The OSASC Web Advising System Building an Airplane
The OSASC Web Advising System: Building an Airplane While Flying Educause Midwest Regional Conference March 19, 2008 Chicago, IL USA
Today’s Session • OSASC Case Study – Web App for Advising – 16, 000 students/qtr. , 100+ advisors in 30 buildings (Columbus) • • OSASC - from Waterfall to Agile What is Agile? How do we use Agile daily? How can you get started?
Overview of OSASC Arts Biological Sciences Student with ASC Advisor Student with Major Advisor Humanities Mathematical & Physical Sciences Social & Behavioral Sciences Colleges of the Arts & Sciences “Federation” Online Student Advising & Service Center
Project Environment • Clear goals – – – Documentation & reporting Efficient operations Communication among advisors (via notes) Proactive communication w/ students Students assigned to advisors • Constraints – Received $0 extra funding – Had to keep “trains” running – Had to prove ourselves
Programmer Resigned Original Plan – A Perfect Waterfall! May-June 2006 Orientation July 2006 MUST start coding! Governance Structure Executive Sponsors (3) Core Team (10) Implementation Team (3) Advisory Teams (50+) July-August 2006 New Programmer Started Aug 15 Deadline over Features! RELEASE: September 2006 October 2006 and beyond http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Waterfall_model
From Waterfall to Agile Waterfall Features Fix These Agile Cost Schedule Vision / Value Driven Plan Driven Estimate These Cost Schedule The plan creates cost/schedule estimates Adapted from: Introduction to Scrum, Hubert Smits (2007) Features The vision creates feature estimates
Agile Delivers Results! Sept. 2006 Dec. 2006 – Jan. 2007 Winter 2007 RELEASE • Search • Results • Student Details RELEASE • Appointments • Notes • Rosters RELEASE • tweaks • fixes • minor features Requirements Proactive Communication Tool Students assigned to advisor rosters
Agile Delivers Results! (cont’d) Spring 2007 Summer 2007 Autumn 2007 RELEASE • minor features RELEASE • Pro. Comm Tool • Dept. Pilot RELEASE • Dept. Interface Coding/testing Pro. Comm Tool Requirements Dept. Pilot Dept. Interface Roster assignments (cont’d) Coding/testing of Dept. Interface Requirements OSU-wide Notes Pilot (w/ SIS)
Agile Delivers Results! (cont’d) • 37, 000 student appointments in 2007 • 61, 000 notes about student contacts • 15, 000 students assigned to advisors • 10, 000 reminder emails to students
Better Communication, Better Service!
Agile Manifesto Individuals and Interactions Processes and Tools Working Software Comprehensive Documentation Customer Collaboration Contract Negotiation Responding to Change Following a Plan http: //agilemanifesto. org Agile Alliance
Individuals and Interactions Formal governance structure Sequential phases Original Goal: Follow the recipe! Shadowing users Hallway usability One-on-one discussions New Goal: Understand what users really need!
Working Software Detailed requirements documents Design and architectural blueprints Original Goal: Planned perfection! Paper prototypes Focused testing New Goal: Functioning features!
Customer Collaboration Assigned responsibilities Sign-off documents Formal change management Original Goal: Stay in your role! SME/”bridge” person Tech team became business process consultants New Goal: True collaboration!
Responding to Change Stick to the plan Defer requests Original Goal: No surprises! User feedback drove designs Redesigned pages over and over again New Goal: Be flexible!
What’s up Next? Update navigation and graphic design of Arts and Sciences Honors web site Redesign International Studies program web site Build new interactive web site for American Sign Language program Develop online student center for General Education Requirements 25 web sites in queue for new designs and content updates Make Arts and Sciences Advising web site more “selfservice” for students Build General Education course database Transition to new university data stores as a result of People. Soft project Release OSASC “Notes” university-wide Release new course content management tool Design tutorial site for social and behavioral sciences students in orientation Work through queue of new feature requests Develop reporting dashboard for OSASC report delivery, ad hoc querying, and unit-specific data Support degree certification and academic review applications
The Reality of Higher Education Tight budgets Fixed schedules Expanding workloads Market competition for tech staff How can we do it? Must incorporate agility into the way we do business!
Scrum: One Agile Framework Deliver Business Value Scrum: One Agile Framework Simple Rules Timeboxed Iterations Incremental Delivery of Features On-Site Customers http: //www. flickr. com/photos/somerslea/145022630/ Self-Organizing/Self-Managing Teams “Just in Time/Just Enough” Documentation (Mike Cohn)
Example of (our) Scrum: Course Tool
Scrum Roles Product Owner Scrum Team Scrum Master Graphics from Mike Cohn’s fully redistributable and customizable presentation at http: //www. mountaingoatsoftware. com
Product Backlog Preparation Meeting (Sprint 0) 1. Define user stories “As a user, I can…” No censoring Evolves over time 2. Assign story points Relative difficulty Artifact: Product Backlog http: //flickr. com/photos/improveit/1469850305/in/set-72157602233041553/
Sprint Backlog Sprint Planning Meeting 1. PO: Choose user stories for iteration (sprint) Team’s velocity (in story points) PO’s priorities 2. Team: Break into tasks and estimate hours (maybe) Artifact: Sprint Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Sprint Daily Scrum Remember goal: Delivery of business value, not perfect planning and not timekeeping 15 minute standup w/PO Do yesterday? Do today? Any impediments? Scrum Master Coaches team Facilitates meetings Removes impediments Reviews sprint burndown Adjusts stories with PO Artifact: Sprint Burndown Chart Hours left to finish task, not hours worked!
Sprint Review Meeting Sprint goal: “Increment of Potentially Shippable Product” (Ken Schwaber) Informal (no ppts) demonstration to stakeholders Do. D (“definition of done”) Deploy: yes or no? N sprints = 1 release
Sprint Retrospective Off-site after every sprint Inspect and Adapt What went wrong, what went right, how can we improve? Rinse and repeat
Scrum: What’s in it for me? True involvement Transparency Get what I want, when I want it! Collaborative team Higher productivity Manageable chunks More accurate reporting Empowerment Autonomy Produce something, often Opportunity to be creative Fun! Happier customers! Happier employees! Graphics from Mike Cohn’s fully redistributable and customizable presentation at http: //www. mountaingoatsoftware. com
Why not start tomorrow? Schedule 15 -minute stand-up meetings Allow the team to make decisions Remove an impediment Shadow an end user Try paper prototyping Sit together/pair program Release something next week
Q&A Diane Dagefoerde dagefoerde. 2@osu. edu Beth Snapp snapp. 6@osu. edu Documents will be posted to the Educause site. More information about Scrum: Agile Software Development with SCRUM Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle, 2001 Scrum & XP From the Trenches Henrik Kniberg, 2007 Please complete the session evaluation form. Mike Cohn Mountaingoatsoftware. com Copyright Diane Dagefoerde and Mary Beth Snapp 2008. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.
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