Scrum from an Organization Perspective. Damian P. Evans VP, Product Development, Qpass Amdocs Digital Commerce Division 9 Aug 2007

Transcription

1 Scrum from an Organization Perspective Damian P. Evans VP, Product Development, Qpass Amdocs Digital Commerce Division 9 Aug 2007

2 Scrum provides no organizational guidance, but its impact on organizations can be far reaching. 2

3 INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS 3

4 About Qpass US leader in mobile commerce Started in 1997 Independent division (for now) of Amdocs acquired in May 2006 Approximately 400 people worldwide (Amdocs = ) Sell to Network Operators who need to efficiently manage their digital commerce products (license + maint/support), systems integration projects, managed application services 4

5 Characteristics of Qpass Product Development ( PD ) Great people Humor, mostly snide/self-effacing Mostly consensus-oriented Not a yeller-screamer culture Not very political Somewhat risk averse Some tendency to overanalyze Process-belief (both good and bad) Excellent relationship with Product Management 5

6 Current Status of Scrum at Qpass Qpass Product Development only 12 teams 3 continents 100 people 5 products, with release collaboration req d all doing Scrum Other parts of Amdocs and Qpass very interested, experimenting 6

7 INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS 7

8 Functional Organization: 2005 VP, PD PGM Director, Arch Arch sched Director, Eng Director, QA Mgr, Perf & Platform Test sched Program Managers Architects Eng Mgrs Dev sched Test Mgrs Test sched Perf Eng Test, Tune Schedule Alignment Specs Engineers Design, Code Testers Test 8

9 PD Management Involvement Pre- Scrum Vision, Strategy $$ allocation (LOB level) KPI Objectives Resource acquisition / creation Business ownership / ROI $$ allocation (Product / Project level) Value identification and communication Value delivery Value creation Visibility Resource utilization Impediment removal Risk management Role of people PD mgmt Role of bulk of PD staff Software process definition Technology standards Vendor management IP management 9

10 Our Process Evolution Daily Builds SCM UML Automated Unit Tests Continuous Integration Waterfall RUP Attempt PMI Flair-up Scrum! Componentoriented teams Testing Org Featureoriented teams Architects as demigods Componentoriented teams Architects as team members Testing Org 10 Gone

11 RUP Phases and Qpass: 2005 Inception Elaboration Construction Transition Projects numerous per year, up to 6 in parallel Problem definition and conceptualization, business case Initial estimation ( ROM ) Specification, implementation, and planning sufficient for a date commitment Remaining specification work Software implementation Testing Integration with a release Releases 2 to 3 per year Sustaining Engineering Bug Fix Plan Minor Change Request Identification Target Milestone Dates Clarifying Requirements for bug fix Minor Change Request Specification Bug Fixing and Testing Minor Change Request Coding and Testing Integration of Projects Performance Benchmarking and Tuning of Release as a whole Final Documentation and Packaging Train-the-trainer Support for First Implementation 11

12 Problem Identification: July 2005 Too much time spent in planning No code written in early phases Tester-developer schedule alignment (but not teamwork) tough Risk deferral / weak definition of done Incessant debate about the right way to do iterative development Find a coach 12

13 Scrum Roll-out Approach Experimentation Pilot Roll-out 13

14 Experimentation Found a coach (Danube) Used SDET team as guinea pigs of process (and of coach ) Shared results 14

15 Pilot Retained coach OpenMarket team (a new product) volunteered to pilot Found all sorts of issues management counterincentives the biggest PartnerCenter team (a feature on flagship product) observed OM, picked up baton Found and corrected more issues crappy SCM, poor PO prioritization, ridiculous focus on design perfection 15

16 Rollout Retained coach Took census of those doing Scrum proceeded based on result Organized engineering leadership team as nearly-a- Scrum Team VP as Product Owner; Scrum zealot as Scrum Master Backlog drawn from Scrum Adoption Playbook Major areas: training/learning, (minimal) process docs on wiki, communication, cross-team collaboration, PM alignment Large CSM training, 4 hr training for non-csms Converted teams based on readiness vs. project cycle 16

17 Obstacle #1: Management Risk Aversion All Scrum teams fail for the first few sprints, but management has a need for predictability to meet commitments to the market. Listen to your coach. Trust your people. Remember that you get paid the big bucks to take risks/arrows for your people. 17

