CRYSTAL METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 1: AGILE

WHAT IS AGILE?

Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on

iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between
self-organizing cross-functional teams.

WHAT IS AGILE METHODOLOGY?

Agile methodology in project management is a process by which a team can manage a project
by breaking it up into several stages called "sprints".

WHY DO WE USE AGILE METHODOLOGY?

Clients can make small objective changes without huge amendments to the budget or schedule.
The process involves breaking down each project into prioritized requirements, and delivering
each individually within an iterative cycle. An iteration is the routine of developing small
sections of a project at a time.

WHAT ARE THE STEPS IN AGILE METHODOLOGY?

The Stages of the Agile Software Development Life Cycle

 Scope out and prioritize projects. ...

 Diagram requirements for the initial sprint. ...
 Construction/iteration. ...
 Release the iteration into production. ...
 Production and ongoing support for the software release. ...
 Retirement. ...
 Agile software development sprint planning.

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1. Scope out and prioritize projects

During the first step of the agile software development life cycle, the team scopes out and
prioritizes projects. Some teams may work on more than one project at the same time depending
on the department’s organization.

For each concept, you should define the business opportunity and determine the time and work
it’ll take to complete the project. Based on this information, you can assess technical and
economic feasibility and decide which projects are worth pursuing.

2. Diagram requirements for the initial sprint

Once you have identified the project, work with stakeholders to determine requirements. You
might want to use user flow diagrams or high-level UML diagrams to demonstrate how the new
feature should function and how it will fit into your existing system.

From there, select team members to work on the project and allocate resources. Create
a timeline or a swimlane process map in Lucidchart to delineate responsibilities and clearly show
when certain work needs to be completed for the duration of the sprint.

For example, our product team created the following diagram to visualize how the team would
implement the Print & Ship feature for Lucidpress, Lucidchart’s sister product. The columns
show each team member’s workload, and the rows show the work completed during each sprin

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3. Construction/iteration

Once a team has defined requirements for the initial sprint based on stakeholder feedback and
requirements, the work begins. UX designers and developers begin work on their first iteration of
the project, with the goal of having a working product to launch at the end of the sprint.
Remember, the product will undergo various rounds of revisions, so this first iteration might only
include the bare minimum functionality. The team can and will have additional sprints to expand
upon the overall product.

4. Release the iteration into production

You’re nearly ready to release your product into the world. Finish up this software iteration with
the following steps:

 Test the system. Your quality assurance (QA) team should test functionality, detect
bugs, and record wins and losses.
 Address any defects.

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 Finalize system and user documentation. Lucidchart can help you visualize your code
through UML diagrams or demonstrate user flows so everyone understands how the
system functions and how they can build upon it further.
 Release the iteration into production.

5. Production and ongoing support for the software release

This phase involves ongoing support for the software release. In other words, your team should
keep the system running smoothly and show users how to use it. The production phase ends
when support has ended or when the release is planned for retirement.

6. Retirement

During the retirement phase, you remove the system release from production, typically when you
want to replace a system with a new release or when the system becomes redundant, obsolete, or
contrary to your business model.

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Agile software development sprint planning

Within the agile SDLC, work is divided into sprints, with the goal of producing a working
product at the end of each sprint. A sprint typically lasts two weeks, or 10 business days. The
workflow of a sprint should follow this basic outline:

 Plan. The sprint begins with a sprint planning meeting, where team members come
together to lay out components for the upcoming round of work. The product manager
prioritizes work from a backlog of tasks to assign the team.
 Develop. Design and develop the product in accordance with the approved guidelines.
 Test/QA. Complete thorough testing and documentation of results before delivery.
 Deliver. Present the working product or software to stakeholders and customers.
 Assess. Solicit feedback from the customer and stakeholders and gather information to
incorporate into the next sprint.

In addition to sprint planning meetings, your team should gather for daily meetings to check in
and touch base on the progress, hash out any conflicts, and work to keep the process moving
forward.

Remain flexible and open to changes, too. After all, this methodology is called “agile” for a
reason.

