Agile at the
Office Of
Personnel
Management
(A True Story)
Richard Cheng Agile trainer & coach
Excella Agile Center of Excellence Lead
Member of Scrum Alliance, Agile Alliance, Agile Leadership Network, PMI
CST, CSM, CSPO, CSP, PMI-ACP, PMP
Founder & executive committee member of Agile Defense Adoption Proponents Team (ADAPT), the Agile DoD Task Force
Deep expertise in Federal, commercial, and non-profit Agile transformations
David Neumann Role @ DOL
Accreditations
Objectives Demonstrate how Agile brought success to OPM’s
Retirement Systems Modernization (RSM) data
program
Discuss challenges with Agile in the Federal
government
Interactive
History - Retirement System
Modernization (RSM)
As is – paper based Federal retirement system and
infrastructure
To be – electronic online system called RetireEZ
Used traditional requirements, design, implement, and
test cycles to develop the system
Testing phases uncovered serious issues
Issues eventually resulted in a mutual agreement by
OPM and the vendor to terminate the RetireEZ contract
Agile Solution
Identify the value
Communication & Collaboration
Iterative delivery
Identify the ValuePrevious efforts tried to do a lot:
Identify the Value
Agile Solution Identify the value
Communication & Collaboration
Iterative delivery
Top Down COTS vs
Bottom Up Custom
COTS
• Executives
• PM / Governance
• Vendor
• Date Driven
Custom
• SMEs• Policy
• Legal Requirements
• Regulations
• Scope Driven
Source of Requirements
Retirement System
OPM Adjudicator
External Data ProvidersDaily meetings with individual data providers
Twice a week meetings with internal
SMES
SMEs understand retirement processShifted focus from telling SMEs how the system works to understanding their needs
SSC's need to know data to sendShifted focus from gathering requirements to confirming requirements
Communication and
CollaborationPrevious solutions – the requirements and the data has to fit the system
New solution – the system has to fit the requirements and the data
Working closely with the SMEs to understand their needs
Understanding true data and program needs
Building collaborative relationship
SMEs vested in program
SMEs identified with the team and attended the SSC meetings as part of the team
Agile Solution Identify the value
Communication & Collaboration
Iterative delivery
RSM Data Project
The Scrum Team
PMs
BA Dev
PMO
SMEs
Timeline In a two week sprint, our planning takes one day.
Thus our planning period is 10% of our overall timeline.
Extremely short (by industry standards) and effective
M T W TH F
Planning SME Meeting SME Meeting
SME Meeting SME Meeting
Planning
1. Sprint Backlog Planning
2. Sprint Backlog Review
3. Sprint Tasking
4. Execution
4. Sprint Closing
5. Sprint Retrospective
Process Workflow Overview1. Sprint Backlog Planning
The business decides and prioritizes features they want ….
2. Sprint Backlog Review
Team estimates and commits to features ….
3. Sprint Tasking
Team determines how to implement features ….
4. Execution
Team performs the work ….
5. Sprint Closing
Team reviews completed work ….
6. Sprint Retrospective
Team improves process ….
Results
Shifted focus from writing about how we’re going to write the
feed specifications, to actually developing the feed
specifications
Published the Guide to Retirement Data Reporting
Delivered a real-world working solution vetted by
external and internal Federal retirement SMEs
OPM piloting additional Agile projects
Challenges -
Governance Governance
PMO addressed most of the governance issues
Status reports easier because we had real time data
EVM largest challenge
EVM is not inherently anti-Agile, issues are with implementations of EVM
Phase based on a waterfall SDLC
Not being able to change line items
Measurement of value
Agile EVMReq
Design
Dev
Release
QA
EVM TimelineEVM Timeline
Development
Requirements
Development
From this to this…
EVM Timeline
To this….
Requirements
Challenges Misconceptions
Funding / Procurement
Politics
Agile and Federal Contracts
Agile Projects
Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 …..
BPA / IDIQ
Task Order 1
Task Order 2
Task Order 3
…..
2. The top features ready for
delivery
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
Work Completed
Work Remaining
Project Due Date
Fixed Date / Fixed Scope Outcomes of Fixed Date / Fixed Scope projects:
Waterfall
1. Delivered on time and working as expected
2. “Delivered” on time … with issues
3. Cannot deliver on time, need to extend
Scrum
1. Delivered on time and working as expected
2. The highest valued stories are delivered by the requested date and working as expected
Do not sacrifice quality to meet dates
OPM Current State Despite recent press, focused iterative delivery
produces results
Electronic data standards defined and published
Next steps data viewer is the “future of the solution”
OPM Agile evolution
USAJOBS
USA Staffing
Agile expansion
Mr. Kenneth Zawodney in statements before Congress*:
How Agile has helped:
“..Modernize our IT infrastructure incrementally, employing a cost effective and
efficient modular approach to transition away from paper and into the modern
era…”
Results:
• “…Establishing the capability of gathering electronic data..”
• “…In 2012, we launched the Data Viewer…”
• “..11 agencies are in a pilot for the Data Viewer..”
• “..Continue to deploy the Data Viewer to all agencies within the Federal
government…”
*http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mr.-ZAWODNY-Testimony.pdf
Contact Information
Richard K Cheng
703-967-8620
http://www.excella.com
Twitter: @RichardKCheng