Most people are familiar with the principles that underly traditional phased-based, sequential development. However, the principles that underly agile development are different and frequently not understood, even by practitioners of agile. It is common when people first learn agile to focus on the mechanics of a specific agile approach such as Scrum or Kanban. Knowing the mechanics (the “what” and the “how”) is necessary, but not sufficient for successfully applying agile. Without an understanding of the core principles, the “why” is missing. These principles provide the foundation for understanding and applying agile approaches. Implementing something like Scrum — even by the book— without understanding these principles is one of the leading causes of organizational failure with agile. People who apply Scrum without understanding its underlying principles lack the necessary context to understand why they are doing things and when and how best to inspect and adapt their approaches. Whether you are a developer, manager, or executive you need to understand core agile principles if you want to successfully apply agile. In this presentation, I provide an overview of core agile principles with an emphasis on how they are different than the core principles that underlie traditional development.

1. 1Copyright © 2007 - 2015, Innolution, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Agile Principles:
The Foundation Underlying Successful
Agile Development
March 25, 2015
by Ken Rubin
2
Essential Scrum in Six Languages
English French German
Chinese Japanese Polish
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2. 3
Available on Safari Books Online
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4
US Airdrops and Cargo Staging
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3. 5
Cargo Cult
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Cargo Cult Issues…
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Imitating actions alone produces desired results
Correlation implies causation
Process is more important than core principles
No need to know the foundational “why”

4. 7
Agile Principles Provide Context
for Inspecting & Adapting
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People who apply Scrum without understanding its
underlying principles lack the necessary context to
understand why they are doing things and when and
how best to inspect and adapt their approaches
8
Waterfall and Agile – Two Tools in
the Toolbox
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5. 9Copyright © 2007 - 2015, Innolution, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Traditional, Phased-based, Plan-
driven Development (aka Waterfall)
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Agile Development – The Scrum
Framework
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6. 11
Development Isn’t Manufacturing
In manufacturing our goal is:
Take a fixed set of requirements
Follow a sequential set of well-understood
steps
Manufacture a finished product that is the
same every time
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12
Agile is Iterative & Incremental
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7. 13
Agile is an Empirical Process Model
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14
Comparison of Plan-Driven and
Agile Processes
Dimension Plan-driven Agile
Degree of
process
definition
Well-defined set of
sequential steps
Complex process that would defy a
complete up-front definition
Randomness
of output
Little or no output
variability
Expect variability because we are
not trying to build the same thing
over and over
Amount of
feedback used
Little and late Frequent and early
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8. 15
Uncertainty Management
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Means Uncertainty
EndsUncertainty
High Low
Low
Defined Empirical
Means Uncertainty
EndsUncertainty
High Low
Low
Waterfall Agile
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Fragile, Robust, Antifragile
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Fragile
Harmed by
disorder
Robust
Resilient to
disorder
Antifragile
Benefits from
disorder
AgileWaterfall

9. 17
Asymmetric Payoffs Create
Economic Value or Harm
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Positive asymmetric
payoff (antifragile)
anything that has more
upside than downside
from random events
(variability)
Negative asymmetric
payoff (fragile)
anything that has more
downside than upside
from random events
(variability)
Source: Taleb, Nassim, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Random House, 2012.
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Getting Right Up-front
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10. 19
Decision Making
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Make each decision in its
proper phase
Make important decisions at
the last responsible moment
20
Exploration vs. Exploitation
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Knowledge
acquisition
Predicting
Exploration Exploitation
always a
tension
between
requiresinvolves
in the
presence of
UncertaintyUncertainty
in the
presence of
increases
Level of
certainty
does not
increase
Adaptive
processes
Predictive
processes
heavily focus
on early
interleave
small-scale

11. 21
Balance between Predictive and
Adaptive
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22
Managing Change Risk During a
Traditional Development Project
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12. 23
Managing Change Risk Using
Scrum
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24
Leverage Multiple Concurrent
Learning Loops
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13. 25
Organize Flow of Work for Fast
Feedback
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26
Large vs. Small Batch Sizes
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Large batches
(100%)
All before any
Small batches

14. 27
Benefits of Small Batch Sizes in
Product Development
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Reduced cycle time
Reduced flow variability
Accelerated feedback
Lower risk of failure
Reduced overhead
Increased motivation & urgency
Reduced cost and schedule growth
28
Poorly Managed Inventory Causes
Economic Damage
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15. 29
Recognize Inventory (WIP) and
Manage it for Good Flow
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Manufacturing inventory
is both physically and
financially visible
Product-development inventory
are knowledge assets that
aren’t visible in the same way
as physical parts
30
Focus on Idle Work Not Idle
Workers
Watch the Baton Not the Runners
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16. 31
Waterfall is Conformance to Plan
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32
Agile is Replanning and Adapting
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17. 33
Progress
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Moving through
phases or stages
Validated,
working assets
34
Summary: Principles are the
Foundational Why
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18. 35
Visual AGILExicon®
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36
www.essentialscrum.com
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19. 37Copyright © 2007 - 2015, Innolution, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Contact Info for Ken Rubin
Email: krubin@innolution.com
Website: www.innolution.com
Phone: (303) 827-3333
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kennethrubin
Twitter: www.twitter.com/krubinagile
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InnolutionLLC
Google+ plus.google.com/+KennyRubin1/
Essential Scrum: A Practical
Guide to the Most Popular
Agile Process
www.essentialscrum.com