Moving To Agile

• Is Agile just another process?
• A paradigm shift from a plan-driven mentality
• Agile and the bottom line
• How this course will help you become more agile

The Case Study

• Case study background and circumstances
• About the Acme Media teams
• About the individuals
• What does it look like when a team "becomes agile"?

Are You Ready For Agile?

• What areas will you become more agile in?
• The different flavors of agile
• Create your own flavor to become agile within your constraints

The Fitness Test: All About Readiness Assessments

• The importance of readiness assessments
• Reducing the risks of agile adoption using assessments
• Increasing productivity during transitions
• Getting executive buy-in for agile adoption using readiness assessments
• Conducting readiness assessments

The Importance Of Obtaining Executive Support

• Why should we pursue agile?
• The cost of migrating
• The risks in migrating
• Rewards for the executives
• Communicating frequently with your executive team
• The role of the sponsor
• Following Acme Media as the company obtains a sponsor

Improving Buy-In By Creating A Core Team

• Who should be in the core team?
• Choosing the core team at Acme Media
• The kickoff meeting

The Mindset Of An Agile Leader

• The role of an agile coach
• Agile management: more shepherding, less directing
• Creating a team with an agile mindset

Injecting Agility Into Your Current Process

• Understanding your current process
• Enhancing the existing process

Selecting a Pilot Project

• Characteristics of a good pilot
• Evaluating projects at Acme Media

Feasibility: Is This Project Viable?

• Feasibility in the big picture
• Selecting a feasibility team
• Introducing the known requirements to the feasibility team
• The go/no go decision
• Alternate feasibility paths

Aligning The Pilot Team With The Project

• Identifying the pilot team
• Preparing the pilot team
• Envisioning the product
• The tradeoff matrix
• Project worksheet

Feature Cards: A Tool For "Just Enough" Planning

• The structure of a feature card
• A team approach to creating feature cards
• Feature cards compared to...
• Limitations in using feature cards
• Hard-copy cards vs. electronic cards

Prioritizing the Backlog

• The art of prioritizing, sequencing, and grouping features
• Prioritizing the backlog at Acme Media
• Other ways to prioritize features

Estimating At The Right Level With The Right People

• Contrasting traditional and agile estimation techniques
• The importance of whole-team estimation
• A step toward agility: estimating size, not effort
• Estimating story points at Acme Media

Release Planning: Envisioning The Overall Schedule

• Defining the pieces of a release plan
• Completing the release plan by assigning features to iterations
• Communicating the release plan with a kickoff meeting

Iteration Planning: The Nitty-Gritty Details

• Clearly defining the goals: what is "feature complete"?
• Using feature modeling to identify and estimate tasks
• Identifying and estimating tasks
• Determining the hours available in an iteration
• Bringing estimates and capacity together to complete the plan
• Making status visible

Iteration 0

• Initial vision for the architecture
• Completing contracts with third parties
• Preparing environments and support tools
• Obtaining funding
• Finalizing and dedicating the project team
• Starting the work early

Delivering Working Software

• Supporting the agile principles during development and testing
• Where to begin?
• Completing a feature

Testing

• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Functional testing
• Exploratory testing
• Test automation

Adapting: Reacting Positively To Change

• Common reasons for adapting
• Adapting during an iteration
• Three ways Acme Media adapted during its first iteration
• Adapting at the end of an iteration
• How Acme Media adapts during adapt week
• User Acceptance Testing
• Changes in the business climate
• Reviewing the findings and revising the plan for the next iteration

Delivery

• When to release
• Final testing
• Preparing support groups and processes
• Communication and training
• Ready to release
• Enough planning; let's deploy

The Retrospective: Working Together To Improve

• Setting expectations for the retrospective
• Time to digest: a survey in advance
• Conducting the retrospective meeting
• What to expect during the meeting
• Converting the feedback into action

Extending The New Process Across Your Company

• Common findings after a pilot
• What the team learned from their pilot