Scrum, Agile, and Modern Tools

Required Reading: https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20150304-agile

My takeaway quote? "Scrum lags behind the modern toolchain enough that there can be a Potemkin village vibe to the whole thing."

I was clued into this from another takeaway quote someone seconded on Twitter: "Waterfall used too much written communication, but Agile doesn't use enough."

Also read this: http://caines.ca/blog/2014/12/02/i-dont-miss-the-sprint/

Is "sprint" misleading? What about "sprint commitment?"

I'm not sure I object to "sprint" per se.

But I have seen "sprint commitment" turned into an organizational problem, removing what could have been a helpful tool. Folks who start harping on sprint commitments in the sense of "we committed to this, will we meet the deadline?" tend to create a toxic environment. I think the people who hype commitment the most really liked the non-Agile environments: they try bend Agile to meet their Waterfall concepts.

The problem is the word. A "sprint commitment" shouldn't be used like a legally binding "do it or pay penalties" commitment. It should be a metric used to gauge progress. More like a "sprint outcome".

The commitment hype can lead to stories, epics and detailed technical tasks getting muddied up terribly. The story becomes an epic. Little tiny technical tasks get inflated into big important stories. A proper user story gets replaced with nonsense about prepping a database for production rollout, or resolving defects found in QA, or things that -- obviously -- aren't user stories, but are taking up a lot of time.

When it appears that a story is going nowhere, the scrum master breaks it down into things that have status which changes frequently. The sense of end-user meaning behind the actual story gets lost in a haze of technical considerations and tasks that show activity more than accomplishment more than value.

"As an actuary, I want to know that the developers have written syntactically correct DML for my database, so that the product owner don't have to wait as long for the DBA's to build the database."

Really?

How Expensive is a "Waterfall" Project Plan?

It's impossible to step into the same river twice; other waters are flowing toward the sea.  It's impossible to do "head-to-head" project comparisons.  You can't have the same people doing the same thing with only one constraint changed.  You can try to resort to having similar people doing the exact same thing.

It's impossible to provide trivial quantification of the costs of a waterfall approach.  However, there's a lot of places where "up front" engineering adds cost and risk.  A waterfall plan adds friction, zero-value administrative costs and (sometimes) extra work.

For software development that doesn't involve "toy" projects, but apply to the magical "real world" projects, it's difficult to justify building the same "real world" thing twice.  It's hard to create a detailed and purely economic analysis of this question.  Therefore, we have to resort to hand-waving and speculation.

[I put "real world" in quotes, because the "real world" is a kind of dog-whistle phrase that only project managers understand.  It appears to mean "projects that fit my preconceived notions" or "projects that can't be done any other way because of political considerations" or "projects constrained by a customer to have a farcical structure".  Another variant on this dog-whistle phrase is "the realities of running a business."  There's something in their real world that they (a) can't define and (b) prevents any change.]

A few months back, I saw a http://prezi.com presentation that was intended to drive architecture, cost and schedule conversations.  The authors were happy.  I was left relatively mystified.

There are three relevant issues that don't fit well into a prezi presentation.

1. Open Technology questions.  If it's new software development, there are unanswered software API, performance, quality, fitness-for-purpose questions.  If it's a clone or a clean-room reverse engineering, then there may be few questions.  Otherwise, there must be unknowns.
2. Open User Story questions.  If it's new software development, then the user stories are not complete, consistent and optimized.  There must be something missing or extra.
3. Open User Experience questions.  I'm not a UX person.  Tinkering with an Arduino has taught me that even in the most prosaic, simplistic project there is a UX element.  

It's easy to trivialize this as "details" or "supporting information" omitted from the presentation.  Actually, it's considerably more interesting that simply elaborating details.  Indeed, the missing stuff is often more important that the elements of the presentation than were provided.

The Standard Gaps

While a presentation can show some elements of UX, it's not interactive.  It cannot provide any useful depth on the UX.  Failure to do UX exploration (with real interaction) is crazy.  Making assumptions about UX is more likely to create cost and risk.

User Stories can be kicked around in a presentation.  However.  Once the highest-priority user stories are built, and lessons learned about the users, the problem and the emerging solution, then the other user stories can (and should) change based on those lessons learned.  Assuming a list of user stories and then committing to a specific schedule enshrines the costs in a bad plan.  And we all know that the plan (and the dates) are sacred once written down.

Software does not exist in a vacuum.

I'll repeat that, since it's a hidden assumption behind the waterfall.

Software does not exist in a vacuum.

You have a Heisenberg problem when you start building software and releasing it incrementally.  The presence of the new software, even in a first-release, beta-test, barely-working mode changes the ecosystem in which the software exists.  Other applications can (and will) be modified to adjust to the new software.  Requirements can (and should) change.

