Governance, Phases, and Milestones are not Agile Dirty Words! Mark Lines, Scott Ambler + Associates Co-creator of Disciplined Agile Delivery Enterprise Transformation Coach Helping to create Agile and Lean enterprises around the world @Mark_Lines © Scott Ambler + Associates 1 DAD Has Caught On! - Organizations using Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) © Scott Ambler + Associates 2 Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a process decision framework The key characteristics of DAD: – People-first – Goal-driven – Hybrid agile – Learning-oriented – Full delivery lifecycle – Solution focused – Risk-value lifecycle – Enterprise aware © Scott Ambler + Associates 3 DAD is a Hybrid Framework SAFe DevOps …and more Outside In Dev. “Traditional” Agile Data Extreme Unified Process Agile Modeling Programming Scrum Kanban Lean DAD leverages proven strategies from several sources, providing a decision framework to guide your adoption and tailoring of them in a context-driven manner. © Scott Ambler + Associates 4 DAD is Goal-Driven, Not Prescriptive © Scott Ambler + Associates 5 © Scott Ambler + Associates 6 Functional Requirements: Potential Model Types Usage Domain Epic/User Story Domain/Conceptual Model Persona Logical Data Model (LDM) Usage Scenario UML Class Diagram Story Mapping UML Component Diagram UML Use Case Diagram User Interface (UI) Process Value Stream Map UI Flow Diagram Business Process Model UI Prototype (Low Fidelity) Data Flow Diagram (DFD) UI Prototype (High Fidelity) Flow Chart UI Specification UML Activity Diagram UML State Chart General Impact (Mind) Map Business Rule Context Diagram Feature/Shall Statements © Scott Ambler + Associates And many more… 7 Some Scope Modeling Options (from the book) © Scott Ambler + Associates 8 More Scope Modeling Options (from the book) © Scott Ambler + Associates 9 DAD Initiatives have Milestones and may have Phases Inception Construction Transition Initiate the endeavor Development of a potentially consumable solution Deploy the solution Stakeholder vision Continued viability Sufficient functionality Production ready Proven architecture (several) Delighted stakeholders 2014 © Disciplined Agile Consortium Milestone Reviews should be lightweight! © Scott Ambler + Associates 10 © Scott Ambler + Associates 11 Basic/Agile Lifecycle A full Scrum-based agile delivery lifecycle. © Scott Ambler + Associates 12 © Scott Ambler + Associates 13 Lean Lifecycle A full lean delivery lifecycle © Scott Ambler + Associates 14 The Phases Disappear Over Time First release: Inception Construction Transition Second release: I Construction T Third release: I Construction T . Nth+ releases: C T C T C T C T © Scott Ambler + Associates 15 © Scott Ambler + Associates 16 Lean Continuous Delivery Lifecycle Your evolutionary end goal? © Scott Ambler + Associates 17 © Scott Ambler + Associates 18 Exploratory “Lean Startup” Lifecycle Sometimes it takes time to identify what your stakeholders actually need © Scott Ambler + Associates 19 Typical Evolution of Lifecycle Mix Current 10% 90% 2 years 20% 10% 5% 15% 50% 5 years 40% 10% 5% 30% 15% Agile/Scrum Lean Exploratory/Lean Start-up Continuous Delivery Traditional Choice is good! © Scott Ambler + Associates 20 Governing Disciplined Agile Teams © Scott Ambler + Associates 21 Many Organizations Are Serious About Governance Moore’s Adoption Curve The farther to the right an organization, the greater the chance they’re focused on governance © Scott Ambler + Associates 22 Governance Should Address a Range of Issues • Team roles and responsibilities • Individual roles and responsibilities • Decision rights and decision making process • Governing body • Exceptions and escalation processes • Knowledge sharing processes • Metrics strategy • Risk mitigation • Reward structure • Status reporting • Audit processes • Policies, standards, and guidelines • Artifacts and their lifecycles © Scott Ambler + Associates 23 Why is Governance Important? • Sustain and extend your IT strategies and objectives, which in turn should reflect your corporate strategies and objectives • Determine how the company will execute its strategy by selecting and prioritizing the most valuable initiatives to undertake • Empower teams to carry out their work • Help to ensure that delivery teams: – Regularly and consistently create real business value – Provide appropriate return on investment (ROI) – Deliver consumable solutions in a timely and relevant manner – Work effectively with their project stakeholders – Work effectively with their IT colleagues – Adopt processes and organizational structures that encourage successful IT solution delivery – Present accurate and timely information to project stakeholders – Mitigate the risks associated with the project © Scott Ambler + Associates 24 Why