Presentation by Alston Hodge (CSC) at the AgileIndy Conference on March 8, 2013.

1. An Agile Odyssey:
A Case Study of Agile Adoption
within a Health Insurance Company
Alston Hodge, Agile Coach
2013 AgileIndy Conference
March 8, 2013

2. My first week on the job...
• “Our metrics do not show that Scrum is
any better than waterfall.” – IT director
• “I’m not sure Agile really works for us.” –
IT manager
• “So glad you’re here to tell us what we are
doing wrong.” - ScrumMaster

3. Agenda
• History
• Assessment
– Findings
– Anti-Scrum Patterns
– Root Causes
– Impacts to the insurance company
• Fixing the Problems
• Lessons Learned

4. History
• Nov 2007 – IT dept established Agile charter
• Feb 2008 – IT dept created implementation
plan, training campaign, pilot projects
• Oct 2008 – IT dept created Agile Community of
Practice
• Oct 2009 – consulting firm recommended
coaches
• Apr 2010 – IT dept created Agile Maturity Model
• Oct 2010 – BP survey highlighted Agile issues
• Apr 2011 – hired first Agile coach, conducted
organizational assessment
• Oct 2011 – BP survey highlighted Agile issues

5. Organizational
Assessment

6. Assessment Topics
• Scrum Training?
• Following the basic Scrum practices?
– Timeboxed work?
– Goal of potentially deployable product?
– Have a SM and PO?
– Team maturity?
– Retrospectives?
– Demos?

7. Assessment Findings
• 55% of people trained (mostly IT)
• 53% of projects use some variation of
Scrum
• 70% global partner utilization
• Sampled 35% of Scrum teams (47/136):
– 13% (6 teams) practice “true” Scrum
– 87% (41 teams) struggle with 4 or more
key Scrum principles and practices

8. Anti-Scrum Patterns
• Scrum-> Scrum-lite-> O-gile
• Mini-waterfall approach
• Multiple concurrent projects in Sprints
– 83% have 3 or more projects
• Teams with few or no retrospectives
• Risks not being identified and
managed

9. Lowest Lower Higher Highest
Attribute Risk Risk Risk Risk
Team Collocated Distributed Distributed
Distribution Collocated Part-time Overlap No Overlap
Product Lead multiple POs
Owner 1 PO 2 (no lead)
Product
Complexity 1 system 2 systems 3 systems 4+ systems
True Sprint
Length 2 wks 4 wks 6 wks 8+ wks
Projects per Team 1 2 3 4+
Scrum Advance
Experience Expert Proficient Beginner Novice
XP Advance
Experience Expert Proficient Beginner Novice
Team Truly cross- Specialized
Structure functional roles

10. More Anti-Scrum Patterns
• SM assumes some responsibilities of
PO
• No lead Product Owner
• Stakeholders not attending demos
• Inconsistent use of VersionOne
• New teams adopting anti-Scrum habits
of early adopters
• IT PM, Business PM

11. Product Owner
Team
Scrum
Master
Simple Scrum

12. Product
Owner 4
Product
Owner 3
Business PM
Product Scrum
Owner 2 Team IT PM
Scrum SME/Arch
Master
Product
Owner 1

13. And some more….
• Individual performance measures
• Workload exceeds capacity
• Start most/all stories at same time
• No sprint goals
• No tracking velocity
• Teams larger than 12 members
• Separate testing from development

14. Sprint Models
Model DSU
DEV-SIT-UAT DEV-SIT-UAT DEV-SIT-UAT ….
Model DS-U
DEV + SIT UAT DEV + SIT UAT DEV + SIT UAT
Model DDD-S-U
DEV DEV DEV
…. SIT UAT
Model D-S-U .
DEV SIT UAT
Defects Defects
DEV SIT UAT
Defects Defects
DEV SIT UAT

15. Assessment Findings
• Top 10% teams (highest performers):
– 93% with only one PO
– 1.9 projects per sprint
– 7.4 core team members
– 6.8 yrs average company experience (POs)
• Bottom 10% of teams (failing):
– 56% with more than one PO (one with 7 POs!)
– 4.6 projects per sprint
– 12.1 core members/team
– POs with only 1.8 yrs average company
experience

16. Root Causes

17. Root Cause 1:
Adapting vs. Adopting Scrum
• “We need your help to adapt Scrum to fit our
culture” – PMO Program Manager
• “Perhaps we need to adopt the Values and
Principles, and adapt the techniques and
practices instead.” – Alston

18. Agile Values and Principles
• Already complement our corporate values and
principles.
• Guide us in our daily decisions.
• Are foundational, the core of what we believe
to be true about us.
• Generally accepted Scrum practices are
based on Agile values and principles.
• Changing the values and principles de-
stabilizes our Scrum framework.

19. Examples
• Choosing to not have retrospectives
hampers:
– Continuous improvement
– Transparency
– Sustainable development
• Not tracking velocity hampers:
– Continuous improvement
– Transparency
– Sustainable development

20. Root Cause 2:
Adoption Viewed as an IT campaign,
not a company campaign
• Initiated and supported as IT campaign
• Business partners not fully understanding the
implications:
– PO develops the backlog
– PO prioritizes based on business value
– PO approves story completion
– PO decides when to release
With Agile, the Business is in the driver’s seat!