18 Obstacle #2: Architect morale Architects felt threatened by changing definition of job. Architects join teams tremendous resource for overall design and requirements Lead architect buy-in to help sell 18

19 Obstacle #3: Process alignment with customers R&D, not bespoke, but PM communicated dates to customers at RUP lifecycle milestones Create a conceptual mapping for RUP milestones to Scrum (not easy but possible, at least for this purpose) 19

20 Obstacle #4: Chain of Command Scrum Master vs. Engineering Manager Engineering Manager is first point of escalation, works with Product Managers to stay in front backlog-wise 20

21 Obstacle #5: Compatibility Some people aren t compatible, either from a skills perspective or a personality one Give people time and training to adjust but move them out if they cannot adapt 21

22 Obstacle #6: Maintenance Team focus key to success with Scrum, but teams impeded by support burden Create separate maintenance organization 22

23 Lucky Factor #1: Great people Qpass has always hired great engineers, testers, architects who care Would ve been very tough to fight horrific project management and horrific engineering simultaneously 23

24 Lucky Factor #2: Executive Empowerment President not an engineer, trusts VP to do what s right VPs can use their power for good, not just evil, when their boss focuses on the ends, not the means Lack of VP support would ve been a killer 24

25 Lucky Factor #3: Great Relationships with PM Product Managers take an us perspective instead of a them perspective, understood the things we were trying to solve Getting this relationship healthy should be first order of business in a Scrum rollout 25

26 Lucky Factor #4: Director of QA was staunch advocate Jeff Heinen acted as thought leader, instead of obstacle actually cares about quality of software, not a central quality control process 26

27 Lucky Factor #5: I have no ego Every time you point your finger, three point back at you! Sister Angelica, Holy Cross Elementary School, Dover, DE Managers and executives: be prepared that you are the source of many root causes of problems 27

28 If I could do something different More engineer, tester, architect training on Scrum Keep Agile forum alive Metrics would come in handy right now in talking to our new parent company 28

29 INTRODUCTION SCRUM ADOPTION ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACTS 29

30 PD Management Involvement Post- Scrum Vision, Strategy $$ allocation (LOB level) KPI Objectives Resource acquisition / creation Business ownership / ROI $$ allocation (Product / Project level) Value identification and communication Value delivery Value creation Visibility Resource utilization Impediment removal Risk management Role of people nominally in PD exec mgmt Role of bulk of PD staff Software process definition Technology standards Vendor management IP management 30

31 Hybrid Organization VP, PD PGM Budget / Admin Director, Arch Tech Standards Directors, Dev (3) Eng Ownership of Products Tech Pubs Doc Standards Mgr, Perf & Platform Engineers Architects Scrum Masters Testers Writers Manage, Design, Code, Test, Write Perf Eng Manage, Test, Tune (2 fewer eng mgr; 1 fewer director) (centralize functionally for skill concentration/ refinement) 31

32 Role of PD Management VP kind of like the Federal Reserve intervene under market failure Long-range planning and budgeting Vision, Strategy Director: partner to PM, advise on backlog, first point of escalation, uphold defn of done Separated HR hierarchy from Project hierarchy except at most senior levels Role of direct reporting hierarchy is mentor 32

33 Tech Writers Works well when dedicated writer on team Writers much more engaged must be able to dig in to software and write final copy instead of edit docs from dev Attempt to share amongst teams due to staffing shortfall very hard 33

34 Global Development To the extent possible, avoided globally distributed teams Sometimes required for domain knowledge All teams equally empowered Must do time-shift for periodic coordination 34

35 Other Thoughts, Opinions Is it ok if the Scrum Master is in the chain of command of the team? Yes, but it depends a lot on the attributes of the individuals Requires sensitivity to command and control issues Could a functional org chart work under Scrum? Yes, when barriers to cross-functional selfmanagement are sufficiently broken down. E.g., functional org must stay out of way of project delivery; first loyalty must be to team creating value instead of org chart. Requires talented Scrum Masters. 35

36 Other Thoughts, Opinions Does Scrum of Scrums actually work? We ve had better success with Scrum swaps and sometimes Personnel swaps 99% of collaboration is 1 team:1 team Scrum Masters themselves add value with coordination Shared team for shared components? Could work Qpass wanted to err on the side of YAGNI for starters 36

37 Scrum provides no organizational guidance,* but its impact on organizations can be far reaching. *and it shouldn t Too much org variation Let Scrum be for projects 37