applying agile to multi-team projects - april 2010

www.thoughtworks-studios.com Copyright 2010 ThoughtWorks, Inc.

Applying Agile to Multi-Team Projects

Adam Monago

Vice President, Client Services

ThoughtWorks Studios

February 24th, 2010


Why are you here today?

• To understand what aspects of Agile scale well and which do not

• To navigate the maze of “Enterprise Agile advice”

• To find a pathway toward understanding how to scale Agile in a smart way

• …


What we will cover

• People – How and why we organize into multiple teams

• Process– How we decide what to work on

– How we plan our work

– How we communicate progress with each other and our stakeholders

• Technology– What methods best serve multi-team projects

– What visualizations are most useful


PEOPLEWhy and how to organize into multiple teams


Why do we do work that requires multiple project teams?

Mirrors the organizational structure

To align with business goals

Really BIG projects


Remember cross-functional teams?

• Members are “Generalizing Specialists”

• Teams are long-lived

• Less Waiting

• Fewer Handoffs Tighter feedback loops

• Better Quality

Empowerment

Accountability

Identity

Consensus

Balance

* Larman / Vodde, Scaling Lean & Agile Development, Chapter 7 “Introduction to Feature Teams”


Problems with Specialist and Component Teams

• Tend to enforce waterfall mentality

• Teams are typically forced to work on low-value work


How many teams is too many?


Rules of Thumb for Splitting Work Across Teams

• Organize teams by feature group

• Provide every team with dedicated customer representation

• Have dedicated customer representation for the program as a whole


PROCESSPlanning, Tracking and Communicating


Elements of managing a program are the same

• What to work on• Who will work on what• When it will be done


What to work on: Role of the Product Champion

• Product Champions need to own prioritization

• Always working in “3 iterations at once”:– Supporting what is currently being developed– Defining what is to be built next– Analyzing what still needs to be built

XP

Customer

Scrum

Product Owner


Planning Work

The Planning Game– Release Planning Across Streams

• Use rolling-look-ahead planning to coordinate

– Planning Within the Streams

• Allow teams to have flexibility

Planning Framework– Driven by the size of your project and the length of time it will take to be

delivered to customers in its entirety


Planning Framework

Characteristic Release Wave Iteration

Timeframe Long-Range (6+ Months)

Medium Range (3 Months)

Iteration (Short Range)

Level of Detail Capability Story Story/Task

Commitment Type Project Feasibility Capability Commitment

Story Commitment

Deployment Final Release to Customer

Possible Interim Release to Customer

Customer Review Process

Table above taken from:Jim Highsmith, Agile Project Management, Chapter 8, “Multi-Level Planning”, Table 8-1


Managing Dependencies

• It’s a myth that writing good stories can eliminate the need to track dependencies

• The more complex the effort, the more lead time and coordination are necessary to deal with feature dependencies

• Remember ?


Useful Techniques for Managing Dependencies

• Rolling Look-Ahead Planning and Schedule Buffers – Mike Cohn “Agile Estimating and Planning” and “Succeeding With Agile”

• Inter-Team Commitment Stories– Jim Highsmith “Agile Project Management”

• Focused Teams– Larman/Vodde “Product Coordination Team”

– Linda Rising and Mike Cohn “Integration Team”


Borrow from Distributed Best Practices

• Distributed projects have their own set of concerns regarding meeting protocols, communication tools and redundant roles that are a natural fit for dependency management across teams.

• Mark Rickmeier “Can You Hear Me Now? Good…” Agile 2009

• View the recorded webinar here:

– http://offshore.thoughtworks.com/can-you-hear-me-now


Communication and coordination


The Scrum of Scrums is NOT Sufficient


Testing

Tech Huddle

Project Manager

Iteration Managers

Teams

Staffing

Progress

Risks

Forecasts

Architect

Product Mgr

Scope

Priorities

FeaturesVision

Escalation

Risks

Schedule

Staffing

Timeline

TechnicalDebt

Estimates

Risks

Test Coverage

BA Lead

BA Huddle

Performance

Regression

SWAT

AutomationQA Lead

ProjectSponsor

Priorities

Signoff

Narratives

Usability


Cross Team Communication

Team 1 Iteration Manager



IM Huddle

Tech Lead Tech lead Tech Lead Tech Huddle

Business Analyst Business Analyst Business Analyst BA Huddle

Tester Tester Tester QA Huddle

Developer Developer DeveloperLearning Lunches

and Patterns


Don’t rely too heavily on tools


Evolving Your Management Approach

• Trial and error

• Minimize WIP

• Fix Max Queue Size

• Use Yesterday’s Weather as it relates to total time to complete a feature– Arlo Belshee Disneyland Wait Time

– From Requirement to Production


TECHNOLOGYMethods, tools and visualizations to assist multi-team projects


Program Visualizations


Be transparent in terms of how metrics are reflected

26


Hybrid Approaches


Thank You!

Questions?

Contact me to discuss more at [email protected]

applying agile to multi-team projects - april 2010

Technology

thoughtwork copyright

multiple project teams

component teams

specialists teams

multiple teams process

waterfall mentality

crossfunctional teams

multilevel planning