A waterfall project plan exists to prevent and stifle change.  A long list of tasks and dates exists to assure that people perform those tasks on those dates.  This is done irrespective of value created and lessons learned.

Technology changes.  Our understanding of the technology changes.  One wrong assumption about the technology invalidates the deliverables for a sprint.  In a project with multiple people, multiple assumptions and multiple sprints, this effect is cumulative.  Every assumption by every person for every technology is subject to (considerable) error.

Every technology assumption must be looked at as a needless cost that's being built into the project.

Recently, I've been working on a project with folks that don't know Django very well.  Their assumptions are -- sometimes -- alarming.  Part way through a sprint, I got a raft of technical questions on encrypting passwords.  It's hard to state it strongly enough: never encrypt a password.  What's more useful is this: always hash passwords.  The original password must be unrecoverable.  There are lots of clever hashing techniques.  Some of which are already part of Django.  A significant portion of the sprint (appeared) to be based on reinventing a feature already part of Django.

Do the math: a few wrong assumptions made during project planning are canonized forever as requirements in the project.  With a waterfall project, they're not easy to change.  Project managers are punished for changing the project.  You can't increase the project deadline; that's death.  You can't decrease it, either: you get blamed for sand-bagging the estimates.

Arduino Technology Lessons Learned

After buying several 74HC595 shift registers from Sparkfun, I realized that my assumptions about the interfaces were utterly wrong.  I needed to solder a mix of right-angle header and straight-through headers onto the breakout boards.  I tried twice to order the right mix headers.  It seems so simple.  But assumptions about the technology are often wrong.

This is yet more anecdotal evidence that all assumptions must be treated as simple lies.  Some managers like to treat assumptions as  "possibly true" statements; i.e., these are statements that are unlikely to be false.  This is wrong.  Assumptions always have a very high probability of being false, since they're not based on factual knowledge.

Some managers like to treat assumptions as "boundary conditions":  i.e.,  if the assumption is true, then the project will go according to plan.  Since all of the assumptions will be prove to be incorrect, this seems like simple psychosis.  

[Interestingly, the assumptions-are-boundary folks like to play the "real world" card: "In the real world, we need to make assumptions and go forward."  Since all assumptions will be shown to be incorrect, why make them?  Wouldn't it be more rational to say "we need to explore carefully by addressing high-righ unknowns first"?  Wouldn't it be better to both gather facts and build an early release of the software at the same time?]

Arduino User Story Assumptions

After building a prototype that addressed two of the user stories, it slowly became clear that the third user story didn't actually exist.

Sure, the words were there on paper.  Therefore, there's a user story.

But. 

There was nothing to actually do.  

The whole "As a [role], I need [feature] so that I can [benefit]" that was written on day one was based on a failure to understand precisely how much information was trivially available.  The benefit statement was available with a small software change and no separate user story.  And no separate hardware to support that user story.

Exploration and tinkering reduced the scope of the work.  In the real world.

[In the "real world" where waterfall is considered important, exploration is described as unbounded spending of limited resources.  In the real real world, money must be spent; it can either be long hand-wringing meetings or it can be prototype development.]

The user story (written before a prototype existed) was based on a failure to fully understand the UX.  The only way to fully understand the UX is to build it.  Education costs money.

Arduino UX Learnings

Perhaps the most important issue here is UX.

Once upon a time, UX was expensive, difficult and complex.  So difficult that special-purpose prototyping tools were created to make it possible to create a preliminary UX that could be used to confirm UX and user stories.

This UX prototyping effort was real money spent as part of "requirements" or "design"; it created documentation that flowed over the waterfall for subsequent development.

This notion is obsolete.  And has been obsolete for several years.

UX is now so easy to build that it makes much more sense to build two (or three) competing UX's and compare them to see which is actually better.

Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to build one UX and release it; make a real effort at solving the user's problems.  Then build a second UX for A/B testing purposes to see if there's room for improvement.

I'll repeat that for folks who really like the waterfall.

It's now cheaper to actually build two than it is to write detailed requirements for one.

[In the "real world", this is deprecated as "wasting time playing with the UX".  As if written requirements based on nothing more than a whiteboard are more "real" than hands-on experience with the UX.]

You can prove this to yourself by actually observing actual UX developers knocking out pages and screens.  Long "requirements gathering" meetings with prospective users amount to a waste of time and money.  Long "brainstorming" sessions, similarly, are wasteful.  Short, ongoing conversations, a build, a release, and a follow-up review has more value, and costs less.  

Do the math.  Several users and business analysts in several multiple-hour meetings costs how much?

