Ran my first Half Marathon the Agile way

The Worli Sea Link

On January 20th 2013, I ran and successfully completed my first Standard Chartered Half Marathon in the beautiful city of Mumbai in an Agile way. What an awesome experience it was. 

My skill level with running: Novice,  I had put around 90 km of  a total run in a period of 3 months during training. Just for comparison, average runners put around 100 to 150 km in a month. 

The most I had run at one go was 10 km in the time period of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

 Motivation: To help the Udaan foundation raise funds to support 2 under privileged students for a year.

Release Planning:

           Release Goal: Run 21.097 Kilometers in under 3 hours, which is the qualification time.

           Approx Velocity (Based on past experience): 7.5 kms / hour.


           Total Sprints needed: 21 / 8  =  Approx 3 sprints of 1 hour each.

Sprint 1: The amazing Mumbai weather, the Worli Sea Link being the start location, and a total of over 16,000 participants in the 1/2 Marathon, created an atmosphere that one has to experience and can't be described. All this was motivation enough for me to build a constant pace of about 7 minutes and 30 sec per km for the first hour. The stakeholder (that's me:-) ) was very happy with the outcome of Sprint 1 and decided to continue with the release. The Retrospective revealed a improvement area of slowing the pace down a bit as certain impediments around fatigue and pain had been logged.

The velocity achieved by end of sprint 1 was 8 km. 

Sprint 2: Using yesterday's weather as a forecast for velocity and keeping the retrospective improvements in mind I planned sprint 2 with a goal of achieving 7 km instead of 8 km in the next hour. I nicely built a pace of 8 minutes and 15 sec per km. The face-to-face cheering of the crowd, the loud music by DJ's throughout the route, and the cause of the run lifted my spirit and kept me motivated throughout sprint 2. By the end of sprint 2, I had completed another 7 km and had achieved a total run of 15 km. The product backlog showed 6 km of a run remained for the minimum marketable functionality to there by achieve the release goal. The stakeholder was again very happy with the achievements and decided to continue with the release. The retrospective did not reveal any major improvement area other than suggesting to slowing down the pace even further. 

Champions with Disability

Sprint 3: With 15 km of a run complete and only 6 km remaining, the stage was set correctly for the final sprint. However a little after 1 km in the final sprint there were 2 new impediments - cramping and thoughts of quitting the race. To manage the first impediment, I switched from run to walk and started hydrating myself every 100 meters. The exhaustion was causing my second impediment to grow stronger and stronger putting the entire release at a risk. As I was battling these thoughts of quitting the race,  I passed by the "Champions with Disability" on the other side of the road. The smiles on the faces of these participants with special needs and their attendants was  just the motivation I needed for me to cruise through the remainder of the race. 

And I completed my first half marathon in 2 hours 49 minutes and 42 seconds!

Agile Coaching: Are your retrospectives effective?

Are you in a situation where your team(s) has been practicing Agile for a while and teams are following ceremonies meticulously, but still there are no significant improvements sprint over sprint or release after release? If yes, I have some antidotes that I will share through series of blogs that you can experiment with.

One of the Agile principle is, "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly". This in a nutshell is Continuous Improvement (CI) and one of the ceremonies that assists you in implementing CI is Retrospectives.

Start with Retrospectives: Ask these questions.

• Are the retrospectives effective? 
• Are the team members open & honest?
• Is there a good flow and exchange of information that is fact based that the team can relate to?
• Is enough flavor added to each retrospective to ensure that they don't become monotonous?
• Is the facilitator neutral? 
• Did the team put the action plan for the improvement areas after root causing the problems? 
• Is the team taking at least one improvement idea that they are in total control of instead of relying on parties outside their team?  
• Is someone within the team held accountable to ensure the improvements are put in action?
• Did the team reflect back on the improvements implemented in the retrospective that follows?

My observation as a Agile Coach has been that teams are generally very enthusiastic to begin new work as soon as current work is completed and they cut corners or miss on Retrospective entirely thereby missing on a important Agile Principle - "Inspect and Adapt" 

Tesco's Success Story with Agile Adoption

Over the past 2 years I have been helping Tesco's Dotcom International Grocery Home Shopping (IGHS) group in the capacity of Agile Coach to build their eCommerce Platform. Tesco Dotcom's challenge was to take the world's largest grocery website international to multiple countries outside UK as quickly as possible and be the market leader. 

As the saying goes, "The proof is in the Pudding" .... By using Agile as a Software Development Methodology  with a  combination of Scrum, XP, Kanban and lean principles of choice, Tesco was able to launch their Dotcom operation to new countries regularly and is currently live in 5 countries within the span of just over 2.5 years. This group with several Agile teams distributed across 2 geographies was able to bag 4 major awards within the organization, including the "Tesco - IT project Cup" of the year.

