The Use of Scrum (and Scrum Tune-ups) Presented by: Misha Kononov, ORIS Lead Dev Chris Lose, ORIS Lead Dev Laura Young, ORIS Lead Business
Who is ORIS and what do we do?
Financial Compliance SIMS Budgets SIMS IAF SIMS Reports My Research Portal PURE UMetrics Non-Financial Compliance CATS IACUC CATS IRB CATS Safety COINS Occupational Health PRAMS System Status HERMIA Unmanned Aircrafts (on deck!) Dive Safety (on deck!) Other Research Systems Ecosystem Integrations with IBIS Cayuse Grants.gov CATS COINS CITI STAR StudyFinder ClinicalTrials.gov CORES
18 Staff Admin 1 Director + 1 Coordinator Devs 2 Leads + 5 Devs BA s 1 Lead + 5 BAs DBA 1 Sys Admin 1 PM 1 (for CORES only) Support 0 Testers 0 IT Trainer 1 *Two of the Leads serve in an Assistant Director capacity to help lead the office * IT Trainer is not part of ORIS, but works with ORIS
ORIS BA s and their many hats Perform typical BA duties (requirements, elicitation, testing) Serves at times as quasi PM/BRM/Support with roles ranging from pre-project to operations support Serves as Product Owner for at least one module
Scrum @ ORIS Scrum Teams = 2 (split to more as needed) Scrum Schedule = Same Sprint Length = 2 weeks Ceremonies = All 4 (+ release planning + backlog grooming) Certifications = all staff have at least CSPO Ongoing Training = we invest in annual tune-up
Tune-up Topics
Issue: Poor expectation management Teams overloaded trying to complete all requests Lack of clarity on what is next and why Impression that nothing was getting done
Fix: Increased stakeholder involvement Prioritization To include stakeholder Expect engagement Provide deadlines Stakeholders at Ceremonies Daily Check-in Sprint Planning Sprint Review Sprint Retro Release Planning Backlog Grooming Better at saying No Yes, but We need resources
Issue: Story(ies) carrying to next sprint(s) One story was owned by multiple people Resulted in lack of accountability Inability to easily check logged time
Fix: Break down stories into subtasks
Issue: Working as individuals vs. team Torch handoff (vs. in-your-face collaboration) was strong Some roles occasionally overloaded without help, even though capacity was available on the team Some tasks too dev heavy without focus on impact to functional consequences (e.g., training, help documentation, etc.)
Fix: Reset expectations on roles and DOD UAT doesn t need to be completed only by BAs or tester Get team to work on helping each other before committing new tasks With the exceptions (coding), most tasks can be handled by any role Hold each other accountable in this Helps to get the sprint work completed faster
Issue: Help documents take too much time
Fix: Stop striving for perfect Video demo s as you re showing stakeholder s Treat the help documents like mockups, quick and easy is usually adequate as the help is often only needed at the outset
Issue: Teams impact each others capacity Team members work across teams Needs of one team affects capacity of the other Little communication between teams
Fix: Implement Scrum of scrum/align sprint schedule In SoS, Focus on cross team impact Use Daily check-in model (what did we do last week, what are we doing this week, what is blocking us or the other team)
Issue: No dedicated scrum master
Fix: Rotate role, share between teams This is possible with a mature scrum team Need to empower rotating scrum master on removing impediments Serves as good professional development for team members Helps with cross-training to ensure acceptance and engagement of scrum
Tune-up Results
The tune-up helped! Velocity became more predictable Teams started experiencing more successes Increased Stakeholder satisfaction Improved burndown charts
Team 1 Year 1
Trends SP Completed 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Team 1 Year 2
Trends 120 100 SP Completed Support Tasks Completed Linear (SP Completed) 80 60 40 20 0 Team 1 Year 2
Focus on Retro s is key One team uses Rose Pruyne s demo of James Shore s mapping retrospective One team uses a more traditional +/-/ Regardless of format one task is the result Focus on teams being able to self-organize
Thoughts?