Traditional Governance Strategies Won’t Work Traditional assumptions that conflict with agile: – You can judge team progress from generation of artifacts – Delivery teams should work in a serial manner – You want teams to follow a common, repeatable process – Projects should be driven by senior IT management © Scott Ambler + Associates 25 Principles of Agile Governance Collaboration over conformance Enablement over inspection Continuous monitoring over quality gates Transparency over management reporting © Scott Ambler + Associates 26 DAD Practices that Support Governance • “Standard” agile practices: – Coordination meeting – Iteration demonstrations – All-hands demonstrations – Retrospective – Information radiators/Visual management • Disciplined practices: – Risk-value lifecycle – Explicit light-weight milestones – Follow enterprise development guidelines – Work closely with enterprise professionals – Development intelligence via automated dashboards © Scott Ambler + Associates 27 Measuring Agile Teams • Talk to people; don’t manage to the metrics • Measure teams, not individuals • Collect several metrics • Trends are better than scalar values • Empirical observation is important but limited • Prefer automated metrics • Some metrics must be gathered manually • Prefer pull versus push reporting • Beware scientific facades • The value of many metrics diminishes over time • If you collect no metrics at all you’re flying blind • If you collect too many metrics you may be flying blinded © Scott Ambler + Associates 28 Potential Metrics • Acceleration • Lead time • Activity time • Net present value (NPV) • Age of work items • Ranged release burndown/up • Blocking work items • Release burndown/up • Build health • Return on investment (ROI) • Business value delivered • Stakeholder satisfaction • Code quality • Net promoter score • Cumulative flow • Team morale • Cycle time • Test coverage • Defect density • Velocity • Defect trend • Work in process (WIP) • Iteration burndown © Scott Ambler + Associates 29 Inception Phase Milestone: Stakeholder Vision © Scott Ambler + Associates 30 What’s in a Project Vision? • Could be thought of as an agile project charter • Typically outlines: – Goals of the project team and who is on it – High-level scope of the current release – Technical overview of the solution – Outline of the plan to do the required work – Could include feasibility information • Could also describe: – Business problem being addressed – High-level schedule and estimates – Key milestones – Stakeholders – Funding models – Project risks and constraints – Process/method used (e.g. DAD), governance strategy – Key assumptions © Scott Ambler + Associates 31 Milestone: Bringing Stakeholders to Agreement around your Vision • Inception is complete and you can enter the Construction phase when: – Your stakeholders agree that it makes sense to proceed based upon the achievable scope, schedule, budget, constraints, and other criteria related to your business case – The risks have been identified and seem tolerable – There is agreement on using a minimalist and agile process for building the solution – The team and environment have been set up that supports collaborative teamwork, or are in the process of being so – The process and governance strategies have been agreed to by both your team and your stakeholders © Scott Ambler + Associates 32 Develop Common Vision Goal © Scott Ambler + Associates 33 Information Radiators Light-weight Detailed © Scott Ambler + Associates 34 An Example of a Lightweight Milestone Review… Scenario: • End of 2 week Inception phase • Invitees to review meeting • Sponsor • Product Owner • Delivery Team • Other stakeholders • Architecture • Data • Governance • Support © Scott Ambler + Associates 35 Sample Inception Milestone Review Deck © Scott Ambler + Associates 36 An Example of a Construction Iteration Review… Scenario: • End of 2 week Construction iteration • Invitees to review meeting • Delivery Team • Product Owner • Other stakeholders • Architecture • Data • Governance • Support © Scott Ambler + Associates 37 Sample Iteration Review Deck © Scott Ambler + Associates 38 Governing IT © Scott Ambler + Associates 39 Governance cuts across all process blades © Scott Ambler + Associates 40 Security Data IT Governance Governance Views Development Operations Architecture Portfolio Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) Develop Metrics Targeted metrics Common core metrics “Standard” team metrics Measure Automated metrics Manual metrics Direct interaction Team dashboard Monitor Portfolio dashboard Direct observation Status report Principles Guidance Detail High-level rules Checklists Detailed definition Collaborative (enterprise level) Develop Guidance Collaborative (team level) Top-Down Bottom-Up There are many factors to