agile practices

Pearson's SuccessmakerPutting the Customer First in Transforming Product Development

Processes

“Customers don’t pay you to create documents; they want you to create a product”

-Adams Woodford

Agile Techniques & Practices in PMKavia VenkateshVersion 2

05/03/2023 Agile practices 2

Version 2• We reworked on this deck after 08/02

• The board had concerns about the schedule, cost and

resources

• We have also brought in changes to our approach

• Sign-Off this time


Background

• The world’s largest publisher and education company

• Operates in over 80+ countries, 40,000 employees

worldwide

• Product- SuccessMaker

• SuccessMaker was failing to meet consumer expectations.


The Magician• Vice President of Product management (2007)

• Failed-Upgrade

• Dissatisfied customers

• Reengineering of the SuccessMaker product development

process

• Distinctive ability to deploy Agile and Lean

frameworks/methodologies


1. What challenges does Adams-Woodford face as he develops his five-year product roadmap?

• Unclear Path• Change the structure and culture • Transition of teams • Skeptical team• Change in mindset• Scrummerfall and Waterations• Lack of Real Commitment • Self organization


2. How do products and software development methodologies influence a firm’s ability to respond to market demands?

• Communication-oriented

• Flexible (ready to adapt to expected change at any time)

• Speedy (encourage rapid and iterative development of the product in

small releases)

• Lean (focuses on shortening timeframe and cost and on improved

quality)

• Responsive (reacts appropriately to expected and unexpected

changes)

• Learning (focuses on improvement during and after product

development)

• Response to the drastic degree of change in the modern business and

IT environments.


3A. What benefits did Pearson realize in making the shift from a waterfall process to an Agile one? • Clients loved the new features

• The code base cut by half

• Number of features increased by up to 75%

• The development team size shrunk by 1/3

• Helped over come risks associated with Waterfall Development


3B.What downsides might be associated with this shift?• Drop in performance

• Unable to estimate accurately how many story points they can develop in a planning period.

• Switching within the same development iteration


3C. What firm or market circumstances are more likely to benefit from a Waterfall or Agile methodology?• Waterfall

• suitable when environment is stable with no room for changes.• When frequent interactions with ends users and other stakeholders are not

possible.• When there is a risk of key developers quitting the project midway.

• Agile• lightweight method, smaller work areas, overhead becomes less, and the project

costs considerably less than when using the Waterfall method.• When customer requirements are hazy, or the business environment is

uncertain.• Agile methods that allow making frequent changes, and testing during the

construction stage remains the best choice. • Highly skilled and competent developers. With the scope to accommodate

changes, an Agile project can easily lose its way.


4. A. What are some of the things Greg should consider as he evaluate whether to continue to focus on the Success Maker product versus becoming involved in a company-wide Agile initiative?• Adopt a product-oriented organizational structure• Improve Team interaction• Redefine roles and relationships• Change planning approach


4B. Which approach should Greg pursue? • Initially develop a self

sustaining Agile Team, with a clear vision.

• Later, move into companywide initiative

Company-wide Agile


4C. How might he optimize this approach?• A retrospect…

• Where the organization is on its journey to Agile. Just starting out?

• Some progress but now stalled or backsliding? • Running Water-Scrum-Fall projects? • The organization's ability to manage effective change. Is

change embraced?• Do people understand transition management? • Are people more adept at resisting change than implementing

it? • Does the form support its customers?

• Meaningful change is likely to involve the broader business, not just a department or IS


5A. Within the Success Maker team, how should Greg agree to follow the recommendations from his developers to move from Scrum to Kanban?

• Scrum to Kanban------SCRUM

• Reasons being,• Greg understands Scrum, he is a strong guiding light to the Team. • The needs motivation, that will be available to them with a strong leader• Kanban is new, new to everyone, this would mean the team will be become a

bunch of headless chickens • As a team, we can embrace retrospectives and have them in every sprint without

fail. Every retrospective improves something, even if slight.• The team has been successful in Scrum, a little few tuning can make it even better• We also, want to suggest a pilot Kanban group, which could be useful in

understanding how we react to Scrum-ban (But we are going to now consider scrum for all our analysis)

• Also, another suggestion is to add another into the Agile band wagon


5B. Should he also push to move all the remaining teams (content/curriculum) to Scrum or Kanban?

