Experience Report : Agile transformation & implementation - Cisco Video Business

Experience Report :Agile transformation & implementationCisco Video Business

N.S.Venkateswaran, Anil Thattil

March 2015

Overview

Cisco Team

2© 2013-2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. NSV

Agenda

Introduction

Why & Our Agile Journey so far

What is unique in our Agile transformation

Q&A

1

2

3

4


Introduction – N.S.Venkateswaran CSP, CSPO, CSM

N.S.VenkateswaranScrum Master

Cisco

• Over 14+ years of hands on experience in defining execution strategy for complex & distributed business accounts & programs in the area of product development & delivery using both waterfall and Agile methodologies.

• 4+ years as an agile practitioner in global enterprises. Experienced in Agile transformation of mid & large size programs (30 - 320+ people)


Introduction – Anil Thattil - CSPO

Anil ThattilSenior

Product Manager@Cisco

• 17+ years of embedded domain experience, with focus in the area of product management, development & delivery using both waterfall and Agile methodologies.

• Agile practitioner and Senior Product Manager at Cisco Video


Introduction

SD Zapper Set top box

HD Zapper Set top box

HD PVR Set top box

Video Everywhere

Hybrid / 4K Set top box

Video Gateway IP Set top box


Introduction

Launched by over 47+ Pay TV Service Providers

Cumulative 78+ Million subscribers

World Map of Cisco Video Customers

http://www.telecolumbus.de/index.php

http://www.telecolumbus.de/index.php

http://www.dsmart.com.tr/

http://www.dsmart.com.tr/

http://www.akado.ru/

http://www.akado.ru/

http://oteshop.ote.gr/portal/page/portal/OTESHOP

http://oteshop.ote.gr/portal/page/portal/OTESHOP

http://www.sky.com.mx/portada

http://www.sky.com.mx/portada


Why Agile for Cisco Video Business

• Disruptive technologies evolving in the Pay TV space & fast pace of changes occurring in TV viewing space and the need to outpace competitors in market place

• For employees to focus and have fun @ work.

• Improve predictability to launch a complex feature to our customers e.g.: In the past for few complex features, we planned to deliver in 6 months vs. actual delivered in 1 ½ year


Agile Journey so far

Now you are ready to run your 1st

Sprint!

You are now ready to Optimize!

You are now ready to Scale!

Prepare Get Started Mature


We had transformed at the

Organization level

Execution level

People level

Preparation for our Journey



• Two key decision points as pre-conditions for preparing your journey

• Executives decide whether adopting agile is what they need for their organization & business and do they have the Org structure to support it.

• Executive and Senior Management commitment


Sprint!

Traditional Pro - Agile teams

Organization Structure


Component 3

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director

Component 2

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director


The Reporting Structure (in the past)

General Manager

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director

Integration & ValidationComponent 1

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director

Project Mgmt.


Sprint!


Component 1

Component 2

Component 3

Other stakeholder components

Integration & Proj. Mgmt.

Testing (QC)

Integration

Software Project

Managers

Project A Project B Project C

Delivery

Preparation for our JourneyWe had to move to…… Reporting Structure (Pro-Agile)


Sprint!


Cluster A Cluster B Cluster CProduct Owners

Strategy & Technology

Scrum Masters

Product Managers

General Manager

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Scru

m t

eam

Preparation for our Journey Now you are ready to run your 1st

Sprint!



The Execution Model (In the past)

System Architecture

Team members

Team Leads

Team Managers

Director

Component 1

Component 2

Component 3

Component n

Comp. Design

Coding

Comp. Testing

Release

Design,coding,testing and release



IntegrationProject A

PRODUCT

IntegrationProject B


Sprint!


Preparation for our JourneyThe Execution Model (In the Present)

PRODUCT

System Architecture

Scrum Team 2- project A

Scrum Team 3 – project A

Design, code, integrate, test and release


Scrum Team1-project A


Scrum Team 2 – project B

Scrum Team 3 – project B



Scrum Team1- project BDesign, code, integrate, test and

release


Sprint!


Review by

Component 1

Experts

Review by

Component 2

Experts

Design by

Component 1

Experts

In the Past

Review by

Component n

Experts

Pro - Agile

Review by

Moderators

Design by

Component 2

Experts

Design by

Component n

Experts

Design by

SCRUM Team

Preparation for our Journey Now you are ready to run your 1st

Sprint!


• Moderators are Part of SCRUM, act as gatekeepers to ensure sanity of code architecture

• Team have BUILT SUFFICIENT Moderators for Reviews

• Horizontal reviewers have TRANSFORMED to Vertical Moderators

• Moderators GUILD is used to SYNC-Up across Vertical Activities.

Developers

Moderators

MAIN TRUNK

Defects / User Stories

Project Team 2

SCRUM Team 1

SCRUM Team 2

SCRUM Team 1

SCRUM Team 2

Feature Team 2Feature Team 2Feature Team 1

Project Team 1

SCRUM Team 1

SCRUM Team 2

SCRUM Team 1

SCRUM Team 2

Feature Team 1

ReviewsReviews Reviews

Project Team 2

Defects / User Stories

Project Team 1

Preparation for our JourneyNow you are ready

to run your 1st

Sprint!



Individual preferences were considered while performing the transition of traditional Managerial (Program/Project/Team/Component managers) roles to Agile roles (Agile leadership roles [SM, PO, EM])

Moved from fancy hierarchical designations to profession based roles


Sprint!

Role Clarity


Preparation for our JourneyValues: Agree on the values of your Agile organization. These are what the organization will believe is possible.

