From Anarchy to Sustainable Development an Experience report - Scrum in Less Than Ideal Conditions

1. From Anarchy to
Sustainable
Development
an Experience report
Scrum in Less Than Ideal Conditions
by erik lebel and isabelle therrien
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© Copyright Pyxis Technologies

2. Introduction
• Who we are : Isabelle & Erik
• Pyxis
• The client
• Past collaborations with the client
• The project
– TV of tomorrow: Create your personal channel,
program its content and share it
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3. Sprint Zero
2 weeks in March 2008
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4. Launching a project
Sprinting
Reduced the scope of over 200 epics and user
stories
Unknown technologies + vague requirements =
High risk (Anarchy)
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5. The first three
sprints
trial release
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6. Team distribution
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7. Challenges
Communication
Technological choices
Getting the green light to continue
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8. Communication tools
Communication is the basis of collaboration
The important thing to remember is that you
need permanent places or tools so that the
team spends its valuable time on valuable
activities
Computer always on in meeting room
Telephone bridge always available
Permanent account for all tools
Bookmark web addresses providing tools
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9. Different tools for different
purposes
Purpose Needs Tool
Permanent information sources Information sharing •GreenHopper / Jira
•Confluence
•Google Calendar
Meetings Groups, isolation, allowing •Telephone bridges
everyone to talk, video, some •Skype video
shared computers, permanent •GreenHopper/Jira
availability •Google Spreadsheet
•Cardmeeting.com
Peer to peer conversations Impromptu, possible directly •Skype chat+voice+video
from their workspace, allow for •IRC
voice, video and possible file •Phone
communication
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10. The first milestone
Delivered 63 of the targeted 72 points
Demo on a temporary monoserver
Some technical debt
GO!
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11. Scaling up
June – September 2008
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12. Early signs of trouble
Planning meetings, daily scrums and sprint
reviews are becoming interminable
Members are not committed, responsibility and
ownership is diluted
Team is fragmenting
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13. Scrum of Scrum
Feature Feature
Team Team
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14. Team distribution
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15. The project changes...
Reworking the design
– Design team behind on requirements
– Remote training: tests, technologies
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16. Les Semaines Bordelaises : meeting face
to face…
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17. A new beginning...
• Increased motivation
• Trust
• Flexible teams
• Developers involved earlier in the design
process
• POs traveling to Bordeaux for sprint reviews
and plannings
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18. Flexible teams
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19. Cruising speed,
sort of
October – December 2008
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20. We are still having problems
Velocity is not increasing
Unable to deploy the application
Scrum of Scrum is becoming a reporting activity
Still difficult to get a well focused commitment
Poor visibility
… and in spite of our awareness of these problems
we are not able to fix them.
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21. And on the bright side
• Developers are participating in the scrum of
scrum
– Scrums are regaining their comunication
purpose
– Improving team commitment
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22. Some hard truths
January – march 2009
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23. The lost “done”
Our DONE: tests, code reviews, NOT deployment

This meant many bugs and application adjustments
were discovered during testing

NOT visible in our backlog

NOT accounted for in our release plans
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24. How did we make incomplete work
visible?
Unit tests
Committed code
done Code reviews
Documentation
Functional tests
Test deployment
33%
Production deployment
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25. How did we make it visible?
uncompleted effort x story points done
= story points to be done
Add that work to the backlog
In our cases the uncompleted effort was estimated at
33%
Consider making “done” blockers a pre-requisite for
starting a sprint (or even the project)
Consider measuring VALUE instead of VELOCITY
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26. Why can't we go any faster?
The product owner is becoming a bottleneck for
the team
The team is compensating by prioritizing and
redefining the stories
Lack of functionality ownership is causing work
to slip between the cracks
Software debt
Ambiguous responsibilities
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27. Integration Scrum
•Product backlog
•Architecture cohesion
•Build dev tools
•Fix production bugs
•Infrastructure and production
Feature Feature
Team Team
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28. Integration Scrum
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29. A different kind of daily
Scrum of Scrum kept for coordinating
No longer about progress reporting
• Now team product owners are responsible for this
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30. M.C.Q.
Do you have any Messages for the other
teams?
Are you respecting your Commitment?
Do you have any Questions for the other teams?
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31. What should you
take away from
this?
Advantages and lessons learned
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32. The advantages of distributed
teams
Recruiting from different talent pools
Time differences make for longer days with quiet
periods
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33. Lessons learned on team size and
distribution
Organize face-to-face meetings quarterly
Break larger teams into smaller ones 4 to 6
Favor direct human communication over written
Temper expectation when integrating new
members
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34. Lessons learned on maintaining a
single, large code base
Develop and maintain an common architectural
vision
Ensure teams are multidisciplinary: separate
teams along vertical slices, not layers
Ensure teams are isolated with regards to
architecture (loose coupling)
Much communication will be done directly
through the code, invest in it
Strive to maintain a useful test base
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35. Conclusions
There are no “silver bullet” solution, look for
inspiration, not solutions
Be prepared to make mistakes, and come back
on discussions taken
Be attentive to how things are going and be
creative in looking for solutions
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36. Thanks to the team!
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37. Contact us!
isabelle : itherrien@pyxis-tech.com
erik : elebel@pyxis-tech.com
We blog occasionally : http://pyxis-tech.com/blog
PLEASE fill the comments card. Thank you!
03/08 06/08 09/08 12/08 03/09 NOW
© Copyright Pyxis Technologies