The Art of Product Management
The phrase “There is an art to this job” usually means there is something opaque about it that can’t be easily defined.
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From the outside, Agile Development might look like a single set of practices. But once you get into it, you see that Agile practitioners swear by many different techniques. How do you figure out which are right for you and your team?
Never fear, the Pragmatic Agilist has you covered. Here is a run-down of agile pros and cons from various frameworks and techniques. (Except where noted, definitions come from the Agile Alliance’s Agile Glossary)
Agile BDD Definition: Agile BDD is a practice where members of the team discuss the expected behavior of a system in order to build a shared understanding of expected functionality. It synthesizes and refines practices stemming from Test Driven Development (TDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD).
BDD Advantages: BDD Agile puts the focus on delivering specific functionality rather than the smallest possible unit. This is important because it ensures you are delivering the value the business needs.
BDD Disadvantages: You’re measuring functionality but not necessarily the quality of the underlying work. Unless you are also doing test-driven development, you run the risk of building the right thing the wrong way — with code that is harder to maintain or extend later. Also, there are fewer software tools available to support BDD.
Distributed Agile Model Definition: Distributed Agile development refers to the use of Agile team members in different locations, organizations and even time zones. Rather than in-person meetings, agile software development with distributed teams uses instant messaging, email, videoconferencing and other tools to coordinate their day-to-day work.
Advantages of Distributed Agile Team: Distributed Agile development makes it possible to escape any constraints of space or skills and experience in your immediate location. Modern collaboration tools like Slack, Skype, Teams and Hangouts have made this possible. You can actually work together on stories without being in the same place, and ask questions without disturbing your coworkers’ flow.
Trust, rapport and communication are still essential. That’s why distributed Agile works best when you have at least two teammates in any given location, they meet face-to-face periodically, and understand each other’s language and culture well. It’s helpful to have the whole team within a short flight and similar time zones, so you can easily collaborate physically as well as virtually when needed. That team solidarity makes all the difference when you’re trying to crack a tough problem, get business or user feedback, or just onboard new team members.
Distributed Agile Challenges: Agile works best when there is fast, frequent communication through standups and other formal and informal collaboration. That’s why traditional Agilists believe it only works when teams are 100% co-located.
My experience is that you can absolutely achieve this strong collaboration across a time zone or two, but it starts to fall apart and common problems with distributed agile surface when there are significant time zone, language and culture gaps. The point of a stand-up is for the team to communicate and move forward. You can have a decent global status meeting, but trying to pick a time where everyone can be effective in a global standup is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Kanban Definition: “The Kanban Method is a means to design, manage, and improve flow systems for knowledge work. The method also allows organizations to start with their existing workflow and drive evolutionary change. They can do this by visualizing their flow of work, limit work in progress (WIP) and stop starting and start finishing. The Kanban Method gets its name from the use of Kanban: visual signaling mechanisms to control work in progress for intangible work products.”
Advantages of Kanban Methodology: Kanban is good for scenarios such as managing support tickets where you don’t always know when the work is coming in. It’s especially useful when you may have an alternate method of measuring value/productivity, such as defects closed. Kanban also allows you to spend less time in “overhead” activities like daily standup, demos and retrospectives. (Read article on using Kanban in DevOps)
Disadvantages of Kanban System: Kanban can be difficult for teams new to Agile because the process is not clearly defined like it is with other methodologies. There is no demo, so the team doesn’t get feedback from the business about whether they’re delivering the right thing. And since there is no Sprint retrospective, improving your process can be difficult. You can easily get stuck in a bad process indefinitely.
Pair Programming Definition: Pair programming in agile consists of two programmers sharing a single workstation (one screen, keyboard and mouse between the pair). The programmer at the keyboard is usually called the ‘driver’; the other, also actively involved in the programming task but focusing more on overall direction is the ‘navigator’; it is expected that the programmers swap roles every few minutes or so.
Advantages of Pair Programming in Agile: Pair programming is designed for working through complex tasks. It’s also great for knowledge transfer when you’re onboarding a new developer. With Pair programming, you improve overall quality.
Pair Programming Challenges: Agile methodology pair programming can be overkill for routine tasks, such as when a pattern has already been established, or when creating value objects. Having two developers working on these tasks together is probably not the best way to spend the business’s money. Also, some developers are much happier and more productive working on their own. I suggest you let them. I’m an advocate for pair programming in agile, as long as you give your teams some autonomy when it makes sense and when it doesn’t.
Scrum Methodology Definition: Scrum is a process framework used to manage product development and other knowledge work. Scrum is empirical in that it provides a means for teams to establish a hypothesis of how they think something works, try it out, reflect on the experience, and make the appropriate adjustments.
Pros of Scrum: Scrum offers clear definitions of process. This means team members know exactly what’s expected of them. There are lots of checkpoints to make sure you’re continuing to deliver value and not going off the rails. Overall, Scrum is a great methodology for product development.
Disadvantages of Scrum Methodology: Scrum is a struggle when teams only know the processes—“the things we do”—without fully understanding why we do them. For example, a daily standup is supposed to be a quick huddle to provide transparency and uncover roadblocks to move a project forward. But a bad standup can turn into 40-minute status report. It might make the business feel good, but it doesn’t propel the work. Similarly, agile retrospective questions without candid reflection can turn into “pat on the back” sessions instead of opportunities to improve future sprints.
Definition:Test-driven development is a style of programming in which three activities are tightly interwoven: coding, testing (in the form of writing unit tests) and design (in the form of refactoring).
Agile TDD Definition: Test-driven development or TDD is a style of programming in which three activities are tightly interwoven: coding, testing (in the form of writing unit tests) and design (in the form of refactoring).
Advantages of TDD in Agile: TDD enforces better quality programming. With TDD, you write just enough code to satisfy the test. This results in more modular, leaner code that is not only tested but more extensible and maintainable. TDD also leads to reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).. You have fewer defects. You also catch defects earlier in cycle when it costs less to fix.
TDD Disadvantages: TDD can take four to six months to gain proficiency. During that ramp-up period, TDD will slow you down. TDD also requires additional up-front investment. But that is eventually offset by lower long-term costs.
While these are some of the most common Agile techniques and practices, this list is far from exhaustive. The important thing to bear in mind is that Agile isn’t a rigid book of rules and regulations.
It’s a flexible, iterative approach to software development that’s especially well-suited to businesses striving for a product mindset, with its emphasis on agility, speed-to-market and customer experience. Different organizations will get there in different ways, but all of them can benefit from finding a flavor of Agile that works for them.
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