It's Not About Working Software After All!

l e a nsoftware development

www.poppendieck.comMary [email protected]@poppendieck.com

It’s Not About Working SoftwareFirst Build the Right Thing

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Gróf András (Andrew Grove)

StrategicInflection Point

From: Only the Paranoid Survive, by Andy Grove,

Business goes on to new heights

Business declines

10x change in an element of the business.What worked before doesn’t work now.The executives are the last to know.

November 10 Copyright©2010 Poppendieck.LLC2

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Is Agile DevelopmentAt An Inflection Point?

Processes and tools Comprehensive

documentation Contract negotiation Following a plan

Individuals and interactions

Working software Customer collaboration Responding to change

*Kent Beck, Startup Lessons Learned – April 23, 2010http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262656520

Version 1.0 – Contract Focus Version 2.0 – Development Focus

Team vision and initiative

Validated learning Customer discovery Initiating Change

Version 3.0* - Customer Focus


Inflection Point:Customer Focus

2000 2004 2008 2012

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Team Vision and Initiative

Most product failures are caused by a lack of Customers.


There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. – Peter Durcker

Not this: But this:PRIORITIZED!

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Validated Learning

Consider the Entrepreneur –Starts out with no customersAssembles a business team:MarketingDevelopmentQuality AssuranceOperations Support FinanceOthers?

The Objective:Minimum Viable Product Does it do the job? Will customers pay for it? What do we need to learn next?

Repeat......multiple times Experiment – Learn – Adjust

November 105 Copyright©2010 Poppendieck.LLC

First be sure that you arebuilding the right thing,then be sure that you are building the thing right.

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Customer Discovery

Brilliant Systems are the result of a matching of mental models between those developing a system and those who will be using the system.


Ethnography Ideation

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Initiating Change

WebSphere® Service Registry and Repository 10 month deadline – didn’t know the details Solution: Get customer feedback

Early Access Program Customers download new version each month

User feedback on discussion forum Direct developer-customer interaction

Changed course midstream User feedback beat marketing input

Phenomenal sales the first day of release Customers knew they would get what they needed

Support Calls down by an order of magnitude Mental model of users and developers matched


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Build the Right Thing –Systems Engineering

1. Control projects by quantified critical-few results: 1 page!2. Make sure those results are business results, not technical. 3. Give developers the freedom to discover how to deliver

those results. “The worst scenario I can imagine is when we allow real customers, users, and our own salespeople to dictate ‘functions and features’ to the developers, carefully disguised as ‘customer requirements’. Maybe conveyed by our product owners.” “If you go slightly below the surface of these false ‘requirements’…you will immediately find that they are not really requirements. They are really bad amateur design for the ‘real’ requirements.”

4. Estimate the impacts of designs on the quantified goals.5. Select designs with the best value impacts for their costs,

do them first. “Focus on value estimates, not effort estimates.”

6. Involve stakeholders every week. “There are many stakeholderswith changing priorities. The team needs to keep a line open to all of them.”


Quotes From: Value-Driven Development Principles and Values – Agility is the Tool, Not the Master; by Tom Gilb, –Agile Record, July 2010

Tom Gilb

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Build the Right Thing –Less is More

Cost of Complexity

The Biggest Opportunity to Increase Software Development Productivity is to Write Less Code!

Cos

tTime

Features / Functions Used in a Typical System

Standish Group Study Reported at XP2002 by Jim Johnson, Chairman

Always 7%

Often 13%

Sometimes16%

Rarely 19%

Never 45%

Rarely / NeverUsed: 64%

Often / AlwaysUsed: 20%


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Build the Right Thing –Simple Design


Simple Design = FocusIt’s only by saying ‘no’ that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

– Apple CEO: Steve Jobs

More features make a product forgettable.

– Apple Designer: Johnathan Ive

The worst thing you can do is to do what the customers ask. You have to understand their problem and solve it.

– Tandberg Founder: Per Haug Kogstad

And finally: Don’t – ever – automate a process without simplifying it first!

1. No internal changes required of a network in order to be connected to the Internet.

2. Communications on a best-effort basis. 3. No information retained by black boxes

(gateways) connecting the networks.4. No global control at the operations level.

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Build the Right Thing –Whole Team

Case Study: Large, Successful Web Site Six Vertical Markets 1 team / market Web analytics – tied to revenue

Most Product Managers struggled to produce stories. “Product Owners” were added to keep up with the workload. These teams faltered.

A few Product Managers negotiated overall objectives with the development team, which figured out how to develop features to meet the high level goals. Web analytics were displayed and updated in real time.

Team members quickly adjusted the system to improve key metrics. These teams were highly engaged; their business was very successful.


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Build the Right Thing –Optimize the Whole

Optimizing a part of a system will always sub-optimize the overall system.

Beware of Layer Teams!“The” Business

Process

Software

Operations

Support

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature


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Case Study: Amazon.com

It’s all about scale.2000 – Hit the wall2001 – Started transition to servicesEach Owned by a 2PTAll functions – including operations!

Encapsulate data and business logicBasic Services and Consolidator Services

2009 – Completed Transition.Conway’s LawOrganizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.


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Cost Center Disease

What’s Wrong with Cost Centers?No way to focus on superior customer outcomesNo basis for trade-off decisionsNo engagementNo passion

Focus on cost reduction instead of delivering value.Where is the disease most likely? IT departmentsGovernment OrganizationsOutsourcing Companies


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People Strive to Reach Their Full Potential


Remember the times when: You are deeply engaged Distractions disappear Time evaporatesThis is called FLOW.

Factors that Lead to Better Performance & Personal Satisfaction:Autonomy: The desire to be

self-directed.Mastery: The urge to

get better. Purpose: The aspiration to make a

contribution to something larger than ourselves.

Skills

Challeng

es

Boredom

Anxiety

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An Inflection Point?

Open Source“The impossible public good.” Incredibly stable Impossibly complex No monetary rewards/sanctions No central authority

(in the traditional sense)

This defies known social and economic theory. Markets and hierarchies are

no longer the only organizing mechanisms available. In fact, peer networks can work better.


Mark Shuttleworth Born in Welkom, South Africa;

went to school in Cape Town. Started Thawte in 1995;

purchased by VeriSign in 1999 for ~$575million.

Became a cosmonaut in 2002, @ ~$20 million and 18 months of training.

Founded Canonical in 2004 to support the development of a Linux distribution for desktops and laptops – to make computers more affordable for all.

Ubuntu* has won the hearts and minds of open source developers and has gained significant laptop/desktop market share.

Mark bet a fortune that Ubuntu would be a successful volunteereffort – and he’s winning the bet.

This is a new economic landscape.

*Ubuntu means: Respect Helpfulness Sharing Community Caring Trust Unselfishness

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Passion 3.0Know why.Follow your passion.Be great at what you do.

Teamwork 3.0Semi-autonomous teams with internal leaders.End-to-end responsibility.

Economics 3.0The new scarcity: The time, energy & brainpower of bright, creative people.

Motivation 3.0AutonomyMasteryPurpose

Upgrade to Version 3.0


The Next Generation

l e a nsoftware development

www.poppendieck.comMary [email protected]@poppendieck.com

Thank You!More Information: www.poppendieck.com

Technology

It's Not About Working Software After All!