Agile Learning Labs

What Makes Agile Projects Succeed? - Agile Open California

I hosted the ever-popular 'What makes agile projects succeed?' session at Agile Open California this year. As was the case last year, turnout was strong and the lessons learned from many teams were shared in a short period of time. In under 90 minutes the group generated and ranked a list of nearly 40 factors that had been key to the success of agile projects that they had been involved with. We used the Group Wisdom Without Groupthink technique to accomplish this feat. The list below presents, in order, what the assembled group considered to be the most important ingredients to the success of the agile projects.

Before you scroll down to look at the results, check out the drawing that our graphics facilitaor, Elizabeth McClellan, created during the session!

Top Answer: Short Cycles

Tier Two
Self-Organizing Team
Co-Location (whole team at big table)
QA Involved Early
High-Risk Items First
Clear Business Goal

Tier Three
Test Cases for each Requirement
Stake-holder buy-in to the agile process
Daily Scrum
Customer or Proxy on-site at all times
Keeping estimates 'real'
Common understanding of 'done'
Keep the priorities visible to the whole team

Tier Four
Developer ownership of the testing
Individuals taking ownership of what they sign up for
Make issues visible - put them on the wall
Team is accountable, committed, and at the same level
Early deliverables

Tier Five
Pair Programming
Skilled architect
No gold-plating
Keep moral high
Selecting the right people for the team
Senior contributors on the team
Regular and focused review of features
Project manager conducted effective meetings
Collective enthusiasm for the process

Tier Six
Effective decision-making
Building trust within the team
'Go with the flow'
Wiki used for communication
Communication in all directions
Use of support tools effectively
Small team
Great e-mail with all-hands to quickly handle hot issues
Just-in-time tasking with dev and QA
Everyone has a shared understanding of system and their obligations
Short time between feature requests and implementation

You may want to compare these results with those from other groups:
Dr. Dobb's Architecture and Design World
Agile Coach Camp
The BayAPLN
The 2008 Chicago Scrum Gathering
P-Camp, a gather of Agile Product Managers
Silicon Valley Code Camp 2007
Agile Open California 2007

Cheers,

Chris

Not a Bad Morning

I woke up this morning with a 30th-story view of the Charles River. I finished up my latest article for InfoQ. Off I walked to get checked in for SD Best Practices, where I'll be doing workshops on active listening and giving feedback. I reconnected with friends I made in Chicago, at Dr. Dobbs Architecture and Design World. Then there was just enough time to reconnect with Joel Spolsky, over a cup of coffee at Espresso Royal, before we had to run back to the conference so that he could deliver the lunch keynote. His presentation got plenty of hearty laughs, while making some serious points about how to make people love your software.

Life is good!

Cheers,

Chris

The Power of Done

It seems so simple, but having a well, and widely, understood definition of "done" is one of the most powerful contributors towards the success of an agile project. Lately there has been a lot of discussion about this idea, and it prompted me to write this story for InfoQ.

What is your team's definition of "done"? Leave a comment and share it!

Cheers,

Chris

The Makings of a QA Leader at ST&P Conference

This post contains the results from the second of two sessions that I facilitated at the Software Test and Performance Conference in Boston. This session was held in the largest of the available rooms, and it we nearly filled it.

I asked the participants to think back to the very best leaders that they had worked with in their QA careers. I pointed out that a leader is not necessarily a manager, as informal leadership can often be very powerful. We then used the Group Wisdom Without Groupthink process to collect and rank answers to the question:
"What separates the most effective leaders from the rest?"

Over the course of an hour, we generated and ranked over 40 answers to this question. These are listed below, in the order that the group ranked them.

Tier One
Approachable
Straight shooter
Creates an environment of trust

Tier Two
Accountable
Open to new ideas
Takes blame/Gives Credit
Mentor
Knows the job (Leading from experience)

Tier Three
Great communicator
Shielding from politics
Big picture
Empowerment
Can push back to upper mgmt.
Positive
Active listener
Flexible
Lets me make mistakes
Subtle influencer, "A benevolent manipulator"

Tier Four
Diplomatic
Obstacle remover
Appreciates
Motivator

Tier Five
Timely, supportive feedback
Works for you first
Ability to get things w/o explicit authority
Political savvy
Builds skills
Decisive

Tier Six
Tactful
Positive reinforcement
Self-aware/Emotional intelligence
Walks the talk

Tier Seven
Balance team's needs with business needs
Good judgment
Resourcefulness
Rolls up their sleeves

Tier Eight
Fair
Delegates
Asks open questions
People-focused
Does the management job
Stays calm
Consensus builder
Pursues staff’s interests

You may find it interesting to compare these results with those from the workshop that I facilitated at the Targeting Quality conference in Waterloo, Ontario: From Tester to Leader.

Also relevant are the results from these similar workshops:
IEEE Group Answers: "What makes an engineering manager great?"
Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group (plus 'Group X')

These results on retaining key employees seem relevant as well.

Cheers,

Chris

The Most Effective Ways to Improve Software Quality at ST&P Conference

Early on the last morning of the Software Test and Performance Conference in Boston, a group of a bout twenty software quality professionals gathered to consider the most basic and practical question of the conference: What are the things that we can do that make the biggest improvements in the quality of our software?

The idea was simple, each person would share those things that had made the biggest impact on the quality of the products they worked on. No theory or vendor hype here, just actual experience. We used the Group Wisdom Without Groupthink process, and over the course of an hour generated and ranked a list of thirty best practices. Those at the top of the list are the ones that the group identified as the most effective ways to improve the quality of a software project, based on the collective experience of the group.

Tier One
Proper test planning
Simulating customer environment as closely as possible
Developer/Tester collaboration, actually talking to each other every day
Defect Tracking (workflow, reporting, and metrics)

Tier Two
Test cases formally reviewed by QA, Dev, and BA
Extensive & visible automated regression tests
Defect meetings to review, prioritize, and scope
Team collaboration on reviewing issues
Unit testing
Proof of concept demos

Tier Three
Sufficient time and resources
Control of QA lab, clean testing environment
Virtual machines
Build management integration tool that includes automation testing
Scope control

Tier Four
QA Diplomacy
Code reviews
Having developers do QA
QA teams with broad diversified skills
Code coverage

Tier Five
End-to-end testing, downstream, integrated
Gap analysis, BA/QA/Dev
Feature freeze
Documentation of old pieces of the system
Training tools

Tier Six
Giving QA tools and control over their environment
Entry criteria checklist
Docs

Tier Seven
Don’t file stupid bugs
Application training to make QA expert users
Wikis and blogs

What have you or your team found to have the biggest impact on software quality? Post a comment and share.

Cheers,

Chris