Bottom line: The goal of the agile software development life cycle is to create and deliver
working software as soon as possible.

Plan your projects and keep them on track with Lucidchart

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TYPES OF AGILE METHODOLOGY

Following are some of the most widey used agile implementations -

 Scrum - Scrum is one of the most popular implementation of agile where different roles
like - product owner, scrum master and team members are assigned to different
participants of software development. Daily scrum meeting are organisved for the
updates and a build is delivered in a two to three week cycle called sprint.
 Extreme Programming (XP) - Extreme programming is an agile implementation in
which frequent customer feedback and changes are incorporated with focus on quality
software. Quality of software is maintained by following the coding practices like pair
programming(code reviews, unit testing etc.) to the extreme level. Hence, the name
extreme programming.
 Kanban - Kanban is a development approach in which the tasks are organized in a
Kanban board, wherein we can track the progress of the work, helping in decision
making.
 Crystal Clear - Crystal clear development like other agile methodologies focusses on
frequent delivery and feedback. It is a lightweight approach based on the fact that
customization of process and practices is required to meet the project specific
requirements.
 Lean Software Development - Lean software developement methodology is based on
seven lean principles - eliminate waste(like any code not adding value), amplify learning,
decide late, deliver fast, empower team, build integrity and See the Whole(see the
product as a whole).

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FEATURES OF AGILE

Following are some of the features of Agile methodology-

1. Agile allows frequent deliverables to the end user.

2. Customer feedbacks and changes are embraced and incorporated in the iterations based
on their priority.
3. It emphasis on colloborative work of cross functional team.
4. It focuses on more interaction and face-to-face communications.
5. It promotes regular review of the whole development process and fine tuning if required.

ADVANTAGES OF AGILE

Following are the advantages of Agile methodology-

1. Agile is very much suited for projects where requirements and the end product is not very
clear.
2. It promotes customer satisfaction as their feedbacks and changes are embraced.
3. It reduces risk factor as early deliverables are made visible to the end users.
4. Exhaustive planning is not required at the beginning of the development process.
5. It is easy to manage with minimal rules and more flexibility.
6. Dividing the project into incremental deliverable builds leads to more focus on quality of
the product.

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DISADVANTAGES OF AGILE

Following are the disadvantages of Agile methodology-

1. As it is highly customer-centric, so it can pose problem when the customer does not have
clear understanding of the product and process.
2. Lack of formal documentation and designing leads to very high dependency on the
individuals for traning and other tasks.
3. For complex projects, the resource requirement and effort are difficult to estimate.
4. Frequent deliverables, feedback and collaboration can be very demanding for some
customers.
5. Because of the ever-evolving features, there is always a risk of ever-lasting project.

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CHAPTER 2: CRYSTAL METHODOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Crystal methods are a family of methodologies (the Crystal family) that were developed by
Alistair Cockburn in the mid-1990s. The methods come from years of study and interviews of
teams by Cockburn. Cockburn’s research showed that the teams he interviewed did not follow
the formal methodologies yet they still delivered successful projects. The Crystal family is
Cockburn’s way of cataloguing what they did that made the projects successful.

Crystal methods are considered and described as “lightweight methodologies”. The use of the
word Crystal comes from the gemstone where, in software terms, the faces are a different view
on the “underlying core” of principles and values. The faces are a representation of techniques,
tools, standards and roles.

Methodology, techniques, and policies are differentiated between by Cockburn:

 Methodology - set of elements (e.g. practices, tools)

 Techniques - skill areas (e.g. developing use cases)
 Policies - dictate organizational musts

Crystal methods are focused on:

1. People
2. Interaction
3. Community
4. Skills
5. Talents
6. Communications

Cockburn says that Process, while important, should be considered after the above as a
secondary focus. The idea behind the Crystal Methods is that the teams involved in developing

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software would typically have varied skill and talent sets and so the Process element isn’t a
major factor.

Since teams can go about similar tasks in different ways, the Crystal family of methodologies are
very tolerant to this which makes the Crystal family one of the easiest agile methodologies to
apply.

