September 2009 Archives

OutSystems is all about Agile - and the same applies to our internal R&D team which has been using Agile since 2002. Because we've been using Agile for so long all the principles are pretty much entrenched in our culture - but as the company and the department grew, we started to feel the need to share our Agile knowledge with newcomers to the team.

We considered several ways of doing this. We pondered doing a traditional PowerPoint presentation; we thought about assembling a mandatory reading list; we entertained the idea of adding support on our tools for some of the Agile tenets; and so on...but in the end we decided to organize a contest around Agile to help new team members learn about the methodology the fun way!

Let's play: Who wants to be an Agilionaire?

The idea is simple. Each week a question about Agile was sent to the entire team. The question was accompanied by 4 possibilities, and the contestants had to pick the right one. Everyone could reply to the question within 24 hours, and the winner would be the person with the most correct answers. You can check the questions & answers here.

This approach worked really well, and had a lot of advantages over any of the other methods - here are a few:

• People were encouraged to look for an answer. This not only ensures people are paying attention to what you're teaching, it also promotes self learning.
• The questions were picked based on the real issues we witnessed internally. This means that people were learning what they needed most, not every detail on Agile.
• We sent a small justification of the answer with references to sites, blogs, and books on Agile - and provided more bibliographical references than we could ever hope to transmit on a single presentation.
• We got an idea of people's knowledge on Agile. Now we are aware of how much people know about Agile (and the results were very good, I might add). We also have an idea of the areas where specific people need more help, and will use this knowledge to help them get up to speed.
• Everybody participated. If we had done a Power-Point presentation, I'm sure we wouldn't have had everybody raising their hands.
• It was really cheap! There was no time invested in preparing the presentation or in changing the internal tools. The only work required was preparing the questions and answers.
• It was fun! Everybody liked this idea, and we got great feedback from the team! It was surely more fun than going through a 2 hour presentation on Agile...

2 months and 8 questions later, we have a WINNER! Miguel Melo had the brilliant result of 7 out of 8 questions right, proving to everyone that he's a true Agilionaire! To celebrate the victory, Miguel was awarded a priceless handmade trophy (built and designed at OutSystems;) an adventure pack to prove he's also Agile out of office; and he gets to show up in the Agility Blog! Congratulations Miguel!

Last month our company announced its new Agility Awards - and the first set of awards were presented for five Agile projects that had been completed by customers and partners using  OutSystems' Agile Platform and employing Agile methodology.  

The question I want to pose is what are good criteria for assessing a successful Agile project? This question builds on Mike's recent post about criteria for measuring an Agile project manager's success - and we got lots of great responses and ideas in the comments.

The data points being used by the OutSystems team to evaluate whether projects are eligible for an award are:

1.    Size & scope of project: the project should be of medium to large scale (over 40,000 software units in size.)

2.    Project definition & objectives: the project should deliver significant and measurable business value.

3.    Project approach: the project should have been run based on Agile practices, following an iterative development approach with regular end user involvement.

4.    Project metrics: a baseline of project metrics must be submitted in order to measure the impact of using Agile to deliver the application.

The team then use these data points to assess whether an Agile approach was employed to deliver the project on time, on budget, with 100% user adoption and delivered true value to the business and IT.
 
Is this list a reasonable set of data points for measuring the success of an agile project?
 

BTW - Here are some examples of the results from the initial set of award winners (read more details here):

XDx - Analysis Request Management System

Time-to-market: 6 weeks + 1 for launch; Number of Agile sprints: 3

Customer quote: "This was our first Agile project and it achieved the two key business goals: avoiding tracking errors and improving real-time data consistency for our studies. Most importantly, we were able to deliver this value to the business in a record time, exceeding both developer's and user's expectations and establishing Agile as the preferred methodology for this type of development project." - Jochen Scheel, Director at XDx.

RWE - Tiger, Implemented by Atos Origin (BTW - nice blog from Atos Origin on the project & award here)

Time-to-market: 14 weeks; Number of Agile sprints: 5 + 1 tuning

Customer quote: "The Gas Portfolio Management application was implemented over a period of three months which was only possible with the OutSystems' Agile Platform and methodology. Their way of sharing information, processing activities and reviewing project deliverables with key users of RWE NL was instrumental to the success of this project."- Perry van de Goorberg, Project Manager at RWE.

OK! teleseguros - Sales Platform and Home Insurance, Implemented by Keep It Simple

Time-to-market: 13 weeks; Number of Agile sprints: 3

Customer quote: "This project was a true success as it exceeded the business's expectations in terms of objectives achieved and above all business benefits. The Agile Platform and methodology allowed the business to engage the development team and see the immediate impact and results of all project changes and decisions." - Sérgio Carvalho, Marketing and Product Director at OK! teleseguros.

In no particular order:

1. Jutta Eckstein's book - Agile Development in the Large
   
2. Mitch Lacey & Associates - for their Blog + PDF Decks
   
3. Juergen Appelo's blog "Noop.nl"
   
4. James Shore's Blog "The Art of Agile"
   
5. Google Tech Talks: Elisabeth Hendrickson on Agile Testing
   
6. Craig Larman's book "Agile & Iterative Development" 
7. Dan North's Blog "Introducing BDD"
   
8. James Bach's resources (blog, book, pdf & articles) on Exploratory Testing 
9. Last but not least, our very own Rodrigo Coutinho's video on "The Secret of Agile Speed"

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