A pair of developers banging out fully-functioning, working UX for a use case costs how much?

A slavish adherence to waterfall development creates "real world" costs.

Epic indictment of Waterfall Methods

Saw this recently.

Why do most gov websites look like they were created by someone's 10 year old nephew yet cost millions to make?
— Steve Dekorte (@stevedekorte) December 29, 2011

I think this aptly summarizes the results of a waterfall methodology.

1. You wrote a lot of requirements, not fully understanding the actors or their use cases.
2. Your vendor implemented those requirements because they were contractual obligations not because they created value for the actors.

The government's not the only offender.  They're just more visible and more bound up in a legally-mandated purchasing cycle that makes the waterfall desirable and more Agile methods undesirable.

The Agile "Religion" -- What?

Received "it seems that software development has caught the agile religion. Personally, I have an issue w/ being unimodal."

What?

First.  "agile religion".  As in the deprecating statement: Agile is nothing more than a religion?  As in Agile is nothing more than a vague religious practice with no tangible value to an organization?  Interesting, I guess.

I'm assuming that the author did not read the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.  Or--worse-- they read it and find that the four values (Individuals and interactions, Working software, Customer collaboration and Responding to change) are just of no tangible value.

That's alarming.  Really.  The alternative (processes and tools, comprehensive documentation, contract negotiation, and following a plan without regard to changes) seems like it's a recipe for cost, risk, low-value work and a cancelled project.  Indeed, it seems like non-Agile project management is the best way to get to the fabled "Software Crisis" where lots of money gets spent but little of value gets created.

Further, it seems that all modifications of the classic waterfall method (e.g., spiral method as a prime example) specifically create "iterative, incremental" approaches to software development.  That is, everything that's not a strict (brain-dead) waterfall has some elements of Agile.

This causes me to think that Agile isn't a religion.  It causes me to think that Waterfall methods were a religious practice of no tangible value.  All the methodology experiments over the last 15 years have been ways of introducing flexibility (agility, brains) into a foolishly inflexible methodology definition.

Indeed, it appears that the heavy-weigh waterfallish methods are an attempt to replace thinking with process.  And it didn't work.  So, we have to go back to the thinking part.  Only, we call it Agile now.

Religious Wars.

Second.  "agile religion" (again).  As in methodology discussions are just religious wars?  As in methodology discussions are just quibbling over no-value details?  Some folks may get this impression of making a choice between Agile vs. Non-Agile methods.  I think that those folks haven't actually had the opportunity to work from a prioritized backlog and build the most valuable part first.  I think that someone who things Agile is just a religious war hasn't been allowed to fix a broken project plan based on lessons learned during the first release.

Agility.

Third.   "unimodal".  As in being exclusively Agile is bad?  As in sometimes you need to have a rigid, unyielding process that sticks strictly to the schedule irrespective of changes which may occur?  That doesn't seem rational.

Change happens.  Forcing the inevitable changes to conform to some farcical schedule made up by people who didn't have all the details seems silly.  Making contract negotiation the focal point of response to change seems like a waste of effort.  Trying to document everything so completely that all possible changes are already accounted for seems impossible.  And replacing change with a process that regulates change seems -- perhaps -- unhinged.

There were some links and some charts and graphs attached.  I couldn't get past the two sentences above to see if there was, perhaps, something more to it.  All I could do was respond with a request for clarification that didn't involve the trivialization of Agile methods.  It doesn't seem sensible to try and remove the human element from software development.

I'll provide whatever follow-up clarification surfaces on this topic.  It's interesting to see if the "agile religion" was misplaced, or if there are folks who think that responding to the messiness of real software development is a bad idea.

We tried the waterfall method.  And it didn't work very well.  Agile isn't a "religion".  It's a simple acknowledgement that reality is messy.

Agility and following a "Strictly Agile" approach

I've seen some discussion on Stack Overflow that is best characterized by the question: "What is Strictly Agile?", or "What's the Official Agile Approach?".

Someone shared this with me recently: "Process kills developer passion".

I have also heard some great complaints about organizations that claim "Agile" and actually do nothing of the kind. In some cases it's not a "crunchy agile shell" around a waterfall process; it's a simple lie. Nothing about the process is Agile except a manager insisting that all the status reporting, planning and unprioritized lists of random requirements are Agile.

Finally, I got this weird suggestion: "consider writing a blog about how to test if you are agile or not". It's weird because testing for Agile is like testing for breathing; it's like testing for flammability.

The Agile Test

Testing if your project is Agile can be done two ways.

