SCRUM IN REAL LIFE Experiences of SCRUM at

SCRUM IN REAL LIFE Experiences of SCRUM at Brightside Group Our scrum journey

Agile process evolution Persistence of a species through change The butterfly/moth analogy

The Isabella Tiger Moth

The Monarch

The same?

The Brightside Scrum Journey In 2010 we decided to adopt Scrum. This is our story. Our scrum journey

So I just fell out of the tree. It was a pretty long way down but I fell really fast. I think they call that MIGRATION huh? Well that sounds pretty frightening and a little painful. It’s not for me…but you carry on and see if it works better for you than the whole leaf chewing thing

LOOK AT ME!!. . I’M FLYING!!

Phase 1 - Fragile Stumbling with something someone once heard in a bar Teams Role Specific (developers and testers in different teams) Various Sizes Significant turnover of people (6% per quarter) Development Practices No clear direction Us & Them relationships between developers, testers & architects Prioritisation and Estimating Wander in and shout No forward planning Work changed daily Our scrum journey

Have you heard of this thing called MIGRATION? . . . Other species do it and I think we should too! But it may mean some flying. Wait…I have WINGS! Let’s give it a try right now. It’s bound to be an improvement on our current existence

Are we MIGRATING yet? I don’t know, if I’m honest. I don’t feel any different. But let’s say we are, so we don’t look bad in front of the moths.

Phase 2 - Tragile Some aspects of scrum being brought in, like sprints. Agile coach employed Teams Still Role Specific, of random sizes and still losing good people Terrorists in our mist Development Practices Developer Bingo & Numbers Witch Sprints that flexed and grew (14 week Sprint 37!) Architects reviewing all work (OVER 4000 items in their backlog) Prioritisation and Estimating “Upper Funnel” Process led to a massive, unstructured backlog Work estimated by managers and “experts” – usually under estimated Our scrum journey

So dad told me about a thing called MIGRATION. I think we should do it…. . to MEXICO! I have no idea where this ‘MEXICO’ is or how to get there, but it sounds awesome. Let’s go…right now!

…and a tad cold Let’s do this! MEXICO is pretty wet this time of year Ready whenever you are

Phase 3 - Scrummerfall Based on a compromise, called “Scrum” but wasn’t Teams Multi-Skilled Project Manager piece of work Certified Scrum Master and Product Owner training begins Team leaders sitting within the teams Development Practices “User Stories” that had multi-page specifications attached Multiple “Development Streams” with painful merges after release Automated testing begins in earnest Prioritisation and Estimating Unstructured and very short term. Changed frequently. Our scrum journey

Ok…MIGRATION…. to MEXICO. We fly in that direction until we get there… Wow, that’s a long way. Let’s break the journey down into stages and make meaningful estimates on how long each will take based on a conceptual ‘complexity’ scale

Good planning session everyone I can achieve the same result in less time by going to California. I’ll readjust my short term goal We may need a mid-migration review somewhere around Texas Bienvenidos a México

Phase 4 – Scrum? Where we are currently Teams 7 +/- 2 per team, Scrum Master per team, no team leaders Product Owners follow the work but are from a different department No one left the department in Q 1 2013 Development Practices “User Stories” of various sizes, but written mostly with the teams Single “Development Stream” with auto build, test and deploy “Future Architecture” project in progress, TDD, Code Reviews Prioritisation and Estimating Formal but relatively ineffective prioritisation meeting Teams commit to work, it’s not dictated to them Our scrum journey

In Summary Our journey Teams From “role specific” to “multi-skilled” From “informally trained” to “certified” From “ 6%” quarterly turnover to “<1%” Development Practices From “us and them” to “cohesive team” From “complex multi dev stream” to “automated single dev stream” From “get it out the door” to “leave it better than you found it” Prioritisation and Estimating From “he who shouts loudest” to “realistic medium term view” From “estimation by management” to “team driven, trusted estimates” Our scrum journey

Next Steps Inspect & Adapt! Teams More teams Training, development and career growth Development Practices Continuous improvement Expanding communities of practice & improvement communities Allowing space and time for innovation Better focus on non-functional requirements (constraints) Prioritisation and Estimating A better understood, longer term backlog aligned to business strategy Development involvement in future work earlier Our scrum journey