Agile Software Development: Progress adn Impact

Question 1

What are Agile Assessments?

Answer 1

In agile, to measure progress and impact we capture and look at metrics but, we also focus on how people are interacting to determine what is impacting the program or project. It is important to take cues from your team, know where you are, know where you want to go and make the necessary changes to ensure you get there.

One simple way to go about doing this is to conduct an agile assessment that will help you and the team determine where to improve first.

Question 2

If we want to know how agile a project is, what should we look at?

Answer 2

Which kind of metrics are being tracked

Traditional:
Integrated Master Schedule(IMS)
Earned Value
person-hours, etc

Agile:
Burndown charts
Burn-up charts
Story points
Committed VS delivered
Value delivered
Lead time
Cycle time

Question 3

IMS - Integrated Master Schedule VS Product RoadMap

Answer 3

IMS tries to predict the future and assumes we know everything there is to know upfront

Roadmap instead focuses on what is important to the customer NOW now and does not try to predict the future

Question 4

Earned Value VS Value Delivered

Answer 4

Earned Value assumes that spending money equates to value, but money spent does not always result in value.

Burn Up/Down charts focus on the Actual Value Delivered to the client. Work is either done or not done

Question 5

True or False:

Using an Integrated Master Schedule is far more accurate than using a Roadmap.

Answer 5

While an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) can be used to plan individual projects with great precision, Agile projects allow for customer feedback to adjust the plan often and early. A Roadmap, therefore, can better help Agile teams guide and direct our work.

Question 6

Looking at a burndown chart, how can you tell when a team is falling behind?

Answer 6

Above the ideal line

Question 7

Continuous Improvement

Answer 7

Code Reviews

Coding Standards

Automated Testing

Retrospectives

Question 8

Sustainable Development

Answer 8

The abillity to maintain a constant pace indefinetely

Regualr 40 hour work week

No working all night to finish a project

time off after heroic efforts

Your team is a resource - don’t burn them out

Question 9

Why do you want to pace to be sustainable?

Answer 9

A sustainable pace ensure delivery is stable and predictable after 5 sprints

Question 10

Code Reviews

Answer 10

Code reviews: formal reviews of code by your peers in which you discuss how and why you solved a technical problem and show others how it was done to help spread knowledge across the team.

Question 11

What rate of improvement would be adequate after 3 - 5 sprints?

Answer 11

Max of 10% velocity improvement per sprint, but this will end at a certain time when the team matures

Question 12

Sprint Retrospective

Answer 12

3 hours or less

Immediately after the sprint

Team members and Scrum master. Attendance by Product Owner is Optional

3 quesitons
What went well?
What didn’t go well?
What can be improved?

Question 13

Why would you not want the PO to attend the Retrospective?

Answer 13

To allow the team to express their opinion about how the PO is impacting team performance freely

Question 14

What is the output from the retrospective?

Answer 14

Lessons captured, which when put into practice becomes lessons learned

feedback placed in the backlog for PO to review and prioritize (tune and adjust)

Question 15

What is the ultimate goal of retrospectives?

Answer 15

to tune and adjust performance in order to reach a state of sustainable development

Question 16

How to turn lessons captured into lessons learned

Answer 16

Look for items that can be actionable, place them as User Stories in the Backlog, and have the Product Owner prioritize the Stories for work.

Question 17

information radiators

Answer 17

Information Radiator: the term for any 1-2 charts or displays which a team places in a highly visible location so that all team members, as well as passers-by, can see the latest progress and information at a glance. Information radiators are used to help “radiate” information, and a Kanban board is an example of an information radiator.

Question 18

BVIR

Answer 18

Big Visual Information Radiators

Question 19

Good rules for an Information Radiator

Answer 19

Should be available on-demand, should not have to be generated

Should be highly visible, open to anyone to review, even the janitor (depending on security needs)

Should have live information that is up to date

Should be visual

Could be digital, paper, or whiteboard

Question 20

the information included in a BVIR

Answer 20

Team Name
The vision of the project
Roadmap of the value delivered
User Stories completed in the most recent iteration or sprint
Burn Down Charts
Burn up Charts
Estimates for completion
Actuals for completed projects

Question 21

Minimum info that should be included in a BVIR

Answer 21

Team name
Vision
Roadmap
Burn Down
Burn Up
Estimated Completion Date

Question 22

Main Question answered by burndown chart

Answer 22

Is the team performing as expected?

Question 23

Main Question answered by the burn-up chart

Answer 23

What work has been completed

Question 24

Main Question answered by velocity chart

Answer 24

How much work is being completed each sprint

Question 25

The main question answered by the committed vs delivered chart

Answer 25

Is the Team committing to and delivering work as expected

Question 26

Velocity increases as the team get better at:

Answer 26

Estimating
Working together
Completing work items

Question 27

Why is it important to recognize peak performance?

Answer 27

Because teams have a maximum work capacity and pushing a team harder when they are already performing at their peak will have negative outcomes

Question 28

warning signs to look out for in charts

Answer 28

Teams increasing every sprint, especially after 6 sprints

More than 10% increase per sprint

“Cooking the books” - increasing the story points while doing the same amount of work

Question 29

Patterns for continuous improvement

Answer 29

Retrospectives with takeaways:

• takeaways are items that specific people will work on
• Can include work placed in the backlog
• Ensure that the lessons learned are applied in future sprints

Gradual improvements that peak:

• improvements of 10% or less
• Not over-working and over-committing resources
• Sustaining peak performance

Being Agile

• Team completes all work without handing it off to another team to complete
• Updates documentation as work is finished
• Completes testing to ensure no bugs are passed along

Question 30

Anti-Patterns that inhibit Continuous Improvement

Answer 30

Doing Agile, not being Agile

• passing work to another team, like passing work done to a testing team or integration team
• Sprints that last too long
• Management permission needed for minor changes
• No product demos for end-users

Combining Waterfall and Agile

• Agile and waterfall are mutually exclusive
• Agile is about adjusting based on customer feedback
• Waterfall is about following a plan

Falling back into old habits
-Focussing too much on documentation
-Change approvals
-teams passing work to other teams
-

Question 31

Earned Value

Answer 31

a traditional project management tool used to travel money spent and work as it progresses. In Agile we DO NOT state there is any value until the software is delivered. 99% done in Agile is not-done, period

Question 32

Man-hours

Answer 32

a way to track how much work hours have been spent to date