1. Practical. Make a change to the project. Any change. Requirements, architecture, due dates, staff, anything. Does it derail? If so, it wasn't very Agile, was it?
2. Theoretical. Reread the Agile Manifesto. Make a score card that evaluates the project on each of the eight basic criteria in the Agile manifesto. Convene all the project stakeholders. Conduct careful surveys and have structured walkthroughs to determine the degree of Agility surrounding each person, deliverable, collaborative relationship and issue.

An important point is that Agile is not absolute. Some practices are more Agile than others. There's no "strictly" Agile. There are ways to make a project more Agile; that is, it can effectively cope with change. There are ways to make a project less Agile; that is, change causes problems and can derail the project completely.

The canonical example is a missing, misstated or contradictory requirement that gets uncovered after coding and during user acceptance test. Clearly, that feature has been built and is absolutely wrong. What happens next?

Agile? The product can be released with with the broken feature relegated to the next release. A hack is put in to remove the buttons or menu items or links until they work.

Not Agile? Everyone works around the clock to make that feature work no matter what. Paraphrasing Admiral Farragut: "Technical debt be damned. Development must proceedfull speed ahead." All of this irrespective of the relative value of what's being developed. Schedule comes first; features second.

How Much Process?

The "Process Kills..." blog entry repeats observation that a lot of carefully-defined process isn't really all that helpful. It identifies a cause ("process kills passion") that's can be true, but it's largely irrelevant. Process is—essentially—work that's not focused on delivering anything of real value. Complex processes are "meta" work; it's work focused on IT internals; it's work that creates no value for the users of the software; work that replaces the more valuable elements of the Agile Manifesto.

One can argue that processes, documentation, contracts and plans "assure" success or demonstrate some level of quality. To an extent all the process and meta-work creates trust that—eventually—the resulting software product will solve the original problem.

The mistake is that non-Agile methods use a series of surrogates—processes, documentation, contracts and plans—instead of actual software. The point of Agile methods it to release software early and often and avoid using surrogates.

Key Points of Agile

Here are the key points of the Agile Manifesto.

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. A more Agile project will use the best people and encourage them to talk amongst themselves. A less Agile project will write a lot of things (which folks don't have time or reward for reading.) There will be misunderstandings, leading to large, boring meetings where someone reads powerpoint slides to other folks to try and clear up misunderstandings.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation. A more Agile project uses frequent release cycles of incremental software. A less Agile project attempts to gather all requirements, do all design and then try to do all the coding even though the requirements have already been found to be less than crystal clear.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. A more Agile project uses constant contact with customer and product owner to refine and prioritize the requirements. A less Agile project uses a complex change control process to notify everyone of a requirements change, which leads to design and code changes, and has cost and schedule impact that must be carefully planned and documented.
• Responding to change over following a plan. A more Agile project uses incremental releases, conversation and a modicum of discipline to build things of value. Just because someone thought it should be included in the requirements doesn't mean the feature is really required.

The "Process Kills Passion?" Question

There Process Kills Passion blog lists a bunch of things that—it appears—some folks find burdensome:

• Doing full TDD, writing your tests before you wrote any implementing code.
• Requiring some arbitrary percentage of code coverage before check-in.
• Having full code reviews on all check-ins.
• Using tools like Coverity to generate code complexity numbers and requiring developers to refactor code that has too high a complexity rating.
• Generating headlines, stories and tasks.
• Grooming stories before each sprint.
• Sitting through planning sessions.
• Tracking your time to generate burn-down charts for management.

This list has three different collections of practices.

• Good. TDD, code reviews, generating headlines, stories and tasks, grooming stories before each sprint and doing some planning for each sprint are all simply good ideas. They must be done. "Pure Coding" is not a good way to invest time. Planning and then coding is much smarter, no matter how boring planning appears.
• Difficult. Test code coverage can be helpful, but can also devolve to empty numerosity. 20% more coverage doesn't not mean 20% fewer bugs. Nor does it mean 20% less chance of uncovering a bug at run time. Code complexity ratings are also fussy because they don't have a direct correlation with much. They must be done and used to prioritize work that will reduce technical debt. But mindless thresholds are for cowards who don't want to mediate deep technical discussions.
• Silly. Creating burn-down charts for management shouldn't be necessary. Everyone must read and understand the backlog. Everyone should build the summary charts they want from the backlog. The product owner or even the eventual customer should do this on their own. They must be given a profound level of ownership of the features and the process for creating software.

I don't agree that process kills passion. I think there's a fine line between playing with software development and building software of value. I think that valuable software requires some discipline and requires executing a few burdensome tasks (like TDD) that create real value. Assuring 80% or 100% code coverage doesn't always create real value. Spending time keeping the backlog precise and complete is good; spending time making pictures is less good.