It is my privilege and honor to be part of a journey with this passionate team that was constantly hungry to take the Agile adoption from one level to another tirelessly through continuous Inspection and Adaption and both the passion & Hunger continues....

TechGig: How Agile Turns Fragile

The Agile Ball Point Game

This video demonstrates the Ball point game, a game to feel what it is to work in an Agile team. I facilitated this at PMI West Bengal chapter annual conference Aviskar.

Agile talk at PMI Mumbai Conclave 2011

At PMI Mumbai Conclave 2011, I gave a talk on "Mitigating Risks with Agile Project Management". I am embedding videos for everyone's reference.

PMI Agile Certification: Filling a Gap in Industry (PMI Article: ManageIndia Volume 3 Issue 3)

PMI Agile Certification: Filling a Gap in Industry

The certification comes at a time when agile practices are gaining ground across India

Keep it flexible, keep it agile. Increasingly, organizations are realizing the need to keep their development processes open to change. If the market conditions are dynamic, shouldn’t the product development environment reflect the changing forces at work? With organizations adopting agile practices to align their development environment to changing market needs, the requirement for project managers trained in agile practices is going up. The new PMI agile-Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)^SMaddresses this requirement from industry.

Recent PMI research on the growing adoption of agile showed that 68 percent of organizations using agile practices would find value in an agile certification for their practitioners. The research also revealed that 63 percent of hiring managers would encourage their project managers to pursue an agile certification. The PMI-ACP^SM validates a practitioner’s ability to understand and apply agile principles and practices on basic projects. Of particular value to managers, the PMI-ACP^SM program is one that encompasses the broad range of agile practices and techniques, rather than methodology specific programs currently available in the industry.

A research report published by Forrester in May 2010 showed that agile is becoming mainstream. A total of 35 percent of surveyed organizations described their primary development method as agile. Moreover, 11 percent said Scrum was the most popular agile development approach. In another survey, Forrester examined the level of agile adoption and found that 39 percent of the surveyed organizations considered their implementation mature.

The need for agile practices and techniques
In India, agile is finding appeal across industries. In software development, it is increasingly becoming the main project management approach. Mr. Jesse Fewell, PMP, CST, founder, PMI Agile Community of Practice and managing director, RippleRock India says, “Today’s market is extremely impatient. Business owners want elements of their projects delivered as soon as possible. Iterative delivery adds value sooner.”

Mr. Rahul Sudame, PMP, CSP, CSM, corporate relations director, PMI Pune-Deccan India Chapter, and senior project manager, Calsoft Pvt. Ltd., says the momentum toward agile is picking up because of the changing business scenario. “The traditional way of signing off the requirements document with the customers and then implementing only those frozen requirements is not the most practical way. With agile methodologies, the customer or product manager in case of product-based organizations can modify the requirements when needed, yet keep to the release schedule,” he explains. This approach works best if the customer or the product manager is an integral part of the process and there is organizational buy-in for agile.

Mr. Hiren Doshi, PMP, CSM, CSP, founder, PracticeAgile, finds that the adoption of agile is no longer limited to software development and companies into infrastructure projects and IT services are also seeing the benefits of implementing agile. “Agile incorporates customer feedback as the project progresses and aims at customer satisfaction by delivering working functionality with business value early and frequently. Agile does not solve the problems faced with the traditional development model; it exposes the risks and impediments early in the development so that corrective action can be taken on time,” he says.

Agile works best for projects in which the customer is not sure of what to expect or where the requirements change frequently. Agile has been successfully used by many organizations for more than a decade. “Agile might not be appropriate for projects when a high level of regulation is needed. In such applications, generate all the requirements upfront, do a detailed design and then implement. Agile can work during the implementation phase to monitor and track the progress of the project,” adds Mr. Doshi.

Time for some agile myth-busting
There are several myths around agile, and mostly the myths stem from half-baked knowledge from untrained practitioners or incorrect interpretation of the Agile Manifesto. Some of the common comments are: “We are agile, we don’t have to do any documentation,” “In agile, we don’t need any processes,” “We are agile because we do daily stand-ups,” “We are agile, we can change requirements anytime we like,” or “We are going agile, I am going to lose my management position.” In reality, a project needs processes and tools, documentation, contracts, and a project plan for project success. The key is in the right balance and that comes from identifying the work that is needed to see the project through.

