March 27 | The Federal Agile Program Lifecycle - Rally Software

Rally Software! Tweet it: #RallyGov | www.rallydev.com ! !! ©2012!

The Federal Agile Program 

Lifecycle: 

Scaling Agile from Team to Program! 

Tweet it: #RallyGov | www.rallydev.com ! !! 

Rally Software! ©2012!

Ronica Roth, CST | SPC! 

Solutions Evangelist! 

Rally Software! 

Roles 

• Product Manager, Services 

• Transformation Consultant 

• Agile Coach 

• Product Owner 

Environments 

• Government • Finance 

• Defense • Insurance 

• Technology • Embedded 

• Healthcare • Telecomm 


Brent Barton! 

Product Line Director! 

Rally Software! 

• Former President, Agile Advantage, Inc. 

(Acquired by Rally in 2012)! 

• Passionate about business being able 

to take advantage of what Agile has to 

offer! 

• Active practitioner delivering value 

using Agile! 

• Previous roles include: CTO, 

Development Manager, PMO Manager, 

Agile Coach, Mentor, Certified Scrum 

Trainer, ScrumMaster, Product Owner! 


Give us Value, Now!! 


Months, not Years! 

Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of 

Defense, in a September 2008 speech, said, 

Our conventional modernization programs seek a 

99% solution in years. 

Stability and counterinsurgency missions 

—the wars we are in— 

require 75% solutions in months. 

Agile Methods: Selected DoD Management and Acquisition Concerns, ! 

Carnegie Mellon University, October 2011, p. ix! 


But Which is the Correct 75%?! 

• If we knew that… 

• The answer would be our new 99% solution 

• and we wouldn’t need a new approach… 

http://www.scrollinondubs.com/2007/05/08/you-dont-know-what-you-dont-know/! 

Rally Software! ©2012! 

!

Software Complexity is Increasing! 

• It is not possible to completely specify an 

interactive system. 

Wegner’s Lemma, 1995 

• Uncertainty is inherent and inevitable in software 

development processes and products. 

Ziv’s Uncertainty Principle, 1996 

• For a new software system the requirements will 

not be completely known until after the users 

have used it. 

Humphrey’s Requirements Uncertainty Principle, c. 1998 


How can we succeed when:! 

- We don’t know what 

the 75% solution is?  

- Requirements cannot 

be fully known?  

- It is impossible to fully 

specify the system?! 


Navigating the Minefield 

of Complexity! 


Can we reduce all complexity   

to the most granular tasks to   

“Get it Right the First Time?”! 


The Dilemma we Face! 

As long as we equate 

complexity with sophistication, 

complexity is going 

to eat our lunch, 

reducing our 

systems’ reliability 

and operational 

effectiveness. 

http://blog.architexa.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/UML_Diagrams.jpg 

Rally Software! http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Mar-Apr10/ward_mar-apr10.pdf! ©2012!

Big Design Up-Front (BDUF) increases 

Risk because:! 

• Time delays – Aging requirements 

• Tendency to increase complexity during long 

design process 

• Risk of designing for undefined requirements 

higher 

• If part of the design fails, potentially large 

amounts of design becomes invalid 

• Change over time…happens 


What if we don’t design enough?! 

Rally Software! http://officeforward.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/poorly-designed-toilet-in-bathroom.jpeg! ©2012!

How much Design is Required to Plan 

Effectively?! 

• Maintainable Design 

• Design Patterns 

• Refactoring 

http://scaledagileframework.com/emergent-design/! 


IT Needs To   

Deliver Quicker! 


Months, not Years! 

• As long as we believe adding time and money 

makes the project better, we’re going to have 

overruns and delays. 

• As long as we believe in “faster, better, cheaper 

—pick two,” we are going to be stuck in a selflimiting 

mindset, and our outcomes will suffer. 

Rally Software! http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Mar-Apr10/ward_mar-apr10.pdf! ©2012!

Reduce Risk and Deliver Faster by 

Avoiding Big Up-Front Planning! 

• Deliver in order of Value-based Prioritization 

• Design just enough to enable technology 

feasibility in small pieces 

• Prioritize risk-reduction experiments higher 

• Integrate systems early and often to increase 

feedback 

• Support Adaptive Management in your process 

to manage complexity 


How do we Plan an Agile Program 

Effectively?! 

http://scaledagileframework.com! 


Get on the Agile Release Train! 

• The train departs the station and arrives at the next 

destination on a reliable schedule (fixed cadence; 

standard velocity, predictable releases) 

• It delivers its cargo to customers (Release) or is 

used for internal evaluation and proof of incremental 

system robustness and quality (PSI/Release). 

