Agile Savvy Customer Involvement - A Metaphor
September 9, 2009
The graphic above has been around the IT Industry for a LONG time (decades).
Why? Because it’s still relevant, unfortunately.
Why is it still relevant? Because we haven’t learned the lesson that this depiction has been trying to teaching us.
In traditional development methodologies the customer is involved at the very beginning, disappears during construction and reappears in time to test the completed system. The Change Request procedure is make particularly difficult so few, if any, changes are made to cause schedule shift.
Just because this is how it has been done for 40 years doesn't mean it's the best way to create software. IT was done this way partly because it closely follow a business contract. Here's what I want, you do it and I take it at the delivery date..agreed, and we all sign on the dotted line. This may be fine for delivering 10,000 widgets off an assembly line, or for building a office building. But it's not fine with software development. I'm going to show you why continuous customer involvement is so important through a metaphor.
Agile can help us overcome this problem and make this cartoon go away. But not without changing the method of how we create software. One of the first changes on that list is how Development Teams work with their Customers.
The Metaphor
The Set Up: Imagine YOU in this situation.
You just purchased this VERY nice and VERY expensive house.
However, in your home and business lives you meet with and entertain at home quite a lot...and your backyard looks like this...
Pretty much just dirt, rocks and scrub-grass.
You want/need a VERY nice back yard to go with your VERY nice and VERY expensive house. You have a vision in your head of a jacuzzi spa overflowing by way of a waterfall into a luxurious pool, a fireplace, outdoor kitchen, landscaping with flowers, shade trees, patio, earthenware lanterns, etc. You can see it in your mind…and you have the funds to realize it.
The time requirements of your regular job is a problem though so you (the customer) hire an expert contractor (the development team) to create your vision in your back yard.
He arrives at your house to discuss the backyard situation…
NEW BACK YARD PROJECT - SCENARIO A
Traditional Software Development with a Vague Plan
You know what you want in your head so you both survey the back yard point and tell the contractor you want an 8 foot spa and a 16 foot pool with a waterfall between them, an outdoor kitchen over there with a stainless steel gas grill, a patio set with a nice fire pit under shade and tulips and roses in the landscaping with a walkway winding through it. The contractor calculates it will take exactly 3 months.
However you have to leave on a business trip for the next 3 months and your plane leaves the next morning.
Month 1 passes and the contractor calls you to tell you everything is "on track."
Month 2 passes and the contractor calls you to tell you everything is "on track."
At 2 and a half weeks that contractor tells you it will take 3 weeks over his estimate.
You delay your return until month 3 and 3 weeks are up and then you return from your business trip.
Question: It didn't complete on time and when it was complete what are the chances that your backyard looks ANYTHING like the picture of it you had in your head?
The pool is 10 feet wide and 16 feet deep. There is a 3 foot waterfall...it’s just not falling into the pool, instead it’s flowing into your neighbors yard. The spa is nowhere near the pool. You have a stainless steel gas grill but it only has one burner and it’s not anywhere near the patio. The patio set has 3 wooden benches. The shade for it is provided by a pine tree the size of Canada. And finally the contractor notifies you that it’s going to take them an additional month to finish the landscaping and the flowers and clean up.
Better Question: Are you happy?
On a scale from 0 to 10 (0=worst and 10=best) where would you place the success of this project?
NEW BACK YARD PROJECT - SCENARIO B
Traditional Software Development with a Plan
You know what you want in your head and you give the contractor sheet of paper where you drew by hand the back yard elements you wanted such as a 16 ft. x 8 ft pool in one corner of the yard, a 3 foot waterfall flowing into the pool from an 8 ft. x 8ft jacuzzi spa next to the pool, an outdoor kitchen with a long stainless steel gas grill (you write 4 burners on it), a copper fire pit next to a patio set with 6 chairs under a shade tree and tulips and roses in the landscaping with a walkway going through it that winds around between the pool/spa and patio. Things are positioned just how you see them in your head.
However you have to leave on a business trip for the next 3 months and your plane leaves the next morning.
Month 1 passes and the contractor calls you to tell you everything is "on track."
Month 2 passes and the contractor calls you to tell you everything is "on track."
At 2 and a half weeks that contractor tells you it will take 2 weeks over his estimate.
You delay your return until month 3 and 2 weeks are up and then you return from your business trip.
Question: It didn't complete on time and when it was complete what are the chances that your backyard looks like the picture of it you had in your head and even like the one you diligently planned out on paper before leaving?
Well Scenario B is closer to what you wanted than Scenario A but… The pool is square and you wanted a bean shaped pool; it’s also a wading pool and you wanted a diving pool but you forgot to write that on your drawing. There IS a 3 foot waterfall however it’s flowing from the pool into the spa meaning it is continually cooling the spa water costing you about 1 Gazillion Bucks per month to run the spa. You have a stainless steel gas grill, and it has 4 burners, but unfortunately the contractor thought he would save you some money so he got it at a garage sale. It has a broken leg so he put a rock under it to keep it from tipping. The patio set has 6 chairs but they are neon orange and there is shade but it’s a trellis type structure and that won’t keep the rain off you and your guests.
Better Question: Are you happy?
On a scale from 0 to 10 (0=worst and 10=best) where would you place the success of this project?
NEW BACK YARD PROJECT - SCENARIO C
Agile Software Development with an Involved Customer
You know what you want in your head and you go over a high level blue print of the backyard you want, but you know the blue print will not cover everything, like the color of your patio chairs and the style of the fire pit and other changes you may want in the next 3 months. The contractor has a lot of experience and advises you to work with him so he can give you exactly what you desire.
You postpone your business trip and you work from home for the next 3 months.
Each day you observe what is occurring and you have daily and weekly meetings to dive into the details of the next phase of the backyard development effort.
As you see the backyard is taking shape you find different things that would make it better so you work with the contractor.
* You decide you want an automatic retractable awning so you can have sun or shade whenever you want.
* You put in a sprinkler system so you don’t have to water the wildflower garden by hand. On yeah, you changed your mind about the landscaping but since that had not started yet it had no cost or scope effect.
* You go with a raised-aspect copper and marble fire pit because the contractor asked that you accompany him to other jobs he has worked on that incorporated a fire pit just like that. You find it’s better than your original thought.
* When the spa went in the contractor sat down with you and worked on the energy loss formula and the cost you would encounter by having the very hot spa water flow into the cold pool constantly. Because the contractor hadn’t built the waterfall yet this was easy to change. So you changed the planned waterfall to a 6 foot long x 3 foot high rock weeping wall. Your contractor said the weeping wall will be a bit more expensive and it will extend the finish date by one week but the cost savings will pay for itself in the first year. That’s OK you said because it’s what you want and so you agree to the cost and scope changes.
5 Months pass of meetings and decisions and changing ideas.
Question: What are the chances that your backyard is like the picture of it you had in your head? Will it be better than Scenario A or B?
Actually it turned out much better than the picture in your head 3 months ago. And because you worked with the contractor to prioritize (business value) the completion of the patio, awning, grill and fire pit first you got to use them in entertaining your guests in the evenings before the whole backyard was complete and not delay construction.
Better Question: Are you happy?
On a scale from 0 to 10 (0=worst and 10=best) where would you place the success of this project?
So IF this was YOUR life and YOUR house and YOUR back yard which scenario would you chose? Especially if the vision of your new backyard is this...
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