Culture: Define the culture you want and drop what you don’t want. Choose how you want the

organization to normally operate.Rules: On the values and culture you will strictly adhere to the Rules of Scrum for optimal operational and visibility of obstacles.Practices: Decisions about practices are value based. Progressively increase you agile maturity through development and adoption of practices. Start basic and then scale to your whole organization.


Sprint!

Culture & Values

http://devplaybook.cisco.com:8080/display/PBK/Agree+on+Values

http://devplaybook.cisco.com:8080/display/PBK/Build+an+agile+culture

http://devplaybook.cisco.com:8080/display/PBK/Follow+the+rules+of+Agile

http://devplaybook.cisco.com:8080/display/PBK/Playbook


Preparation for our Journey - Values Do the right thing for the organization, ahead of team and self.

Continuously learn and improve; always challenge established practices – think what we could do better.

Trust, appreciate & respect others regardless of their roles, positions, etc.

Be open to new ideas; never be defensive.

Be a servant leader – help people do their best.

Take personal responsibility for business as if it was your own: “if anything has failed it’s my fault”.

Team work – it is the team that wins or loses, not an individual!

Enjoy what we are doing.

Be courageous – to stand up, speak out and DO THE RIGHT things.

Integrity – be open and honest about what I say and what I do.

Be Authentic – be who you are; give no room to politics.

Be Passionate about what we do!

Be Purposeful - understand WHY we are doing what we are doing.

Be Transparent – to be open in what I say and what I do.


Sprint!




Sprint!



Prepare Get Started Mature


Get Started with our journey

Executive team had gone through 5 full days of Agile training.

The first scrum team of our organization was of Executives for the project “Agile Transformation”.

The backlog had team/batch formation, classroom trainings for each batch and kick starting the sprint for each project and so on.

Hired external coaches



Planning the batches

Batch 1

Start end

- - - - - - -

• Each batch had 60 to 70 people spread across 4 to 5 project/product backlogs

• There was a primary coach for each batch

• Each batch was handheld for 6 sprints (12 weeks)

2 external & 2 internal coaches

Batch 2

Batch 3

Batch 4

Batch 7



Evolution Agile Transformation Steps

Leadership Team Identified

(T – 2 weeks)

Team co-located

Leadership Training : PO, SM,

Architect & EM

(3 Days)

Leadership workshop:

Creating Backlog

(1 week)

Team Training

(3 days)

Mini Sprint (1 Week)

Team Coaching

(6 Sprints)

Active Coaching Done: Continued

Support

• All external members of team are included as well (end-to-end Architects…)

• Working with delivery team to include them in this cycle





Sprint!



Prepare Get StartedMature


Mature our journey

What is Technical debt?


Accumulated Interest due to poor software/code architecture, system design, engineering practices, software development within a codebase


Mature our journey

Ways to deal with Technical Debt (TD)• Creating a working agreement with teams to adhere to

strict Definition of Done

• Ensuring no TD is added to any new code written

• Look at the past journey and clearing all the TD that gives ROI.

• We had Technical Debt Reduction Day (one day- All hands including Senior management) every month

• Identifying and prioritizing the Technical Debt related stories in every backlog distributed per sprint

• Effective engineering practices by formation of Guilds (like Code Moderation Guild, Let’s Coffee, Review boards etc…)

• Introduced techniques like pair programing, Test Driven Development, eXtreme Programing etc… with the guidance of the technical coach



What is an Obstacle?

Mature our journey

Anything that slows a team down from delivering to Done

Often the hardest part of removing obstacles is recognizing them



Mature our journey

Scrum Team’s Board

Program Board(Program leadership board –

SM/EM/PO)

Moved if cant be resolved inside team, Obstacle Card is Moved, Not copied

Exec Board

Moved/Visibility transition at expiry of 48hr Time box (+ Common sense) for Program Leadership. Obstacle Card is Moved, Not copied

> 96 Hrs. (Visibility)

Conversations/Feedback( 48 – 96 Hrs.

Conversations/Feedback0 – 48 Hrs.

SMTracking EVERY

day until closure

Future Obstacles

movement is at the

discretion of SM

Obstacle Resolution / Visibility Flow



Systemic obstacles

Poor Build, CI Infrastructure

Poor Automation Infrastructure

Shortage of competencies

Inflexible software architecture

Ways to deal

Poor Build, CI Infrastructure

Invest in improving the CI Infra with 4hr, 12hr, 24 hr. and 48 hr. CI

Poor Automation Infrastructure

All hands in deck e.g.: Technical Debt Reduction day (one day in a month)

Shortage of competencies

Invest in technical coach and Introduce techniques & engineering practices like pair programing, TDD, XP etc… with the guidance of the technical coach

Inflexible software architecture

Define and move to modular software architecture

Mature our journey You are now ready to Scale!


To sustain our way forward, we need to create sufficient

Internal process champions

Internal technical champions

& The Journey Continues…………………

Mature our journeyYou are now

ready to Scale!


Cisco dEV Play book as a framework

Starting point and a framework (Not a mandated rulebook) which enabled us to learn and share the methodologies & practices within Cisco.

Strong commitment from top management to perform all agile practices.

Adopted a top down training model.

Hired and appointed external coaches for our business unit and invested in developing internal coaches

Emphasis on Individuals and Interactions through physical scrum boards rather than using the tools

Rolled out various Guilds (product owner, scrum master… ) which are self driven by like minded people

What is Unique in our Agile transformation?


Some of the unique challenges we faced during this journey

Beginners

People want to know their roles

Stepping into each other roles

Intermediate

Ceremonies were not happening properly

Shortage of cross functional competencies within the team

Now

Systemic issues are slowing down the teams

Arrest User Story spillover

Maturing on engineering practices (XP, TDD, pair programming…)

What is Unique in our Agile transformation?


Q & A

Thank you.