Creating a Lean business from the inside out

Technical innovation at uSwitch to reduce waste and become lean

Introduction

• Uswitch.com is a price comparison website• Over 10 years old• Focused on the energy switching market• Also offer insurance, finance and other

products• Saving customers time and money

uSwitch.com

Who are we?

Damon Morgan: development manager

Mark Durrand: IT director

What are we talking about?

• Changes to technology and process which changed the way our business functioned

• The practical effect of those changes on productivity

• Delivering the right stuff

Our journey

3 years ago…• Waterfall• Large teams with multiple roles

o Project Managerso Business Analystso Developerso Testerso Product Managers

• Long projects (typically 6-12 months)• BDUF

Our journey

2 years ago…• Decided to ‘go Agile’• Came from new CTO and some developers• Desire to deliver value more quickly• Strict Scrum

o 3 week iterations (3 weeks testing)o Daily stand-upso Planning meetings, retrospectives, etc

Our journey

• Evolved Scrum with XP practices• TDD• Pair programming• Continuous integration

• Overall, this worked quite well• Big improvement on waterfall

Velocity with Scrum – Aug to Oct 2008

45 46 47 480

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

PointsStories

How efficient was planning?

PointsStories

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

CompletedPlanned

How efficient was planning?

• 60% of planned stories completed

• 40% unplanned work in each sprint

• That’s inefficient

Scrum issues

• Overhead of planning - half day per iteration• Overhead of testing at the end - 3-4 days per

iteration• Overhead of release - 2 days per iteration• Time to market - at least 3 weeks• Point releases - around 2 per iteration• Only 60% of planned work completed

Lean

Keep it simple

• Purposefully avoided terminology• Introduced change by stealth• Senior management unaware

Evolution of our boards

Backlog | In Progress | QA | Done

Backlog | In Progress | Done

Backlog | Ready | In Progress | Inventory | Done (With WIP Limits)

Ideas | Backlog | Ready | In Progress | Inventory | Done

Going Lean - process

• No planning meeting - plan on demand

• Limit WIP

• No iterations

• Pull stories on customer demand

Going Lean: technology

Release on demand• Team City and Subversion for CI• Built a tool to move code to the live environment

safely• Extra monitoring to reduce risk of frequent releases

(conversion rate, error rate)Removed QA at the end - baked quality in

• BDD• Integration tests• Smoke tests run on release and for monitoring

Going Lean: people

We reduced the number of roles• No QA - Tester Developers• No Analyst - customer part of the team• No PM or Scrummaster - self-organising teams

Teams understand context and objectives of initiatives and own solution. Use measures to define success.

Flow - CFD

30/12/1

899

02/11/1

902

02/09/1

905

02/07/1

908

02/05/1

911

02/03/1

914

02/01/1

917

02/11/1

919

02/09/1

922

02/07/1

925

02/05/1

928

02/03/1

931

02/01/1

934

02/11/1

936

02/09/1

939

02/07/1

942

02/05/1

945

02/03/1

948

02/01/1

951

02/11/1

953

02/09/1

956

02/07/1

959

02/05/1

962

02/03/1

965

02/01/1

968

02/11/1

970

02/09/1

973

02/07/1

976

02/05/1

979

02/03/1

982

02/01/1

985

02/11/1

987

02/09/1

990

02/07/1

993

02/05/1

996

02/03/1

999

02/01/2

002

02/11/2

004

02/09/2

0070

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

BlockReadyIn ProgressInventoryDone

Flow - CFD

18th Sep

22/09/2

009

24/09/2

009

28/09/2

009

30/09/2

009

02/10/2

009

06/10/2

009

08/10/2

009

12/10/2

009

14/10/2

009

16/10/2

009

20/10/2

009

22/10/2

009

26/10/2

009

28/10/2

009

30/10/2

009

03/11/2

009

05/11/2

009

10/11/2

009

13/11/2

009

17/11/2

009

19/11/2

009

21/11/2

009

25/11/2

0090

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Express ReadyReadyExpress In ProgressIn ProgressExpress InventoryInventoryBAU+Xpress Done

Benefits of Lean

• Quicker to market (value earned earlier)• Reduced waste in planning• Releases smaller, quicker and safer• Quality built in, no inspection• Most valuable work done first• Reduced reliance on estimation

Flow

Flow makesestimationredundant

The Disney queue:

How long to the front?

Under 10 days from here…

39900 39905 39910 39915 39920 39925 39930 39935 399400

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Cycle Time (Ready to Live)

How the business changed

• Initiatives not projects• Smaller features (MMF)• Trust in flow• No longer wanted estimation• Releases no longer an event - they happen every

day• No surprises, complete transparency of what is

being done now

Case study: business energy

• Idea conceived in 2008• New market• Plan to build/buy complex CRM software• Scoped as 6-9 month project• Cost £££• Never started because risk too high

Case study: business energy

• 2009• Build nothing• Start working - get on the phone• Developers paired with sales team• Observed pain points and inefficiencies• Built features to improve productivity

Realising the value

Why was Lean better?

• Useful, evolving product• Didn’t build anything we don’t need• Made money as we went• Evolution rather than big bang• Promotes concept of one team

Measuring business value

• What is most valuable?• We tried estimating business value (£1-£5)• Many ways to measure value

• Revenue• Customer Satisfaction/Experience• Innovation• Efficiency• Reduced risk

• Very difficult to work out…

Measuring business value

• Accept that value is subjective• It’s a judgement call

Measuring business value

• Ensure the judgement is informed• A/B and multi-variant testing• Measure the right things• Retrospectives

• The process supports continuous re-evaluation through a quick feedback cycle

Fail Fast

• Try new ideas quickly• We must ask the right questions to prove those

ideas• The smallest thing that you can do to adequately

prove your idea• Do it in a day

Bird Cages

1 day… Create a site with cages • How many people click ‘buy’?

1 week… Create a site that really sells cages• How many cages can you sell?

1 month… Create a business importing and selling cages

Do you want to go Lean?

Get your technology sorted• XP practices• Remove inspection, bake quality in• Make releases cheap and safe• Do them every day

Do you want to go Lean?

Get your process sorted• Some sort of Agile approach• No ‘one size fits all’• Do what works for you• Forget about projects, concentrate on features• Continually re-assess your assumptions• Be prepared to fail but do it quickly

Goldfish bowl

• Three people at the front• The audience can ask questions• Those in the bowl can answer• If you want to answer then get in the bowl• You can leave the bowl at any time