Eneko BilbaoSAP Emerging Technology & Innovation, Accenture

Lessons from an Agile Waterfall

… waterfall programmer

… SAP technology architect

… project and consulting background

… recently led a Hybris and SAP eCommerce project

About me

2 speed IT is about doing things differently… Where it makes sense.

My recent bi-modal IT experience was a success…Let’s start at the end: We were successful! 6-Months Design to Deploy Highly rated and well-received by customers:

• “Simple and easy to use”• “Considered industry best practice”

There were challenges along the way.

CUB’s B2B eCommerce Portal

Pictures not for distribution

• Jeans and suits • WTF - an agile

waterfall? • D’oh! • Woot!• The digital tree

What I’ll Cover(Two very different teams working together)

(How we managed the different expectations)

(Lessons Learned)

(Things we did well)

(Closing thoughts on 2 speed IT)

Jeans and suits (Two very different teams working together)

“Bimodal IT is the practice of managing two separate, coherent modes of IT delivery, one focused on stability and the other on agility. Mode 1 is traditional and sequential, emphasizing safety and accuracy.Mode 2 is exploratory and nonlinear, emphasizing agility and speed.”

- Gartner Glossary 2016

Gartner's definition of Bi-modal IT pretty much sums up the project team

When the Jeans met the Suits…Reactive™ & Digital

Team

SAP Technology

Team

Yes, they’re all

Macs!

No, I don’t know what

JIRA is…

• How does the audience identify?Poll – Mode 1 / Mode 2

(Waterfall)Mode 1 is

traditional and sequential,

emphasizing safety and accuracy.

(Agile)Mode 2 is

exploratory and nonlinear,

emphasizing agility and speed.”

Both – Bi-Modal Now!

Work Characteristics SAP Technology Digital

Types of Work

• API/Interface creation • Master Data and Transactional Data

(Customers and Sales Orders)• ABAP Development• Business Process Change

• Customer Experience (UX) Design• Creative & Graphic Design• Hybris Front End Development• API and Interfaces from Hybris• Mobile Enablement• Cloud Hosting

Stakeholders• Traditional IT• Global SAP Template - SAP

SD/MM/FICO Functional Owners• Sales & Marketing • Digital Product Owner

Stakeholder Expectations

• No Risk• Maximum Documentation• Pass all Stage Gates sequentially

• Best Customer Experience• Agility to allow changes as we go

Each team was responsible for very different things (1)

Work Characteristics SAP Technology Digital

Geographic Scope All Geographies (Regression Impacts) Only Australia

Release Constraints Maximally Constrained – releases every 6 months.

Few constraints – releases constrained only by QA process and impact to global systems (if any).

Resultant Delivery Method Waterfall Agile SCRUM

Each team was responsible for very different things (2)

WTF - an agile waterfall?

(How we managed the different expectations)

• We became a microcosm of Bi-Modal IT:– First Time in company– No previous digital Hybris capability– Conflicting processes and stakeholder expectations– One of the first in Australia to integrate Hybris eCommerce and

SAP• How do we meet both sets of stakeholders

expectations?– The Agile Waterfall was born…

So we had Agile AND Waterfall expectations to meet

Snapshot of an Agile Waterfall

I’ve been told what we were really doing…

..is Multi-Method.

Does Hybrid Agile Really Exist?

A recommended read for anyone who is struggling with delivery method names:

- Mirco Hering - leads Accenture’s DevOps & Agile practice in Asia-Pacific.

D’oh! (Lessons Learned)

A. A new-age term for a super-fast waterfall development cycle.

B. A single cycle in the Scrum development process which is time boxed to finish on a planned date.

C. A tiring process that an athlete uses to win races.

What is a “sprint”?

A shared terminology and context wasn’t understoodMany misunderstandings were begun simply because someone on a team didn’t want to say “I don’t know what you mean.”Lesson Waterfall need to know: Agile need to know:

Terminology • Agile, Scrum, Sprints, Kanban• Role Names and Responsibilities

• Product Owner, Scrum Master Coaches• Developer, Business Analyst (BA)

• Cadence:• Daily stand ups, Retrospective• Backlog, Releases, User Stories

• Reporting• Burn Down Chart, Velocity, Impediments

• Waterfall, Component, Integration, UAT, Regression Testing

• SAP Specific Terms:• Basis, ABAPer, Functional Consultant • SAP PO • ECC, SD, MM, FICO etc..

• What is a RICEFW?!• Project Status:

• Earned Value, CPI, SPI

ContextAgile is ruled by the Product Owner and empowered to make changes quickly.

Why can’t you just modify that field on the Customer Interface?

Waterfall is ruled by Release Management Team / Global Solution Owner and #1 priority is to reduce risk to BAU.

Because it will affect all the master data interfaces of the 7 other countries using it!

Brief ALL stakeholders – not just the development teamsAsk the Audience - Who might say this? A Waterfall or Agile Stakeholder?

Where is my FCT closure memo from Hybris?

SAP can provide us with 1,000

customer prices in less than 1 second right?

Can you send me the Hybris

RICEFW List?

So “passing QA” means the transport

is in the Staging environment,

correct?

Ok, so adding the ability to choose Delivery date is

just a small change in the next sprint?