• If an Agile Team wants its “cargo” (code, 

documentation, etc.) to go, it has to put it there on 

time. The train will not come to them nor wait to get 

their content. 



Increase stakeholder 

satisfaction using more 

frequent feedback! 


Case Study 2007-2008! 


Pacific National Labs (PNL)! 

• Incorporated Early Ideas for Early Feedback 

• Less formal demonstrations of actual results 

• Increased number of demonstrations 4x 


Scale Adds Complexity! 

• ...transparency with tools to deal with what 

comes from this… 

2009, Gary Morgan – gary.morgan@pnl.gov 

www.scrumalliance.org/resource_download/606 




www.scrumalliance.org/resource_download/606

More than 

industry, 

you must 

create 

stakeholder 

working 

agreements 

to increase 

transparency 

without fear of 

retribution. 


www.scrumalliance.org/resource_download/606 




www.scrumalliance.org/resource_download/606

What if Gary had SAFe?! 



Manage value as a 

function of quality, cost, 

scope and schedule so 

methods like Earned 

Value encourage the 

correct behaviors ! 


Traditional EVMS Goals! 

The primary purpose of the [EVMS] system is to support 

program management* 

Scope 

Schedule 

Cost 

* Earned Value Management Systems ANSI/EIA-748-B-2007 


The Value Triangle! 

Strategic 

Value 

Required to 

make good 

Decisions 

Informs and 

Guides 

Quality 

Constraints 

(Schedule, Cost, Scope) 

Source: Jim Highsmith 


Tip! 

Focus on value 

delivery, 

informed by 

constraints and 

quality 

Rally Software! ©2011 Agile Advantage, Inc. All rights reserved.! ©2012! 

32

EVMS 3.5.8 - Planning Packages! 

• A planning package is a holding account (within a 

control account) for budget for future work that it is 

not yet practicable to plan at the work package level. 

The planning package budget is time-phased in 

accordance with known schedule requirements (due 

dates) for resource planning, and the plans are 

refined as detail requirements become clearer and 

the time to begin work draws nearer. A program may 

elect to break the work assigned to a control 

account into smaller groupings of tasks, i.e., multiple 

planning packages, for internal planning and control 

reasons. 

-Earned Value Management Systems ANSI/EIA-748-B-2007 


33

3.5.11 - Planning Package Conversion ! 

• There is no standard advance planning lookahead 

period (i.e., a planning “horizon” or 

“window”) for conversion of planning packages 

into work packages that is appropriate for all 

programs or conditions. Each organization must 

determine its own policies in this regard. 

-Earned Value Management Systems ANSI/EIA-748-B-2007 


AgileEVM can be used to   

Support Agile Contracts! 

• Because the performance measurement baseline 

(PMB) is expressed as “number of story points 

planned” rather than at the level of specific tasks, it 

allows course corrections to be made without 

disruption or re-baselining of the PMB. 

• This addresses the criticism expressed in the 

Defense Acquisition Reform Findings and 

Recommendations (DARFAR) report regarding the 

inability of traditional EVMS to identify issues related 

to “contract requirements that utterly failed to meet 

warfighter needs” [House Armed Services 

Committee 2010]. 

Agile Methods: Selected DoD Management and Acquisition Concerns, 

Carnegie Mellon University, October 2011, p. 63! 


Tip! 

Replace (un-learn) 

some company 

EVMS policies to 

support adaptive 

planning 

Rally Software! ©2011 Agile Advantage, Inc. All rights reserved.! ©2012! 

36

Closing Thoughts! 

• Take advantage of what agile has to offer so you 

don't lose the strengths of agile and traditional 

methods, creating weakness. 

• Removing strengths of waterfall and 

marginalizing strengths of agile puts us in a 

worse position... 

• It takes work: effective coaching, support, tools, 

leadership within… 


Thanks!! 

Questions?! 


Rally is the top-rated, proven partner! 

for achieving enterprise agility 

Rally’s proven formula 

combines the power of all 

three circles.   

  

Together we’ll Discover, 

Launch, Accelerate and 

Advance your organization 

to achieve full enterprise 

agility.!

CLAIM YOUR PDUs! 

• Course Name: The Federal Agile Program 

Lifecycle 

• Course ID: Agile.Gov 4 

• Provider Name: Rally Software Development 

• Provider Number: 3156 


Upcoming Events! 

Apr 17 th : Reston, VA | Scaling Agile in a Regulated 

Environment ! 

May 14th: Webcast | SaaS Security – Secure 

Development Practices ! 


Rally Software! Tweet it: #RallyGov | www.rallydev.com ! !! ©2012!

March 27 | The Federal Agile Program Lifecycle - Rally Software

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