Calmly going where no (wo)man has gone before (or have they?)

My colleague and I are setting up an agile consultancy within an existing consulting firm, Qualogy. Our mission is twofold – spread the agile word, increase agile expertise among our own consultants and build and promote an agile services portfolio. I've been involved for about a year and although we have a long way to go, things are really beginning to take shape.

Because of the nature of our mission we are always looking for ways of killing two birds with one stone. For instance, we offer (agile) training to our partners and clients, but also to our own consultants, which has the double function of increasing agile expertise all round while hopefully making a name for Qualogy as an agile provider. This is easier said than done however and we're not the first to think along these lines; the market is nearing saturation point. We try and set ourselves apart by concentrating on technique over process and by getting the very best to come and offer courses not easily available elsewhere (in the Netherlands). For example, Ron Jeffries & Chet Hendrickson have been to Qualogy twice to deliver hands-on agile development training.

Recently we added Gojko Adzic's Specification by Example training to our portfolio. As is our policy, Wouter & I attended this first instance of the course at Qualogy. Due to some late cancellations from our own consultants we could only claim a tarnished victory – good service to our clients, not much penetration among our own consultants. This slight disappointment did not impinge (much, after a while :-)) on my enjoyment of the course though. As is always the case with when attending these courses, I'm not just interested in the material but also in how the course is run. Adzic was a joy to watch.

This post is not however about the course itself, or even Gojko's admirable delivery of same. As Adzic himself writes, and as was clear from how he delivered the course, Specification by Example is method/framework/etc. agnostic. He tended to use lean terminology during the course, speaking as he did of bottlenecks and/or the theory of constraints as opposed to impediments for instance, while at the same time, his explicit insistence on cross-functional collaboration smacked of agile. What I would like to share from my learning is the realisation that Specification by Example (or BDD or A-TDD) might well be the M (mashup) we so badly missed at CALM alpha!

At CALM alpha, Dave Snowden named three heuristics that seemed to offer common ground between (social) complexity, agile and lean; fine-grained objects, cognitive spread and dis-intermediation. Fine-grained objects meaning; small well-defined stories, short clearly-demarcated iterations etc, cognitive spread meaning; input and reasoning from multiple perspectives & interests, set-based design etc and dis-intermediation meaning; visualisation, no separation of design & implementation, narrowing the gap between information and meaning etc.

Back to our Specification by Example course – Gojko was prompted a number of times during the course to state that any specification which required an ever-growing list of examples to illustrate it should be split. While working on turning 'classic' requirements into specifications with examples, merge&diverge was explicitly employed to ensure the best results. But it was while examining a bunch of specifications with examples for how useful they might be as respectively, a tool for shared understanding, acceptance tests and/or documentation, that I was struck by why I had found this idea of living documentation so powerful all along.

Requirements that are tests that are documentation – no handovers, no translations, no interpretations, no esoteric jargon pitting one guild against another – that's lean, that's agile. Specification by Example is the ultimate in dis-intermediation!

Lean and Kanban 2011 BE - A narrative

The day before the Lean & Kanban 2011 Benelux conference started I was still undecided as to whether I should head for Antwerp that evening as planned or take an early train the next morning (my Sunday was proving to be busier than I had envisaged). I eventually plumbed for the riskier option of the early train (departure 6 am), which was possible because my colleague had gone to Antwerp as planned and secured the room in our hotel. I had unwittingly set a marker for myself; early rises and mental gymnastics would define my week. I had also exercised real options.

I arrived in Antwerp as scheduled. Having had just enough time to catch up with my colleague, register and marvel at the industrial aesthetics of the revamped hangar where the conference was taking place, I settled in for the first keynote: “Rethinking Deming” by Don Reinertsen. Given the context, it seemed that someone was spoiling for a fight. Those of us who enjoy (intellectual) confrontation, especially when peppered with rhetorical flourish, were not disappointed. Not knowing Deming (or statistics) as well as I might I took the whole thing at face value; food for thought. I did however enjoy his trashing of the red bead game (“an entertaining con”) and identified with some of his reservations about the deeper (“terrifying”) implications of some elements of systems thinking (the well-designed system aims to totally emasculate the individual). Reinertsen also introduced the idea of random drift – an accumulation of (random) events affects events in the future (by changing the system through incremental feedback) – I'm sure if this idea was developed, chaos, tipping points and complexity theory generally would quickly come into play.

