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Startups and Agile - What can go wrong?
A case study
Presenter - Vipin Jain
QA Manager
Metacube Software, India
Agenda
Case study of a startup, that opted for Waterfall model and then midway moved to Agile.
How Agile was setup and how the project was affected by Internal/external events.
What went wrong. Lessons Learned.
Brief History Base idea behind this product was to
make people connect via a web application and browse for people with special skills in neighborhood. Similar to Facebook / Linkedin but on a much lesser level. Base idea is to CONNECT and CHAT.
Someone suggested to have a MOBILE APPLICATION as well for increased reach and faster access.
Another suggestion came up to OUTSOURCE this project to an offshore company to incur less cost.
How clear are the project’s objectives and requirements? – We know what we want.
How clear and well-defined is the solution? – We are an experienced team and know how to get the solution.
How dispersed is the project team? - We will outsource, so we would be geographically far located.
What is the team’s and stakeholder’s experience with these methodologies? – We are quite familiar with Waterfall model. Agile, well, we need to learn.
Do you want the product be delivered at once – Yes. Make it and ship it all in one go.
Waterfall e
merged as
the winner
Teams’ Structure
Onshore Offshore-Web Team
Owners
Product Manager
Tech. Architect
Tech. Architect
Project Manager
Developers
Single Tester
Offshore-Mobile Team
Tech. Architect
Developers
The Testers began as well..
Common Tester for both Mobile as well as Web team. Initially only one tester, with a plan for another hiring later.
He began his tasks of creating detailed test cases for each design and functional elements.
Processes were setup for bug management, and testing tools identified.
Plan for automation put in place.
The News Broke
$19 Billion
The Focus changed
Onshore Offshore-Web Team
Owners
Product Manager
Tech. Architect
Tech. Architect
Project Manager
Developers
Testers
Offshore-Mobile Team
Tech. Architect
Developers
Testers
Great ! We have Mobile team in place. What’s the Plan?
Encash the whatsapp fever - We need Quick deliveries to make quick $$. Let’s Bring in
AGILE What about the Web Team? Well,
they can help in creating web services/API to be used in Mobile App
What did this mean for testers? Whole approach to testing
changed as team switched to Agile.
The Test plans and test cases created were of no use as the Web app got scrapped off.
The Automation plan went awry as well.
More time would be required now to identify tools for mobile app automation. The whole testing plan was shelved and precious time and efforts got waste.
We need Agile Training !
1 WEEK Classroom training arranged for Onshore team
And Offshore team?
The PPTs of training emailed for self training, to be done in 1 DAY
Two teams were created
API Team – the old web team started looking after APIs, needed by the Mobile team
Separate Scrum, Scrum Master, Sprint meetings, Retrospectives
Not in Sync with the Mobile Scrum Satin a different room than Mobile
Team
Mobile Team–“THE team”. Focus was to get the best from them as they are developing “THE PRODUCT”
Separate Scrum, Scrum Master, Sprint meetings, Retrospectives
Not in Sync with the API Scrum Sit in a different room than API
team
We need a third team !
A new feature, Search, was identified and should be implemented before first rollout of app.
It’s a Database feature, and hence could not be part of the existing teams
Solution?• Form a new team. It should be
following AGILE as well, so lets combine it with the API team, but should follow its OWN SCRUM.
3 Agile teams for 1 Application
Team 3
Work Began..
No SYNC between
teams, leading to
total chaos
What did this mean for testers?
With three parallel sprints, the tester soon found himself just switching between them. Every two weeks, there are three sprints planning sessions, three releases, three retrospectives, numerous status calls internally and with clients, and loads of stories and bugs. The poor guy was overloaded with tasks and lost his way.
No, this is not working!
Two sprints finished and still there is no stable release.
Issues kept surfacing as teams were doing their meetings, story planning, stand-ups and retrospectives separately.
The teams have their own product backlogs, resulting in picking un-related tasks. E.g. Mobile team picked Search feature but the API team picked Connect feature.
So what should we do?
The Agile methodology says “Have a single Scrum master who can help syncing the three teams.”
Great !! Let’s do it.
Let’s start afresh
Old work was scrapped off as new scrum master, who was earlier API team’s scrum master, wanted to start afresh instead of correcting existing processes.
This created more confusion amongst teams as to which direction the project was moving.
All began AGAIN!!
Finally, after three months, whole team started again. Whole team sat together in same room Common sprint planning session took place. Common status meetings happened. Different teams got to know what others teams are up
to. Things started to look better FINALLY, everyone started to hope for a stable
release !!!
But, is this the end of all chaos?
New issues came up!
Teams seemed uninterested when other teams’ members discuss issues or update their status. e.g. API people not listening when mobile people spoke.
Teams took a while to understand the Whole project, delaying the project further.
Investors getting impatient!
All these restructuring resulted in further delays.
Growing pressure from impatient investors forced everyone to work in a hurry.
Ad hoc queries started flowing in and they needed to be acted upon immediately.
These factors disrupted the Agile process further.
Time Constraints: Lack of Automated Testing
Frustration creeps up that began to affect the productivity.
Lack of Automated Tests didn’t help either. Since the product took many different forms and was continually adding features and patching bugs, there's not much dev time to add in Automated Tests. For the product, which had a backend, front end web, and iOS and Android components, only 20% of the system was automated. No time and resources were left to commit for front end and mobile to move to TDD.
Budget constraints – No Additional QA resource
iOS Testing
Android Testing
Documentation
Bug Life Cycle
Product demos added more to the Agile disruption To pacify the investors and stake holders, product
demos were arranged for their viewing. This opened the gates for various suggestions and
changes that needed even redesigning some parts of the application.
The Sprint got a complete halt. It was declared Zero sprint.
More weeks added to provide more time to developers to work on investors’ change requests.
No Visibility in sprint now.
We forgot that A
gile can
deliver only when we
know where we’re
going with our product
The Way was lost!
Product failed, and its NOT rare
Source: http://innovationcenter.deteconusa.com/article/innovation-execution/
Lessons Learned Agile is a technology and is as failure prone as any
other technology. Everyone in the team needs Agile Training. Though Agile makes big promises, it also presents
significant challenges to fulfill those. Agile is Quick in terms of development in small stages
over small periods. However, this depends on following: The software is built in a way that makes it easy to change. Projects can fail faster, providing opportunities to apply fixes
along the way. Product we end up delivering may not be the one that was
envisioned. But it should be one that delivers value for business.
Lessons Learned …contd. Drive for Agile should come from Top of the
organization. Its not a development team’s task to drive it.
Substantial commitment from whole organization is required.
A strong product owner is required throughout the process. His absence can derail a smooth going Agile process.
Businesses may find it tempting to see Agile as a way to use few expensive personnel. An Effective Agile team needs lot more than a product owner, Scrum master and a couple of developers.
Any questions?
About Anubha and Vipin
• I believe that Quality is not an Act, it’s a habit. Assurance of client is not an achievement, it’s the Attitude. The Habit of having this Attitude is QA.
• A tester by choice, traveler by nature, incognito photographer. Love to meet people!
• I believe the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society.
• She is working as Associate Professor & Head, IT department, The IIS University, Jaipur, India. An academician for last 14 years, she is currently pursuing her PhD, in the field of Information Retrieval.
• Anubha is the author of 9 books and a regular contributor in various forums.
Thank You !
[email protected]: in.linkedin.com/in/vipinqalead/
Twitter: vipin_QA
Linkedin: in.linkedin.com/pub/anubha-jain/17/541/140/en