21. IT left with un-answered Questions
• Service Provider vs. Business Partner
• IT projects vs. Business projects
• What to do with PMs?
• Scrum-> Scrum-lite-> O-gile?

22. Root Cause 3:
Accelerated Contract/Offshore Utilization
• 2008 – 60% company, 40% contractor
• 2011 – 30% company, 70 % contractor
• Source of business innovation cut in half

23. Look at the numbers
• US health insurance experience
– 160+ years as an industry
– Over 80% of Americans with healthcare
insurance today
• India’s health insurance experience
– 12 years experience in industry
– Less than 6% with healthcare insurance (as of
2010)

24. Root Cause 4:
ADD – Agile Deficit Disorder
• Symptoms
– Difficulty in focusing
– Hard to develop self-discipline (team &
organizational)
– Commitment issues
– Scrum Buts
– Resistance to Transparency
– Workload exceeds capacity
“We need to take on this additional work
because it is important. But it goes without
saying that we can’t let anything fall off the
plate.” – IT manager

25. Impacts to the
Insurance Company

26. Collaboration Challenges
• Agile Community of Practice stalled
• Increasing collaboration issues
• Increase turnover (company, vendors) in
some areas
• Decline in Partnership survey scores
– Innovation
– Communications
– Ownership
• Increased use of PMs (IT and Business)

27. Fixin’ the Problems

28. Update the training
• Use experienced SMs and Pos as trainers
• Focus more on the “Why” of key Scrum
concepts
• Lots of new resources available now
• Address the common Anti-Scrums
• Introduce eXtreme Programming
– Continuous integration
– Paired programming
– Automated testing

29. Key Concepts of Scrum
• Transparency • Prioritize Business
• Commitment Value
• Continuous • Incremental
Improvement development
• Collaboration • Minimal documentation
• Discipline • Sustainable pace
• Stop.Inspect.Adapt • Iterative development
• Cross-functional teams • Swarming
• Retrospectives • Sprint planning
• Product Demos

30. Re-build the Agile Community
• Coach’s Corner
• BUZZ (internal social media)
• Tips and Tricks (12 guidelines)
• Agile tract in Learning Week
• Monthly Corporate Scrum Gatherings
• Agile Team of the Year Award
• Louisville Agile Forum
• Partner with regional Agile groups

31. Coaches Coaches
Coaches Coaches
Coaches
Coaches
Coaches

32. Promote Value of Coaching
• organizationally agnostic - not subject to the same
pecking order, enabling them to tell the hard truths
that may need to be said
• help teams develop self-discipline and good habits
• provide needed on-the-job learning and mentoring
opportunities soon after training

34. Training with Coaching
Coaching

35. Promote Value of Coaching
• Challenge teams to address the difficulties
they face rather than sweep them under the
rug.
• bring both tried and new practices and
processes to the team and organization
reducing the degree of trial and error.
• bring an outside view of the organization, team
and individuals and remove intrinsic bias and
interpersonal issues.

36. “Grow your Own” Coach
• Internal coach program
– 6 months to “coach the coach”
– Full time commitment
– Workload of 12-15 teams
– Already knows the business
• Limitations
– Agile experience limited to one company
– Not organizationally agnostic
– No previous coaching experience

37. Educate Business leadership
• Find the champions
• Educate top down and bottom up
• 30 minute intro to Scrum
• Provide Product Owner learning plan
• Solicit their help to champion Scrum
• Sell the idea of external coaches
• Help Business “take back the reins”.

38. Educate IT leadership
• Find the champions
• Provide Agile PM learning plan
• Address the unanswered questions:
– Are we a Service Provider or Partner?
– How to develop Agile PMs?
– Do we understand and accept the risk of
offshoring?
– Are we serious about Scrum adoption?

39. Treat the ADD
• Guidance of prioritizing projects/features
• Help teams develop self-discipline
• Educate on myth of multi-tasking

40. Address Collaboration Issues
• Lack of trust - team building exercises
• Triangulation
– Painters Pyramid
– Matthew 18
• 360˚ Surveys
• Monthly joint meetings

41. Agile Adoption
Lessons Learned

42. LLs for the Company
• Involve the Business from beginning
• Utilize external coaches for first year
• Honor Scrum values & principles
– Be transparent
– Be honest

43. LLs for an Agile Coach
• You can lead a horse to water…
• Culture is hardest to change.
• Got to know when to quit.

44. A company has to decide
for itself…
• Do you want to be a Guppy or an Olympic
Swimmer?

45. Product
Owner 4
Product
Owner 3
Business PM
Product Scrum
Owner 2 Team IT PM
Scrum SME/Arch
Master
Product
Owner 1

46. Product
Owner 4
Product
Product Owner 3
Owner 2
Business PM
Lead
Product
Owner
Scrum
Team
Scrum
Master
SME/Arch
IT PM

47. Questions?

48. Contact me!
• alstonehodge@gmail.com
• Twitter: @alstonhodge
• Join me each month at the Louisville Agile Forum
– Farm Credit Mid-America (1601 UPS Drive, Louisville)
– 4th Wednesdays (6PM)
• Call me at 502-631-3175