Presentation I gave at the Scrum Gathering in Spring of 2009

1. Implementing Scrum on a Large Scale Dan LeFebvre Agile Coach, CSP 3/16-18/2009 1 Orlando Scrum Gathering

2. Biography Over 20 years in software product development as a developer, manager, director, and coach Last 5 years using agile development practices Last 2 years implementing Scrum in a 700 person engineering organization as an Agile Coach Sites in MA, OR, TX, GA, IL Also in Canada – BC, Que Also in Belgium and Noida, India 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 2

3. Intent of this Session To take you through the journey of that 700 person engineering organization toward agility through Scrum. How did they decide to go agile? How did they decide to go Scrum? How do they coordinate a large suite release? How do they handle organizationally impediments? What about progress reporting? What were their biggest challenges? What are their challenges yet to face? 3/16-18/2009 3 Orlando Scrum Gathering

4. Something is not right 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 4

5. Productivity was plummeting 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 5

6. Cutter Consortium Evaluation Michael Mah and Jim Highsmith Evaluation – both quantitative and qualitative Recommended and sold Agile to CTO 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 6

7. “Agile Lite” Goal 11-1 Iterative/incremental development Test Driven Development Emergent/Evolutionary Design Daily Standups Retrospectives Phase gated governance model Commit to contents, dates, cost for a 12 month release Account for entire organizational effort 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 7

8. Weakest Link Theory Interdependent suite of products All must ship simultaneously If any of them not agile, suite is in trouble Roll out to entire organization at once 5 full time coaches from Cutter, 5 part time internal coaches After 1 year, only used 5 part time coaches 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 8

9. Results Delivered 7-5 Improved Quality More automated tests Agile in the culture 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 9

10. Entropy “Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 10

11. Slip back to old ways All part-time coaches back to their day jobs Committed to 3 suite-wide projects within the same release (each considered all or nothing) Globalization, New UI and new Reporting platform Results Projects fell behind All UI-based automation broke 2 projects stopped doing retrospectives Team morale suffered No or meaningless burncharts so no transparency 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 11

12. The Agile Coach Without the coaches, teams had no help Decided to get a full-time Agile Coach Teach agile to new employees Observe and help teams that are struggling Roll out agile to newly acquired companies Become the agile conscience of the organization 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 12

13. What to do with management 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 13

14. Management still too “Command and Control” Culture is very hierarchical People treated as “resources” Regularly moved from team (workgroup?) to team to handle crises and delays Management makes most decisions Teams do not feel empowered Many teams just going through the motions of agile development “Blame” is typical reaction 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 14

15. Collaboration Explained 90 people trained in collaboration skills by Jean Tabaka and Ronica Roth from Rally Learned tools Facilitation techniques Lots of hands-on exercises Results Meetings ran better Better agendas and capturing of group learning Better retrospectives 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 15

16. Management not Agile Management not quite agile Very little training was given to managers Still division between Dev and QA 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 16 Manager Community Customer Community Developer Community

17. Scrum to the rescue Scrum is a management framework Training focused on the managers and product managers 60 ScrumMaster receive CSM from Ken Schwaber 30 Product Owners receive CSPO from Ken Schwaber Create true cross-functional teams No more “communities” 1 ScrumMaster, 1Product Owner, Team of developers, testers, writer, etc. Managers became ScrumMasters, Product Managers are now the Product Owners 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 17

18. Scaling issues 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 18

21. How do they synchronize and review the suite? Created the concept of “Release Candidates” Every 6 to 8 weeks Entire system integrated and tested together Suite build and battery of suite tests run weekly Teams hold their own sprints but integrate into last integrated system each week Each team has daily builds and battery of daily tests (some team build more often) 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 21

23. Each team presents release plan focusing on dependencies and impacts to SRT

24. End of each RC

25. SRT holds an RC Retrospective

27. Dealing with suboptimization Each team is run fairly independently Each identify and resolve impediments Experiencing the same impediments Different solutions Some solutions impacted other teams 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 24

28. First Attempt – Etc. Senior Execs doing the work of prioritizing and resolving organizational impediments Identified by the development teams Resolve by creating small teams to remove the impediment Use Scrum to run the process Issues Execs had no time for this work Reluctant to assign people to impediment removal teams 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 25

29. Second Attempt – Scrum Implementation Team Small group of 8 people from across the organization Issues Focused more on process definition instead of impediment removal Not all the skills represented Limited time to work on this, still had day jobs 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 26

30. Third Attempt – ScrumMaster Meeting Hold a regular meeting of ScrumMasters to identify, prioritize, and volunteer to resolve impediments This group got some traction Issues Many impediments around Product Ownership Also many architectural impediments 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 27

31. Final Attempt – Agile Leaders Meeting Regular meeting of ScrumMasters, Product Owners, and Architects led by Agile Coach Agenda includes a brief coaching session on an agile topic from one of the team Review of resolved impediments, identifying and prioritizing new ones, and volunteering to resolve highest priority Q & A session to solicit help from team and coach on individual issues Resolved over 50 impediments in 1 year 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 28

