Agile war stories “… and yet it moves" sneak preview - wolfgang hilpert - agile cafe 2017-09-27

Agile War Stories

“… and yet it moves"About obstacles and impediments on the path of

transforming a software engineering team distributed across 3 continents towards agile methods

with contr ibut ions f rom Nicolas Dürr & Volker Sameske

Wolfgang HilpertAgi le Café – Düsseldorf

27. September 2017

09/27/2017 © COPYRIGHT 2017 WOLFGANG HILPERT. 1

Speaker Background – Wolfgang Hilpert

Product & Technology Leader in various roles◦ Chief Technology Officer, Head of Engineering / Software Development, Chief Product Owner

◦ @ startup, mid-size and industry leading ISVs incl. IBM, MSFT, SAP

◦ Entire product life cycle from idea on drawing board, design, development, market introduction & adoption

◦ Within plan-driven & agile product development environments

Initiated and led several lean & agile transformations◦ @ SAP (Netweaver), @ AGT International, @ Sophos (NSG)

◦ Product owner, Scrum master, scaled agile (SAFe)

◦ Established cross-functions for User eXperience, Quality Management & Engineering Excellence, Product Line Architecture and Program Management

Personal◦ Husband & father of 2 children (19 & 15 years old)

◦ Football player, runner (HM), cross-country skier

www.linkedin.com/in/whilpert


http://www.linkedin.com/in/whilpert

ContextThe product development of a team with over 200 engineer at 5 globally distributed locations had to be organized such that one software product with a bunch of functional and significant quality improvements could be delivered on a single day.

In this talk we discuss techniques and concepts that have been applied to drive the agile transformation and the scaling of agile methods within a mid-size, globally distributed enterprise. We talk about challenges that we faced and measures to address these.


Scrum Teams and Lab Locations

Vancouver (CA) Budapest (HU)

Karlsruhe (DE)

Bangalore (IN)

Ahmedabad (IN)

• >200 Engineers in 5 locations• Different cultures – region &

company• Diverse skills, processes, tools


Predictibility Issues – version beforeCase – Timeline: Lack of Predictability

◦ v1 required 35% more time than initially planned

◦ Long path towards Concept Commit

◦ More time spent for stabilization than for development

Reality

Plan

Planning

Development

Hardening


Some War Stories➢Which level of support does the agile transformation need?

➢Scaling agile methods – yes! ➢However, based on which framework?

➢„Scrum hurts. Really?“ ➢Metrics & Transparency help to make the current state and developments visible.

➢How does an 18-months product roadmap fit into an agile project plan?

➢How do agile Scrum product owner and a product manager fit together?

➢How can the agile transformation of global organizations distributed across locations, time zones & cultures be successful anyway?

➢Is the application of agile methods a necessary or sufficient condition for a successful product development?

➢Doing agile vs. being agile











Buy-in for Agile Transformation on all levels

Leadership provides the frame for the transition

Teams own the execution

Agile Development

Agile Support

Development Level

Management Level

Executive Level


Buy-in for Agile Transformation on all levels

◦ Some teams delayed their agile transformation

◦ Historical reasons

◦ Interface issues

◦ Resistance to adoption

◦ This hurts a lot:

◦ Yet we were able to generate important insights.

◦ We discussed it, we decided to improve in collaboration between teams and alligned all teams to an agile approach.

◦ This takes time. Respect that and don‘t force people.

June 2016

Agile Development

Agile Support

Development Level

Management Level

Executive Level


Foster new experiences and change will happen


https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-iron-triangle

Boundary Conditions

11

Don‘t disrupt agile transformation◦ Transparency -> Burn up chart of accomplished product increment

◦ Quality -> early tests, significantly reduce defects previous vs. next rel.

◦ Predictability -> 4 months delay vs. 2 weeks (previous vs. next release)

◦ Stay true to core agile principle, e.g. ◦ Magic triangle, commit only based on estimates provided by the engineers

◦ Still a lot of runway for improvement (TA, UT, etc.)

Provide visibility of roadmap for annual business planning◦ Visibility into 12 months vs. 3 months

Quality = f ( S / R / T mix)

Resource Time

Scope

09/27/2017 © COPYRIGHT 2017 WOLFGANG HILPERT.









Probable topics of my presentation at

Scrum Deutschland 2017on November 17th, 2017

https://www.prowareness.de/agenda-scrum-deutschland-2017/


Doing Agile vs. Being AgileKanban boards, daily scrums, sprints Agile mindset, intent-based Management

„Scrum, BUT …“

„Cargo Cult Agile“

~20% Benefit

▪Some ability to adapt to changing priorities

▪Improved visibility, communication

▪Increased productivity

▪Early tests, better transparency of realistic quality status, improved quality

▪Reduced risk

„Joy at work“ „#1 workplace“

„delighted customers“

~200%+ Benefit

▪Customer delight

▪Joy at work, Employee Engagement

▪Innovation, creativity

▪Leadership at all levels

▪Continuous learning

Practices ≠ Mindset


Doing Agile ≠ Being Agile

14

Don’t ‘Do’ Agile. Be Agile!–Alan Kelly

Stop ‘Doing Agile’. Start ‘Being Agile’!

–Jim Highsmith

How to get to a state of being agile? • Good agile practices that are necessary, but

not sufficient.• Early indicator for being agile:

Truly empowered product owner(s) Long, thorny journey; will hurt, needs coaching

Doing AgileExecuting the practices as closely as possible to “as prescribed” description, and trying to “inspect and adapt” to remove impediments to achieving the “as prescribed” execution.

Being AgileInternalizing the mindset, values, and principlesthen applying the right practices and tailoring them to different situations as they arise.

09/27/2017 © COPYRIGHT 2017 WOLFGANG HILPERT.

Presentations & Public Speaking

Agile war stories “… and yet it moves" sneak preview - wolfgang hilpert - agile cafe 2017-09-27