Your Release Notes have been

approved by CAB?

Where is my FCT closure memo from Hybris?

-SAP Test Manager

Can you send me the Hybris

RICEFW List?- AMS Support Team

So “passing QA” means the transport

is in the Staging environment,

correct?- SAP Transport Manager

Your Release Notes have been

approved by CAB?

- SAP Release Manager

Ok, so adding the ability to choose Delivery date is

just a small change in the next sprint?

- Scrum MasterSAP can provide

us with 1,000 customer prices

in less than 1 second right?

-Hybris Architect

Suggestions:• Complete a shared design up-front as much as possible. Set the parameters which each group can work with

(i.e. Agree Data structure in interface services, also agree data EXAMPLES!).• A service virtualisation tool could help in this situation to allow a large spread of data to be synthesized for

earlier sprints without the service existing. Allows a dependent team to better understand how interactions will occur and what data will be displayed/available.

• Plan for additional re-work in traditional systems. Bring stakeholders on board early so they expect “Late design changes”.

Late design change is difficult for Waterfall

Late Change

Suggestions:• You may have to architect to “hide” your legacy/SAP/Traditional IT systems if they’re not digital ready.

Expectations are higher in customer facing transactions - 3 seconds is too long!• Understand performance characteristics of your interfaces/APIs early. • Inform your digital team who are innovating on top of your APIs. Some expectations will never be met

without a complete or re-platform (an argument for HANA anyone? Really!).• Get creative! – cache, buffer, batch, hide poor performance in the UI, distract/entertain users, make things

asynchronous where you can.

Understand that system performance is part of UX

What is slow here?

Woot! (Things we did well)

We did do some things very well – integrated design tools

Shared Designs in Confluence Wiki (no WORD docs)

Cross link all meeting minutes and design decisions.

Great for hand over to the Support team at the end of the project.

JIRA for managing Scrum – users stories, status.

All “defects” in JIRA (only used HPQC when we had to for waterfall stage gates).

Creates automated Release Notes.

Great for hand over to the Support team at the end of the project.

Built confidence in stakeholders - could see progress.

We did some things that helped – good reporting

Went to lunch together Integrated the Teams using SLACK No Email Rule All “water cooler” discussion in

persistent chat Great for multi-site teams and

people working from home/flexibly

Fed conversation into Design Documentation where appropriate

Culture pushed “from the top” –don’t leave people out of the loop.

We did one thing that was critical - a shared project culture

Pictures not for distribution

Take Home Points – 2 Speed IT can be very successful!

Understand Each Other (Terminology, Expectations, Cadence, Limitations)

Align Your Stakeholders (assess which team has more support/understanding – educate them!)

Learn the new Tools (MS Office, Skype and Outlook will not suffice anymore – Durable Communications!)

Traditional IT must move faster/be more flexible (just by the nature of supporting Digital/Agile – CAB is slow, automation is coming)

Make friends, 2Speed will be here for a while(Until 1 takes over or a 3rd arises?)

The digital tree(Some closing thoughts on 2 speed IT)

2 Speed IT as a (Deciduous) Digital Tree

INFRA(Could be a Cloud Tree)

CORE PLATFORM (e.g. SAP)

APIs / Interfaces

Digital Apps

A tree grows slowly and carefully; it has a long life span like IT (or an organisation).

Leaves and flowers have a quicker lifecycle; they adapt (grow, wither, die as required), they look great (UX) and process light (yes, customers are sunshine). They are the major interaction point with the outside world.

Limbs grow larger (get used more) and branch (as required) just like APIs. They are rarely pruned, but can be with no great loss to the whole.

The trunk needs to always be strong (with little change) as it supporting everything else and it is heavily protected (bark is risk adverse!)

The roots bring the necessary stability and performance characteristics to the whole tree (if infrastructure fails, so does everything else) and provides resources to keep growing (compute, mem, power).

Different Arborists looking after your Digital Tree

INFRA(Could be a Cloud Tree)

CORE PLATFORM (e.g. SAP)

APIs / Interfaces

Digital Apps

• Let your Digital / Agile team work here pruning and trimming for maximum benefit.

• A few failures will not risk the whole (if you’re set up correctly) and the upside is large.

• Take Traditional IT care here but realise that you need to move faster – it’s risk adverse for a good reason but doesn’t necessarily need to be so slow.

• Help the fast movers above understand their constraints boundaries.

Caveat: Sometimes your old platform can’t support the flowers your business needs - Time to re-platform/uproot!

E: eneko.bilbao@accenture.com

Li: linkedin.com/in/enekob

@enekob

• Is there really a hybrid approach? – Mirco Hering Blog (Accenture Agile Evangelist)• Bi-Modal IT – Gartner’s Definition.• Water-Scrum-Fall – Forrester’s thoughts on Gartner’s thoughts.• Scrum Development - Wikipedia• Blog on supporting multi-speed IT – Accenture Internal (ask me for a copy if

interested)• Agile vs Waterfall – How to approach web development – CommonPlaces blog• The concept of Durable Communications – Casey West blog• Do we need 3 speed IT?! – Good reading and an argument why 2 Speed will fail• Tagul Word Clouds • www.slack.com – Slack • JIRA - Atlassian• Confluence Wiki – Atlassian

References – for your reading