For the rest of the morning I followed a case study. Three different speakers (or speaker pairs) took us through their experiences with specific transitions which they had guided or were busy guiding. This session delivered plenty of practical know-how and it was followed by a lively discussion. Although I had hoped to pick up some pointers on dealing with that most difficult element of change processes – the sceptic - we didn't get much farther than a version of “build it and they will come”. Which is fine, but it introduces a chicken-an-egg problem; how to demonstrate without investing?

After lunch on day one I followed the Real Options and BDD/Testing track. The notion of Real Options appeals to me, as do its cousins set based design (which Michael Kennedy talked on on day 2) and BDD. Here again however I was left wondering how to convince the sceptical that set based design/real options was worth a try as an economically sound way to realise value (when not given the opportunity to actually demonstrate).

As if in tune with my concerns generally on aids to persuasion, Mark Robinson brought the afternoon to a close with a refreshingly old-style presentation in which he used an ingeniously simple spreadsheet to demonstrate the effects of various WIP limits on throughput. Limiting WIP is anathema to many managers as they think it will reduce their efficiency, which it might, but I feel its efficacy we should be after and not total(ly illusory) efficiency.

Dave Snowden delivered the afternoon keynote. The gist of his talk (and I do his erudition, learning and sense of humour no justice by summarising it thus) was that context should be instrumental in determining appropriate action and that only well understood theory could help us decide what to do when faced with varying contexts in practice. Snowden continued in the combative spirit displayed by Reinertsen in the morning keynote by energetically stepping on some absolutist toes, claiming for instance that systems thinking was Talyorism by another name. His message was that kanban is not Truth and neither is Lean, nor is it Scrum, or anything else for that matter; context determines truth. Whereby Snowden of course cleverly laid claim to the Truth (There is no Truth, only truths). I was enjoying myself thoroughly!

On day 2 Alan Shalloway's opening keynote was also informed by the tension between the individual and the system. For the sake of argument he had chosen to state that it was “all about the people” but the point that he was actually making was that it is all about the interplay of individuals and the system which they inhabit/cause to emerge. Complex systems and their constituents co-evolve. Matter is both particle and wave. Man is both nature and nurture. It's all about the feedback.

After lunch I attended Bob Marshall & Grant Rule's double session on understanding effectiveness and the possibilities that Rightshifting delivers for managing same. This was all so completely new to me that I won't trouble you with half formulated thoughts on it. Suffice it to say that I am busy studying the Marshall model and hungrily consuming anything I can find on chaordic organisations.

And then there was Jim Benson, what a delight this guy was! He's allergic to powerpoint and delivered his utterly engaging and frequently funny talk strolling back and forth between two flip-charts; one was his kanban and the other was his whiteboard so to speak. As he spoke and wrote and drew, he moved sticky notes appropriately on his planning chart thereby breezily guiding his impressive delivery while keeping his process & progress transparent to all. It was a virtuoso performance in the application of kanban. The subject matter was substantively different to that which had come before too; we were talking the psychology of kanban.

I liked Benson's idea of existential overload. As I mentioned, my week was to be one of short nights and heavy cerebral exercise - my 2 days at LKBE were followed up by three days of CSD training with Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson. At one point during that training Ron, in explaining one of the positive side effects of test driven development, told a story of how TDD had effected his wife's (!) life for the better. Ron, as he was sure many of the programmers in the room were too, was smart enough to keep many things in his head at the one time, and be dealing with many issues simultaneously, and investigating a few options in different areas from various perspectives all at the same time while also wondering how he might approach that other problem but that if his wife came to ask him what he wanted to eat for dinner that evening at that precise moment, that he would suddenly yell at her at the top of his voice that he was damn well THINKING, HOW COULD he know what he wanted to have for dinner?!?!?!? TDD allowed Ron to deal with things; start something, develop it, finish it. And so on. It helped him keep a clean, clear mind, with plenty of room for dealing with unexpected pleasantries like an invitation to dinner from his loving spouse.

