Agile Principles & Mindset Flashcards
Agile Project Management
-Umbrella term that is used to refer to
different types of iterative development
-Developed for software projects, but can be used in all project types
-Scrum = most common type
Agile Benefits (5)
-Customers involved throughout
-Customer interaction w/ stakeholders
-Constant feedback
-Greater value upfront
-Change welcomed
Agile Declaration of Independence (6 pillars)
-increase ROI
-deliver reliable results
-expect uncertainty
-unleash creativity + innovation
-boost performance
-improve effectiveness + reliability
In agile _____ & ______ are fixed ; while _____ is variable.
Time & Cost;
Scope
The opposite is true in traditional
Agile Manifesto Values
-Individuals & interactions > Process & Tools
-Working Software > Documentation
-Customer Collaboration > Contract Negotiation
-Responding to Change > Following a plan
Agile Guiding Principles (1-6)
- Satisfy customer early & continuously
- Welcome change
- Deliver frequently
- Work together daily
- Build around motivated individuals
- Utilize face-to-face convos
Agile Guiding Principles (7-12)
- Working software = measure of progress
- Sustainable pace & workload
- Continuous attention to good & tech design
- simplicity is key
- best results from self-organizing teams
- Regularly adjusts and adapts
Product Owner
Designated person that represents the customer on the project
-Owns Product vision
-Defines features, decides on release date and content
-Responsible for market success
-Prioritizes features according to market value
-Can change features and priorities every Sprint
(scrum)
Scrum Master
Agile PM; manages the project
(scrum)
-facilitates process
-focuses team
-looks for ways to enhance productivity
-assists product owner in leveraging Scrum
Product Backlog
- Project requirements from the stakeholders
-Prioritized by Product Owner
-Dynamic, ever evolving
Sprint Backlog
-Work the team selects from Product Backlog to get done in the next sprint
-Accompanied by sprint plan to achieve outlined goals
Output of Sprint Planning Meeting
Sprint Review
An inspection done at the end of the sprint by the customers. Team demonstrates work that was completed during the sprint
time boxed: 1 hr per week of sprint
Retrospective
Meeting done to determine what went wrong during the sprint and what when right. Lesson learned for the sprint.
Product Increment/Partial Completed Product
- Customers Demo the product and provides feedback. This feedback adjust the next Sprint priorities
Release
- Several Sprints worth of work directed to operations for possible rollout and testing
Scrum
-Agile methodology; set of team guidance practices, roles, events, artifacts, and rules
-Based on three pillars of Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation
Development Team
-Small group containing all necessary project skills
-Focuses on steady delivery of high quality
features
-Generates options for delivery
-Manages own work within Sprints
(scrum)
Extreme Programming (XP)
-Software development centric agile method
-Focuses on software development good practices
-Scrum at the project management level focuses on
prioritizing work and getting feedback
XP Core Values (5)
Simplicity
Communication
Feedback
Courage
Respect
Coach
Acts as a mentor, guiding the process and helping the team stay on track. Is a facilitator helping the team become effective.
AKA the PM/ScrumMaster
(XP)
Customer
Business representative who provides the requirements, priorities, and drives the business direction for the project.
(XP)
Programmers
Developers who build the product. Writes the codes.
(XP)
Testers
Helps the customer define and write the acceptance tests for the user stories.
(XP)
Release Planning
-Push of new functionality all the way to the production user
-Customer outlines the functionality required
-Developers estimate difficult build
(XP)
Iteration Planning
AKA Sprint Planning in Scrum
-Conducted at start of every iteration, or every two weeks
- Developers break functionality into tasks and estimate work
(XP)
XP Practices (12)
-Planning
-Small Releases
-Customer Tests
-Collective Code Ownership
-Code Standards
-Sustainable Pace
-Metaphors
-Continuous Integration
-TFF
-Pair Programming
-Simple Design
-Refactoring
Test -Driven Development (TDD)
-The team writes tests prior to developing the new code.
-If the tests are working correctly, the initial code that
is entered will fail the tests
-The code will pass the test once it is written correctly
Refactoring
-Remove redundancy, eliminate unused functionality, and rejuvenate obsolete designs
-Done throughout project
-Keeps code clean and concise
Lean Software Development
Lean was started by Toyota as manufacturing method that was applied to software development.