In his research, Cockburn [1999], he defines behaviour of people in teams:

 “People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time
question and answer.”
 “People have trouble acting consistently over time.”
 “People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.”
 “People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and
doing ‘whatever is needed’ to get the project to work.”

The points above are why Crystal methods are so flexible and why they avoid strict and rigid
processes typically found in older methodologies.

THE CRYSTAL FAMILY

Cockburn developed the different methods in the family of methodologies to suit teams of
different sizes which need different strategies to solve diverse problems.

The Crystal family of methodologies use different colours to denote the “weight” of which
methodology to use. If a project were a small one a methodology such as Crystal Clear, Crystal
Orange or Crystal Yellow may be used or if the project was a mission-critical one where human
life could be endangered then the methods Crystal Diamond or Crystal Sapphire would be used.

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The family is divided into different colours. Some examples:

1. Crystal Clear
2. Crystal Yellow
3. Crystal Orange
4. Crystal Orange Web
5. Crystal Red
6. Crystal Maroon
7. Crystal Diamond
8. Crystal Sapphire

There are five “colors” which represent the five families of Crystal methodogies, which are to be
adopted based on the size of the project (i.e., the number of people involved on a project

Clear–upto 6 people
Yellow–upto 20 people
Orange–upto 40 people
Red–upto 80 people
Maroon–upto 200 people

On the other hand, Crystal Sapphire or Crystal Diamond methods are used in large projects that
involve potential risk to human life.

If you are in a project that has a Crystal Clear framework, and you increase the people in your
project to greater than 6, then Alistair Cockburn recommends the project the next higher
framework level (Crystal Yellow), rather than trying to expand the prior Crystal Clear practices.

As you go up in levels, the project is expected to be harder.

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4 Levels of Criticality in Crystal

Besides having a “size” factor which determines the framework, the other factor mentioned
above which effects the framework is that of “criticality”, which is the level of potential damage
the system can cause if it does not perform as designed

Comfort (C) Discretionary Money (D) Essential Money (E) Life (L)

[Source: A Practical Guide to Seven Agile Methodologies Part 2,

( http://www.devx.com/architect/Article/32836/0/page/2 )]

The Crystal Family of Methodologies. One characteristic of Crystal is its intentional scaling to
projects based on size and criticality. The larger a project gets (from left to right), the darker the
colour.

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What are the roles prescribed by Crystal?

The Crystal approach defines a number of roles: Project Sponsor, Senior Designer/Programmer,
Designer/Programmers (Business Class Designers, Programmers, Software Documenters and
Unit Testers) and Users. Also, there are a number of other roles such as Architect, Coordinator,
Requirements Gatherer, Business Expert, Business Analyst/Designer, Project Manager, Design
Mentor, Usage Expert, Lead Design Programmer, UI designer, Technical Facilitator and
Technical Writer.

COMMONALITY

Between all the methods in the Crystal family, there are seven prevailing common properties.
Cockburn found that the more of these properties that were in a project, the more likely it was to
succeed.

The seven properties are:

1. Frequent delivery
2. Reflective improvement
3. Close or osmotic communication
4. Personal safety
5. Focus
6. Easy access to expert users
7. Technical environment with automated tests, configuration management, and frequent
integration

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Frequent delivery

Frequent Delivery is the regular releasing of iterations of the software program. This idea comes
from agile methodologies. Designers and developers decide what features to include in each
release and they design and test for each release. With Crystal methods, iterations are to be
released weekly up to quarterly – the release times are dependant on the length of the project.

By releasing iterations, stakeholders will be able to spot problems earlier in the project which
will save a lot of hassle later on. Another point on this is that if the end users decide that the
project does not do things the way they’d like it to be done, then steps can be taken to resolve
this before it is too late.

With Crystal methods, there can be more than one iteration in a release. This is because it may
not be feasible to release every iteration, so a collection of iterations are gathered and delivered
in a single release.

Reflective improvement

Reflective improvement involves developers taking a break from regular development and trying
to find ways to better their processes. Iterations help with this by providing feedback on whether
or not the current process is working.

