Christian Gruber, a Googler, an agile guru and an Aikido practitioner clears up some important mis-understandings about Shu-Ha-Ri as applied to both learning Agile and learning Aikido: http://bit.ly/bqgvZS . Strongly Recommended!

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“Last week I taught an introductory course on Agile Work. Normally this is pretty easy stuff. However, I was teaching this course in Bucharest, Romania (cool), and I have come across a substantial, strong and vigorous objection to agile (also cool, but challenging too). Several people in my class are asserting that agile is just like communism and since communism failed, agile is not likely to succeed either. I’m looking for help on this! …”
Read the original article!

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I’ve just submitted a proposed session to the Agile 2010 web site:

Test-Driven Development for the iPhone, iPod and iPad

Please go to the site and let me know in the comments there if you have any suggestions about the proposal!

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Hi All,

Here is a collection of interesting reads and articles that either Mishkin Berteig (@mberteig) or Paul Heidema (@paulheidema) reposted on Twitter.

RT @daverooneyca RT @gilbroza: Mincing no words: People are NOT resources! http://bit.ly/3iZwpI [A-freaking-men!!]

RT @jbrains jbrains.ca classic: Forget velocity http://mee.bo/dB2sw3

RT @AgileAdvice Comparison of OpenAgile with Scrum http://bit.ly/dBLCxP #Agile #Scrum #OpenAgile

RT @flowchainsensei Culture change is Free “I discovered the folly of culture change programmes years ago” ~John Seddon http://bit.ly/9Nwv8e

One of my favorite books! RT @mr_alan_cooper @flowchainsensei In return I offer J. Gall: http://bit.ly/bMPtoC

RT @estherderby RT @jasonlittle Simple Exercise to Demonstrate Value of Collaboration http://ow.ly/1nK4wm

RT @mohamed_rafie RT @sf105: Agile Learning Design: Periodic Table http://bit.ly/7K7Eyy

RT @jeffpatton good points in this piece – emerging practices for adding ux work to agile development by http://bit.ly/6HpkOe

RT @davidparker9 OpenAgile – New Management Methodology by @titusperide: http://bit.ly/5pD1ps

RT @agilenature Keep the Balance – The Scrum Product Owner http://ff.im/-foXWY

You can join Twitter by visiting http://twitter.com and following their steps.

If you are interested in what OpenAgile or other agile methods are all about please follow @mberteig @paulheidema and many others of the ones listed above.

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OpenAgile is similar to Scrum in many respects. Both are systems for delivering value to stakeholders. Both are agile methods. Both are frameworks that deliberately avoid giving all the answers. So why would we choose OpenAgile over Scrum?

The most important difference is in applicability: Scrum is designed to help organizations optimize new software product development, whereas OpenAgile is designed to help anyone learn to deliver value effectively.

OpenAgile is an improvement over Scrum in the following ways:

1. More effective teamwork and team practices, in particular the Consultative Method of Decision Making, and
   applicability over a larger range of team sizes from a single individual on up.

2. Recognition of the individual capacities required for effective learning, namely Truthfulness, Detachment,
   Search, Love and Courage. Scrum acknowledges a separate set of qualities, but does not show how they systematically connect with the requirements of a Scrum environment.

3. Systematic handling of more types of work beyond just “new artifacts” and “obstacles”. In particular, OpenAgile includes calendar items, repetitive items and quality items and acknowledges their unique qualities in a work
   environment. OpenAgile also provides a framework to include additional types of work beyond these five.

4. Improved role definitions based on extensive experience.

   1. There is only one role defined in OpenAgile (Team Member) vs. three defined in Scrum (Team Member, ScrumMaster, Product Owner).

   2. There are multiple paths of service that allow Team Members and Stakeholders to engage with an OpenAgile team or community in different ways. There are five paths of service: Process Facilitation, Growth Facilitation, Tutoring, Mentoring, and Catalyst.

   3. The Process Facilitator path of service is similar to the ScrumMaster role with the following major differences:

      • is not responsible for team development
      • is not necessarily a single person, nor is it a required role

   4. The Growth Facilitator path of service is similar to the Product Owner role with the following major differences:

      • is responsible for all aspects of growth including value (like the Product Owner), and individual and team capacity building.
      • is not necessarily a single person, nor is it a required role

5. Integration of principles and practices from other methods. Two examples suffice:

   1. From Crystal: creating a safe work/learning environment.

   2. From Lean: build quality in, value stream mapping, root cause analysis, standard work.

6. OpenAgile allows interruptions during the Cycle. Scrum has the concept of Sprint Safety. This makes Scrum
   unsuitable for operational work and general management.

