I have been told repeatedly that my brain thinks in pictures, and as a result I have to work hard to communicate my logic effectively in words. Recently in my argument against an Agile Process Maturity Model, I made a comment that Agile is an instance of Lean.
One of the replies on the Agile Alliance Group of Linked-Incountered that my statement isn’t accurate – and in fact a team being both “Agile and Lean” is an oxymoron. So, I looked in the mirror and said this must not be clear. I need to communicate better in both words and pictures.
“The term Oxymoron originates from the Greekoxy (”sharp” or “pointed”) and moros (”dull”). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron.” Wikipedia’s Etymology for Oxymoron
Instead of trying to figure out which is sharp and which is dull, I thought I would present my mental model on the evolving Agile software development ecosystem.
Agile as an umbrella term
First and foremost, Agile as an umbrella term was hatched in 2001 to represent a “way” of developing software that is focused on rapid value delivery, collaboration with a customer, face-to-face communication and measuring progress in working code. It casts a wide net of iterative and incremental process frameworks including RAD, Spiral, Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, DSDM, Feature-Driven Development (FDD), Lean Software Development, OpenUP and Kanban. These methods stand in contrast to highly structured methods that tend to measure success based on meeting plans and following the process.
My rendition of the geneology of Software Development Approaches
Agile has evolved both bottom-up and top-down based on the evolution in technology infrastructure, tools and guiding ideas of our industry. It is symbolized by increased productivity, speed to market, response to change and craftsmanship.
I believe it is not a fad, but a natural by-product of the increasing scientific as well as craftsmanship approach brought to this critical industry.
Lean merges with capital-A Agile
I see the pictured genealogy tree merging Lean software development methods together with capital-A Agile methods. This is because the physics behind Lean design and production are the same physics that make Agile deliver impacts like we see in the Agile Impact Report from QSMA – 50% faster time-to-market and 25% increased productivity.
Small batch sizes, short cycles that create rhythm
Reduction in queues through pull
Reduction in work in process inventory
Design quality in
Stop-the-line defect control
Value streams the link to the customer
Integrated learning through reflection
Last responsible moment decision making
These patterns are the same for an effective Lean effort or an effective Agile effort. This thinking has me advocating that Agile is an instance of Lean, not just a ground-up new tree that was born solely from the roots of OO, Spiral and RAD. I am having a hard time seeing the black and white separation between agile and lean. This is all grey, maybe I should say blue and red based on the diagram, to me.
What do you believe – is Agile is an instance of Lean, or together are they are an oxymoron?
In the last couple of months, IBM (via Scott Ambler) has blogged, hosted webinars and talked to the media about an Agile process maturity model (APMM). I am sure this will hit a new height today with the start of the Rational Users Conference and the release of the e-book. I have been asked to comment on this work by a number of press and analysts. Since my perspective will be published shortly, I thought I would go on record.
IBM splashes its way into Agile development
As the Agile market grows and takes hold in truly mainstream audiences, everyone is looking for easy, step-by-step guides to smooth Agile adoption. IBM is proposing one option under the name “Agile Process Maturity Model.” I think it is a nice marketing strategy for selling IBM’s Rational Team Concert products to companies that want to adopt the Jazz platform, copying their 90’s success with RUP. But I don’t believe it is actually an Agile process maturity model, and further, Agile doesn’t need one.
IBM’s proposal for an Agile Process Maturity Model
Scott says, “The goal of the APMM is to help categorize and understand agile processes, not to rate your adoption level (the CMMI Defined approach can address that need).”
He continues, “Unfortunately, the term ‘maturity’ is a loaded one within the software process realm, not the least because of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI)’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). A lot of good work has been done to show that agile and CMMI can be applied together, and I look forward to seeing that strategy come to fruition. However, where the goal of the CMMI is to provide a framework for software process improvement the goal of the APMM is much more modest – it merely strives to define a framework which can be used to put the myriad agile processes into context. In short, the APMM and CMMI are orthogonal to one another…”
I am confused by the title and the orthogonality, so let’s peel the onion on this one.
What is a process maturity model?
The origins of process maturity models come from the manufacturing industry, but the software version was created in the 1990’s by Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI). It is well known as three Capability Maturity Models – CMM for software, CMM for people and CMMI.
If you read Watts Humphrey’s work, you will see this is a management framework that measures the level of discipline of your organization. In essence, organizations that are certified Level 5 have implemented continuous improvement and have the disciplines and practices in place to effectively manage large complex projects with effective controls. The framework does not say anything about how the software should be developed. I make no claims to being a CMMI expert, but you can read a few of the “CMMI agile” search results to see how they work together.
