Agile Project Management Using Scrum

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Agile Project ManagementUsing Scrum

• Presented by
• Dave Hallett Ruth Butlin
• Queens University, Information Technology
  Services

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Background on Speakers

• Ruth Butlin
• 10 years software development experience
• Agile Alliance Member
• CSM
• Manages all student systems activity, mainframe
  and e-business
• Senior Systems Specialist, University Information
  Systems, ITS

• Dave Hallett
• 15 years software development experience
• MBA, Info Technology Mgnt
• Agile Alliance Member
• CSM
• Manager, University Information Systems, ITS

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Background on ITServices

• 100 FTE staff

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Background on ITServices

• 5 Main Departments
• University Information Systems
• Servers, Operations
• Support Services
• Campus Telecom Networks
• Sales Service

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Background on UIS

• 3 DBA, application server admins
• 14 Internet app developers
• 7 Mainframe developers
• 1 Manager

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Background on UIS

• Student, HR, Finance,
• eBusiness, Portal,
• Contract programming

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Objectives for Today
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Objectives for Today

• What are we trying to manage?
• Projects and ongoing support at Queens

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Objectives for Today

• Whats the problem?
• Why traditional PM strategies didnt work for us.

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Objectives for Today

• Why choose Agile?
• Transparency, flexibility
• Short-term predictability
• Long term vision

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What are trying to manage?

• UIS Activity
• And now some pan-ITS projects

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UIS Activity

• 25 year old mainframe applications
• Ongoing list of change requests
• Requirements for significant enhancements (i.e.
  differential fee increases)

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UIS Activity

• eBusiness applications
• 20 new applications in last 4 years

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UIS Activity

• Portal development
• Coordinating multiple campus interests

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UIS Activity

• Contract programming
• Setting expectations when billing for
  development services

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Whats the Problem?

• Why Have Traditional Project Management
  Strategies Failed Us?

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Overplanning

• Project proposal
• Project plan
• Use cases
• Workflow diagrams
• MS Project
• Gantt charts WBS
• Risk Minimalization checklist
• Project status reports
• Project close report

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Locked in

• Clients sign off on a complete set of project
  requirements before development begins

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Locked in

• Timetable is set after requirements gathered

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Locked in

• Then
• Systems analysis
• system design occurs

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Locked in

• Change requires formal
• Change Request

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Locked in

• Client now waits for delivery of the product they
  want

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Locked in

• Not the necessarily the product your team is
  building

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The invisible team

• Client and development team are disconnected

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The invisible team

• Client explains requirements to Project Manager

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The invisible team

• Project Manager explains requirements to
  developers

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The invisible team

• Developer questions go back through Project
  Manager

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The invisible team

• Project Manager asks question of client

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The invisible team

• Client explains answer to Project Manager

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The invisible team

• Project Manager explains answer to Developers

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The invisible team

• Developers translate requirements into code
• Meanwhile

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The disconnected team

• Project Manager
• assigns tasks
• to developers
• with timetable

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The disconnected team

• Developers
• work independently,
• asking occasional questions

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The disconnected team

• Testing and integration planning happened
  independently
• (if it happened)

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Waste removal

• Project plans that try to capture every feature
  in advance

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Waste removal

• Fantasy Gantt charts that predict what we will be
  working on 173 days from now

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Waste removal

• Non-synchronized
• teams
• clients

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Why choose Agile?

• Transparency, flexibility
• Short-term predictability
• Long term vision

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Why choose Agile?
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Why choose Agile?

• It is not the strongest of the species that
  survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones
  most responsive to change.

- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
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Agile with Scrum

• When the process is too complicated for the
  defined approach, the empirical approach is the
  appropriate choice.
• Process Dynamics, Modeling, and Control,
  Ogunnaikeand Ray, Oxford University Press, 1992

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Defined Process vs. Empirical

• Defined Process Management
• Great for known activity

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Defined Process vs. Empirical

• Not great for unknown activity

7 million budget120 million final
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Agile Project Methodology

• Empirical management control process

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Agile Project Methodology

• Inspect and adapt feedback loops

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Agile Project Methodology

• Used to manage complex projects since 1990

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Agile Project Methodology

• Delivers
• business functionality
• in short iterations

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Agile Project Methodology

• Scalable to
• distributed, large, and long projects

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Agile Project Methodology

• CMM Level/3
• and
• ISO 9001 compliant

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Agile Project Methodology

• Extremely simple
• but
• very hard

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Agile Project Methodology

• Trade-off
• Less Predictable Outcomes
• vs.
• False Confidence

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Agile Project Methodology

• Extreme Programming
• Evo
• Iterative Development
• Feature Driven Development
• Lean Development

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Agile Project Methodology

• Scrum

• Scrum
• Scrum recognizes that

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Agile With Scrum

• We are skilled problem solvers,
• experts at devising long-lasting solutions.

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Agile With Scrum

• The problem in our profession
• is not process or technology
• it is people and dysfunctional interactions.

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Agile With Scrum

• It can only be solved
• person by person
• Scrum provides the mechanism
• for making the people and process problems
  apparent so they can be solved.

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What is Scrum Methodology?

• Business Vision
• Project Backlog
• Sprints/Iterations
• Daily Communication
• Frequent Demonstrations

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What is Scrum

• Scrum is a very simple process
• a management technique
• encompasses almost any good engineering technique
• a relatively small set of interrelated practices
  and rules,
• is not overly prescriptive,
• can be learned quickly and
• is able to produce productivity gains almost
  immediately.

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What is Scrum

• Scrum focuses an organization on
• building successful products
• delivering useful features at regular intervals
• expecting requirements, architecture, and design
  changes

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Waterfall project management
Planning
Analysis
Design
Coding
Testing
Performance
User Acceptance
Pilot
Live
Time
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Scrum Project Management
Scrum refers to the Product Backlog and Product
Owner ITS will refer to the Project Backlog and
Project Owner to lessen the commercial tone of
the methodology
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How do you do Scrum?
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Understanding Roles

• Create a Project Team
• 3 sets of Roles

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Understanding Roles

• Project Owner
• Scrum Master(Project Manager)
• Scrum Team

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Understanding Roles

• Project Owner
• Owns the vision
• Owns the priorities

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Understanding Roles

• Scrum Master(Project Manager)
• Protects the team from interference
• Ensures daily team communication
• Further defines next deliverables

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Understanding Roles

• Scrum Team
• Owns the sprint tasks
• Self assigns tasks
• Can add to sprint
• Demonstrates product

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Project kickoff

• Start Project with a
• Full DayKick Off Meeting

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Project kickoff

• ½ Day with Project Owner
• Project Vision Deliverables Backlog

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Project kickoff

• ½ Day with Scrum Team to
• organizeplanestimate

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Project kickoff

• Output is Product Backlog
• List of deliverables
• High-level dependencies
• Effort estimate

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Project Backlog

• Owner Prioritizes backlog deliverables
  according toBusiness Value

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Sprint Backlog

• Team
• selects deliverables they can deliver in
  calendar month

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Sprint Backlog

• Scrum Master(Project Leader)
• Communicates current sprint deliverables
• Chairs daily meeting
• Addresses obstacles
• Schedules demonstration
• Further defines deliverables for next sprint

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Daily Scrums

• Daily 15 minute status meeting
• Same place and time every day
• Three questions
• What have you completed since last meeting?
• What will you complete before next meeting?
• What help do you need?
• Any decisions to be made?

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Monthly Demonstration

• The Team presents
• Production quality features to Owner
• Unfinished/Next items are discussed

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Scrum Process
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Why Chose Agile/Scrum Development?

• Know where you are every day with Scrum
• - or -
• Think you know where you are on your well-formed
  plan
• and discover that you are very wrong, very much
  later
• Minimum Process, Maximum Value

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Agile/Scrum Benefits?

• Promote rapid delivery of value to customers
• Provide timely and regular visibility of the
  solution to customers, product owners, and
  stakeholders
• Deliver increases in productivity, quality ROI
  for software development organizations
• Minimum Process, Maximum Value

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What project management paradigms are we
breaking?
Agile vs. Plan-Driven Development
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The Agile Paradigm Shift
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Scope vs. Schedules

• Everyone remembers a
• schedule slip,
• but almost no one
• remembers a scope slip.

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How is it working at Queens UIS?
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Scrumming at UIS

• Student Information Systems maintenance requests
• 100 open maintenance requests
• Monthly updates between UIS PM Assoc. Registrar
• Reprioritize list monthly according to most
  important and feasible.

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Scrumming at UIS

• Faculty of Education Continuing Ed
  Registration System
• One year planning
• Two years development with twice a year releases
• Switched to billable Monthly Sprints in Jan 2006
• Prioritize deliverables every month
• Release to production monthly
• Finally, Im getting the system I want ConEd
  Dir

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Scrumming at UIS

• Awards Office Application for Financial Aid
• Given limited time window to build enhancements
• Assoc Registrar prioritized first Student then
  Admin priorities
• Time dictated deliverables.
• At the end of each of three Sprints, functioning
  code was put into production.
• Client happy with delivered products (not so
  happy with time allotted.)

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Scrumming at UIS

• Library Portal Channels 6 channels identified
  for September release
• Initial meeting with several librarians UIS
  devs
• Approximate effort assigned to each channel
• Asked library to focus on one at a time
• First channel will be ready this month

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Scrumming at ITServices

• JES Implementation implement new mail,
  calendar, portal, SSO
• September goal
• Three ITS units (Servers, UIS, Support Services)
• Moved from managing gt175 lines of Gantt chart to
  35 lines in Excel
• Difficulty getting norms

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Scrumming at ITServices
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Scrumming at ITServices
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Difficulties?
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Difficulties?

• Change is difficult
• Clients initially reacted against frequent
  meetings
• Team members react against daily meetings
• Team members react against co-locating for work
• Identifying Impediments is threatening
• Daily meetings highlight impediments
• Some impediments are cultural
• Some impediments systemic

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Pay Off?
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Pay Off?

• Improved Productivity
• Better Communication
• More Predictable Results
• Better Team Interaction
• Better Code
• More Frequent Deliverables
• Happier Clients

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Additional Sources

• http//wiki.its.queensu.ca/display/UIS
• http//www.agilemanifesto.org
• http//www.agilealliance.org
• http//www.scrumalliance.org
• http//pmdoi.com
• http//www.jimhighsmith.com
• Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken
  Schwaber
• Agile Iterative Development - A managers guide
  by Craig Larman
• Agile Project Management by Jim Highsmith
• Servant Leadership by Robert K Greenleaf
• Extreme Programming by Kent Beck
• Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom
  Poppendieck

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Thank You!Questions?
dave.hallett_at_queensu.ca ruth.butlin_at_queensu.ca