Agile Delivery Frameworks Flashcards
Main Agile Delivery Frameworks
- DSDM Atern
- Kanban
- SAFe
- Scrum
- XP (Extreme Programming)
- Lean Software Development
- The Lean Startup
Scrum
- An agile framework for the delivery of complex products
- Uses timeboxed iterations of 30 days or fewer
- All of the core elements are mandatory
- Once the basics are in place, scrum teams add their own specific practices to create their own process
Scrum - built on Empirical Process Control (3 pillars)
3 Pillars
- Transparency: we need clarity on the plan, current activities, and progress made so far.
- Inspection: We need to regularly review the current situation.
- Adaptation: We need to change the plan to match current conditions and the latest information.
Scrum Roles
Autonomy & Accountability
*Product Owner: Optimizing the value of the product. Managing the product backlog.
- Development Team: Delivery value / Self-organizing / Cross-functional
- Scrum Master: Manages the process. Agile lead
Scrum Artifacts
Scrum artifacts provide transparency.
- Product Backlog - The long-term plan
- Spring Backlog - The active, working plan
- Increment - The cumulative sum of all previous work
5 Events to Inspect and Adapt
- Sprint Planning - What will we build & how will we do it?
- Daily Scrum - Are we on track?
- Sprint Review - What was built? What is next?
- Sprint Retrospective - How can we improve the process?
- Sprint - Container event for all events and activities
What is Kanban?
Not a process, but a method for improving as existing process. Six Core Practices: *Visualize the work *Limit work in progress *Make policies explicit *Measure and manage flow *Implement feedback loops *Improve collaboratively; evolve experimentally
Kanban - Visualize the work
- Kanban boars and cards represent work
- Making things visible means we support better decisions
- When work is hidden, it doesn’t get done
Kanban - Limit Work in Progress
- When there is too much work system gets blocked
- When people get overloaded they do less work
- Partially done work goes stale and loses value
- Lots of WIP means everything takes longer to get through
Kanban - Make Policies Explicit
- Make sure the rules are clear
- Checklists add integrity to the system
- Retrospectives are a good way to do this
Kanban - Measure and Manage Flow
- Understand the timings of work flowing through the system
- Identify trends and use this to guide improvement
- Use historical performance to forecast future work
Kanban - Implement feedback loops
- Work is pulled through the system
- Leaving blocked items creates waste and inefficiency
- WIP limits create pressure to resolve blockers
- Improve the system to reduce blockers
Kanban - Continuous Improvement
- There is no end-point or perfect
- The people doing the work know the most about it
- Empowered teams can take control of their process
- It only really works if the team is engaged and motivated
Comparison (Scrum vs Kanban)
Scrum / Kanban
- (S) An approach to complex product development / (K) An approach to improving service delivery using evolutionary improvement
- (S) Roles & process clearly defined / (K) No roles or processes defined
- (S) Revolutionary. Apply the whole Scrum framework. more disruptive at the start. / (K)Evolutionary. Start with what you’re doing now. Less disruptive at the start.
- (S) Work in progress limited by the amount of work that can be done per sprint. Limit time and vary work. / (K) Work in progress limited by a “pull systems” - new work enters when tasks are complete. Limit the work and vary time.
Lean Software Development
- Toyota established principles of lean manufacturing in the late 1940’s
- Mary & Tom Poppendieck adapted the lean manufacturing principles for software in 2003
Seven Lean Software Principles
- Eliminate Waste - such as extra work, requirements shurn, communication boundaries
- Build in Quality - through automated testing and elimination of defects
- Create Knowledge - through feedback, capturing learning and sharing with teams
- Defer Commitment - until the last responsible moment
- Deliver Fast - by establishing rapid, high-quality, low cost value chains
- Respect People - because engaged and motivated teams are a competitive advantage
- Optimize the Whole - rather than perfecting isolated parts of the system
Lean Startup Cycle
- Ideas - Start with a value hypothesis
- Build
- Product - Minimum viable product - just enough features to deploy the product
- Measure - Measure results / learn from this / adjust hypothesis
- Data
- Learn - Feed the learning into the next cycle and repeat
DSDM Atern
An Agile Project Management and Delivery framework
- Focuses on delivering a project on time, while providing the governance required for this context
- The focus on projects rather than products distinguishes it from other agile frameworks
The DSDM Atern Process
*Pre-project: a short phase to articulate the idea of proposal
*Feasibility: Create outline requirements and business case
*Foundation: Build on the feasibility to establish enough details to proceed to development
*Evolutionary development: work is done in timeboxed iterations, based on MoSCoW prioritization:
**Must have
**Should have
**Could have
**Won’t have
(Flexing the Should’s, Could’s, and Won’ts allows the date to remain fixed.)
*Deployment: at the end of each timebox there is option to release one or more increment into operational use. The project is formally closed with the last deployment.
*Post-project: the assessment of whether the solution has delivered the expected benefits. Often done many months after the final deployment.
MoSCoW Prioritization
- Must have - stories that must be delivered within a delivery timebox
- Should have - stories that are very important within the timebox and, if not delivered, would cause the customer significant problems
- Could have - stories that are very important within the timebox and, if not delivered, may cause the customer some problems
- Won’t have (this time) - Will not be delivered in the identified timebox
eXtreme Programming
An agile framework focusing on
- Close customer collaboration
- High technical standards
- Teamwork and sharing
eXtreme Programming Rules
- Planning - User stories are written
- Managing - Give the team a dedicated open work space
- Designing - Simplicity. Chose a system metaphor
- Coding - The customer us always available
- Testing - All code must have unit tests
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
- A scaled approach to agile adoption intended for large development organization comprising hundreds of engineers
- Uses several other agile frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban and XP, incorporating them into a container framework
SAFe - Team Level
- Scrum teams and roles
- XP technical practices
- Iterative development
SAFe - Program Level
- 5-12 teams form an Agile Release Train
- A Kanban approach drives program planning
- The release train “team of teams” operates on an 8-12 week planning cycle
SAFe - Large Solutions
- An extra “solution train” layer is possible for very large products
- Release train teams for a further “teams of teams”
SAFe - Portfolio Level
- A portfolio backlog contains epics that cross multiple release trains
- Enterprise level architecture is defined up-front