• We need to Master SCRUM• Greg should focus on scrum, just to push the team to

motivational space• Other teams, should be introduced slowly in a step by

step fashion• This will give us a better view of how the teams are really

doing• Also, gives us a chance to make modifications, retrospect.• Most, importantly- slow and steady wins the race


5C.What metric should he use to evaluate his decisions?Say Bye-Bye to,

• Gantt Charts• WBS

And Hello to,• Burndown charts• Daily meetings • Iteration delta tables• Release and iteration burn-down charts• Progress reports• Running tested features (RTFs)• Earned value management (EVM)• Product:D


Metric Agile Waterfall

Planning Scale Short Long

Customer-Developer interaction Short Long

Time- Specification and implementation Short Long

Time to discover problems Short Long

Schedule Risk Low High

Quick response High Low

Agile Versus Waterfall


Resource Requirement-Propose 3 models

Hire Agile Consultants• Expensive• Effective

Agile Team support-Passive• Support our team

activities• Act as mentors, train

our staff

Train all our employees• No experience• Not everyone is willing

to learn


Rollout schedule

19

•Where do we want to go?

•How do we get there?

• Obtain a functioning program level

• Introduction to AGILE for all teams (4 trains)

• Started a number of community of practices with focus on practices and quality

• Obtain a functioning portfolio level

• Defined intake processes

• Road-mapping through agile estimates and planning

• Regular Meetings to celebrate success and progress

• Holistic view from the start and buy in from upper management

• Brought in consultants

• Started an agile release train for teams with Scrum experience

• Training for ALL in the new train

• Lean & Agile training for teams without Scrum experience

Q1-KickOff Q2-Get it running Q3-Accelerate


Rollout PlanUse our present Scrum Team-As guiding light (INITIAL TEAM)Our New Team members are going to be new resources we invest in.


High Level roadmap-1Year

21

Scrum for 3-5 distributed

teams

Scaling up Scrum from 3 to 9 teams

Introduce more Scrum

teamsAll teams

January ….. March August December

• A fully Agile Organization• Highly effective and efficient team


The PITCH• Estimated costs,

• Our Recommendation,• Invest on model 2, bring in a team that could train our team and give our

team the guidance, so Greg can concentrate on bringing in the company into the AGILE MODE

Hire Agile Consultants Agile Team support-Passive

Train all our employees

$2Million Dollars $800,000 $300,000


We need to do this….

Expected sales from the new methodology implementation

• We believe this investment will improve our business by 70%


Q&A

THANK YOU


References• http://blog.xebia.com/how-to-improve-scrum-team-performance-with-kanban/• https://www.pwc.com/us/en/increasing-it-effectiveness/publications/assets/scal

e-agile-throughout-the-enterprise.pdf• http://www.netobjectives.com/blogs/should-you-scale-agile-first-what-do-you-m

ean• http://www.scaledagileframework.com/metrics/• http://apiumtech.com/blog/agile-methodology-is-not-only-for-software-develop

ment/• https://kellycrew.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/top-10-issues-implementing-agile-

okay-14/• http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/Articles/tabid/115/ID/3129/10-Tips-fo

r-Creating-an-Agile-Product-Roadmap.aspx• http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/customer-collaboration/u

nified-contact-center-enterprise/agile_product_development.pdf

http://blog.xebia.com/how-to-improve-scrum-team-performance-with-kanban/

https://www.pwc.com/us/en/increasing-it-effectiveness/publications/assets/scale-agile-throughout-the-enterprise.pdf

https://www.pwc.com/us/en/increasing-it-effectiveness/publications/assets/scale-agile-throughout-the-enterprise.pdf

http://www.netobjectives.com/blogs/should-you-scale-agile-first-what-do-you-mean

http://www.netobjectives.com/blogs/should-you-scale-agile-first-what-do-you-mean

http://www.scaledagileframework.com/metrics/

http://apiumtech.com/blog/agile-methodology-is-not-only-for-software-development/

http://apiumtech.com/blog/agile-methodology-is-not-only-for-software-development/

https://kellycrew.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/top-10-issues-implementing-agile-okay-14/

https://kellycrew.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/top-10-issues-implementing-agile-okay-14/

http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/Articles/tabid/115/ID/3129/10-Tips-for-Creating-an-Agile-Product-Roadmap.aspx

http://www.modernanalyst.com/Resources/Articles/tabid/115/ID/3129/10-Tips-for-Creating-an-Agile-Product-Roadmap.aspx

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/agile_product_development.pdf

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/agile_product_development.pdf

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