Engineering can follow a mostly Agile methodology, even if the rest of the company does not. For example, you can still break up the development effort into 2-4 week sprints/milestones, even if the Product Owner does not indulge in reviewing priorities for each milestone. In fact, I contend that by having frequent end-of-milestone review, you will in effect elicit prioritization from the Product Management team.
2-4 Week Sprints/Milestones
Regular milestones (every 2 to 4 weeks) are essential for a several reasons, each sufficient in its own right
- 2-4 weeks is the proper horizon for planning. While it is not impossible to make plans over longer horizons, the accuracy of these plans drops significantly when they extend beyond 4 weeks. Per Agile, the plan for each Sprint needs to be made “bottoms-up” by the developers who are working on the project
- Commitment to the plan – Since the developers created the plan themselves, we can ask them to commit to its timely execution. Accuracy in estimating one’s work is a skill that each developer must fine-tune
- Visibility of progress. By having an “almost shippable” release tested at the end of each sprint, we can all assess progress realistically. As the Manifesto for Agile Software Development states “Working software is the primary measure of progress.”. My measure of progress is binary – if a feature passes all the tests then it is 100% done, if not it is not done (0% complete).
With the rhythm of 2-4 week milestones, every one on the team can see the product being built, with the confidence that true progress is being made and the expectation that no nasty surprises are lurking at the tail of the project.
Show-and-Tell
Show-and-tell is the culmination of the milestone, where the project team demonstrates the new features to their colleagues inside and outside of Engineering. It is critical to advertise the Show-and-Tell outside of the Engineering team, including to the CEO, VP Sales, VP Marketing, etc. The benefits of Show-and-Tell sessions are multiple:
- Rewards for the engineers: The show-and-tell is a perfect opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of each engineer on the project and offer them public recognitions
- Avoid surprises at the end: the last thing you want when you have toiled away for 3-6 months on a project is to hear something like “Nice work guys … but this is not what I expected!”, whether it is from your own team, or from customers. Thanks to regular show-and-tell, there are no surprises. We also give the tools to the Product Management team to share these early releases with customers, as appropriate.
- Reassure Management: By demonstrating regular forward progress to the management team, we can relieve some of their anxiety as to whether we will be able to meet our deliverables. Equally important, when the project was too ambitious to start with, Engineering can give early warning to the management team that alternative plans need to be made, whether it is to reinforce the Engineering team, or to manage customer expectations.
Just like the milestones ensure that the Engineering team can manage its progress without surprises., the Show-and-Tell perform the same function for the business team.
Furthermore, the “Show-and-Tell” give “fair warning” to the rest of the company that the release is on its way, so that the marketing and sales machines can rev up in anticipation of the completion of the release (rather than “wait-and-see” until it’s officially released).
Engage into Discussions about Prioritization
While the business team may not embrace the Agile methodology, by holding the Show-and-Tell events, we effectively engage the Product Management team in a discussion about prioritization. Even when their perspective is “Everything is important, everything must be delivered”, by witnessing the progress, a discussion naturally ensues about whether we need to enhance, or rework, what has already been built, what features should be developed next, and the reaction of customers to the early releases.
There is no magic formula to make these discussions happen, but, in my experience, it simply happens naturally.
More than ever, in today’s fast-changing environment, Engineering must be both predictable and adaptable. Predictable so that the rest of the company can operate efficiently (e.g. by starting to market a release before it is actually complete) and adaptable in order to respond quickly to changes in the market and/or the competition. Having frequent milestones, and show-and-tell, give visibility to progress and set the stage to review priorities , and adjust them if necessary, with minimal impact on the efficiency of the Engineering team.