With Crystal methods, the idea of teams holding “reflection workshop” meetings every couple of
weeks is encouraged. These workshops help find processes that are and aren’t working well and
help the team to modify them so that a strategy can be developed that works well for the team.

Close or osmotic communication

In Crystal Clear and the smaller of the Crystal methodologies, Osmotic Communication is used.
Osmotic communication involves the team being together in a room and getting information to
flow around it. With regards to larger teams (over 8 or so), where distraction can arise, Close
Communication is used.

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The team must be in the same room for this to work. This is because if the developer has to break
concentration to move somewhere else to ask a question then their thought process will probably
be lost.

By using this type of communication, information flows quickly throughout the team. Questions
can be rapidly answered and all the team members know what is going on as well as having the
ability to correct any misconceptions that may arise.

By listening to the others in the team, a developer can pick up on what the others are doing, gain
experience and develop new ideas. Developers working near each other can help with problems
that the other is encountering.

Communication overhead is greatly reduced by using this type of communication. The need for
email updates, extra documentation, etc is lowered. By having the team together, each member
knows what the others are doing so they should be able to take over their team-mate's parts of the
project if needed.

Personal safety

This has got to do with the issue of free speaking within a group of people. If a person is
ridiculed whenever they ask a question, suggest an idea, etc then they will be less likely to speak
up the next time. The people in the team must be able to trust each other and feel free to speak up
about issues or whatever arises.

Focus

Focus in crystal refers to two things; firstly focusing on an individual task in a project for enough
time that progress will be made and secondly, it refers to the direction in which the project is
heading.

With the first, the flow of progress is taken into account while thinking of issues that would
affect it such as interruptions, meetings, long questions, phone calls, etc. It can take a while to
get back into the flow again so this delays completion of the current task.

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Crystal defines two rules for dealing with issues that may interrupt focus. One is to set a two-
hour period where the developer is to have no interruptions. The other is to assign a developer to
a project for at least two days before being switched to another project.

With the second meaning of focus, issues such as definition of goals are discussed. The
definitions should be clear and the developers should know exactly what the goals of the project
are. The project leader should prioritise the goals which will allow developers to focus on
particular areas.

Easy access to expert users

This involves the developers working with a person of expertise in the project area so that the
expert answers any questions, suggest solutions to problems, etc. The expert user should be an
actual/real-life user and not just a tester from the development team. The more involved the
expert user is (in practical terms), the better since they would have more hands-on experience.

The more time that the expert user can give will greatly help the overall project but this is not
always feasible. There should be a minimum of a once a week, two-hour meeting with the expert
user, and the ability to make phone calls to the expert user too.

Technical environment with automated tests, configuration management, and frequent

integration

The idea behind this is that there should be continuous integration and testing so that if any
changes are made, then errors, breakages, etc can be spotted. Since this is done on a regular
basis, problems are less likely to grow as they can be resolved earlier in the project.

The process of checking-in code into a repository can help in identifying the problem code and
remove it by reverting back or updating with correct code. This is where configuration
management and automated testing come in. These allow for quicker unit testing and eventual
resolution of problems.

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SET SCALED ACCORDING TO TEAM SIZE AND MISSION

CRITICALITY OF A PROJECT

Emphasis on the human factor and testing.

 Types of Crystal methodologies: Clear, Yellow, Orange, Orange Web, Red, Maroon,
Diamond, Sapphire
o Ranging from the most lightweight and the least mission critical, operating with
the smallest team to the most described, most mission critical, huge team projects.
 Common properties
o Frequent delivery through iterations
o Reflective improvements through dedicated brainstorming
o Close communication: developer team is in the same room/building
o Personal safety: speak freely in groups without managerial consequences
o Focus: 2 hour periods without interruptions on a task basis; clear project goals and
definition
o Easy access to expert users: project domain experts answer questions and suggest
solutions; minimally meet every week for 2 hours

Crystal methodologies have multiple flavours, which are only minimally differing from one an
other on the different steps. Hereby due to space and time constraints we list the ones that could
be used for highly different type of projects and are having multiple different approaches.

