The Agile Technique Hour

1
The Agile Technique Hour

• Dave Parsons
• Massey University, New Zealand
• Mark Cranshaw
• Southampton University, U.K.

2
Aims

• To explore some of the techniques used within
  agile methods
• To try to assess their relative usefulness within
  a simulated agile process

3
In The Spirit Of

• Process Miniatures
• eXtreme Hour
• XP Hour
• XP Game
• Planning Game

4
What Can We Try Out?

• The technique subset of agile practices
• Not so much focus on planning and estimating
• More about what techniques are used within agile
  methods

5
Key Agile Aspects

• Satisfy customers
• Embrace changing requirements
• Deliver frequently
• Developers work with customers
• Motivated individuals are essential
• Communication is face-to-face
• Working software measures progress
• The pace must be sustainable
• Good design, technical excellence
• Simplicity
• Self-organising teams
• Reflection

ref Principles behind the Agile Manifesto -
www.agilemanifesto.org
6
Some Agile Techniques

• Active stakeholder participation
• Pair programming
• Co-location
• Refactoring
• Regression testing
• Common coding guidelines
• Continuous integration

Access controlled by game rules
7
The Idea

• To do a process miniature that uses subsets of
  the available techniques
• To try to assess which techniques may be the most
  helpful
• Of course we cannot test all the techniques in
  this way
• The approach is hopelessly unscientific

8
The Task

• Design a human powered vehicle

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Guidelines

• Teams will be allocated a set of user stories
  describing required features of a human powered
  vehicle
• The vehicle will be created by overlaying
  features drawn on A4 transparencies
• Each transparency can depict exactly one feature
• Teams will develop features concurrently
• Each feature will have a score representing its
  business value. This will be of assistance in
  choosing development priorities

10
The Teams Consist Of

• Stakeholders (internal / external)
• Specify requirements on story cards (but dont
  estimate)
• Developers
• Design solutions on A4 transparencies (one
  feature per sheet)
• At least 4 in each team
• QA
• Runs acceptance tests
• Cant see what developers have done until the end
  of an iteration
• Enforces rules!
• Tracker / Scribe
• Records and times everything

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The Agile Technique Hour
Three twenty minute iterations

• 0 - 5 Minutes - planning
• User Stories, estimates, prioritize stories
• 5 -15 Minutes - developing
• QA writes acceptance tests
• Developers build using subset of techniques
• Includes mid-term review
• 15 - 20 Minutes - reviewing
• Acceptance testing and review

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Allocating Techniques

• We have 7 techniques
• The first three techniques are controlled and
  must be used as advised
• Developers may request one additional technique
  during the first and second post-iteration review.

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Rules

• No refactoring?
• Cant replace or remove any overheads
• No regression testing?
• Cant add slides to results of earlier iterations
• No common coding guidelines?
• Cant put any kind of template/frame under the
  overhead
• No continuous integration?
• Cant put any overhead on top of any other until
  the end of the iteration

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Iteration 1

• Developers are not co-located
• Developers work on different features
  concurrently
• No active user involvement

15
Iteration 2

• Developers are paired but not co-located
• Pairs work on different features concurrently
• Active user involvement
• add one technique

16
Iteration 3

• Developers are co-located
• Developers work in pairs
• Active user involvement
• add one technique

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At The End

• We will discuss the design outcomes
• We will discuss our experience with the different
  techniques
• We will vote on the techniques
• We will see if we learned anything