Principles:
-Visual Management Tools
-Identifying customer-defined value
-Building in learning & continuous improvement
Lean - 7 Domains
-Eliminate Waste
-Empower the Team
-Deliver Fast
-Optimize the whole
-Build Quality In
-Defer Decisions
-Amplify learning
7 Wastes of Lean
- Partially done work
- Extra Processes
- Extra features
- Task switching
- Waiting
- Motion
- Defects
Kanban Development
Kanban development is derived from the lean production system used at
Toyota. Visually buckets project status
Japanese for Signboard.
Kanban 5 Core Principles
-Visualize Workflow
-Limit WIP
-Manage Flow
-Make process policies explicit
-Improve collaboration
Little’s Law
Cycle times are proportional to queue lengths. We can predict completion times based on queue size
Servant Leadership
(does 4 things)
Leader provides what the team needs
1. Shield team from interruptions
2. Remove impediments to progress
3. (Re)Communicate project vision
4. Carry food and water
12 Agile Principles (1-6)
- Learn the team members needs
- Learn the project requirements
- Act for the welfare of the team & the project
- Create an environment of functional
accountability - Have a vision of the completed project
- Use the project vision to drive your own
behavior
12 Agile Principles (7-12)
- Serve as the central figure in successful
project team development - team conflict = positive step
- Manage with ethics
- ethics is not an afterthought
- Take time to reflect on the project
- think backwards
Value Driven Delivery
Projects undertaken to generate business value
-Produce Benefit
-Improve Service
-Market Demand
-Safety Compliance
-Regulatory Compliance
Internal rate of return (IRR)
Interest rate you will need to get in today’s money to receive a certain amount of money in the future
Present Value/Net Present value (NPV)
Value of future money in today’s terms
Agile Accounting
-delivers value as quickly as possible
-uses minimal viable product
-leads to more opportunity for funding
Risk Management
-Risk is closely related to value
-Considered as anti-value
-Usually has the potential to reduce value with threat
Value Prioritization
-Core practice in agile planning
-Features are prioritized on the basis of business value, risk and dependencies
Simple Scheme Prioritization
Buckets items into prio 1, 2, 3. Can be conflicting across a lot of tasks
MoSCoW prioritization
Must have
Should have
Could have
Would like to have, but not this time
Dot Voting or Multi-voting
Each person gets a certain number of
dots to distribute to the requirements
Monopoly Money
Give everyone equal monopoly money
They then distribute the funds to what
they value the most
100-point method
Each person is given 100 points, They then use that to distribute to individual requirements
Kano Analysis
Helps to understand the customers
satisfaction
ම Delighters/Exciters
ම Satisfiers
ම Dissatisfiers
ම Indifferent
Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
Refers to a set of functionality that is
complete to be useful, but small
enough not to be an entire project
(ie module in a software)
Why Limit WIP (Work in Progress)?
-Represents money spent with no return
-Hides process bottlenecks that slow the
processes
-Represents risk in form of potential risk
Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFD’s)
Showcase bottlenecks & theory of constraints
shows work over time
Graduated Fixed Price Contract
-Buyer / Seller share in risks and rewards
-Different hourly rates based on:
-Finish early, Finish on time, Finish late
Fixed Price Work Packages
benefit
-Mitigate risks of under/over estimating
Gulf of Evaluation
What one person describes is often different from how another interprets
Agile Chartering
-High-level (uses the W5H)
-Agreement
-Authority to proceed
-Focuses on how project will be conducted
-Allows for flexibility and ability to deal with change
-Project specific processes outlined
-May use project Tweet
Wireframes
Clarify what “done” looks like
Validate approach prior to execution
Personas
-Quick guides or reminders of key stakeholders and interests
-Help team focus on valuable features to users
Information Radiators
-Things that are highly visible
-Used to display information
-Usually includes charts, graphs and boards
Green Zone/Red Zone
Red Zone: defensive, threatened, conflict, views others as problem, doesn’t listen
Green Zone: takes responsibility, persuasive, welcomes feedback, excellence > victory
Prune the Product Tree
Sticky notes w/ product features put on a tree visual
-Features that are depending on other features would be higher up the tree
-Lets everyone understand the priorities of
development
Speedboat(Sailboat)
On a boat visual, Ask them to use sticky notes to show what can make the boat move (wind) and what can stop it (anchors)
Levels of Active Listening
Level 1: Internal – how is it going to affect me
Level 2: Focused – put ourselves in the mind
