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2016 | Book

The Need for Tamed Agility Read chapter Read first chapter

Tamed Agility

Pragmatic Contracting and Collaboration in Agile Software Projects

Authors: Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book describes pragmatic instruments and methods that enable business experts and software engineers to develop a common understanding of the software to be created, to determine their key requirements, and to manage the project in a way that fosters trust, encourages innovation and distributes risk fairly between clients and contractors.

After an introduction to the fundamentals of agile software development in Part I, Part II describes the Interaction Room, an actual room where digitalization and mobilization strategies are developed, where technology potentials are evaluated, where software projects are planned and managed, and where business and technical stakeholders can communicate face to face, visualize complex relationships intuitively, and highlight value, effort and risk drivers that are keys to the project’s success. After addressing these constructive aspects, the book focuses on the commercial aspects of software development: The adVANTAGE contract model described in Part III ensures that the insight-driven innovation process of software development does not just function, but is allowed to flourish in a trusted client-contractor relationship. Even though software contracting and construction may be grounded in two different academic disciplines, they are inseparable in practice, and how they interact is illustrated in the case study of developing a private health insurance benefit system in Part IV. Ultimately though, the success of every software project depends on the skills of the stakeholders. Part V therefore describes the qualification profile that software engineers and domain experts have to satisfy today.

This book is aimed at CIOs, project managers and software engineers in industrial software development practice who want to learn how to effectively deal with the inevitable uncertainty of complex projects, who want to achieve higher levels of understanding and cooperation in their relationships with clients and contractors, and who want to run lower-risk software projects despite their inherent uncertainties.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Introduction

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. The Need for Tamed Agility
Abstract
This chapter highlights conditions and expectations that IT professionals have to work with today, especially those that introduce uncertainty and the need for interdisciplinary understanding into software projects. The chapter then gives a brief overview of key features of common agile methods, illustrating how they help to address the shortcomings of plan-driven methods, but in particular also pointing out the limits of the support they provide. Finally, the chapter argues that many limitations of agile approaches stem from a too radical application of their practices, and suggests a more pragmatic approach that combines concepts from traditional and agile development paradigms and can be tailored to individual project conditions.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer

The Interaction Room

Frontmatter
Chapter 2. A Room for Ideas
Abstract
This chapter defines the aim of the Interaction Room—fostering understanding between stakeholders and focusing their communication on those aspects that are critical to the success of a project—and describes key principles that shape the Interaction Room method. These principles include for example involving domain experts, favoring relevance over completeness, favoring clarity over precision, defining value and effort drivers, managing late as well as early requirements, revealing uncertainties early, making cost changes transparent, and building trust between stakeholders.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 3. Interaction Room Basics
Abstract
This chapter introduces the structural and methodical features of the Interaction Room—modeling the system informally from different perspectives, annotating models to highlight value, risk, and effort drivers, and monitoring the project’s progress and the evolution of its risks. The chapter also describes the roles of the stakeholders that should work together in an Interaction Room and suggests how to prepare for and follow up on an Interaction Room workshop.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 4. Using an Interaction Room for Digitalization Strategy Development (IR:digital)
Abstract
This chapter describes how an Interaction Room is used in the early phases of digitalization initiatives in order to identify an organization’s digitalization potential and to identify candidates for concrete digitalization projects that should be pursued. The chapter shows how the partner canvas is used to gain an overview of the involved stakeholders, how the physical object canvas is used to identify key objects of interest, and how the touchpoint canvas is used to analyze customer journeys that would benefit from digitalization. The chapter concludes with an outlook on how the insights gained in the IR:digital can spark follow-up IT project scoping activities.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 5. Using an Interaction Room for Software Project Scoping (IR:scope)
Abstract
This chapter describes how an Interaction Room is used in the initial phase of a software development project in order to help business and technical stakeholders to understand both the application domain and the technical constraints of the system under development. The chapter shows how the feature canvas is used to gain an overview of the projects’ requirements, how the process canvas is used to sketch relevant business processes, how the object canvas is used to map out relevant business objects, and how the integration canvas is used to identify interfaces to surrounding systems. The chapter concludes with an outlook on how the insights gained in the IR:scope can drive a follow-up software development project.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 6. Using an Interaction Room for Mobile Application Development (IR:mobile)
Abstract
This chapter describes how an Interaction Room is used in the development of mobile applications, helping business and technical stakeholders leverage the unique features of mobile devices in order to generate a user experience (UX) that is tailored as closely as possible to the users’ needs. The chapter shows how the persona canvas is used to understand the different groups of users that will work with the application, how the portfolio canvas is used to analyze the market in which the mobile application will compete, how the touchpoint canvas is used to identify points in the customer journey that are particularly suitable for mobile support, and how the interaction canvas can be used to sketch the UX of the mobile application. The chapter concludes with an outlook on how the insights gained in the IR:mobile can drive a follow-up mobile software development project.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 7. Using an Interaction Room for Technology Evaluation (IR:tech)
Abstract
This chapter describes how an Interaction Room is used to evaluate the disruptive and constructive potential of novel technologies (such as big data analysis) for an organization’s business and its IT. The chapter shows how the feature canvas is used to identify relevant features of a system or business that are affected by novel technologies, and how the process, object, and integration canvases are used to examine opportunities for restructuring and optimization brought about by novel technologies. The chapter concludes with an outlook on how the insights gained in the IR:tech can spark follow-up projects in which the organizations’ business and IT is refactored based on identified technology innovations.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 8. Using an Interaction Room for Agile Project Monitoring (IR:agile)
Abstract
This chapter describes how an Interaction Room is used to keep track of the progress, the risks, and the cost of an ongoing software project. It describes how the insights gained in an Interaction Room support estimation and prioritization of features in sprint planning workshops, how the requirements exchange can help to deal with late requirements without exceeding the project’s budget and schedule, how the risk map helps stakeholders to stay aware of aspects that may jeopardize the project, and how cost forward progressing is used to continually forecast the project’s effort based on the team’s performance.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 9. Using Interaction Rooms Under Difficult Conditions
Abstract
This chapter describes how the Interaction Room method can be applied under circumstances where a full-fledged physical Interaction Room is not available. This includes scenarios that require the setup of temporary Interaction Rooms and scenarios in which the team is distributed across multiple locations. The chapter also gives an outlook on the extended kinds of collaboration support that digitally augmented versions of the Interaction Room can offer.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 10. Summary
Abstract
This chapter briefly summarizes the benefits that an Interaction Room offers for different types of projects that organizations’ IT departments are facing today, given the challenges of digitalization, mobilization, and cyber-physicalization of business processes in virtually every application domain. The chapter also provides guidance on project characteristics that indicate particular affinity for the use of an Interaction Room.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer

The adVANTAGE Contract Model

Frontmatter
Chapter 11. Framing Software Projects in Commercial Terms
Abstract
This chapter highlights the mismatch between agile practices and traditional software delivery contracts. A higher degree of trust and communication between client and supplier is required by contracts that reflect agile principles, since both parties share a responsibility for eliminating risks and uncertainties, and working efficiently toward successful project completion. The chapter sets up a framework for characterizing contract models by project character and model of cooperation that will be used to discuss different approaches to traditional and agile contracting in the following chapters.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 12. Traditional Contract Models in an Agile World
Abstract
This chapter gives a brief overview of traditional contract principles (starting from a discussion of why contracts are important and necessary in the first place) and focuses on the challenges that arise when trying to apply these to agile projects. In this light, the chapter discusses fixed price contracts, time and materials contracts as well as pay-per-use contracts. The discussion shows the need for contract models that are more reflective of agile practices, and reconcile the customers’ and suppliers’ risk-containment needs.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 13. Agile Contract Models
Abstract
This chapter gives an overview of more flexible contract models that have been proposed in various domains, and examines their applicability to agile software development. The chapter discusses fixed price per iteration and fixed price per point models, the “money for nothing, change for free” model and the “shared pain/shared gain” model, as well as multi-stage contract models. In discussing these models, the chapter specifically takes into account the constraints and motivations that customers may be bound by, and the mechanisms that the different contract models provide to assign risk to the contract parties.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 14. Key adVANTAGE Principles
Abstract
This chapter motivates the need for a more “tamed” agile contract model that reflects agile project practices while balancing risks fairly. It describes the principles underlying the adVANTAGE contract model—a commitment to agility, mutual trust between the contract parties, both parties’ willingness to assume risk, and incentive to work efficiently toward lean software.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 15. adVANTAGE Procedures
Abstract
This chapter describes the steps to be taken in the course of an adVANTAGE-based project. The chapter combines an explanation of the contract model’s features (estimation techniques, regular and reduced daily rates, incentives, billing mechanics) with a description of their integration into the phases of an agile development process (kickoff, sprints, termination).
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 16. adVANTAGE in Practice
Abstract
This chapter illustrates how to implement the adVANTAGE model in practice using the example of an actual project that was negotiated and executed following the principles and procedures described in the previous chapters. The chapter also discusses how the parameters of the contract model should be fine-tuned to accommodate different project situations.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 17. Summary
Abstract
This chapter briefly summarizes the adVANTAGE contract model’s key principles and steps and discusses project characteristics that make a project more or less suitable for adoption of the adVANTAGE model.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer

A Sample Project

Frontmatter
Chapter 18. Case Study: The Cura Health Insurance Benefit System
Abstract
This chapter introduces the context for the case study that will be described in the following chapters to illustrate the use of the Interaction Room in a large-scale software development project, namely the development of the Cura health insurance benefit system. The chapter briefly describes the application domain in which this system operates, as well as the background against which the project took place.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 19. Initial Project Scoping with the IR:scope
Abstract
This chapter describes the population of the Interaction Room in the Cura case study. It illustrates how the team worked with the Interaction Room canvases in a project of high complexity and gives an idea of appropriate levels of abstraction. The chapter also illustrates how the canvases were annotated, and how the annotations were interpreted, to assess the impact of value, risk, and effort drivers in this project’s context.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 20. Project Monitoring with the IR:agile
Abstract
This chapter describes how the insights gained in the Cura project’s inception using the IR:scope were carried into the project’s execution. It also shows how the techniques of the IR:agile and the adVANTAGE contract model were used to plan sprints, monitor risks, bill features, and forecast efforts as the project progressed.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 21. Lessons Learned
Abstract
This chapter reflects on the experiences from the case study presented in the previous chapters, as well as the larger body of experience gained by companies applying the Interaction Room and adVANTAGE techniques, and highlights a number of observations that will be valuable for future applications of both approaches. This includes dealing with incompleteness and uncertainty, focusing on business aspects, working with the various Interaction Room canvases, managing effort estimates and forecasts, and combining the constructive and commercial aspects of software development.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer

Conclusion

Frontmatter
Chapter 22. The Big Picture
Abstract
This chapter reflects on the challenges that software engineers face in modern IT projects that are shaped by the trends of digitalization, mobilization, and cyber-physicalization, and summarizes the benefits that the Interaction Room and the adVANTAGE contract model offer in this context.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 23. A New Skill Set
Abstract
This chapter discusses the skill set that today’s IT projects require beyond pure technical competence: the pragmatic consideration of established practices, the ability to communicate and collaborate openly and effectively across disciplines, an awareness of one’s own uncertainty and limits of understanding, and the ability to focus on those system aspects that provide the most value to the customer. Besides general software technology and methodology skills, the chapter in particular focuses on skills related to dealing with the challenges introduced by mobility, agility, and flexibility of applications, as well as the increasing need for in-depth domain knowledge.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Chapter 24. Outlook: Twelve Hypotheses
Abstract
This chapter concludes the book by formulating twelve hypotheses that give an outlook on how enterprise IT is changing. This change is not triggered by one single megatrend, buzzword, or idea. Rather, numerous developments are intertwining, jointly causing fundamental change in how business and IT work together and define each other.
Matthias Book, Volker Gruhn, Rüdiger Striemer
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Tamed Agility
Authors
Matthias Book
Volker Gruhn
Rüdiger Striemer
Copyright Year
2016
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-41478-2
Print ISBN
978-3-319-41476-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41478-2

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