7. The distinction between Commitment Velocity and other uses of the term “velocity” used in Scrum. Commitment Velocity is the historical minimum slope of a team’s Cycle burndown charts and determines how much work a team plans in its Engagement Meeting.

8. Flexibility in the length a Cycle. Scrum requires that Sprints (Cycles) be one month in duration or less.
   OpenAgile allows a Cycle to be longer than that and instead provides a guideline that there should be a minimum number of Cycles planned in the time expected to reach the overall goal.

9. The Progress Meeting in OpenAgile does not require people to take turns or directly answer specific questions.

10. Avoiding conflict-oriented models of staff and management (Chickens and Pigs in Scrum).

11. Terminology changes to be more clear in meaning and applicable beyond software. A comparative glossary is
    included below.

Another major difference between OpenAgile and Scrum is how the community operates. OpenAgile is an open-source
method that has a specific structure for community involvement that allows for continuous improvement of the system. Scrum is closed. It is closely managed by it’s founders and this has led to challenges with the method becoming dogmatic. OpenAgile is meant to constantly evolve and grow.

Comparative Glossary between OpenAgile and Scrum

OpenAgile Scrum Cycle Sprint Cycle Planning Sprint Planning and Sprint Review Team Member Team Member or “Pigs” Process Facilitator ScrumMaster Growth Facilitator Product Owner Work Queue Product Backlog Work Queue Item Product Backlog Item Cycle Plan Sprint Backlog Task Task Work Period Day Progress Meeting Daily Scrum Learning Circle w/ steps “Inspect and Adapt” Delivered Value Potentially Shippable Software Stakeholders “Chickens” Five Types of Work:

New, Repetitive, Obstacles, Calendar,
Quality - no equivalents -

User Stories, N/A, Impediments, N/A, N/A Consultative Decision Making - no equivalents - Sector / Community - no equivalents -

References on OpenAgile:

http://www.openagile.com/

http://wiki.openagile.org/

References on Scrum:

http://www.scrumalliance.org/

http://www.scrum.org/

“Agile Software Development with Scrum” - Schwaber and Beedle

“Agile Project Management with Scrum” - Schwaber

“Scrum and the Enterprise” – Schwaber

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This is for people who have received the OpenAgile Readiness Certificate, this course is a key component for advancing your learning to the next level – the level of being able to function effectively as a Team Member in OpenAgile. This training gives you hands-on exposure to the OpenAgile team environment, and practice with all the core OpenAgile techniques for accelerating learning and moving systematically towards your goals.

Date;
January 26-27, 2010

Location:
Soloway Jewish Community Centre
21 Nadolny Sachs Private
Ottawa, Ontario K2A 1R9
Directions to Soloway Jewish Community Centre also known as The Joseph & Rose Ages Family Building

More information

To register for this seminar!

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Interesting article from the Financial Post:

EIGHT TEAM MUST-HAVES

On certain kinds of problems, Prof. Richard Field says a team always comes up with better solutions than does an individual. He offers these eight must-haves for a successful team…

Read the rest of the story here.

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Great News!

We at Berteig Consulting have been developing OpenAgile with the OpenAgile Champions and we are ready to hold the first ever public OpenAgile Team Member training session.  OpenAgile is a new method of using Agile methods for all kinds of work (beyond just software and IT).  Now we have our first ever public OpenAgile Team Member Training. The first seminar is taking place in Ottawa, our nation’s capital.

Details:

City: Ottawa

Date: January 26-27, 2009

Price: $750.00

For more information visit: http://www.berteigconsulting.com/OpenAgileCertificationOATrainingJanuary2010OttawaOntarioCanada

OpenAgile is a system for rapidly delivering value that is based on Truthfulness, Consultative Decision-Making and constant learning. OpenAgile is an “open source” process – a community of practitioners is helping to build it, and anyone can learn about it and use it and then contribute back to it!

