Introduction to Agile Software Development - Eric Wu - MBAX6360 New Product Development - University of Colorado
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This document discusses agile software development and is presented by Eric Wu, co-founder of Bracket Labs. It outlines some of the key problems with traditional waterfall software development processes, such as unpredictable requirements and costs. It then introduces agile development principles from the Agile Manifesto, including an emphasis on working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change. Finally, it provides an example of an agile process incorporating sprints, demonstrations, retrospectives and stand-up meetings, and notes how agile practices have evolved and expanded beyond just software development over the past 10 years.
Introduction to Agile Software Development - Eric Wu - MBAX6360 New Product Development - University of Colorado
- 1. Agile Software Product Development Eric Wu Co-founder, Bracket Labs @ewu MBAX 6360 - 4 NOVEMBER 2014
- 2. 2 Who is this guy? • Co-founder of software startup focused on productivity software • Project management • Marketing management • Sales activity management • 18 years of product experience, 10 with software • Automotive, telecom, hard drives, software • Engineering, product management, executive
- 3. 3 Product Scorecard • Worked on 11 new products • 9 successful • 1 killed before launch • 1 big failure • 6 of those products were software (including the failure)
- 5. Why is this relevant?
- 6. Software is eating the world -MARC ANDREESSEN, 2011 6
- 7. The lessons of Agile are increasingly factoring into business leadership
- 8. Software is different • Writing the code = building the production version • Your engineers and designers are working on factory floor / Your production workers are responsible for creative process • Constant learning and refinement as they go • Quality is directly related to developer ability to creatively problem solve • Complex bugs can be incredibly difficult to fix
- 9. Waterfall
- 10. Waterfall problems • Crystal ball business requirements • Analysis and design when we know the least • Big learning is when we code and test • Incorporating big learning into is expensive • Incorporating changed requirements is expensive
- 11. How bad was it? • Data published in 2002: • Software projects needing complete restart: 94% • Average change in project requirements: 25% • Average cost overrun: 189% • Launch delays are the norm • Highly unpredictable = high business risk
- 12. The death spiral Missed Schedules Forced Marches Decreased Creativity Decreased Quality Missed Schedules
- 13. Something needs to change • Starting in 90’s experiments with “lightweight” processes • Scrum • Extreme Programming • Early 2001 17 developers got together and compared notes
- 14. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan 14 The Agile Manifesto
- 15. What’s it mean? • Self-organizing teams • Trusted and accountable • Regular, frequent conversations and cooperation between business stakeholders and the team building. • Lean on those conversations instead of documentation • Working software produced regularly • Iterate, iterate, iterate • Value calm, regular, sustainable, predictable pace of product development
- 16. Criticism • De-centralized control • Minimal documentation • Too loose • Requires significant behavioral changes • Collaboration • Visibility • Adaptation to feedback and performance • Breaks down with teams >~10
- 17. agile vs. Agile • Eco-system of experts • Trainers • Consultants • Products • Formalized processes • Rigid • Dogmatic • Lots of overhead • Losing the forest
- 19. 1. Sprints 1 week “sprints” that have regular heartbeat
- 20. 2. Sprint Breakdown Each sprint begins/ends with same set of meetings • Demo - Everyone in company invited to see what was built in previous week • Retrospective - Team reviews previous week, answers “what do we want to do more of? What do we want to do less of?” • Planning - Product owner brings prioritized list of new things to build. Dev team estimates the size of each feature, commits to delivering it in next sprint until their plate is full.
- 21. 3. Stand-ups Daily “standup” meetings • What did you do yesterday? • What are you going to do today? • Do you have any roadblocks?
- 22. Agile is evolving 10 YEARS AGO: “The shorter iteration the better, you could get crazy and go as short as 2 weeks!” TODAY: 1 week sprints common TODAY: Increasing # of teams continuously deploying • Netflix, Etsy pushing 30+ updates a day • Very possible with right infrastructure investment, corporate values
- 23. Agile is evolving 10 YEARS AGO: “Fine for software but my business / product is different” TODAY: Agile philosophy applied to Sales & Marketing, HR, Management
- 24. Eric Wu [email protected] @ewu 24