Agile Management for Software Engineering : Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results, Portable Documents

This text explains how agile software development methods produce better business results. It aims to help managers combat the biggest business complaints about software (for example, 'late', 'doesn't deliver as promised', 'over-budget' and so forth) Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 10 Foreword......Page 22 Introduction......Page 26 Acknowledgements......Page 36 SECTION 1 Agile Management......Page 38 The Theory of Constraints......Page 40 Just-in-Time Inventory......Page 41 Lean Production......Page 42 Comparison of Theories......Page 43 Empirical Versus Defined Processes......Page 46 Chaos Theory and Uncertainty......Page 47 Emergence......Page 48 Summary......Page 49 A General System......Page 50 Throughput Accounting for General Systems......Page 52 A System of Software Development......Page 54 A More Complex Software Development System......Page 55 The System Goal......Page 57 Financial Metrics for General Business Systems......Page 58 Financial Metrics for Software Development Systems......Page 59 Predicting the Future......Page 60 Framing the Problem......Page 61 Throughput Accounting Versus Cost Accounting......Page 62 Summary......Page 65 Identify and Exploit Constraints......Page 66 Idleness Might Breed Contempt......Page 69 Elevating a Constraint......Page 70 Is the 8-Hour Day the Best Choice of System Constraint?......Page 71 Summary......Page 72 The Five Constraints of Software Development......Page 74 Aggregation Reduces Uncertainty......Page 83 Summary......Page 84 Agile Software Production Metrics......Page 86 Traditional Software Production Metrics......Page 87 Measuring Inventory in the Software Production System......Page 88 Measuring Production Quantity......Page 89 Lead Time......Page 90 Summary......Page 91 Traditional Versus RAD Model for Project Management......Page 92 Task Planning and Effort Tracking......Page 93 The Project Manager’s New Work......Page 96 Summary......Page 97 Logical Collections of Inventory......Page 100 The Critical Path and Parallel Paths......Page 101 Late Start......Page 102 Buffer Usage......Page 103 Agile Project Tracking Metrics......Page 104 Resource Constraints......Page 105 Critical Chain Versus Critical Path......Page 107 Summary......Page 108 Development Manager Role......Page 110 Product Manager Role......Page 111 Project Manager Role......Page 112 Roles Versus Positions......Page 113 Identifying Flow......Page 114 Identifying a Bottleneck......Page 116 The True Cost of a Bottleneck......Page 117 The True Cost of Poor Quality......Page 118 Regression Effects......Page 122 Improve Quality in Front of a Bottleneck......Page 123 How Batch Sizes Affect Flow......Page 125 Monitoring Cumulative Flow......Page 127 Visual Control......Page 130 Summary......Page 131 Drum Beat......Page 132 Planning Release of Requirements into the System......Page 133 Summary......Page 140 A New Maturity Model......Page 142 Summary......Page 144 Reinertsen’s Three Tiers of Control......Page 146 The Process Improvement Problem......Page 147 Governing Rules as Maturity Increases......Page 148 Governing Rules for Managers......Page 149 Team Measurements......Page 152 Turnover......Page 154 Loss of Throughput on a Constraint......Page 155 Understanding the System Constraint is Essential......Page 156 Outsource Decisions......Page 157 Attendees......Page 160 Information Rather Than Data......Page 161 Summary......Page 165 Corporate IT’s Value-Added Contribution......Page 168 Learning from Financial Metrics......Page 170 A More Profitable Corporate IT Department......Page 171 Summary......Page 173 Sales and Throughput......Page 174 Management Accounting for Product Development......Page 175 Throughput Accounting for Software Product Development......Page 176 Appropriateness of the Time-Based Throughput Model......Page 177 Throughput Versus Cost Models......Page 178 Product Mix......Page 179 Managing the Scope Constraint......Page 180 Product Mix When Revenue Is the Goal......Page 181 Product Mix, Risk, and Delay and the Effect on Operating Expense......Page 183 Summary......Page 185 Defining a Software Service......Page 186 Determining Throughput for Software Services......Page 187 Operating Expense for Services......Page 188 Attributing a Value to a Release......Page 189 Profit and ROI by Service Release......Page 190 Dealing with Uncertainty......Page 191 The Principles of Agile Methods......Page 192 Making Profitable Development Happen......Page 195 SECTION 2 A Survey of Methods......Page 198 SDLC......Page 200 Unified Development Process......Page 208 Investment......Page 214 Operating Expense......Page 215 Return on Investment in Structured Methods......Page 216 Accounting for Change......Page 217 Overview of Feature Driven Development (FDD)......Page 218 Feature Definition......Page 221 Process Steps and FDD......Page 222 Level of Effort Estimation in FDD......Page 223 Formulae for Success......Page 225 Build Batches......Page 228 User Interface Feature Sets......Page 229 Process Control in FDD......Page 230 Estimates Versus Agreed Function......Page 231 Scheduling Subject Areas and Feature Sets......Page 232 FDD Workflow......Page 234 FDD Knowledge Management System and Visual Control......Page 236 Executive Management Metrics in FDD......Page 237 Exploiting Engineering Resources......Page 238 The Developer Resource Constraint—Feature Teams and the Surgical Team......Page 239 The Setup Time Constraint—Chief Programmer Work Packages......Page 240 The Scope Constraint—Prioritized Feature Lists......Page 241 The Time Constraint and Buffers......Page 244 The Budget Constraint—Inventory Cap and Buffer......Page 246 The Test Bottleneck......Page 247 Advanced Modeling Techniques......Page 248 Inventory Management in FDD......Page 249 Morning Roll Call......Page 250 How FDD Improves the S-Curve Effect......Page 252 The Time Constraint Revisited......Page 253 Exploiting Heroic Effort......Page 256 Investment in FDD......Page 258 Operating Expense in FDD......Page 259 Value-Added in FDD......Page 260 Avoid Double-Counting......Page 261 Inventory......Page 262 Tasks......Page 263 Inventory Tracking......Page 264 Process Step Time......Page 265 Pipelining......Page 266 Metrics for Up-Management in XP......Page 267 Assessing User Stories......Page 270 The Planning Game......Page 271 Integration Testing......Page 272 Pair Programming......Page 273 Unit Testing......Page 275 Refactoring......Page 276 Generalists......Page 277 Elimination Versus Protection, Subordination, and Elevation......Page 278 Investment in XP......Page 280 Net Profit in XP......Page 281 Accounting for Rework......Page 282 The Cost of Change Curve......Page 283 Background......Page 288 Inventory......Page 289 Production Rate......Page 290 Lead Time......Page 291 Investment......Page 292 Pipelining......Page 293 Metrics for Up-Management in Scrum......Page 294 The Product Backlog......Page 296 Release......Page 297 Team Size......Page 298 Working Environment......Page 299 Engineering Practices......Page 300 Inventory Cap......Page 302 Limits of RAD Methods......Page 303 SECTION 3 Comparison of Methods......Page 306 Traditional Metrics Versus Agile Principles......Page 308 Specialists Versus Generalists......Page 309 Adding More People Makes Projects Later......Page 311 Chapter 32 States of Control and Reducing Variation......Page 314 The Threshold State......Page 316 Comprehending the Known Universe......Page 317 Improving Analysis and Modeling Maturity......Page 318 Improving the Process Maturity......Page 319 FDD Focuses on Variance as Well as Quality and Inventory......Page 320 XP Focuses on Quality and Short Lead Times......Page 321 Seek Process Maturity......Page 322 FDD......Page 324 Scrum......Page 325 Traditional Methods—UDP......Page 326 Summary......Page 327 Dividing up the Process Space......Page 328 What is Agility?......Page 330 Scale Versus Ability to Expedite......Page 331 Statistical Process Control and Agile Methods......Page 332 Transferable Quality Improvement......Page 334 Summary......Page 337 C......Page 342 E......Page 343 F......Page 344 J......Page 345 P......Page 346 R......Page 347 S......Page 348 T......Page 349 Y......Page 350

