Strategies for Success: A Singapore Case Study and a look to the future - Jeff De Luca - Agile SG 2013

Presented in Agile Singapore 2013 Conference

Feature Driven Development (FDD) is one the founding Agile methodologies and it came to international recognition from a project right here in Singapore. This project pre-dated the writing of the Agile manifesto and was at the time one of the largest Java projects in the region.

How did the people, process, and technology changes required for such a project get successfully introduced at a major Corporation that was a Mainframe Cobol environment at the time and had not even done client/server or object oriented before?

In this session you will get to listen to the creator of one of the founding Agile methods. Hear him tell the story of this famous Singapore Agile project from the perspective of adoption lessons that can be applied today. That is, how to successfully adopt Agile and the change it requires. Then, hear about the latest thinking on the rise of Social and it's impact on organising structures including Agile projects.

Transcript

1. S T R AT E G I E S F O R S U C C E S S A S I N G A P O R E C A S E S T U D Y A N D A L O O K T O T H E F U T U R E jeffdl@me.com
3. F E AT U R E D R I V E N D E V E L O P M E N T Develop an Overall Model Build a Features List Plan by Feature Design by Feature Build by Feature
4. A C C U R AT E A N D M E A N I N G F U L Prospecting (PR) ! ! ! Loan Application (LA) ! ! ! Facilities (FA) Establish Line of Credit ! Establish Financing Package ! Securities (SC) ! ! ! Credit Evaluation (CR) ! ! ! Approval (AP) This Feature right here is 44% done and is currently being coded Roll-up for this Activity is 37% complete Roll-up for this Subject Area is 59% complete Roll-up for the entire Features List is 55% complete
5. Establish Security Committment (SC) Business Activities Total Features Not Started In Progress Behind Schedule Completed Inactive % Completed Completion Date Associate to Bank 2 0 0 0 2 0 100 Jul 1998 Associate to FP 6 0 0 0 6 0 100 Jul 1998 Associate to Line 3 0 0 0 3 0 100 Jul 1998 Establish Commitment 123 0 0 0 123 7 100 Jul 1998 New Features 1 0 0 0 1 0 100 Ongoing Subject Area Total 135 0 0 0 135 7 100 Implementation (MD) Business Activities Total Features Not Started In Progress Behind Schedule Completed Inactive % Completed Completion Date Authorisation 15 0 0 13 2 2 51 Mar 1999 Change Current Account for OD Line 12 12 0 0 0 0 0 Mar 1999 Establish Disbursement Details 35 0 0 4 31 1 91 Mar 1999 Establish Implementation Instruction 27 1 0 12 14 1 70 Mar 1999 Establish Line Implementation Details 21 0 0 4 17 0 89 Mar 1999 Establish BlockDiscounting Line Impl. 7 0 0 0 7 0 100 Mar 1999 Establish NIF RL Disbursement 8 6 0 0 2 1 25 Mar 1999 Establish Trade/Guarantee Line Impl. 9 0 0 0 9 0 100 Mar 1999 Establish an FX Line Implementation 5 0 0 0 5 0 100 Mar 1999 Establish OD Line Implementation 13 0 0 0 13 0 100 Mar 1999 New Features 3 0 0 0 3 0 100 Ongoing Subject Area Total 155 19 0 33 103 5 74 Progress Summary for Problem Domain Total Features Not Started In Progress Behind Schedule Completed Inactive % Completed 1013 23 0 33 957 100 96 P R O G R E S S S U M M A RY R E P O R T Actual Data
6. Establish Application (AR) Create Application (14) May 1998 100% SP Validate AFL (7) May 1998 100% SP Search for AFL (3) May 1998 100% SP Register Application (14) May 1998 100% SP Abort Application (3) May 1998 SP 100% Establish Facility (FA) May 1998 Establish FP (5) 100% TSB Establish Line (34) May 1998 100% TSB Comply with MAS (5) Aug 1998 SP 100% Establish Security Commitment (SC) Establish Commitment (123) Jul 1998 100% PS Associate to Bank (2) Jul 1998 PS 100% Associate to FP (6) Jul 1998 PS 100% Associate to Line (3) Jul 1998 PS 100% Establish Credit Evaluation (CR) Establish Rel with Other Bank (5) Jul 1998 PS 100% 100% Establish Debt/Equity (5) May 1998 PS Establish Financial Stmts (90) Nov 1998 PS 100% Establish Funds Flow Stmts (11) Aug 1998 PS 100% Generate Documents Feb 1999 65% TSB SP Terms and Conditions 100% ToDoList 100% NSC Outsource Establish Comments and Recommend (130) Nov 1998 PS 100% Request Waiver (6) Oct 1998 Waivers (WR) Establish Party (RM) Establish Details (61) Jun 1998 100% PR Establish Relationships (39) Aug 1998 100% PR Establish Financials (46) Sep 1998 100% PR Establish Approval (AA) Establish CLS User (13) May 1998 100% SP Generate CAS (85) Oct 1998 PR 100% Routing for Approval (18) Sep 1998 PR 100% Comply with Credit Policy (19) Oct 1998 PS 100% Comply with MAS HLD (10) Oct 1998 PS 100% Comply with MAS S757 (4) Oct 1998 PS 100% Approving an AFL (22) Oct 1998 PR 100% Comply with MAS S29 (33) Oct 1998 PS 100% Comply with MAS S34 (3) Oct 1998 PS 100% Implementation (MD) Authorisation (15) Mar 1999 SP Establish NIF RL Disbursement (8) Mar 1999 SP Change Current Account for OD Line (12) Mar 1999 SP Establish Block Discounting Line Impl. (7) Mar 1999 SP Establish Disbursement Details (35) Mar 1999 SP 77% Establish Implementation Instruction (27) Mar 1999 SP 69% Establish Line Implementation Details (21) Mar 1999 SP 89% Establish Trade/Gtuarantee Line Impl. (9) Mar 1999 SP 100% Establish FX Line Implementation (5) Mar 1999 SP 100% Establish OD Line Implementation (13) Mar 1999 SP 100% 100% 17% Sep 1998 Sep 1998 Actual Data