On the other hand, I was troubled somewhat by another phenomenon that Benson mentioned; the Zeigarnik-effect. According to studies conducted by Bluma Zeigarnik we retain memories of unfinished work better than we retain memories of that which we have brought to completion. That strikes me in a way as a slightly depressing finding. If completion is equivalent to success and that which is unfinished represents failure, and we remember failure at the expense of success, then we're doomed to be pretty miserable animals aren't we? But if that's what the science says... Luckily there is somereason to doubt the veracity of Zeigarnik's findings but that doesn't take away from the general guideline; getting stuff done feels good.

Most interestingly, in the light of the undercurrent of (largely good natured?) tribal nettle throughout the conference, Benson spoke about methodologies as liberation theologies: Our life sucks because we're oppressed by some methodology-or-other. But, then some-NEW-methodology-or-other comes along and liberates us, we feel good because we are free and we decide some-methodology-or-other is okay. But as time goes on, we get all caught up in the rules, aren't going anywhere and are feeling all oppressed again. He called it the cycle of Liberation, Redemption & Addiction, which he laid on top of the story arc; Birth, Life & Resolution, which he laid on top of the kanban lanes; Ready, In-Progress & Done. It was all getting very universal.

John Seddon - “It's the system stupid!” - delivered the conference's closing keynote. He came to wipe the floor with everybody who had gone before and did that with an abrasive elan. Reinertsen had upset him, Snowden was full of it, other systems thinkers hated him. He really didn't care because he knew nothing about software development except this one thing; if you did as he said you should, you would do it better! What he said was, "Study, study, study!"

Surely safe-to-fail probes, set-based design and real options, OODA loops, PDCA cycles, and/or study, study, study are all variations on the theme of “inspect & adapt”. In order to inspect meaningfully and adapt successfully, systems must be extended incrementally via short iterations - it's all about the feedback stupid!

There will always be a better way to do things.

Agile contracting (testing, testing, testing)

As you may have noticed dear reader, I have been less regular of late. Holidays can do that to a body. Holidays or writer's block!

Recently I have embarked on a journey of discovery in the world of (automated) testing. A wonderful world it is too. I've subscribed to magazines, and read my Crispin & Gregory, I've discovered James Bach and Cem Kaner and Ward Cunningham, I've learned about Dan North's BDD and Liz Keogh, and that people can be test-obsessed. I've even joined a tester's social network. My appetite has been whetted and I'm keen to find out about specification by example.

Along the way, I've also been getting down and dirty with Java JDKs, Eclipse this and Eclipse that, Subversion and Maven and Sonar and Hudson, Java script, GWT, Flex, and Selenium. Hopefully I can add Fitnesse to that list shortly too. And then there's test theory; model testing, domain testing, permutations & combinations, set theory and so on... I, most recently and for many years now a project manager, am decidedly uncomfortable!

I thought all this would at least yield a couple of good blog posts (continuous improvement?). Fat chance. To-date at any rate.

In other news - our first assignment to coach a transition was confirmed today. Wouter and I are completely new to the acquisition side of things but we thought agile and guess what; it works for contracting too!

Agile contracting

We sat down together to explore possibilities	–	we didn't send Sales to see Purchasing
We ran one of our workshops on-site	–	we didn't pitch
We investigated opportunities for mutual benefit	–	we didn't negotiate terms up-front
We agreed on a framework for co-operation	–	we didn't write statements of work

    -o-

The actual contract to come out of all of this will incorporate change-for-free & money-for-nothing type clauses. 

I'm sure I will be back to my usual prolix self the next time we meet!