“One myth is that agile means no planning. In truth, by using release planning, iteration planning, and daily standups, agile techniques require a commitment to ongoing real-time re-planning. The key difference is that customer satisfaction is the primary measure of success, rather than performance-to-plan,” says Mr. Fewell. Each project needs a plan, a vision but details of each phase can be firmed up only when the project reaches that phase.

Mr. Sudame finds practitioners sometimes leave predictability out as a non-agile feature that can affect project success. “Agile methodologies provide adaptability and traditional Waterfall provides predictability. One of the myths is to ignore predictability in agile. Organizations need both adaptability and predictability, which makes release and iteration level planning and tracking important even in agile,” he explains.

How will PMI-ACP^SM certification help?
The PMI agile certification comes at a time when industry is warming up to agile and is looking for validation of practitioners’ knowledge and expertise in this approach. “The PMI agile certification provides a manager an opportunity to understand the various aspects of implementing agile in the organization and his/her role in it. A certified manager will be able to handle agile projects more effectively and thereby build on the confidence of customers,” says Mr. Sudame.

Mr. Doshi feels the certification will help give structure to the agile body of knowledge. “Over the years, some organizations have embraced agile in its purest form and some have tailored agile to meet their needs. However, there has been no common structured body of knowledge. I’m delighted to see that PMI has put together a structured agile certification program,” he says.

The certification will take the momentum that is building around agile to the next level. “PMI first offered agile programs at SeminarsWorld and Global Congress, then came the PMI Agile Community of Practice, and now PMI-ACP^SM. We have professional development programs, a community, and now a certification,” says Mr. Fewell.

Article referenced from: http://www.pmi.org.in/manageindia/volume3/issue03/feature.story.html

For more details on PMI-ACP^SM please log onto http://www.pmi.org/en/Certification/New-PMI-Agile-Certification.aspx

PMI Agile (PMI-ACP) curriculum rocks!

Finally, it’s good to see a solid and complete Agile curriculum. PMI has come up with new certification, PMI-ACP (Agile Certification Program) to test students on their Agile knowledge. PMI’s Agile exam will test student’s knowledge with 120 multi choice questions on all major Agile methodologies like Scrum, XP, Lean Kanban, Crystal, FDD, etc.

What I find good about this exam is it is not limited to only Agile methodologies, but it will also test students knowledge on  wide variety of Agile topics like Communications, Metrics, Planning Monitoring and Adapting, Product Quality, Risk Management, Value Stream Analysis, Story mapping, and soft skills negotiations / coaching skills just to name a few.

PMI has also done a fantastic job of covering all the above listed topics with the selection of 11 reference books (listed below).Potential PMI-ACP candidates will have to reference all 11 books to pass the PMI-ACP exam.

PMI has also ensured that to take the PMI-ACP exam, students must have at least 1500 hours of Agile experience and provide proof of the same to PMI-ACP certification auditors.

Jesse Fewell and I have co-trained the first ever PMI-ACP class in Asia and it was a grand success. Our interactions with the students revealed that most of the students had major gaps in their understanding of many technical practices like TDD, Pair Programming, Continuous integration, and the Lean concepts. There were many ‘Ah-ha’ moments in the class during our training. The students were not only excited about the Agile Certification from PMI, but were also eager to apply the techniques and practices they learned in the class in their work environment.

I have an extremely good feeling that PMI-ACP is here to stay. The PMI-ACP certificate is going to help the industry get some good Agile evangelists that can apply techniques and best practices from various Agile frameworks and reap the real benefits that Agile has to offer.

PMI-ACP book  list

•          Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Ken Schwaber.

•          Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.

•          The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility. Michele Sliger, Stacia Broderick.

•          Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.

•          Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.

•          Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world. Greg Smith, Ahmed Sidky.

•          Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn

•          The Art of Agile Development. James Shore

•          User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development. Mike Cohn.

•          Agile Project Management with Scrum. Ken Schwaber.

•          Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott. 

My talk @ SPIN Meet on Structured Agile Project Management Processes

CSI SPIN - Mumbai

(Software Process Improvement Network)

When: Friday, May 6th 2011 

6:00pm to 8:30pm

Venue:

CSI  Mumbai Chapter

E- 217, 2nd Floor. Floral Deck Plaza, Near Seepz, MIDC, Andheri (E)  Mumbai 400093

Ph: +91 22 28235476 / 28235548

We request you to please register at info@csimumbai.org, csimumbai@vsnl.com with cc to the underlined. 

For further details contact:

Mr. R C Goyal, Member IEEE Bombay Section
Member SPIN Coreteam CSI Mumbai Chapter, rcgoyal@gmail.com; rcgoyal@avrms.com; 

Mob: 00919869463964; 00919820068417

Bay XP Meeting Part 2: Agile Estimation, Mike Cohn