Though not the stated intent of the framework, it has been closely associated with waterfall development and used to defend heavy process approaches. I disagree with that belief and prescribe to Jim Collin’s model of blending discipline and agility together to move from good to great. I think the CMM framework is a great checklist for organizations measuring their level of discipline… and we don’t need another one.
The 3 levels of IBM’s APMM
Scott’s APMM post describes three levels:
Core Agile Development
Disciplined Agile Delivery
Agility at Scale
I struggle to see how these three labels or the supporting details provide a framework that helps categorize and understand Agile processes. These titles grow in scope and scale, but do not speak to increasing agility. (Faster cycles, less waste, less work-in-progress, more value.) When you look deeper, it smells of a cookbook of when to apply processes and tools from IBM. That is fine, and I agree customers need this. However, I would argue this should not be used to guide companies in their Agile adoption.
By mashing size, scope, increased agility and disciplines on one scale, the APMM does none well. In addition, it will lead to amateur implementations where continuous improvement mentality never sets in. Where adopting scaling software agility is thought to be just a transition from A to B. To me that thinking is very limiting and will lead to gains followed by declines.
IBM in the Agile space – all good
I am thrilled with IBM’s entrance into the Agile space with their Jazz platform and related products – really. When I was at BEA/Weblogic, I can tell you that we did not have a market for Java Application servers until the industry’s gorillas, IBM and Oracle, entered for real.
During this year, Jazz and its supporting products will actually manage the workflow of projects in a way that works with Agile development instead of against it. This is huge change from the ALM 1.0 point products that actually reinforced the silos and phased approaches that created queues, caused hand-off delays and kept quality as an after-thought.
The IBM gorilla in the software development space will make the Agile sea rise and help break down major organizational barriers to bringing the benefits of Agile practices and tools to the mainstream development community.
There is no cookbook for adopting Agile
I believe that enterprises need an adoption model that helps them balance discipline and agility in an incremental fashion that creates incremental success and fuels continued investment and improvement. The enterprise Agile adoption model Jean Tabaka and I have synthesized is based on Lean concepts and is rooted in Deming’s work, just like Watts Humphrey and CMM. What Jean and I present in our whitepaper titled “Leaning IT: Moving to Program Pull” is how to move up the adoption curve of Agile by learning quickly, maturing before scaling and working incrementally.
This transition planning framework focuses on attaining benefits of agility by moving to lean states of flow, pull and ultimately the perfection of continuous innovation before adding the disciplines necessary to scale. It discusses the general steps, but does not prescribe a change approach to organizational, technological, process or strategy transitions. Your approach is dependent upon your corporate and technological situation. We recommend an iterative approach, facilitated by experienced coaches and peer support.
What does the Agile community need from IBM?
Mary and Tom Poppendieck’s new book called “Leading Lean Software Development” (out soon) has tremendously strong stories, models and insights from bringing lean concepts to software. In chapter six, they highlight a success story from working on lean with Sue McKinney at IBM. This success story, along with the Eclipse success stories, are critical for IBM to be telling the market regarding the impact of Agile and Lean in the large inside IBM.
In 2008 and four years after IBM started developing Jazz, we talked to IBM about integrating Rally’s award winning Agile Lifecycle Management solution onto IBM’s collaborative development platform, called Jazz Foundation. They said no, you have to wait until the GA release of Jazz. This would be a similar integration that we provide to Microsoft Team Foundation Server for managing code check-in’s and automated builds with a slick interface into the IDE. I am hopeful that IBM will GA the 1.0 version of the Jazz Foundation for partners to actually integrate with. They are saying all the right things on the Jazz.net site, here is hoping for some positive news at this week’s Rational User’s Conference. Finally, I am very excited about IBM’s global dialogue on Building a Smarter Planet. IBM needs to do a better job telling the story about how software agility is a critical component to building that sustainable planet. (It was nice to see the smarter planet splash at the front of the ebook, but it still represents a huge missed opportunity.)
What do you think? Does Agile need its own process maturity model?
Again, I was surprised by the title of IBM’s Agile Process Maturity Model and hope they will consider changing it before more marketing dollars are spent. It does not improve on the CMM, nor in my opinion does it help CMM certified companies adopt Agile. I assume IBM has a huge role to play in helping those CMM certified companies add agility and innovation to their highly disciplined organizations. If they don’t, we are glad to help today.
