LIGHTNING TALK:BIG RETRO

Greg WrightDirector of Software Development

1/11/2017

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– 18 Months

– 10 Agile Teams • (Most practicing Scrum)

– 50 Engineers • (including 40% growth)

– 900 Man Months • (144000 Man Hours)

BIG RETRO: KEPSERVEREX 6.0 EFFORT, BY THE NUMBERS

– 160+ Products Refactored

– 2 New languages supported

– 300+ Team Retros

– 120+ Team Kaizens

– 1 Acquisition

– 1 Successful Release

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Our Question:

– How can we take something that seems like this:

– And make it feel like this?

Our Answer:

– Engineering wide retro sessions

• Engineers determine the topics

• Breakout sessions scheduled and negotiated (dynamic agenda)

• Discussions, owners and actions

• Beer and snacks and beer

– Borrowed elements from “Open Space” • http://openspaceworld.org/• http://openspaceagility.com/

BIG RETRO: THE CHALLENGE

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• Scrum Masters and management planned and socialized the event• Allowed 2+ weeks notice for ideas to cook• Scrum Masters collected Retro notes and shared with their teams• Participation was optional• We prepared for the unknown!

BIG RETRO: THE SETUP

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– Opening• Intro and ground rules

– Topic Identification• Topics go on board (group activity)

– Agenda Creation/Negotiation• Topics discussed, aggregated, finalized• Schedule takes shape

– Break• People plan their itinerary

– Breakout discussions held• Notes taken, actions documented

– Closing• Topics and actions summarized• Retro the retro

– Law of Two Feet encouraged

BIG RETRO: THE EVENT

Topics included: Security Testing, Release Regression, Standards, Device Management, Docutecture, Communication, Automation, Project Estimates, Build System, Late Changes, Wild Card

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BIG RETRO: THE AFTERMATH

Artifacts: Retro of Retro: Follow-up:

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• What made it a success:

– Continuous improvement is core to our culture

– It was fun

– People felt safe

– People were prepared for difficult topics

– We made a commitment to follow up

– We had the support of the organization

BIG RETRO: SUMMING UP