Agile 2009 - Experience report

Software Development for Disney Animated Feature Film Production

rsharma — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:35:00 +0000

This session will describe our experience in using the Scrum process of Software Development to create complex tools for use in animated movie production. Our process evolved out of the need to keep the task of UI design at least one sprint ahead of software development. Our products are designed for the creative in-house artists who use the tools for long hours over the course of movie production. We will also share ways to capture the complexity in the artists workflow and methods to break it down into reusable components both for graphical user interfaces and for software development.

Killing the gatekeeper: introducing a continuous integration system

flacoste — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:17:01 +0000

This is the story of how the Launchpad (https://launchpad.net) development team switched to a continuous integration system to increase several flows in their development process:

flow of changes on trunk;
flow of changes requiring database schema upgrade;
flow of deployed changes to end users.

To switch to a buildbot (http://buildbot.net) based system meant violating a very old company taboo: risking a trunk that doesn’t pass its test suite. The risk of a broken trunk was offset by allowing each developer to run the full test suite in the Amazon EC2 cloud.

We Are Naked Volunteers: How an Agile Users Group Rediscovered Itself

ronmor — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:56:38 +0000

A splendid way to know if you will succeed at agile in the workplace is to be guided by an agile experience in a volunteer setting, where little is masked. Volunteers became volunteers because, despite jobs, families and everything else in their lives, they see a unique reward from the donation of their time and efforts. The danger of the workplace is that, rather than keeping the eye on the prize, it is too easy for someone to replace the underlying motivational reward by the paycheck. This report shows how a volunteer organization was able to experience and learn the power of agile values.

Feature Teams - Collaboratively Building Products from READY to DONE

AndreFrank — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:55:54 +0000

We will describe our journey from a process where design/planning work was performed away from development to one where small cross-functional Feature Teams self-organized to complete design, planning, and construction within the same sprint. Each team member is involved in getting READY, planning, executing and being DONE. The results we observed are an increase in team morale, more predictable results and accumulation of less debt, while maintaining a constant velocity. Our process is a deviation from the established approach where upfront work needs to be ready before starting a sprint.

Growing an Agile Culture from Value Seeds.

paulingalls — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:18:06 +0000

Values can be powerful forces when applied to a small company. From their seed can come personalized principles and practices. By starting with agile values, and then making them your own, you can instill a creative force for change and adaptation necessary for success. Traditional agile practices become personalized through iterative improvement measured against these values. Different teams can create new practices that are applicable to their discipline. Most important, they frame every conversation and decision, enabling rapid execution and shared vision.

Roadmap Transformation: From Obstacle to Catalyst

dwilby — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:08:31 +0000

When charting new territory–-enterprise-scale Agile–-traditional roadmaps only take you so far. When landscapes change in weeks, product management must find a way to reconcile sprint plans and backlogs from multiple teams with longer-term product direction. David Wilby, SVP of Products at Borland, shares how his teams tackled the roadmap challenge during Borland’s Agile transformation. He’ll cover how roadmaps became a barrier to scaling Agile, how his teams adopted Agile roadmapping, the challenges, and the impact the new practices have had on Borland’s Agile transformation.

Descending from the Architect's Ivory Tower

arendell — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:06:51 +0000

This experience report, by a project’s technical architect, details the adoption of agile methods across several teams after one high profile success. The organization had a long history of waterfall development and a clearly defined remit for technical architects. Years of refinement had led to a set of techniques which contradicted many of the ideals held by agile practitioners. The author’s challenge was to maintain agility and fulfill responsibilities inherited from waterfall processes without reverting to the conventional practices that ultimately lead to the architect’s ivory tower.

Experiences Applying Agile Practices to Large Systems Development

harrykoehnemann — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:47:31 +0000

Can my large, geographically distributed, systems program benefit from agile development methods? Absolutely. This talk presents real-world experiences applying agile practices to large, systems projects with a high degree of governance. The practices discussed are technical (continuous integration, test-driven development, user stories) and non-technical (communication, welcome changing requirements, frequent collaboration). And it presents several challenges we experienced while scaling agile practices and changes we hope to make on future programs.

From Cradle to Sprint: Creating a Full-Lifecycle Request Pipeline at Nationwide

kevinfisher — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:03:53 +0000

Learn how the Corporate Internet Solutions group at Nationwide Insurance found creative ways to manage the competing and vague priorities of corporate silos by incorporating ideation into the portfolio pipeline. As the connection point between otherwise disconnected corporate entities, the Product Owner team adapted the Scrum process to better manage 17 dependent projects, reluctant internal business partners, and suspicious methodologists, by articulating clear Pre-Discovery activities, RITE usability testing, scenario planning, and kanban in the quest for continuous flow.

Agile @ Yahoo! from the Trenches

munwai — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:08:15 +0000

We are going to traverse the long and winding history of Agile at Yahoo! – beginning with the period just prior to the introduction of Agile over 5 years ago, to its current (and unfinished) state – all from the viewpoint of the Agilista in the trenches. Whether the adoption is driven from the top down or bottom up, progress hasn’t always been in a straight path. We hope that the experiences we share will provide valuable insight for others in their roll-out of Agile in the enterprise, and how the DNA of Agile can survive and even thrive in both supportive and challenging circumstances.