Jean and I made a commitment this quarter to go deep on Lean software development. We have been working with Lean and Agile for years, and really want to engage you in a dialogue to help explore the topic of how they relate.
Jared from Subway on his exploration of a different type of "lean"
To help focus our research, tell us, what are your favorite resources for Lean and Agile?
I don’t want to bias your feedback too much, so here are a few of our current favorite resources as a jumping off point:
Lean.org – Jim Womack’s site about Lean across industries
I’ve been thinking about leaning a lot lately, and not of the pressed-wood bookshelf nuisance variety. I talk about Lean with my colleague and President of Rally, Ryan Martens. So when I talk about a leaning bookshelf, I’m referring to my interest in Lean in all its forms. I am talking about the books I’ve been reading that pertain to Lean. And, more specifically, how can I turn my “Leaning bookshelf” into a continuous “learning bookshelf”? How can I think about my evolution of thought and practice with regard to Agile as influenced by Lean? What could be a good, rewarding goal?
And so, through discussions with Ryan and some of my own quiet thought, I came up with a goal of improving my notion of learning. Yes, for me, that seems to be what I am discovering more and more about Lean:
How to learn
How to teach others to learn
How to encourage organizational learning
How to avoid/eliminate re-learning
And so in this post, I thought I would share what I am reading, have read, or am about to read, and ask you for your comments and recommendations with regard to my leaning—>learning path. Some of the books may not look directly associated with Lean. I just know that they have been part of my lean learning journey.
Looking at my leaning bookshelf and thinking of my focus on learning, I realize I haven’t included any Senge books or others about organizational learning. That will have to wait for another post.
What books are important to you on your leaning/learning path?
Back in 2007, Jean and I developed an evolutionary model of Agile adoption for teams and organizations seeking the benefits of “scaling software agility.” We presented talks on this at the Agile 2007 and Agile 2008 conferences. We call it Flow-Pull-Innovate based on the Toyota Lean principles of Flow-Pull-Perfect.
Productivity gains in Agile development teams come conceptually from eliminating waste. Just getting to the first step of Agile maturity can lead to 10 to 20% productivity increases. We want you to be successful taking the first step, and there is a ton of opportunity in most software development shops. According to Tom and Mary Poppendieck, most software development organizations are only spending 6% of their time doing value-added tasks. The other time is wasted in these categories:
Partially done work (coding features that get removed from release)
Extra processes (elaborating requirements that do not get built)
Extra features (features that are rarely used – more on this in another post)
Waiting (requirements, designs, feedback, builds, other teams, larger organization, customer)
Motion (walking over to interrupt folks for a build or status)
Defect (internal or external)
Agile works to systematically address these wastes as you mature. In our white paper on moving to Program Pull, Jean and I characterize the steps, roadblocks and benefits found at each step in the Flow-Pull-Innovate maturation process.
On the move to Flow, we find that teams can increase their productivity working as a dedicated team on a single project for a two-week iteration cycle. The reduction in waiting, motion, task switching and partially done work can be dramatic based on your level of multi-tasking. We even find some teams in Flow reduce their extra features, partially done work and defects, but those productivity gains tend to be more associated with the move to Agile Pull.
According to the QSM Associates study of Agile development teams, you can expect to save 16% (the green dots on the graph). Of course the teams that worked with Rally’s products and services achieved on average 25% productivity gains (the red dots on the graph).
(The graph on the right from QSMA shows a white line of the average productivity of different sized projects in their 7,500+ project database. Between the blue dotted lines is the area 1 standard deviation from the norm. You can see only one Agile project was less productive that the average and 7 Agile projects of the total 29 were outside 1 standard deviation. Thus 1/4 of these Agile projects were in the top 16% of all projects ever benchmarked by QSMA – see Michael Mah’s blog for more discussion – OptimalFriction)
Of course, you cannot have your cake and eat it at the same time. That is, you cannot just start running two-week iterations and become 20% more productive overnight, but with a combination of services and Agile project management solutions, you can attain these results in months. That is why we recommend a two-pronged approach to cutting costs with Agile and Rally offers a Guarenteed Succes program that combines our world class services and application in a discounted bundle for new and existing customers. Get started by getting your teams to Flow and the savings can come fast.
RallyDev.com
and CMM. What Jean and I present in our whitepaper titled “
And so, through discussions with Ryan and some of my own quiet thought, I came up with a goal of improving my notion of learning. Yes, for me, that seems to be what I am discovering more and more about Lean:
