The panel consisted of (from Left to Right) Linda Rising, David Hussman, Angela Martin, Mary Poppendieck and myself. Joshua Kerievsky did a fantastic job of moderating the session. I was terrified and Angela confided in my afterward that so was she but to see my hands shaking at the start had given her courage. We were only allowed to speak when we were holding onto a fluffy kiwi bird toy. The toy was soon criss-crossing the room from the panel to the audience. Only one person in the audience was a customer, most people were developers. More than XP Day 3.
I had planned my opening comments on the train to Garmish. I’m glad I did because nerves meant that my mind went blank the moment the session started. I just read out my planned statement. Once the questions started I got into the flow of things and started to enjoy myself. I had planned my first iteration but after that responded to change over following the plan
Key points that I remember
Angela pointed out that on most of the projects she has interviewed, the customer was overloaded and suffering from overwork (80 hour weeks!!!) whereas the development team were working a relaxed 40 hour week.
There seemed to be agreement that XP is lacking a role. It’s the role that I call a business coach, Mary calls a product manager and others call Proxy Customer or Proxy Developer.
We agreed that there is benefit to be gained from having someone, the business coach, who can help the users decompose their requirements and help build the relationships between the development team and the business user community.
No one objected when I said that there was a place for structured analysis tools as learning tools for the business coach.
Tom Poppendieck defined Use Cases as a user defined unit of business value and XP stories as a developer estimated piece of development. He said that use cases were implemented through a number of XP stories. Joshua Kerievsky pushed back on this saying that there were high level business stories as well as low level developer stories. I like Tom’s distinction. Tom runs an Agile Customer training course which sounds really interesting from its name alone.
Initially Mary and the others pushed back on my “Zero Documentation” approach to analysis. They agreed with the idea when I explained it further that you do create documents, but only when they are “pulled” by the development team or users, rather than as planned deliverables.
Someone (Goldfish attack) asked what we should do to get the business users to attend XP 2005. We tended to agree that the business users would not be interested in attending an XP conference. They would only be interested in their own domain specific conferences. We did agree that there should be more business-focused sessions for the developers at XP 2005. These sessions would be to help developers understand the business more.
We all agreed that an important role for the business coach is to help build trust and respect between the development team and the business. No one disagreed when I suggested that an on-site customer isn’t essential as long as the business respond immediately when they are asked a question. Linda said that trust and respect was one of her patterns.
I drew my classic Know/Don’t Know diagram and explained how the overworked customers could free up time by focusing on knowledge transfer rather than documentation. No one objected when I said that the business coach should focus on finding the questions and leaving the the task of getting the answers to the development team. I got some great feedback on the diagram from Martin Fowler and as a result I will refactored it.
Mary said we should stop thinking in terms of projects and adopt a more disciplined product approach to software. I agree.
There was a discussion on fixed price / fixed scope projects with a general agreement that they a bad way of doing business. (Mary is working on Agile contracts for software)
We discussed the barriers to the adoption of Agile. We agreed that the developers love it and the business love it but the real opposition comes from project managers and middle managers. Angela pointed out that in the successful projects she has interviewed, the project managers support was one of the key reasons for success. I said that I think the reason project managers resist Agile is because they feel threatened and no one has redefined their role. (Check out Sanjiv’s Book on this very subject). I suggested that a way XP could address this was to welcome the business analyst (coach) community and they would then engage the business. The developers and business users could then launch a pincer attack on the project managers with tanks, planes and guns. Someone pointed out that project managers want the best for the business as well, they just need someone to help them understand how they add value.
I pointed out that Agile is a disruptive methodology just like “lean thinking”. I pointed out that the established consultancy’s, like Accenture and KPMG, business models do not support Agile. Of course there was someone from Accenture in the audience :-0 They took it well J
David Hussman and I got together briefly to compare notes. David thinks he is business coach but didn’t have a name for it before. Like me, he is interested in Agile Philosophy and Culture. I look forward to some interesting exchanges. I might suggest we do them on Brian Marick’s new Customer Yahoo Group
The others seemed to have much better ideas than I did. It was a great learning experience with participation from the whole room, not just the panel.
I had the last word at the session by coming up with the pattern ”Have Fun!”
My one regret about the session is that I did not shut up enough to hear more of what the other panellists had to say. I wish I had listened harder to what other people were saying. Its hard though when you are thinking of your own answer to a question from the audience. I need better listening skills.
Tom P took the photos. I will post a link to the photos when he publishes them.
Posted by chrismatts at June 9, 2004 8:25 PM