 Some of the methodologies detailed:

o Clear (lightweight, not mission critical)
 Lightest, supporting fixed price contracts
 Only 3 roles: Sponsor, Senior Designer, Programmer
 Teams can use techniques mixed from other methodologies
 Project requires documentation (type not defined)
 Priorities
 Project safety: deliver in time and budget

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 Effectiveness
 Focus on people not on processes or deliverables
 Suitable for teams of 2-6 in the same room
o Orange (more complex, medium sized projects)
 More roles: Architect, Business Analyst, Project manager, …
 Expect a release in every ~100 days
 Safer: emphasis on testing
 Defines a set of deliverables
 Requirement documentation
 Release schedule
 Project plan
 Status reports
 UI design mock-ups
 Object Model
 User Manual
 Test plan
 Suitable for teams of 21-40

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CHAPTER 3: THE CRYSTAL MINDSET

Software Development as a Cooperative Game

Making software consists only of making ideas concrete in an economic context:

People inventing and communicating, solving a problem they don't yet understand (which keeps
changing),

Creating a solution they don't really understand (and which keeps changing),

Expressing ideas in restricted languages they don’t really understand, (and which keep
changing)

To an interpreter unforgiving of error.

Resources are limited, and every choice has economic consequences.

It is a cooperative game of invention and communication

Software development is a Cooperative Game of Invention and Communication.

To understand team software development:

• Understand goal-directed cooperative games

• Understand people communicating

• Understand people inventing

• Understand people cooperating

Notes on Cooperative Game: Two goals:

Primary Goal → →→ → Deliver this software

Secondary Goal → →→ → Set up for the next game

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Two conflicting games in one

Net result: Not repeatable !

Naur 1986: The primary result of programming is the theory held by the programmers

1. Theory: The knowledge a person must have to do certain things intelligently, explain, answer
queries, argue about them...

2. The programmer must Build a Theory of how certain affairs of the world will be handled by a
program; Explain how the affairs of the world are mapped into the program and documentation;
Respond to demands for modifications, perceiving the similarity of the new demand with the
facilities built. • This knowledge transcends that possible in documentation.

3. This theory is the mental possession of a programmer; the notion of programmer as an easily
replaceable component in program production has to be abandoned.

Naur 1986: Modifying a program depends on the new programmers building the same
theory !

4. Problems of program modification arise from assuming that programming consists of text
production, instead of theory building.

5. The decay of a program from modifications made by programmers without proper grasp of the
underlying theory becomes understandable. The need for direct participation of persons who
possess the appropriate insight becomes evident. For a program to retain its quality it is
mandatory that each modification is firmly grounded in its theory.

6. The conclusion seems inescapable that at least with certain kinds of large programs, the
continued adaption, modification, and correction, is essentially dependent on a certain kind of
knowledge possessed by a group of programmers who are closely and continuously connected
with them

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COMMUNICATION

Perfect communication is impossible

You try to communicate what you “know”

• What you “know” depends on your individualized parsing of the world around you;

• You don’t know what it is you do know;

• You don’t know the thing you are trying to communicate;

• You don’t know what you are actually communicating;

• Your listener sees only a part of what you are saying;

• What your listener learns depends on his/her internal stat

Communication is touching into shared experience

Linked sequences of shared experience becomes a shared experience

 Project colleagues have rich shared experiences, a shortcut vocabulary

Implications for documentation:

 Can never fully specify requirements

 can never fully document design
 must assume reader’s experiences more => can write less less => must write more.

Our task is to manage the incompleteness of communications

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PEOPLE

PEOPLE are essential but non-linear active components in the development process

Weak on

 Consistency
 Discipline
 Following instructions
 Changing habits

Strong on:

 Communicating
 Looking around
 Copy/modify

Motivated on:

 Pride in work
 Pride in contributing
 Pride in accomplishment

The alignment of people’s goals affects the team efficiency

A mission statement understood by all is critical to goal alignment.

