This presentation was given by Guido Schoonheim and Jeff Sutherland at Agile 2009 Conference in Chicago: Aug 24 - 28. This presentation was given on 24th Aug on the subject "Lineair Scalability of Production between San Francisco and India". This presentation also includes case study on TEE BEE DEE .

1. Fully Distributed Scrum
Linear Scalability of Production between
San Francisco and India
Guido Schoonheim Jeff Sutherland
CTO, Xebia Co-creator of Scrum
gschoonheim@xebia.com jeff.sutherland@scruminc.com
Chairman Scrum Training Institute
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

2. software development
done right
About Xebia
 India, Holland, France
 200 people
 100% Agile
 Java, Flex, CMS/Portal
 What we do:
• Agile offshoring
• Software development
• Agile consulting & training
• IT Architecture
Core values:
• People first
• Customer intimacy
• Quality without compromise
• Share knowledge
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

3. “If there are n workers on a project, there are
(n2-n)/2 interfaces across which there may
be communication, and there are potentially
almost 2n teams within which coordination
must occur.
The purpose of organization is to reduce the
amount of communication and coordination
necessary; hence organization is a radical
attack on the communication problem.”
-- Fred Brooks
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

4. © 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

5. Bell Labs Pasteur Project
James Coplien
 Hundreds of case studies show that “communication
saturation” is directly correlated with high productivity
in software development.
 Face to face communication in cross-functional team
can increase productivity 50 times over waterfall
teams
 This is why first Scrum team implemented daily
meetings and performance over 20 times average
waterfall performance was achieved with some teams
The “radical attack” of Scrum on the communication
problem works for co-located teams, but can it work
for distributed teams?
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

6. Success factors in offshoring
Lower costs of labor
Capture talent not available locally
Increase and decrease project size without
layoffs
We count this as successful only if quality and
productivity match those locally
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

7. Outsourcing the traditional way
 What happens if you outsource $2M of
development?
– Industry data show 20% cost savings on average
 Outsourcing from PatientKeeper to Indian waterfall
team:
– Two years of data showed breakeven point occurs
when Indian developer costs 10% of American Scrum
developer
– Actual Indian cost is 30%
 $2M of Scrum development at my company costs
$6M when outsourced to waterfall teams
 Never outsource to waterfall teams. Only outsource
to Scrum teams.
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

8. Distributed/Outsourcing Styles
Isolated Scrums
Distributed Scrum of Scrums
Fully Distributed Scrums
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

9. Isolated Scrums
Works when you have local PO (=separate
project)
Otherwise you are doing waterfall with an
iterative development team
Just beats around the bush, results in classic
integration problems and code ownership
Still large degree of us / them
Isolated Scrums
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

10. Distributed Scrum of Scrums
Recommended by Scrum Alliance
Recognizes that there is a link
Does not give us rich communication to
close the gap
Still accepts the problem of distance as a
given!
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

11. Fully Distributed Scrum
Xebia OneTeam model
 Xebia (Netherlands) projects start localized with half
Dutch and half Indian team members.
 After establishing localized hyperproductivity, they move
the Indian members of the team to India and show
increasing velocity with fully distributed teams.
 Running many distributed Scrum projects since 2006,
Xebia has systematically productized a model, similar to
SirsiDynix for high performance, distributed, offshore
teams with linear scalability and outstanding quality.
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

12. Aren’t Agile and Offshoring
like oil and water?
Good hyperproductive Agile teams are
colocated with shared ownership, shared
responsibility, high interaction
And then you want to distribute them
halfway around the planet? Are you crazy?
© 2008 Xebia B.V.
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

13. Mixing both worlds makes
a killer combination
Agile hyperproductivity and
quality combined with
offshoring benefits:
– Availability of talent
– Scaling up/down with
knowledge retention and without
local layoffs
– Cost reduction
Solution: Fully Distributed Scrum
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

14. The real problem with distribution
is indeed distance
Geography
Time zones
Culture
Language
Different standards
No shared ownership
Us – Them
It’s all a form of distance between people
increasing the cost of communication
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

15. How do we bridge that gap?
=
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

16. Or… we can look at the people
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

17. © 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

18. Getting into the same mindspace
We are looking for:
• Shared ownership
• Shared context
• Personal relationships
• Team culture and standards
• Shared Agile value system
We need to tie people closely together with shared goals:
SCRUM!
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

19. A day in the life...
Local standup India
Update Scrum board
Stand up
9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00
TIME
LINE
TIME
LINE
9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00
Stand up
Update Scrum board
NL
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

20. What do you do if you have no time
overlap at all?
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

21. Case study: TBD.com software development
done right
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

22. Engagement profile
Goal is to create a cross company, cross
culture, cross timezone team
Mixed TBD people and Xebia people
6 week pilot followed by 8 month project
Quick co-located setup in India
Total team of 7 people
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

23. TBD.com as a modern Java project
YUI
Spring Web MVC
JSP 2.0
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

24. Initial setup
Product Owner and tech lead to India
Knowledge transfer & technical setup
Norming session & evaluation model
After one week of setup first sprint is
kicked off
After one week of co-located development
TBD staff travels back
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

25. Modifying the Scrum cycle
All large Scrum meetings are shared with
video conferencing
Daily standup for Indian team members
with US Proxy, rotating role
Daily wiki & Scrum board updates
Weekly standup meeting with entire team
Shifting work hours is limited to avoid
fatigue
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

26. Agile practices
Once code base
Shared definition of done
Everyone is equal
Everyone pulls from same sprint backlog
Full set of XP practices implemented
Distributed design
Digital Scrum tooling (Pivotal tracker,
JIRA, Confluence)
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

27. TBD.com productivity
Average Per Person Velocity
Story Points
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1
Iterations
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

28. Project review in India by
Mary & Tom Poppendieck
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

29. Focusing on business value
Member Growth Monthly Page View per visit Monthly Page Views
80,000 20.00 6,000,000
Number of page views per visit
January January January
70,000
5,000,000
Number of page views
February February February
60,000 15.00
Total Members
March March 4,000,000 March
50,000
April April April
40,000 10.00 3,000,000
May May May
30,000 2,000,000 June
June June
20,000 5.00 July
July July 1,000,000
August
10,000 August August
0
- 0.00
Time
Time Time
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

30. Success factors
Same level of talent on both sides
Indian developers very experienced in Agile
and modern Java technology
Extra Xebia expertise available as needed
Matching company cultures
Transparency and openness on business
drivers by TBD.com
Evaluation system brings out expectations
Scrum cycle facilitates all communication
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

31. Difficulties faced
Limited travel possible
Distributed demos with external stakeholders
are hard to organize
Distributed design is limited due to little
overlap
Some work is local, like performance tuning
the hardware environments with provider
staff
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

32. Customer success factors
Cost reductions
Availability of skilled talent
24/7 support by development team
Scaling up/down without layoffs and with
full knowledge retention
Because of Fully Distributed Scrum
TBD.com got the max. offshoring benefits
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

33. Summary
Fully Distributed Scrum brings Fred Brooks
“Radical Attack on the communication
problem” to distributed development. It
works around the entire globe.
This makes it the recommended way to apply
Agile to offshoring
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.

34. Fully Distributed Scrum solves the
complete offshoring challenge
Guido Schoonheim Jeff Sutherland
CTO, Xebia Co-creator of Scrum
gschoonheim@xebia.com jeff.sutherland@scruminc.com
Chairman Scrum Training Institute
© 1993-2009 Jeff Sutherland & Xebia B.V.