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There is a book review of “Becoming Agile” by Smith and Sidky on Slashdot.  I haven’t read the book (yet) so I can’t comment on the book nor on the review.  However, I did want to comment on the comments of Slashdot users.  Their experience with agile methods seems to be terrible.  Either that or they are incredibly ignorant and have pre-judged agile.  Since I know that (most) Slashdot users are pretty intelligent, I’m going to assume that they have mostly just had really terrible experiences with agile.

The Agile Manifesto values “Individuals and Interactions” over “Processes and Tools”.  Many of the comments were about agile being used as a cudgel to beat teams into submission.  No matter what anyone says, this is not agile.  This is perverted agile or “Pervagile”.  Pervagile is common.  Scrumbutt is one form of Pervagile.  Waterscrum is another form of Pervagile.  Scrummerfall is yet another.  But there are many other forms as well: the Pervagile Sweatshop where teams are forced to meet arbitrary scope in one week deadlines, the Pervagile Common Room where people on many different projects are forced to work in an open space, and the Pervagile Silo Team where only developers are doing agile and everyone else is in their normal functional silos.

On Slashdot we see some interesting comments like this one:

So we’ve gone from over-designing systems to under-designing systems.

How about right-designing a system based on the complexity of the scope and the key personnel involved?

Is that crazy?

No, it’s not crazy, and that’s what agile is trying to help us to do.  Pair programming, test driven development, potentially shippable software, continuous integration, agile modeling are all agile practices that help us “right-design” a system.  So this person must have experienced a team doing Pervagile Minimum Discipline where all good practices are not just done in small bits along the way, but actually ignored.  I’m not sure why they ignored doing good incremental design – perhaps someone told them that agile doesn’t require good design skills on the team!

Here’s another interesting comment:

The attempt to write a Python implementation in Python, PyPy [codespeak.net], turned into a death march. The project has been underway since at least 2003 (when they had their first “sprint”), never produced a usable system, and the European Union pulled the plug on funding. But the project limps on. There’s a released version. It’s slower than CPython. There’s supposed to be a “just in time” compiler Real Soon Now. (This is try #2 at a JIT, not counting the schemes for outputting Java bytecode and Javascript.) Six years in on a compiler project, and no product.

The PyPy project is very “agile”. They have “sprints”. They have “flexibility”. They have nightly builds. They have mailing lists and trackers. They support multiple output back-ends. They have about 50 contributors. What they don’t have is a usable product.

Hmm.  Sounds like they’re trying to do Scrum.  But they’ve missed a pretty critical piece: potentially shippable software at the end of _every_ Sprint.  I have no idea why they aren’t able to do that, but I imagine that if they really understood Scrum, they would be in a much different place at this time.  This is a clear case of Pervagile Valueless Deliveries where the team does stuff every iteration, but they don’t worry about delivering valuable results.

So.  Pervagile is pervasive.  That’s clear.

Why is it so pervasive?  There are two parts to this: one, agile is hard and two, agile is mistaken for a silver bullet.

Agile is Hard

Okay, I’m actually being a little dis-honest.  The real truth is that doing agile is extremely, exceptionally, agonizingly difficult (for most people in most organizations).  Why?  Because agile is not just another process to roll out.  It is, as has been mentioned in numerous places, a deep cultural change.  Agile is actually a liberation movement for people involved in software development.  Like most movements, however, it has been subject to corruptive forces.

Agile is Mistaken for a Silver Bullet

Agile is Hard, and therefore it cannot possibly be a silver bullet.  Many executives and managers hear about agile and want to do it in their organization because they have heard the amazing success stories (yes, they do exist – scroll to the bottom to learn about Wildcard Systems).  But what often is not effectively communicated is how much crisis, how much effort, how much radical change went into these success stories.  Here’s a hint: if you think a large organization can become agile in less than five years, you’re fooling yourself.  Even a very small organization should expect at least two years of solid effort before the changes really take hold.  Of course, if you are lucky enough to be starting from scratch, then you might do better than this.

I’m pretty tired of people mis-understanding agile methods.  But unfortunately this is the reality of our work landscape.  I would love to work with a client where the CEO has said something to the effect of “I’ve budgeted 10% of our operations and ten years to do our agile transformation.”  Of course, that’s pretty much a laughable wish.  Unfortunately it’s the reality of the effort involved for most organizations.

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