This is based on a previous talk on agile development. Methods for delivering software on a short cycle are described, including interactions with the customer, the affect on the team, and how to be more effective, streamlined and efficient

Trimble, Jay Phillip

NASA Technical Reports Server

Agile
Jay Trimble
NASA Ames Research Center
at Philips Agile 4 Ever
October 2013
Monday, September 30, 13
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140010179 2019-08-31T19:58:38+00:00Z
Monday, September 30, 13
My Background
• Missions
• NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston
• Shuttle Mission Control, Payloads
• Jet Propulsion Lab
• Robotic - Voyager Neptune
• Shuttle - Space Radar Lab, Lead Ops Director
•  Current
• Mission Operations & Ground Data System 
Manager, Resource Prospector Lunar Rover
Space Radar Lab-1 Ops Director
Internship in Mission Control 
(A long time ago)
Monday, September 30, 13
My Background
• Software Technology
• Human Centered Computing 
for Mars Rovers
• User centered technologies 
for mission control
Monday, September 30, 13
Moments
Science Team after Mars 
Touchdown 2004
Shuttle Columbia
Monday, September 30, 13
One Story of Agile at NASA
• This is a bottom up story of how a group at NASA 
applied agile methods to software development for 
mission control
• This was approved, but not initiated by, management
• Beyond software
• Taking agile beyond software we are applying agile 
and lean principles to the development of a Lunar 
Rover Mission Operations System
Monday, September 30, 13
The Project
• Our groups task was to build an 
architecture for mission control user 
applications, the primary focus being on 
developing interaction paradigms and 
technology for user composable software
Monday, September 30, 13
The Collaboration
• Design and Development Team at NASA 
Ames
• The Customer
• Mission Control Users at NASA Johnson 
Space Center
• Using Participatory Design, we created an 
integrated team that included customer 
representation
Monday, September 30, 13
Issues and Mandates
• Some customers want a new product, 
others do not
• The product must have new capability, but 
must also not be disruptive within the 
organization
• Functional and visual connection to 
legacy product
Monday, September 30, 13
The Journey 
• We began with a six month software 
delivery cycle
• By iteratively ﬁxing issues, we got the 
delivery cycle down to three weeks
• It took close to two years to complete the 
transition
Monday, September 30, 13
jtrimble2@gmail.com
Time for Changes
• Fix the problems iteratively, without a broad 
proclamation of methodology, i.e. “we are going to 
be agile” or “we are going to be “lean”
• Just ﬁx the problems
Monday, September 30, 13
Where we started
• Four six-
month 
deliverables
• One User 
Experience 
Spec
Subsystem1 Subsystem2 Subsystem3 Subsystem4
6 Months 6 Months 6 Months 6 Months
Module 1
Monday, September 30, 13
Issues we faced
• Long delivery cycle
• Difﬁcult to manage feature prioritization and development, 
integration and testing
• Progress invisible to customer, lack of meaningful ongoing customer 
interaction to drive design
• Mismatch in expectations between design/dev team and customer
• Difﬁcult for the development team to know state of progress relative 
to goals
• Deliveries focus on subsystems rather than meaningful end user 
functionality
• Two-year ﬁnal deliverable created a tendency to defer key issues
Monday, September 30, 13
The Team
Traditional Agile 1 Agile 2*
Developers 5-9 Developers 7 Developers 4
User Experience 
Design (2)
User Experience 
Design (2)
User Experience 
Design (1)
QA/Process 
Engineers (2)
QA/Process 
Engineers (2)
QA (.5)
Project Manager (1) Project Manager (1)
Developers rotate 
PM role
Principle Investigator 
(Part Time)
Principle Investigator 
(Part Time)
Principle Investigator 
(Part Time)
Interns Interns Interns
*Reduced Budget
Monday, September 30, 13
Six Week Cycle
• We took the six 
month cycle and 
