Agile
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Bitter Scrum: A Task Board Gone Wrong
Sunday, March 22, 2009
I remember reading Bruce Tate’s books on Java
In much the same vain of Bruce Tate’s books, I give you a Scrum anti-pattern. Most Scrum teams will use a daily task board, either real or virtual. The task board contains a Sprint’s user stories and the associated user story tasks in the form of cards. It’s normal to see a few columns across the board along the lines of, “To Do”, “In Progress”, “To Verify”, “Done”, etc. The idea is for a team member to put his name on a task card and then move the card into the appropriate column. This is done throughout the day and especially at the daily Scrum. Below is an example of a Scrum task board.
Pretty simple. Below is the task board gone wrong. The difference is subtle and deserves an explanation as to why this is wrong.
Notice the extra column, “Today’s Work”. Having additional columns isn’t an issue, but this particular column presents a problem. The way the team uses this task board is to move tasks to “In Progress” when they’ve started work. But, since the team will sometimes start a task but then need to start on something else, the team decided they needed a column that showed what was in progress currently, thus the “Today’s Work” column. For example, in the daily scrum yesterday, Joe said he’s going to get Task A done. Joe moves this task to the “Today’s Work” column. Today, Joe tells the team in the daily scrum that he needed to start work on Task B for another story to help it keep moving forward, so he moves Task A to the “In Progress” column and makes sure Task B is in “Today’s Work”, as he didn’t finish that task yet. The problem is that we have impediments hiding under the “In Progress” column now. Rather than Joe saying that he was impeded from completing Task A, he moves it to a column (“In Progress”) that makes it seem like all is fine. All might be fine, but how do we know? It would be better to mark Task A as impeded. Joe could then make it clear to the team why he made the decision to not complete Task A in order to start on Task B. Everyone would see that Task A is in progress and it’s impeded (as opposed to simply “in progress”). The Scrum Master can help the team tackle this impediment.
Impediments aren’t inherently bad, but hidden impediments are. The task board gone wrong makes it far too easy to hide impediments while also making it difficult for the team to tackle properly. We all struggle with identifying impediments, so it’s important that we make sure our management tools are setup to help us make impediments visible and hard to miss.
Topics: Agile | 4 Comments »
Agile – Culture or Characteristic?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Jeff Patton says agile is a culture. Rob Lally says no it’s not, it’s a characteristic. Both make compelling arguments. Jeff points out that agile is ultimately a culture which promotes certain processes and practices, whereas Rob argues that agile isn’t a culture unto itself but a quality an organization can adopt and make part of its own culture.
Agile has a strong culture. Jeff makes this argument clear with vivid examples of language, legends/stories/myths, values/norms/taboos, beliefs/attitudes, rituals/ceremonies, etc. But, does having a strong culture make agile a culture all unto itself that an organization needs to adopt as its own in order to succeed with agile? I don’t think so and this is where I agree with Rob. Agile is not a culture an organization adopts, rather it is a quality organizations can choose to add. Although, I never thought Jeff was arguing that an organization needed to replace its culture wholesale for that of agile’s, as Rob positions his argument against. I interpreted Jeff’s argument more along the one I was making in my 10 Questions to Think About Before Adopting Agile post, which was an organization’s culture needs to align with that of agile in order to realize success.
Rob makes an interesting observation in regards to selling agile as a culture:
Presenting Agile as a culture is something I’ve seen many times, and it puts more people off. Agile zealots, a club I was a member of a decade ago, try to sell Agile as a culture in a way that reminds me of Mao and his Cultural Revolution; they want to come in to your organisation, declare your culture to be bankrupt and rip it out, replacing it with an idealised regime of their own.
I don’t think there is any escaping the scary part of agile. Strong cultures are often scary to those looking from the outside in, whether those cultures belong to agile, lean, open source, religious groups, political groups, social clubs, etc. Those of us advocating agile need to be sensitive to this fact, but there is no escaping it as Rob seems to imply.
In the end, I think the most important takeaway in both Jeff and Rob’s posts is what they agree agile is not – a process or a set of processes. Those that see agile in this way and attempt to adopt it as such are almost certain to fail.
Topics: Agile | No Comments »
Review The Tests, Then The Code
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Last week I was talking with one of the developers at work and he was telling me about improvements his team was making in regards to (informal/desk check) code reviews. I told him that was great and then followed that up with a recommendation on how to improve even more. Next time there is a code review, start with the tests. This will do two things: 1) Stress the importance of having tests 2) Make the review go quicker, as the tests will either be there and make the intent of the code clear or they won’t be there and the review is postponed until tests are in place.
I know I’m not the first to make this suggestion, but I felt it was worth repeating. Code reviews do have value, even when you pair program. At least, I think they do. Pair programming provides two sets of eyes on the code at the time of creation, but it’s surprising what someone who hasn’t seen the code before will find during a review.
Oh, and if reviewing the tests during a code review doesn’t make the intent of the code any clearer, then I suggest the team investigate behavior driven development (BDD). I’m becoming quite partial to the Cucumber framework for BDD, as I like it’s emphasis on user stories with acceptance tests/examples written in plain text and backed by executable steps.
Topics: Agile, Software Development | 1 Comment »
The Customers Disappear Right Before Our Eyes
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Tonight I was foolish enough to think my family and I could waltz into a restaurant on Valentine’s and get a table without much trouble. We were trying a restaurant we hadn’t been to before and I realized as soon as we pulled into the parking lot this probably wasn’t the best night to experiment. We went inside anyway to see how long the wait was. Much to my surprise, the hostess told us it was only about a 15-20 minute wait. I looked around the restaurant and, while it was full, there wasn’t a large number of people waiting on tables. We got on the waiting list and then proceeded to wait.