of the speaker
Level 3: Global – builds on level with body
language
Levels of Conflict
Level 1: Problem to solve – sharing info
Level 2: Disagreement – Personal Protection
Level 3: Contest – Must win
Level 4: Crusade – Protecting one’s group
Level 5: World War – Must destroy the other
COCOMO
Constructive Cost Model
-Determine correlation between project input variables and final cost to use to estimate future projects
-People factors has a score of 33
(11x > tools and processes)
Generalizing Specialists
-members that can do different
tasks
-Members skilled in more than one area
-Share work reduce bottleneck
High-Performance Agile Teams
-shared vision
-Realistic goals
-Fewer than 12 members
-sense of team identity
-strong leadership
Shu-Ha-Ri Model of Skill Mastery
Shu- Obey,
Ha – Moving away,
Ri – finding individual paths
Dreyfus Model of Adult Skill Acquisition
(5 levels)
Novice,
Advanced Beginner,
Competent,
Proficient,
Expert
Caves and Common
Caves: space team members can retreat to individually
Common: space team members can work as group
Burnup Chart
Line graph, Shows work that has been done
Burndown Chart
Line graph, Shows works that remains to be done
Velocity Charts
Bar + Line graph, Shows how the team is performing. Output at each time parameter (iteration, wk, day, etc)
Use avg velocity to identify how long it will take to do X amount of work
Adaptive Planning
-Ongoing process, proactively updating plan
-Focus on value
-Uncertainty -> replanning
-high rates of change as issues discovered
How do Agile planning vary from traditional
planning?
- Trial and demonstration uncover true
requirements, which then require replanning - less upfront effort, done more throughout the project
- Midcourse adjustments are the norm
Rolling wave planning
Form of progressive elaboration
-Planning at multiple points in time as data becomes available
Value-Base Analysis
Assessing and prioritizing the business
value of work items, and then plan
accordingly.
“Coarse-Grained” Requirements
-Keep Requirements “coarse” then
progressively refine them
-Helps keeps the overall design
balanced
-Delays decision on implementation
until the last responsible moment
Parkinson’s Law
Work tends to expand to fill the time given
Decomposing Requirements
epics -> features -> stories -> tasks
User Stories
-Business functionality within a feature that involves 1-3 days of work.
-Agreement between customers & dev team
-every requirement is a user story & every story has value
User Story Structure
statement
As a <user> , I <want to/need, etc.> goal , So that <value></value></user>
“As an payroll clerk, I want to be able to view a report of all payroll taxes, so that I can pay them on time”
Three C’s of Stories
Have users write the stories on index
cards ; used to help conversate
-Cards
-Conversation
-Confirmation
User Stories - INVEST
Independent
Negotiable
Valuable
Estimatable
Small
Testable
Wideband Delphi
Group-based estimation approach done by Panel of experts, anonymously
Prevents: bandwagon effect, HIPPO decision making, Groupthink
Product Roadmap
Shows when features will be delivered
and what is included in each release
Can convert the story map into a
product roadmap
Iteration 0
-Set the stage for development efforts
-Doesn’t build anything
Development Iteration
Builds the product increment
Iteration H
-hardening sprint or release
-Done at the end to clean up codes or producing documentation
Architectural spike
Period of time dedicated to proof of concept
Risk-Based Spike
Team investigate to reduce or eliminate risk
Cost of Change
Increases over time
Technical Debt
-Backlog of work caused by not doing regular cleanup
-If not done will lead the increase cost of development and make it harder to implement changes
-Refactoring is the solution
Failure Modes
- Making mistakes
- Preferring to fail conservatively
- Inventing rather than researching
- Being creatures of habit
- Being inconsistent
Success Modes
- Being good at looking around
- Being able to learn
- Being malleable
- Taking pride in work
Cycle Time
-Measure of how long it takes to get things done
-Closely related to WIP
-part of lead time
-Formula = WIP / Throughput
Expected Monetary Value
formula
Impact($) x Probability(%)
Risk Severity
formula & scale
Risk Probability x Risk Impact
Uses a scale of numbers (E.g 1-5)
Kaizen
-Japanese process of continuous improvement
-Focus on the team to implement small incremental improvement
-Usually follows the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle by Edwards Deming
Agile Cycle
Plan
Develop
Evaluate
Learn
Value Stream Map
-Optimize the flow of information or
materials to complete a process
-Reduce waste (waiting times) or
unnecessary work
Retrospective Stages (5)
- Set Stage – 6 Minutes
- Gather Data – 40 Minutes
- Generate Insights – 25 Minutes
- Decide What to Do – 20 Minutes
- Close Retrospective – 20 Minutes
