scaling the agile wall - axs2000.net•scaling agile across two enterprises •scaling agile across...
TRANSCRIPT
Kimberly Davis CSM, CSPO, PMI-ACP, SA, SP, CAL1 Lead Agile Architect – ASRC Federal Mission Solutions Moorestown, NJ
INTRODUCTION
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Our Scaled Agile Transformation
• Scaling Agile across two enterprises
• Scaling Agile across 165 teams
• Approximately 2K in people
• Work is in the DoD
• 40+ years of Waterfall
• CMMI Level 5
• Earned Value Management
• Ultimate customer is all over the place – in the ocean, on a ship somewhere
Leave you with the some valuable lessons learned to prevent the question, “So if you had to do it over again, how would you do it?”
Concepts in Being Agile v. Doing Agile at Scale
An understanding this is going to be easy, but I am going to tell you, it will be worth it!
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
SOME BACKGROUND
A Tale of a Scaling Blunder
We’re going to “do Agile” – it saves us money and gets capabilities delivered faster and higher quality
Great! Let’s come up with a 3-year plan, train everyone, hire some coaches, and kick off SAFe’s release planning in about 6 months and be Agile!! Hoorah!!
Good plan! Go off and find some people to execute this!
Oh and we will need metrics to measure our progress.
And since Agile will save us money, this won’t really cost a thing!
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
One year later….
We’re burning down features and increasing our velocity, but we’re still not better, faster, cheaper – what gives?
Well, we ran a pilot with a few small teams so we could learn from their experience and scale it to the other 100 teams.
So, we’ve spent $5M for a new set of metrics and a re-org? What did the coaches teach us?
We also adopted the Agile toolset you used to get your metrics.
Then we hired 20 coaches at $150/hour.
When we scaled our pilot, we found that the approach didn’t work for everyone, so we needed to reorganize and co-locate teams. Teams also increased velocity, because they started estimating higher!
Some of the teams are doing agile and practicing Agile ceremonies, but there is something missing….
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Agile is a Mindset, not a Process
GETTING STARTED Get Organizational Alignment
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Why do organizations adopt Agile?
VersionOne’s 11th Annual State of Agile Report
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Where We Got Started
• We were handed a 3 year transformation plan
• We were told we were using Scaled Agile Framework
• We were told how we should organize our teams
• We gave our teams 2 days of Agile training
We were told how to do Agile…
No one understood what it meant to be Agile…
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AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
“To successfully create the significant breakthroughs in your development
effectiveness that are possible with agile, it has to be aligned with why you want to do it in the first place and what you need to achieve from it.” - authors of A Practical
Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Getting Organizational Alignment
• Continuous Employee engagement
• Establish business objectives – High level deliverables
– Evolving the business
• Be transparent with objectives
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Clear Business Objectives Gives
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Scaling Some Principles
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Combine Trust & Continuous Learning
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Show Results of Continuous Improvement
Iteration Business Objectives Health Check Priority Theme Exit Criteria
1 Quality Standard
• Priority 1 Bug Closure <= 1 week • Automated Test Pass 100% • L2 Test Issues responce time <= 24hrs
2 Decouple Software for System X
• Dependencies reduced to 0% • Test Cases reduced by 20% • Automated Regression Tests Pass 100% • Run Subsystem A as standalone • Run Subsystem B as standalone • Run Subsystem C as standalone • Feature Toggle can show A, B or C or a combination
3 Python Training • Vendor Assessment and Selection completed • Training Scheduled
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Build an Orchestrator for automation coordination
• User can call scripts to create new environments for tests on a set of virtual machines • Code is deployed to that environment; user is informed of status • Database schema is updated with Evoltionary Database Design so schema changes will not break the application; user is informed of status • Aomated Testing is kicked off; user is informed of status • Results are stored and user(s) are notified
Done Not Done
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Lessons Learned #1 Summary
1. Understand where you and where you want to be and be transparent with this information
2. Don’t make decision on where to get started in a vacuum
3. Like planning in Agile, if you make a long, lengthy, detailed plan on your transformation, it will be obsolete shortly!