What I saw during the wait was kind of surprising. I noticed that the staff were diligently doing their jobs, quickly moving from one spot to another. I had to be careful not to step too far away from the waiting area or I was sure to bump into one of the busy bee workers. And while the staff was incredibly focused on the operations of the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice they were almost oblivious to their customers, whether those customers be waiting for a table, eating their meal, or somewhere in between. I looked around the restaurant of about 40 tables and noticed that at any given moment there were numerous people looking to get the attention of their waitress. Customers coming in through the door were rarely greeted in a timely manner. Those of us waiting for a table were ignored completely, even as our original wait time came and went.
It dawned on me that this situation is not unlike what happens with some software development projects. We get in the groove of producing the software and never take time to make sure we’re satisfying the customer. Yes, those of us practicing agile have the advantage of delivering in short iterations which, at worst, won’t allow a project to go too long before the customer is back in the mix. But, even on agile projects, I’ve seen teams go through an entire iteration without giving much thought to the customer’s needs beyond the initial planning meeting. We think we understand exactly what the customer wants, can’t or simply don’t get continuous feedback from the customer during the iteration, and we develop the functionality. We become like the restaurant’s staff, who are so busy running the restaurant that they forget about the very people who really keep the restaurant running, the customers. Sure, the orders are taken, the food is getting out to people, drinks are refilled, new people are put on the waiting list, etc., but the customers aren’t satisfied, let alone happy. The software gets designed, written, documented, tested, etc. but the customers aren’t satisfied, let alone happy. Sound familiar?
Tonight was a good reminder that technical and operational excellence is critical to delivering a good customer experience, but if we lose sight of the customer in that process then we will fail miserably. We need to be diligent about keeping constant contact with the customer and focusing on the value we’re delivering. We don’t want our customers to walk away from us like my family and others did on the restaurant we attempted to eat dinner at tonight.
Topics: Agile, Software Development | No Comments »
One Smart Cucumber
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
I was messing around with some Ruby stuff tonight and was reading up on the Cucumber project. Cucumber is a behavior driven development (BDD) testing tool.
Anyone who talks to me about user stories knows I’m kind of a stickler on the value statement. I think I’ve found a kindred soul in Aslak Hellesoy, the creator of Cucumber. The following comes from the Cucumber documentation.
You should discuss the “In order to” part of the feature and pop the why stack max 5 times (ask why recursively) until you end up with one of the following business values:
- Protect revenue
- Increase revenue
- Manage cost
If you’re about to implement a feature that doesn’t support one of those values, chances are you’re about to implement a non-valuable feature. Consider tossing it altogether or pushing it down in your backlog. Focus on implementing the MMFs (Minimum Marketable Features) that will yield the most value.
Here is an example taken from an IRC chat session in #cucumber:
[5:08pm] Luis_Byclosure: I'm having problems applying the "5 Why" rule, to the feature "login" (imagine an application like youtube) [5:08pm] Luis_Byclosure: how do you explain the business value of the feature "login"? [5:09pm] Luis_Byclosure: In order to be recognized among other people, I want to login in the application (?) [5:09pm] Luis_Byclosure: why do I want to be recognized among other people? [5:11pm] aslakhellesoy: Why do people have to log in? [5:12pm] Luis_Byclosure: I dunno... why? [5:12pm] aslakhellesoy: I'm asking you [5:13pm] aslakhellesoy: Why have you decided login is needed? [5:13pm] Luis_Byclosure: identify users [5:14pm] aslakhellesoy: Why do you have to identify users? [5:14pm] Luis_Byclosure: maybe because people like to know who is publishing what [5:15pm] aslakhellesoy: Why would anyone want to know who's publishing what? [5:17pm] Luis_Byclosure: because if people feel that that content belongs to someone, then the content is trustworthy [5:17pm] aslakhellesoy: Why does content have to appear trustworthy? [5:20pm] Luis_Byclosure: Trustworthy makes people interested in the content and consequently in the website [5:20pm] Luis_Byclosure: Why do I want to get people interested in the website? [5:20pm] aslakhellesoy:[5:21pm] aslakhellesoy: Are you selling something there? Or is it just for fun? [5:21pm] Luis_Byclosure: Because more traffic means more money in ads [5:21pm] aslakhellesoy: There you go! [5:22pm] Luis_Byclosure: Why do I want to get more money in ads? Because I want to increase de revenues. [5:22pm] Luis_Byclosure: And this is the end, right? [5:23pm] aslakhellesoy: In order to drive more people to the website and earn more admoney, authors should have to login, so that the content can be displayed with the author and appear more trustworthy. [5:23pm] aslakhellesoy: Does that make any sense? [5:25pm] Luis_Byclosure: Yes, I think so [5:26pm] aslakhellesoy: It's easier when you have someone clueless (like me) to ask the stupid why questions [5:26pm] aslakhellesoy: Now I know why you want login [5:26pm] Luis_Byclosure: but it is difficult to find the reason for everything [5:26pm] aslakhellesoy: And if I was the customer I am in better shape to prioritise this feature among others [5:29pm] Luis_Byclosure: true!
I was impressed to find that section in the documentation. Not only do the docs detail basic usage but they go into the deeper discussion of how to apply agile principles using Cucumber. The balancing act of teaching principles and practices at the same time is no small feat. To find that in software documentation is pretty amazing.
P.S. One of my worst titles ever, I know. I think I was subconsciously inspired by the Hallmark Movie my wife had on a couple nights ago. I now realize I missed my calling as a greeting card writer.
Topics: Agile, Software Development | 1 Comment »
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