Agile Development Blog

Rally was founded shortly after the signing of the Agile Manifesto, the document created at a 2001 meeting of leading software developers at Snowbird, Utah, that gave rise to the Agile movement. Since then, Rally has taken what we’ve learned from leading countless enterprise Agile transformations and funneled our collective experience into a formula that includes our Agile ALM platform and products, our expert coaching services, a vast library of educational resources, and a supportive community for asking questions and sharing advice. In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Agile Manifesto, Rally had a special commemorative activity at the Agile2011 conference.

Bryce Widom, chalkboard artist and painter, joined us and literally drew, in real-time, the history of Agile. Rally team members and conference attendees collaborated on the stories that made up this “Road to Agility” starting with the Agile Manifesto, and continuing with important milestones such as Dr. Dobb’s Agile adoption survey, Forrester’s Agile ALM Wave report and the formation of the PMI’s Agile community of practice. Bryce also drew colorful stories that illustrated benefits of agility from companies like Betfair, John Deere and McKesson.

Announcements

The announcements we made at the conference are a culmination of Rally’s experience in helping organizations expand Agile practices to maximize value across the entire organization, along with strengthening support for multi-process development (check out these video interviews on SSQ’s blog to hear more). Our first announcement highlights Rally’s support for multi-process Agile. As Agile moves deeper into new functional areas, Rally’s Agile ALM platform, products and coaching services have been evolving to meet these diverse needs. When Scrum is not the best fit, we include support for other Agile methods such as Kanban and high-assurance methods to ensure that we can be the go-to partner for all enterprise Agile roll-outs. We announced:

• Enhanced Kanban support, including support for Class of Service highlighting and reporting. Read this product blog post for more details.
• Support for new customizable defect reports that support all processes.
• A new Iteration Summary Panel for Scrum teams that provides in-product coaching assistance. The panel guides teams based on their performance and offers coaching-authored best practices.
• Apps that support traceability and documentation in Rally within High Assurance organizations (check out this blog series on High Assurance Software Development).

Our second announcement signifies the bridging of Agile into the Project Management Office (PMO). In its 10th year, Agile’s mainstream appeal has broadened its reach from the technical to the business parts of the organization. We recognize the trend and are helping to ease the transition for all parties. We announced:

• Unmatched integrations with industry-leading Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) vendors like Oracle Primavera, CA Clarity, Daptiv, and Planisware.
• An update to Rally Idea Manager, the leading Agile ALM demand management solution. This release bolsters the integration with Rally and provides a new leaderboard to drive end-user engagement.
• Availability of a new Agile Portfolio Steering services offering. This offering represents the next frontier of Agile and includes an interactive simulation to facilitate collaboration between Agile teams and business stakeholders.

Field Guide

At Agile2010, we provided vuvuzelas in celebration of the World Cup and, while I’m sure that many of you annoyed your families with these, we decided to leave you with a lasting educational giveaway at Agile2011. We assembled a content guide written by our coaches on Agile best practices. We hope you find this field guide useful in your day-to-day activities – download your copy here.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the “Road to Agility” illustration, whether you were at Agile2011 or were following our progress on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. In addition to celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Agile Manifesto with the community at Agile2011, Rally also embraced the opportunity to reflect on how much we’ve learned from helping some of the world’s largest organizations apply Agile practices. We look forward to making continued meaningful improvement in our industry, and leading the next 10 years of Agile innovation.

Todd Olson is VP of Product at Rally Software. He is a marathon runner and cake baker. Find Todd on Twitter at @tolson.

Just published in Dr. Dobb’s is my article on Agile Social Contracts;  It covers the process of Agile rollout planning and the burning need for a clear commitment to your teams and organization.  What is not as well covered are the other four components.

I make the argument in the article that Agile enterprise adoption is easy, if you are prepared and crisp with the right structure and discipline.

Here are the five items you need to be successful at Agile release planning or Agile Enterprise Rollout planning:

Release Planning Structure		Agile Enterprise Rollout Structure
Team – Cross-Functional Development Team	1	Team – Cross-Function Transition/Steering Team
Commitment -  To the Definition of Done	2	Commitment – To changes in external metrics
Contract – Team Norms	3	Contract – Social Contract with the Organization
Roadmap – Product Increments	4	Roadmap – Flow-Pull-Innovate transition steps
Vision – Product/Service	5	Vision – Organization, Process & Technology

Agile Rollout planning is best done like sprint or release planning. This is what I and others mean when we say “using Agile to rollout Agile.“  We use the same methods, structures, and process to rollout Agile as we do to manage our development.  This gets senior managers and executives talking and experiencing Agile along with all the practicing teams.  It leads the transition team to the benefits of visibility, alignment and frequent feedback cycles.  When this is done, it makes Agile Enterprise rollouts as easy as Agile software development.

For more details on our approach to enterprise Agile rollouts, please see the post An Alternative to Agile Adoption Cookbooks – Flow, Pull, Innovate.   This approached is based on a concept of  Shu-Ha-Ri (See Alan Atlas’ post on DIY vs. Shu-Ha-Ri).

For a detailed example on a rollout plan that uses the Flow-Pull-Innovate approach – see the post Agile Transition Plans – an example.

About the Author: Ryan Martens is a backyard chicken farmer, founding board member of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, and Founder and CTO at Rally Software Development. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

I have always answered the question “Where does Agile not work?” with the answer: “We have customers in all forms, geographies, and technologies working in Agile. It works everywhere!“

Of course that is my Agile Convert persona coming screaming through…

In his article “Agile Processes Go Lean” on the Dr. Dobbs portal, Forrester analyst Dave West does a great job illustrating the true challenges and roadblocks in successful Agile adoption beyond the team. His research across numerous sources, collaboration with Tom Grant and ability to synthesize these concepts makes this article a must-read for executives in software development organizations.

Dave sums it up nicely:

“The problems, broadly, tend to be technical, cultural, or organizational. Technical problems relate to infrastructure, tools, and architecture, and are often the most visible of the changes involved. But many companies find the cultural and organizational issues are the hardest to resolve.”

“When a development organization uses the approach to transform itself, it often runs into problems with other parts of the company that haven’t undergone similar transformations. Clashes come with the business operations, governance, and organizational structures, among other areas. For example, hierarchical organizations may struggle with agile development’s quick, iterative review cycles and decision making.”

In the past few months, I’ve talked with Dave and Tom about the opportunities and success of large-scale and successful Agile adoptions (beyond single teams and beyond simple flow) using examples from our customers and even our own internal processes. I’m excited to see analysts tackle the meaty topic of scaling Agile and Lean with real data and customer stories.

Further Reading:

• Lean Webinar Q&A Part 3: Championing Agile
• Scaling Lean and Agile Development – Ask Bas and Craig
• What Are Your Favorite Resources for Lean and Agile?