32. Transparency Issues 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 29

33. Transparency is more translucent Each team uses their own tools for tracking data Flipcharts and post-its Excel – Various workbooks X-Planner Rollup data collected manually Sometimes late Sometimes not complete Apples to Oranges rollup “Blame” culture prevents full disclosure too soon 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 30

34. Clearing it up SMT created a standard workbook that normalizes data to facilitate a suite-wide rollup Includes a projected organizational velocity to predict end date “I have never been in an organization that knew more about where it was throughout the lifecycle of the project” – One Senior Staff Member 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 31

35. Clearing it up more Implementing VersionOne Centralize the project information Give execs instant access to status of any project Standardize how information is collected and managed throughout the organization Simplify suite rollup Provide unprecedented transparency Create standard reports 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 32

36. Dealing with “Lite” 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 33

37. Suite planning still phase-gated Need still exists to commit to an annual plan Company expects large features to justify the 700 person engineering staff Outside engineering still driven by “waterfall” model Cannot or will not take advantage of iterative delivery 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 34

38. Creating a Balance They created a multi-tiered content strategy Commit at the high level Establish budgets at the mid-level Stay flexible at the details Budgets give guidance to Product Owners on what senior management is willing to invest to get the benefit or return 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 35

39. Requirements hierarchy Initiatives – Broad areas of focus tied to corporate strategy Headlines – Major Feature Sets/Capabilities within an Initiative Engineering commits to these within a budget Shippable Units – The smallest feature that is worth shipping to a customer Analogous to Minimal Marketable Feature from Software by Numbers Engineering delivers as many of these within the budget of a headline Business Value measured here Stories – User stories as we all know and love 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 36

40. Planning Onion 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 37

41. Product Plan Portfolio Plan RC 1 RC 2 RC 3 RC 4 Rel 6.2 SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU Headline Headline SU SU SU SU Headline SU Headline SU SU Headline Headline SU Headline Headline Release Plan Rel 6.1.1 Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Headline Headline Headline As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf As a User, I can jfh hf jahdsdf Headline Rel 6.1.2 Headline Headline Headline Planning and Outputs SprintPlan Started Done Task Task Task Task Task Task

42. Is Done really Done? 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 39

43. Unpredictable “tail” Planned 3 months for final stabilization Always goes longer Many unpredictable issues found The Definition of Done (DoD) was not the same across teams Some due to the large amount of legacy code Some based on management interpretation – “Spirit of the Criteria” 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 40

44. Executive Bias Setting DoD too “weak” - guideline Leads to too much work during the tail Makes it hard to know where you are Causes integration issues due to impedance mismatch Setting DoD too “Strong” - rule No real progress can be made due to late issues Sets the bar too low on content Executives wants team to “stretch” by setting aggressive DoD but knows he’ll get less (and accepts it) This line is not apparent to the teams 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 41

45. Created 2 lists of criteria Definition of Done This is the must be complete to declare victory Quality Goal Strive to complete and must justify shortfall Example DoD – Performance test must be completely run Quality Goal – Performance must not have degraded by more than 5% with no S1 defects 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 42

46. DoD is too much for each Sprint Doing all the work needed for shipping each sprint is considered wasteful Some tests run almost as long as a sprint! Lots of legacy code with manual tests 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 43

47. Modify DoD and QG by timebox Defined unambiguously by SMT For Ship – include everything that must be done For RC – remove what they are unable or unwilling to do each RC For Sprint – remove what they are unable or unwilling to do each Sprint 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 44

48. Results 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 45

49. Increased Automation 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 46

50. What happened to quality 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 47 OpenDefects Pre-Scrum Scrum

51. Next Challenge 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 48

52. Enticing rest of Organization to be more Agile There is still a “batch” approach to preparing Service and Customer training Marketing not strongly tied in with Product Management and the Product Owners 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 49

53. Performance and Compensation still very individualized Has a negative effect on teamwork Some teams view ScrumMaster/Manager as an evaluator and aren’t as open with issues Individual goals trump team goals or organizational goals 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 50

54. Still treat people as “resources” Cannot break habit of moving people from team to team Cannot break habit of needing “full utilization” Cannot break habit of accounting for hours worked 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 51

55. Recent Restructuring Increased fear Potential to reduce transparency Potential to reduce teamwork to “CYA” Lowered morale Lower energy Potential less commitment 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 52

56. Loss of the Coach They eliminated the position of Agile Coach Entropy may set in again No focus for getting help to the teams Impediments mechanism may break down Training of new employees and organizations will be affected 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 53

57. Summary 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 54

58. Where are they? Scrum is implemented throughout Mechanism for organizational impediments in place Transparency is improving Improvements to engineering practices are on-going Quality is improving Planning is becoming more flexible 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 55

59. Questions? Dan LeFebvre Director, Software Engineering; Agile Coach d-lefebvre@cox.net http://PracticalAgileByDan.blogspot.com 3/16-18/2009 Orlando Scrum Gathering 56