April 7, 2011 Page 1
Mile High Agile 2011: Elevating Agility
A Day in the Agile Life of a Financial Services Company
Presented by John Nicol, Doug Huffman, Beth Bleimehl, Mike Banta, Paul Quarles
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Mile High Agile 2011: Elevating Agility
How Agile has Evolved
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How did we get here?
The catalyst for change The beginnings of change Agile assessment and kickoff Where we are today and where we want to go
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Mile High Agile 2011: Elevating Agility
Agile Roles and Coaching
Product Owner
Scrum Master
Delivery (Agile) Manager
Team Members (Dev, QA/BA, SME)
Coaching Role
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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 Mgr for performance mgmt, 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
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Interlocking Agile Leadership Roles
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Coaching Philosophy
At inception, equal parts executive and team level training
Coaching engagement mandatory for new teams Mature teams receive periodic “health checks” Creates coaching opportunities for Agile
practitioners
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Quality Operating ModelEmbedded System Testing and Centralized Quality Control
Initial Needs System Test Oversight Automation Growth
Evolved to Focus on Value Transition “Oversight” to Collaboration with Audit & Compliance Evolve Centralized Automation from “Doing” to “R&D/Mentoring” Facilitate Collaboration Between Teams Expand Definition of Quality Beyond “Defect Free” Correct/Prevent Systemic Issues (e.g., Production Quality) Encourage/Coach Technology Best Practices Continuous Development of Agility/Versatility Evolve to “Continuous Value Assessment” Expand Delivery Services & Quality via “Enterprise Capabilities Model”
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 & Te chnolog y
● Automation & Frameworks● Load & Performance● Continuous Integration● Technology Best Practices● Research & Development● Adaptive Staffing
People & Proce sses
● 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
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Agile and Legacy Systems
Positive impact on software Discourages monolithic componentry
Test automation Includes some home-grown tools
Employees working with legacy systems Sometimes Agile is a tougher sell Test scrum with them
Scrum speaks for itself!
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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)
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Agile and Offshore Teams
Strategies to make successful
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
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Agile and Offshore Teams
Strategies to make successfulVirtual standup
Virtual story board (eg Version One, scrumy.com) Clearly communicate planning results Telephone or video standup – maybe not daily
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Moratorium – (Given) Reasons
Management didn’t know how we selected a project to go Agile
“Lack of transparency” Heard we had multiple full-time Agile coaches on
payroll Cost of build outs for new Agile teams
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Underlying Reasons
First two point to lack of control/influence
Last two point to unawareness of the value Agile was bringing
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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
Felt the loss of control/influence Could not effectively keep up with all the teams,
what they were working on
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Scrutiny for Agile Have to live with the double
standard (years of comfort w/ the old ways)
Business feels like they’re giving more (PO, SME, BA, user testers, etc.)
Hard to let go of central command and control (esp. in a hierarchical-style mgmt.)
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Evolving Leadership
How can we help them along?
Status report Value report Improved visibility Keep the Agile program in front of Senior Management
Questions??
