My Thoughts on Agile Development » release http://delmarhager.net/wp Experiences from implementing Agil Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:16:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Rhythm and development (Part 2) http://delmarhager.net/wp/2010/09/rhythm-and-development-part-2/ http://delmarhager.net/wp/2010/09/rhythm-and-development-part-2/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:06:45 +0000 Delmar Hager http://delmarhager.net/wp/?p=453 I last addressed how important rhythm is to software development. But what disrupts rhythm for a team?

  1. Crises scheduling
    A crises arises and management decides that we have to address the crises. The team has planned iterations to meet a release schedule but now this schedule is preempted. This is like asking a painter to paint a different section of a house.  He has to climb down the ladder, move the ladder and climb back up. The team will have to “climb down” current project and “climb up” the new project.
  2. Team member shuffle
    Performing teams have worked out their rhythm. They know want needs to be done during an iteration. They have built trust among themselves. When a new member is added or a member removed the team rhythm is destroyed. You have to recreate the trust that helped the team perform so well.
  3. Requirements churn in a iteration
    This happens when a product owner changes the requirements for a user story during an iteration. Work already completed has to be redone. Productivity is decreased because the goals of the sprint has changed.

These are some rhythm disruptions I have observed.

]]> http://delmarhager.net/wp/2010/09/rhythm-and-development-part-2/feed/ 0 Problems With a Release Plan http://delmarhager.net/wp/2010/04/problems-with-a-release-plan/ http://delmarhager.net/wp/2010/04/problems-with-a-release-plan/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:10:57 +0000 Delmar Hager http://delmarhager.net/wp/?p=302 I work for a Fortune 500 company and we are implementing Scum. Within the Scrum framework you are to do a release plan. When working for a start-up company this was very straight forward because only one team was working on a product line and we could create a credible release plan. But in a large organization release planning for a team is much more complex. We have a product that has multiple teams and multiple product owners. At this time our release planning is not working. We have not had a successful release plan. Here are some of the reason I believe this is true:

1. The product owners are not empowered
The product owners do not really have control over the product. There are other stake holders that really are driving the product. Therefore the product owners are always reacting and are not able to set a true product road-map.

2. There is not one Product owner for the overall product
This person would handle the priorities for the product as a whole. Our product owners need direction and coordination from the lead product owner. This would help protect the individual product owners from all of the stake holders that are seeking to set priorities.

3. There is no vision for the product
There has to be an overall vision for the product. Why are we doing this product, what are our goals, etc.? This vision must be clear and concise. This vision is what we look to when the product owners set their priorities in the backlog and when there are conflicting priorities.

4. There is no vision for the periodic releases
Each release must have its own vision. What is the reachable goal for this release? How do we coordinate our teams to meet this release goal.

Without these basic fundamentals in place it is going to very hard for the product owners to create a credible release plan.

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