7. – C H R I S S M Y T H “But to sweeten the deal I introduced a ‘parking lot cake’ with a feature set for each team member. Where the pink came from, I don't know, but the cake went down well…”
8. – M E L I S S A R O S S “You know me – if delivering coffee moves things forward -- I would do that too…”
9. UI PD SI
10. “ T H E M A J O R P R O B L E M S O F O U R W O R K A R E N O T S O M U C H T E C H N O L O G I C A L A S S O C I O L O G I C A L I N N AT U R E ” F I R S T P U B L I S H E D 1 9 8 7
11. 1 9 9 7 P N G
12. 1 9 9 7
13. – T R A D I T I O N A L D E C I S I O N M A K E R A X I O M “Nobody ever got fired for…”
14. • Contract Executive • Backing • Dual-managers • Appraisals • Hiring • Transfer the system for building systems EVP I.T. Chairman
15. T H E S I N G A P O R E L E N D I N G P R O J E C T Chapter 20: Feature-Driven Development “We think most process initiatives are silly. Well-intentioned managers and teams get so wrapped up in executing processes that they forget that they are being paid for results, not process execution.” –Peter Coad, Eric Lefebvre, Jeff De Luca 1 For those who wonder if Agile approaches scale, Jeff De Luca, project director of Nebulon, a Melbourne, Australia IT consulting firm, offers a couple of Feature-Driven Development (FDD) project success examples. The first, a complex commercial lending application for a large Singapore bank, utilized 50 people for 15 months (after an initialization period). The second project, for another large bank, employed 250 people over an 18 month period. “But I’d never do one of these [the 250 person project] again,” Jeff quipped. “It was way too big. A very large bank was trying to completely re-engineer its technology platform.” ! FDD arose, in name at least, in the 1997-98 timeframe during the Singapore project. Jeff had been using a streamlined, light process framework for many years. Peter Coad, brought in to develop the object model for the project, had been advocating very granular feature oriented development, but hadn’t embedded it in any particular process model. These two threads—one from Jeff and the other from Peter—came together on this project to fashion what was dubbed Feature-Driven Development. “Peter had been talking about features of years, but didn’t have a process,” says Jeff. “I adapted my process, which had evolved over 20 years, with Peter’s ideas about features. Mine wasn’t as granular.” ! Jeff, who seems more interested in managing projects than writing about methodology, was urged to write about FDD at a lunch with John Gage from Sun Microsystems. Intrigued with the project, John wanted to know who the project “anthropologist” was—someone to write down the experience. Egged on, Jeff wrote the FDD Chapter (Chapter 6) in the Java Modeling In Color book. Peter Coad’s company, TogetherSoft, specializes in software development tools that integrate
16. A G I L E • Iterative and Incremental
 • Making people first-class
18. – A G I L E M A N I F E S T O “Individuals and Interactions over Process and Tools”
19. – J O H N B O R D E A U X “Why do we work in organisations where natural interactions and instincts are discouraged?”
21. S O C I A L A N D T E C H N I C A L A R C H I T E C T U R E O R G A N I S A T I O N A L B A C K P L A N E UI PD SI Public discussions - no email Working session topics and outcomes KMS CPs Brain time vs body time Domain modeling Automation Inspections T R A C K I N G A N D R E P O RT I N G Norms Team Development Cycle Plus/Deltas Fine-grained features Features List Domain functional decomposition Month-Year Activity dates Feature milestones and percentages Weekly summary and trend reports Parking Lot charts Weekly snapshot and publish Straight talk Predictive builds - SCM Standards
22. F D D ➤ S O C I A L S O F T WA R E D E V E L O P M E N T • Structures and processes defer to natural systems of human interaction • Conversational technologies that allow for low-effort and low-latency flow of information • Flattened decision cycles, real-time situational awareness, creativity, and a capacity for adaptive responses to changes in its environment
23. – J O H N B O R D E A U X “Technology should enable serendipity.”
25. • Talent • Backing • One company, two systems • Enough to eat • Human activities
26. – I S TA N D O N T H E S H O U L D E R S O F O T H E R S John Bordeaux, Peter Coad, Timothy Lister, Tom DeMarco, Gerald Weinberg jeffdl@me.com