Time for another chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.  This month’s theme is “Getting a Fresh Start” so the question is going to be about starting an agile project.  This question is simple, but has a lot of nuances which make a complete answer imperitive.  Remember, everyone is eligible no matter who they are, but also remember that I am the final arbiter and my decision is the one that counts.  Keep in mind that I am a Certified Scrum Coach so that will be my perspective.  As in the last contest I won’t be answering questions (much) and please list any assumptions I should make when reading your answer.  Please your answer in the comments section below so we can all see it.  Also use a real email address when leaving the comment since that address has to be valid in order to get the Amazon gift certificate.

January 2010 scenario:

A friend of yours is the VP of Software Development (highest ranking technical person in the company) at a small software company.  He has 9 people who work in his department including a Product Manager, Project Manager, Development Manager (who also codes) a QA Manager (who also tests), 4 developers and 1 tester.  Each person does an adequate job but your friend is a bit worried the Product Manager doesn’t really understand marketing and the QA Manager seems to always be at odds with the developers.  The newest team member is the Project Manager brought on board about 6 months ago.  The developers have all been with the company for a minimum of 2 years.  The tester is a very recent addition with only 4 months of experience with the team.  The QA and Development managers are long time employees of the company.  The Product Manager has been with the team for 2 years but was “promoted” from being a developer.  The team has worked extensively with Java but their next project will be done with Ruby on Rails.

Their development process is classical waterfall and they have all of the classic problems.  The last release was a total disaster being 6 months late on a 12 month project and exceeding budget by nearly 100%.  The company creates software which costs each client over $200,000.  The company has a small number of clients but the last project cost them 15% of their installed base.  At this point the CEO has made it very clear the next project needs to be successful or the company will be out of business.

The question:

Your friend has asked for your advice because he knows you are an agile advocate who has been successful with it.  He has about 4 weeks before the team needs to start the next project (they are waiting on some hardware upgrades before starting) and he wants to use that time to maximum advantage in getting the team ready to proceed with agile.  At the end of the 4th week the goal is to start working on a 6 month project to deliver a completely new module for their base software which will hopefully expand their potential client base into a new market.  Your friend doesn’t know much about agile, and no one on the team or in the rest of the company knows much about it either.  He feels strongly it is his only hope for real success and the team has agreed they need to try it.

How would you advise your friend to proceed over the next 4 weeks and during the 6 month project?

I am looking for answers which are as specific as possible because I anticipate many of the answers to this one being very similar.  It is a much easier scenario than last month, but this month’s theme is “Getting a Fresh Start” so this seems like a good question to start the year off!

This contest ends at 11:59pm Mountain Standard Time on January 31, 2010.

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1. Agile question of the month contest for December 2009 Want to win an Amazon gift certificate?  This month I am starting...

Want to win an Amazon gift certificate?  This month I am starting a new feature in the blog.  The feature is called “Agile question of the month.”  The way it works is very simple.  I’m going to put forth a scenario based at least in part on a real situation I have come across when doing work with Agile For All clients.  I won’t say what I did, but I’m interested in what others might do.  Each month I’m going to pick one answer which I believe is the best solution.  Assuming the person leaving the best answer also leaves a valid email address, I’ll send them a $25 Amazon gift certificate to use as they please.  Unlike other contests like this one, I’m not excluding any individuals from answering.  I don’t care if you are just learning how to use agile, or if you are an original signatory of the Agile Manifesto.  Everyone is eligible and everyone is encouraged to try for the prize.  With lots of people sharing ideas more people will learn how to be agile problem solvers.

December 2009 scenario:

The client organization for this scenario has 20 software development teams spread across 5 locations including 3 in the US, one in India and one in Germany.  Approximately half of the teams are in collocation situations, but the other half are highly distributed with it not being unusual for a team to have 1-2 members in each of the 5 locations.  The client has decided to do an agile pilot project using 2 teams.  1 of the teams is collocated in a US office and 1 has team members in all 5 locations around the world.  In addition, just to complicate things, this project needs to integrate with 2 teams which are not doing agile at all and are both highly distributed.  The 2 pilot agile teams have been trained in Scrum and understand it enough to begin using it right away.  Assume the agile teams are cross-functional and have a reasonable ScrumMaster and Product Owner (one for each team).  Your role in this scenario is as an agile coach attempting to help make the pilot project as successful as possible both in the short term (2 months or less) and medium term (6 months or more).  After 6 months the client will decide whether the pilot has succeeded and whether to continue using your services.

The question:

As the agile coach, what 3 things will you be doing, examining or helping with in order to make sure the project has short term success AND what 3 things will you be doing, examining or helping with in order to make sure the project has medium term success?

I’m looking for the top 3 short term and medium term items in each answer.  Please use the comments field below to give it a shot.  Be creative.  I won’t answer any questions, so if you make assumptions be sure to tell me you made them and what they are.  The contest will end on December 31, 2009 at 11:59pm Mountain Standard Time.

Good luck!

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