beyond agile transition

www.devbliss.com © devbliss

We deliver software and services that delight our customers, sprint by sprint.

Friday, April 26, 13

once upon a time...


... there was a social network


VZ - The Company

Management

Software Engineering

Product Development

Customer Care Marketing

Legal Human Ressources Accounting Public

Releastions

Sales


➡ 32 Software Engineers➡ 3 Operations➡ 4 Scrum Masters➡ 2 Management➡ lead by Dr. Johann Kempe (CIO GvH) and Stephen Devlin (CTO Macmillan)➡ very strong agile mindset

➡ 6 month preparation to carve out➡ Since May 1st 2012 we operate independent from VZ

devbliss today


1

➡ registered Users: 17 Million / 80% monthly actives➡ dynamic requests per month: 60 billion ➡ delivered static Objects per month : 50 billion

➡ peak time bandwidth: around 6 Gbit/s➡ Photos: approx. 1 Billion (3 Billion Files) ➡ 120 TB structured and unstructured data➡ approx. 740 Servers (5700 Cores, 6 TB RAM) ➡ around 30 services and tools➡ used programming languages:

Java, Erlang, Python, PHP, Perl, C, C++, Objective C, Scala ➡ approx. 25.000 (mySQL) Tables

Our experience through VZ


Achievements of the last 3.5 years

➡ Releases possible at any time

➡ Shorthand changes are less painful

➡ Less meetings - focused communication

➡ Team members feel responsible and hold themselves accountable for their work

➡ Crowd architecture

➡ Knowledge transfers within and between the teams

➡ Prioritization - important things first (business value)

➡ Very good code quality and development speed

➡ decisions are made by the people who do the work


Why do companies want scrum or agile?

➡ shortens time2market

➡ enhances productivity

➡ optimizes processes

➡ creates (painful) transparency

➡ motivates employees

➡ makes the company attractive


Transition will succeed only, if the organization breaks its "regular" habit.


“…organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”.

Henry E. Conway April 1968

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B

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Conway's Law


Plan

DoCheck

Act

The Deming-Cycle - Key to the agile mindset


Educate ProductOwner(s)

➡ PO = OWNER! of the product?

➡ What's my Vision!?

➡ UserStories?!??

➡ Prioritization

➡ Backlog / Company Backlog


➡ Facilitator

➡ Mediator

➡ Organizer

➡ Mentor

➡ Therapist

Have ScrumMaster(s)


Prepare the Team

➡ has to have the strong willingness to change something

➡ has to take over responsibility &

➡ has to be aware of being held accountable

➡ might also reject changes

Keep in mind: Initially Scrum was meant for hyper-performant teams!!Friday, April 26, 13

Fear of change

fear of beeing transparent ➧ avoid giving any meeting the look like they are in place for reporting

unwilling to take over responsibility ➧

let the team make decisions themselves and hold them

accountable for them.

„Nonsense“Disregarding the benefits ➧

Scrummaster must facilitate. Teams are recognizing the benefit

fairly quickly.

That does not fit the way we work ➧

search for Interfaces/interactions that allow to fit in, but don't compromise

on the Rules (see 2nd comment)

Talk, Talk, Talk…… do retrospectives on regular base and try to reduce the fears.




afraid of making mistakes ➧ Mistakes are expected! Repeated mistakes are unwanted.

to say "No" ➧ accept a „No", take away pressure,create transparency of what's the real velocity

not getting it done ➧solving technical debt will result in a lower velocity. Let people get a feeling of their own velocity and accept commitments but also demand those commitments.

to change processes that remained untouched a long time ➧ Convince people of the benefits and empower them

Change with no fear


Have A Transition Team:

➡ Drives change throughout the whole organization

➡ „Powerful“ Support for the ScrumMaster

➡ Defines Interfaces between departments

➡ Creates transparency throughout the company


Prepare Management

➡ let the Boss/Client FEEL the improvements

➡ learn how to handle the reporting tools to avoid a bad gut feeling

➡ handle Uncertainty = reporting-artefacts in scrum are sufficient enough!

➡ enforce lean management


Don't lie to yourself!

➡ We certainly moved and changed (after the first sprint)

➡ We "adjusted" the scrum process to fit our organization.

➡ enough change, we need to work now.

➡ the Teams are delivering new features constantly but we had to employ a new bug-manager.


➡ Create a sense of urgency

➡ Create the guiding coalition

➡ Develop a vision and a strategy

➡ Communicate this vision

➡ Empower employees for broad-based action

➡ Generate short-term wins

➡ Consolidate the gains and produce more change

➡ Anchor the new approaches in the culture

John P. Kotter Leading Change


beyond agile transition

Technology