Keep asking why certain process and value exists

6. Agile as religion • Agile evangelism i. e. agile is great, everything else is rubbish • Agile sweet spot is the intersection of moderately uncertain requirements and technology Consider… • Agile is good, but so are other approaches, tread carefully • Understand your pain points before you switch • Be aware of the short term increase in cost

7. Give up after • Impatience • Not finding the root cause • Too much context switching st 1 attempt Consider… • It can take up to 3 years to mature • Inspect and adapt • Focus on one thing, consider WIP limit

8. Focus on the ceremony in agile ceremonies • Using ceremonies for things other than intended for • Required stakeholder ignoring ceremonies • A perception of ‘too many meetings’ Consider… • Be clear on purpose of the ceremonies • Understand the concerns around meetings • Mandatory vs. optional attendees

9. Lack of transparency • Refusal to discuss when things go south • An elephant in the room being ignored • No retrospectives Consider… • Have a safe place for team to talk • Make retrospective valuable • Don’t forget to celebrate the success

10. Embracing the misconceptions • Agile needs no project management • We don’t need documentation • Agile is easy Consider… • Challenge misconceptions • Lots of agile methods you could adopt, don’t limit yourself • Agile can be easy if you do groundwork

What have we learnt… • Keep simple • Agile is about good design and discipline • Lose religion

Thank you! Redgate is hiring http: //www. red-gate. com/careers