"This book does a good job of describing the methods employed at Sprintpcs.com ... over 250 people practicing Feature Driven Development and reporting their progress to me at the monthly operations review."
--Scott B. Relf, Chief Marketing Officer, Sprint PCS

"A tremendous contribution to the literature in the field. This should be required reading for all development teams going forward."
--John F. Yuzdepski, VP & GM, Openwave Systems

A breakthrough approach to managing agile software development, Agile methods might just be the alternative to outsourcing. However, agile development must scale in scope and discipline to be acceptable in the boardrooms of the Fortune 1000. In Agile Management for Software Engineering, David J. Anderson shows managers how to apply management science to gain the full business benefits of agility through application of the focused approach taught by Eli Goldratt in his Theory of Constraints.

Whether you're using XP, Scrum, FDD, or another agile approach, you'll learn how to develop management discipline for all phases of the engineering process, implement realistic financial and production metrics, and focus on building software that delivers maximum customer value and outstanding business results.Coverage includes:

• Making the business case for agile methods: practical tools and disciplines
• How to choose an agile method for your next project
• Breakthrough application of Critical Chain Project Management and constraint-driven control of the flow of value
• Defines the four new roles for the agile manager in software projects-- and competitive IT organizations

Whether you're a development manager, project manager, team leader, or senior IT executive, this book will help you achieve all four of your most urgent challenges: lower cost, faster delivery, improved quality, and focused alignment with the business.

The author shows managers how to apply management science to gain the full business benefits of agility through application of the focused approach taught by Eli Goldratt in his Theory of constraints. Whether you're using XP, Scrum, FDD, or another agile approach, you'll learn how to develop management discipline for all phases of the engineering process, implement realistic financial and production metrics, and focus on building software that delivers maximum customer value and outstanding business results. Coverage includes: Making the business case for agile methods: practical tools and disciplines; How to choose an agile method for your next project; Breakthrough application of critical chain project management and constraint-driven control of the flow of value; Defines the four new roles for the agile manager in software projects -- and competitive IT organizations. Whether you're a development manager, project manager, team leader, or senior IT executive, this book will help you achieve all four of your most urgent challenges: lower cost, faster delivery, improved quality, and focused alignment with the business Theories for agile management Management accounting for systems TOC in software production Dealing with uncertainty Software production metrics Agile project management Agile project planning The agile manager's new work Agile development management Software resource planning An agile maturity model Setting the governing rules Staffing decisions Operations review Agile management in the IT department Agile product management Financial metrics for software services The business benefit of agile methods Production metrics for traditional methods Financial metrics in traditional methods Production metrics in FDD Project management with FDD FDD process elements explained Financial metrics in FDD Production metrics in extreme programming XP process elements explained Financial metrics in XP Production metrics in Scrum Scrum process elements explained RAD process elements explained Devil's advocacy States of control and reducing variation Comparison of production metrics Applicability of agile methods. This book is certainly about software development management, but it is also a book about business. Managers can no longer afford to discuss these two topics independently. This book is meant to eliminate the seat-of-the-pants intuition and rough approximations that have been far too prevalent in software development management. The growing popularity of agile methods has shown that a healthy balance between strict process and individual flexibility can be achieved. David Anderson takes it a step farther, and explains how the healthy balance of agility can help businesses become more profitable. The result is a book that will allow managers to foster teams that produce better software, less expensively, on time, and with fewer defects.