Normal Aliged
team Team

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Amicability between people determines how quickly information moves

Amicability : Willingness to listen with good will

The “amicability index” indicates how easily information passes from one part of the
organization to another.

A low amicability index implies that people block the flow of information, intentionally or
through not listening well.

Amicability grows and rots fastest in osmotic communication settings

People, cooperation, communication issues determine much of a project’s speed

Can they easily detect something needs attention? (Good at Looking Around)

Will they care enough to do something about it? (Pride-in-work; Amicability)

Can they effectively pass along the information? (Proximity; face-to-face, convection currents)

Crystal’s “Genetic Code (DNA)

Crystal is the lightest, least intrusive set of rules that puts a project in the safety zone.

Crystal’s purpose: Keep people from hurting each other, keeping each other informed

Crystal’s nature: A set of conventions that gets updated

Crystal’s Philosophy:

 People differ in working styles

 Projects differ in needs
 Software development is communication-intensive, experiment-based, needing lots of
feedback in all directions
 Less is generally better (for methodologies)

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Crystal’s common genetic code.

1 Cooperative Game Mindset: A series of resourcelimited cooperative games of

communication and invention.

2 Critical Project Properties: Frequent delivery Close communication Reflective Improvement

3 Key Techniques: Discretionary, but with a starter set.

4 Design Priorities: Project safety Development efficiency Habitability

5 Design Principles: (7 principles, including: face-to-face, concurrent development, different

rules for different circumstances)

6 Design Samples: Crystal Clear Crystal Orange Crystal Orange-web

Crystal’s Starter Strategies & Techniques Strategies

•Methodology Shaping

•Reflection Workshop

•Blitz Planning

•Delphi Estimation

•Daily Stand-ups

•Agile Interaction Design

•Process Miniature

•Side-by-Side Programming

•Burn Charts

•Exploratory 360°

•Early Victory

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•Walking Skeleton

•Incremental Rearchitecture

•Information Radiators

Critical technique in Crystal: The reflection workshop each month or iteration.

Hang a 2-column flipchart

Keep these Try these
Fill in the chart (30 minutes)
test lock-down quiet pair testing
Hang the chart in a public, visible, frequently seen place ! time daily meetings fines for

Try the ideas Problems interruptions

too many programmers

Repeat each month or after each iteration
interruptions help testers

shipping buggy

code

Crystal’s Design Priorities

• Project Safety

• Development Efficiency

• Process Habitability

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Crystal’s Design Principles

1. Prefer face-to-face communication

 Interactive face-to-face communication is the cheapest and fastest channel for exchanging
information

2. Methodology weight is costly

3. Use heavier methodologies for larger / distributed teams

4. Use More ceremony for more criticality

5. Use more feedback & communications, with fewer intermediate deliverables

6. Discipline, skills, understanding counter process, formality, documentation

7. Efficiency is expendable at non-bottleneck activitie

PROJECT VISIBILITY

The “burn-down” chart and variations show a project’s progress visibly and publicly

Visibility of rate-of-progress and achievements are critical project management information

Works because task list is fixed in size

“Iceberg” list useful when task list changes daily

 Use spreadsheet or similar

 List tasks
 Developers estimate time, Managers prioritize
 Sort in priority order
 Derive which tasks are in schedule for this current iteration / delivery.
 Managers can change priorities.

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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CRYSTAL
Advantages:
 It ensures frequent deliveries, in
order to identify eventual problems
in every stage;
 There is always space to improve
characteristics, taking some time
from software development and
allowing for a discussion about how
to perfect processes;
 Allows for a closer communication
and promotes interaction and sharing
of knowledge between
members;
 Requires a technical environment
with automated tests, configuration
management and frequent
integration.
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Disadvantages:
 The fact that there are variants in
the methodology family means that
the principles might vary with the
size of the team and the size of the
project, resulting in projects that
might not be so straightforward;
 It might not work in teams scattered
through different areas, because of
team the constant need to communicate
and reflect;
 Planning and development is not
dependent on the requirements.
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