divided it into 
smaller pieces
• This was a start, 
but still left many 
issues
It 1 It 2 It 3 It 4 It x
6
Weeks
6
Weeks
6
Weeks
6
Weeks
Monday, September 30, 13
Six Week Cycle
Code (3.5 weeks)
UE Speciﬁcation
UE 
Spec
Stack 
Rank
Pre-
Stack 
Rank 1
Pre-
Stack 
Rank 2
JIRA Updates/Priorities
Iteration n-1 Iteration n
Kickoff
Eng design & 
spec (3 days)
Coding/UE Spec Revisions/Daily Acceptance Test
UE Testing Iteration n-1 (delivered s/w)
UE Design/Testing Iteration n+1 (paper)
Develop Test Plan
Rls
Docs
Demo
Demo new features
for QA
Test (2 weeks) PS Review
Pre-Ship 
Review, 
exit critera, 
customer demo
Deliver De-Brief
Iteration n+1
Monday, September 30, 13
Agile
• We shortened the cycle to three weeks
• Replaced discrete events, with integrated interactions
• Integrated strategic and tactical into our ranking process
• Each iteration had clear purpose, goals, ranked priorities
• Release, iterations, daily build
• Strategic road map
Monday, September 30, 13
jtrimble2@gmail.com
Agile Cycle
• Deliver to 
customer 
every 3 
weeks
• Nightly 
build
• Release 
every 3 
months
Release n
Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4
Release to Mission 
Control User Test 
Community
Release to Mission 
Control User Test 
Community
Release to Mission 
Control User Test 
Community
Release to Mission 
Control Ops
3 Weeks 6 Weeks 9 Weeks 12 Weeks
jay.p.trimble@nasa.gov
Monday, September 30, 13
The Three-Week Cycle
User Feedback
3 Weeks Iteration n
Daily iteration n
Build to 
Customer
Test
Feature mods/additions,
bug ﬁxes
Optional Mid-Iteration 
Hackathon tests big
features
Pre-Ship
Hackathon
Priorities/JIRA
Rankings
Nightly Build/Internal testing as features roll out
Coding
Issue Tracking Updates/Priorities/Rankings
UE & Tech Spec dates driven by coding dependencies
Deliver 
to customer
Agile Development Iteration
Code Freeze 
(-3 days)
Feature 
Freeze
(-7 days)
Customer triages 
issues it discovered
Customer 
acceptance test
Customer veriﬁcation 
of closed JIRA issues
Customer 
installs
iteration n-1
Optionally, hot 
patch
Iteration n+1
Start 24 hour test (-2 day)
Monday, September 30, 13
The Release Cycle
Release 
3 Weeks
Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Bugs/Usability/More Testing
6 Weeks 9 Weeks 12 Weeks
Release to Customer
for Mission Control 
Certiﬁcation
Release to Mission 
Control User test
Community
Coding/UE Specs
Issue Tracking Updates/Priorities/Rankings
Build/Internal testing as features roll out
Customer Feature
Veriﬁcation
Release to Mission 
Control User test
Community
Customer Feature
Veriﬁcation
Release to Mission 
Control User test
Community
Customer Feature
Veriﬁcation
Agile Release Into Operations
Monday, September 30, 13
Strategic Road Map
Monday, September 30, 13
Lessons Learned
• The measure of progress is working code
• Work on highest priorities ﬁrst, avoid the temptation to do the easier 
things ﬁrst
• Demonstrations, not presentations
• Customer interaction over extensive documentation
• Progress always visible, nightly build available
• Ship each iteration on time, only working features ship
• Do not delay shipment for features - if a feature is not ready it 
goes into the next iteration
• Fit the process to your team context and culture, there is no one right 
way 
Monday, September 30, 13
Agile for Missions
• We are applying 
agile and lean 
methods to the 
design of a Lunar 
Rover Mission 
operations and 
ground data 
system
Monday, September 30, 13
Agile/Lean for Lunar Rover
• Principle
• Measure of progress 
is working code
• Agile - download 
nightly build
• Space Mission - 
demonstrate 
operational 
capability through 
simulation
Monday, September 30, 13
Agile/Lean for Mission Ops
• Principle
• Customer interaction 
over documentation
• Agile - 
Participatory design 
(one method)
• Space Mission - 
mission operations 
design session using 
PD methods, low 
ﬁdelity simulation
Monday, September 30, 13


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