4. Build a culture for continuous improvement – this will help get you to where you want to be
5. If you are transparent with your vision and incremental business objectives for getting you where you want to be and are showing qualitative progress, you will gain trust which is essential
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ENTERPRISE COORDINATION Creating Meaningful Plans that Deliver Value
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Where we got Started with Release Planning
• SAFe Release Planning pilot for one large program
• Scaled our Release Planning pilot to the rest of our Programs under one Common Source Library
• Our Customer still marched to a Build Plan so release planning cadence matched the Builds
But….
• The customer directed more and more branches on the CSL • Release cadence no longer matched the builds
• Release Planning pilot did not scale well
• Release Planning detail was too much which made the planning effort difficult to change
• Programs were still marching towards S-curves – limiting WIP was scary for them
• Metrics built around what we planned at release planning created bad behavior
• Even though we did release planning and indicated what we couldn’t do, we were still being asked to do more with no letting less important work slide
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Plan Just Enough
Software is unpredictable…
Until more information is known…
So plan what you know.
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
WIP Limits and Continuous Planning at Scale
• Work In Progress (WIP) limits at the highest level
– Driven by iterative business objectives
– Controls the amount of work in progress throughout the organization
• Continuous backlog grooming for business objectives
– Grooming and planning is continuous as work flows through the system
• Coordinate the cadences for planning, iterations, releases and so forth
Executives
Program Managers
Team of Teams A
Team A1
Bus. Obj.
Bus. Obj. Bus. Obj. Bus. Obj. Bus. Obj. Bus. Obj.
Backlog Assess In Progress
(2)
Team of Teams B
Team of Teams C
Team A2
Team B1
Team B2
Team C1
Team C2
Plan
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
To Do (3)
Epic Epic Epic
Epic Epic Epic
Epic Epic Epic
US US US US
US US US US
US US US US
US US US US
US US US US
US US US US
Done
What’s The Balance?
Lessons Learned #2 Summary
Good Planning practices are facilitated by: 1. Continuous planning/backlog grooming at the Executive Level
2. An acceptance of limiting Work in Progress
3. Just enough planning so change is easier to bare
4. Accepting the Iron Triangle Shift
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INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE Maintain a Competitive Advantage
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Our Initial Agile Investments
• Training
• Forming Teams
• Re-organizing
• Tools
• New Roles
This led to the need for a consultant…
Because we were trying to do agile
And were not focusing on being Agile
Meanwhile, automation and our architecture were a second thought.
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AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
The Expense is not in Just Being Agile
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• Business Objectives centered around code quality – Decoupling
– Refactoring
– Sound and efficient architecture
– Feature Toggles
• Automation and Continuous Integration are essential for enabling Continuous Delivery
AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Push for Value
Being Agile will enable you do identify what is not providing VALUE
• Legacy processes, procedures, meetings, and so forth that no longer provide value
• Don’t just add Agile to what you’re organization does
Being Agile will enable you to identify how you can deliver more VALUE
• Continuous attention to your architecture
• Focus on finding bugs and resolving them faster
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AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
Lessons Learned #3 Summary
1. Use the Agile Empirical Process for identifying what you need to be investing in to Be Agile
2. You need to invest in laying the ground work for scaling
3. Identify anything the organization is doing that does not provide value
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AFMS Proprietary Customer-Focused. Operationally Excellent.
WRAP-UP
Agile is about continuous improvement, so by definition your transformation is like laundry – it’s never done.
DAD
1. What’s your recipe? 2. How would you continue to perfect
your recipe to keep your customers coming back for more?
Don’t just take the leap…
• Don’t do Agile, be Agile - Scale the Principles
• Assuming doing Agile is going to make you better, faster and cheaper is a broad assumption
• Avoid telling teams how to adoption information overload
• The investment is not in Agile itself, its in evolving your organization
• Understand the organization and the value each part provides