April 7, 2011 Page 1

Mile High Agile 2011: Elevating Agility

A Day in the Agile Life of a

Financial Services Company

Presented by Bridgette Storms, Beth Bleimehl,

Mike Banta, and Doug Huffman

April 7, 2011 Page 2

How Did We Get Here?

The Catalyst for Change

The Transition to Agile

Introductions

April 7, 2011 Page 3

Agile Roles and Coaching

Product Owner

Scrum Master

Delivery (Agile) Manager

Team Members (Dev, QA/BA, SME)

Coaching Role

April 7, 2011 Page 4

Agile Roles

Product Owner Full-time, organizational savvy Evolved to part-time, maintaining business connection

Scrum Master Well trained full-time focus, For mature teams, can contribute in other areas

Delivery (Agile) Manager Staff Manager for performance management, career development Team advocate, less hands on, program focus

Team Members (Dev, QA/BA, SME) Cross functional, co-located Focus on versatility, role blurring, team focus

April 7, 2011 Page 5

Interlocking Agile Leadership

Roles

April 7, 2011 Page 6

Coaching Philosophy

At inception, equal parts executive and team level training

Coaching engagement mandatory for new teams

Mature teams receive periodic “health checks”

Create coaching opportunities for Agile practitioners

April 7, 2011 Page 7

Quality Operating ModelEmbedded System Testing and Centralized Quality Control

Initial Needs System Test Oversight

Automation Growth

Retain Focus on “Good” Testing Techniques/Skills

Evolved to Focus on Value Transition “Oversight” to Collaboration with Audit & Compliance

Evolve Centralized Automation from “Doing” to “R&D/Mentoring”

Facilitate Collaboration/Growth Between Teams (Quality Focus)

Correct/Prevent Systemic Issues (e.g., Production Quality)

Expand Definition of Quality Beyond “Defect Free”

Encourage/Coach Technology Best Practices

Continuous Development of Agility/Versatility

Expand Delivery Services & Quality via “Enterprise Capabilities Model”

Evolve to “Continuous Value Assessment”

Delivery Services Operating Model

STRATEGIC DIRECTION FROM SENIOR LEADERSHIPStrategy Creation & Evolution │ Continuous Value Assessment │ Communication of Vision, Direction & Priorities

ENTERPRISE CHECKS & BALANCESINTERNAL/EXTERNAL AUDIT │ PMO │ CHG MGT │ DATA SECURITY │ COMPLIANCE | ARCHITECTURE |DATA GOVERNANCE | DATA POLICY

TECHNOLOGY DELIVERY SERVICES CAPABILITY MOBILIZATIONTECHNOLOGY DELIVERY SERVICES LEADERSHIP | BUSINESS LEADERSHIP | ENTERPRISE LEADERSHIP

Epic/Project Status| Executive Status | Business Leadership Status

Release Quality | System Testing │ Business Project & Product Ownership | Sprint & Project Reviews Test Automation Development │ Continuous Delivery Improvement forums

Production Quality in tandem

with Business Quality Teams

Audit, Compliance, PMO

Financial Forecast / Monitoring

Department Transparency

Continuous Improvement at

Department Level

DELIVERY TEAM EXECUTION

ENTERPRISE

• Business Svc Monitoring• ECM • Usability Arch

• Improvement Communities

• Quality, Tools & Process

ENTERPRISECOLLABORATION

ENTERPRISECAPABILITY

MOBILIZATION

Agile Team

Agile Team

Agile Team

Agile Team

Agile Team

Agile TeamENTERPRISE Traditional

Team

QUALITY OVERSIGHTTools & Techno logy

Automation & Frameworks

Load & Performance

Continuous Integration

Technology Best Practices

Research & Development

Adaptive Staffing

People & Processes

Delivery Services Continuous

Improvement

Team Health

Agility & Versatility Development

Cross-Functional Liaison

Training / Mentoring / Career

Development Facilitation

Agile Team

QualityTeam

Quality Control is Centralized; Testing is Embedded in Delivery Teams

Traditional Team

April 7, 2011 Page 9

Agile and Legacy Systems

Positive impact on software Discourages monolithic componentry

Test automation Includes some home-grown tools

Some integration with newer tools thru web interfaces, etc.

Employees working with legacy systems Sometimes Agile is a tougher sell

Test scrum with them

Scrum speaks for itself!

April 7, 2011 Page 10

Agile and Offshore Teams

Challenges:

Colocation

Lack of face to face collaboration

Culture

Command / control vs. self organization

Significant time difference

Can also be advantage

(round the clock work)

April 7, 2011 Page 11

Agile and Offshore Teams

Strategies for Success

Quality of communication

Face to Face

Let your front line team members be included in travel

Offshore team members in our office & on team

Video or Telephone

Currently doing daily early morning call

April 7, 2011 Page 12

Agile and Offshore Teams

Strategies for Success

Virtual standup

Virtual story board (eg Version One, scrumy.com)

Currently using a spreadsheet

Clearly communicate planning results

Telephone or video standup – maybe not daily

Planning

Get stories from storytime to offshore day before planning

Get input from offshore team

Review by phone morning after planning

April 7, 2011 Page 13

April 7, 2011 Page 14

Communicating Value

Did well at first

Success led to slacking on the message

Increased # of Agile teams to program-sized

levels

Nervousness settled in w/ management

April 7, 2011 Page 15

Moratorium – (Given) Reasons

Leadership felt lack of

control/influence

Management didn’t know how we

selected a project to go Agile

Cost of build outs for new Agile teams

Expressed unawareness of Agile

value

“Lack of transparency”

Heard we had multiple Agile coaches

Business feels like they’re giving more

(PO, SME, BA, user testers, etc.)

April 7, 2011 Page 16

Evolving Leadership

How can we help them along?

Status report

Value report

Improved visibility

Keep the Agile program in front of Senior

Management

Questions??