Agile Value Creation

This page hosts a growing collection of resources for customers, managers, analysts, consultants and others with business expertise whose organizations evaluate or apply agile methods to create business value. Additions are encouraged. Related experience, ideas and information are also exchanged in the agile-value-creation e-group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agilevaluecreation/

Articles

ArieVanDeursen: Workshop on Customer Involvement at XP2001 (http://www.cwi.nl/~arie/wci2001/, http://www.cwi.nl/~arie/wci2001/wci-report.pdf)

Mary Poppendieck: article comparing agile methods with lean manufacturing (http://www.poppendieck.com/lean.htm)

KentBeck: One Team article (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/files/One%20Team.doc)

HakanErdogmus and JohnFavaro: option pricing theory applied to agile methods; chapter in XpPerspectives titled Keep Your Options Open: Extreme Programming and the Economics of Flexibility.

HakanErdogmus and LaurieWilliams: economic analysis of pair programming; appendix in PairProgrammingIlluminated.

RonJeffries: How does business analysis fit into the agile picture? (http://www.xprogramming.com/xpmag/BizAnalysis.htm)

AlistairCockburn and LaurieWilliams: "The Costs and Benefits of Pair Programming" (http://collaboration.csc.ncsu.edu/laurie/Papers/XPSardinia.PDF)

RoyMiller: Cutting through the hype of XP (http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-xp0813/?loc=j)

Books by customers, managers and other business folks

(anything in the works?)

Books by developers (at least partly for customers, managers etc.)

KenAuer and RoyMiller: "XP Applied: Playing To Win" (Chps. 3-6: Resistance & Attitude, Chp. 27: Selling XP, ...)

PeteMcBreen: "Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative" (Chp. 17: Experience--The Best Indicator for Project Success)

Presentations

Colston Sanger and Aidan Ward: XB presentation at XPday 2001 (http://xpday.xpdeveloper.com/slides/eXtremeBusiness_genericfont.ppt)

Other

Agile Hour (http://www.xp.be/xpgame/, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExtremeHour)

Quotes

"Customers don't speak the language of [agile methods] and they shouldn't have to. [Agile methods] should speak the language of business."

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"The business case for [agile methods] has not been made as completely as it needs to be. That is what should be done next. The only way to do that is to experiment at the boundaries of the discipline and to determine what 'agile' means in a context broader than the software portion of projects having a single team of fewer than 10 or 12 software developers. Those companies that participate in helping make the business case for agile methods will lead the way to the future of software development and business in general. We are playing to win. Are you?"

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"There is nothing more frustrating to a developer than seeing their hard work go to waste."

-- MartinFowler (The New Methodology: The Role of Business Leadership)

"There is a fundamental difference between defining requirements and making business decisions."

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"[An agile method] requires a real balance of power between business and development. It can be hard to achieve. If you are a manager, you have to know when you can't push. Sometimes it is as simple as making sure that you aren't the customer. Find someone else to play customer and have that person and the rest of the team report to you. Manage the relationship."

-- MichaelFeathers (The Tipping Point)

"Finally, to make the customer role work well the 'gold owner' and the 'goal donor' must be lined up completely. [...] In a perfect world, these are the same person. In the real world they rarely are. Getting the gold owner and goal donor to agree on project direction, priorities, and resources is sometimes the most challenging part of software development."

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"[High] flexibility places heavier responsibility on the customer team (including senior executives who are setting overall company priorities) to produce adequate strategic plans."

-- Annie Griffin (A Customer Experience: Implementing XP, XPUniverse 2001)

"The hardest thing for many customers to learn is that concrete estimates based on vague requirements aren't very reliable."

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"Recently, the development director and the director of program management [in San Antonio]-the two who were the most skeptical going in-told me they would never again do anything other than XP. I said, 'maybe you're too bought-in. No process is perfect.'"

-- Carlos Cortez, Director of Program Management, Symantec

"[T]he real test is whether it is a sound business decision to go with the more sophisticated design. Instead of arguing with the other developers [...] let the customer make the call."

-- KenAuer and RoyMiller (XP Applied: Playing To Win)

"Specialization is not by choice. When things get too complicate, and no single person can master all, then some of us become a specialist for something."

-- Jin Li (XA egroup)

"This [...] was amplified by the fact that neither the developers nor the customers considered talking to each other as their 'real job', easily considering time invested in talking to each other as wasted."

-- ArieVanDeursen (Workshop on Customer Involvement)

"The honesty in regards to what is doable that results when XP is practiced is causing interesting ripples 'above' the group. In this particular case, upper levels of management appear to be interested in knowing more about what is really happening."

-- Jeff (XA egroup)