launching agile release trains: why start at the program level? (30-may-2013 webinar)

1 © 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.

© 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC.

Scaled Agile Framework ® is a trademark of Leffingwell, LLC.

Launching

Agile Release Trains

Why Start at the Program Level?

By Dean Leffingwell and Drew Jemilo

Training . Certification . Community

[email protected]

Twitter: @ScaledAgile

mailto:[email protected]


Welcome!

Today’s Scaled Agile Webinar is co-sponsor by...

http://www.agilistapm.com

http://www.agilistapm.com/

http://www.agilistapm.com/


A Note On Questions

Submit your questions via

the GoToWebinar Questions

panel

We’ll answer as many as

we can at the end of this

presentation

This webinar will be recorded

and made available at

Community.ScaledAgile.com

http://community.scaledagileacademy.com/


Framework Creator: Dean Leffingwell

Founder and CEO ProQuo, Inc., Internet

identity

Senior VP Rational Software

Responsible for Rational

Unified Process (RUP) &

Promulgation of UML

Founder/CEO Requisite, Inc.

Makers of RequisitePro

Founder/CEO RELA, Inc.

Colorado MEDtech

Creator: Scaled

Agile Framework

Agile Enterprise

Coach To some of the

world’s largest

enterprises

Agile Executive Mentor BMC, John Deere

Chief Methodologist Rally Software

Cofounder/AdvisorPing Identity, Roving Planet,

Silver Creek Systems, Rally

Software


Scaled Agile Academy Instructors

SAFe Associate Methodologist

Worked with highly distributed

large enterprises in the US, Asia

and Europe

Agile Architecture, Continuous Delivery

and Scalable Engineering Practices

enthusiast

Email: [email protected]

SAFe Principal Contributor

Worked with some of the

world’s largest companies

Including John Deere, Walmart,

and Safeway

Lean|Agile Leadership and Agile Center of

Excellence enthusiast


SAFe Principal Contributor

Worked with companies

ranging from Lean startups

to $35B global enterprises

Agile Center of Excellence

and Agile Portfolio Management enthusiast


VP of the Scaled Agile Academy

Veteran of such companies as

Rational Software, Tendril,

and Roving Planet

Agile Product Mgmt and

Agile Release Train Exemplar enthusiast



About The Scaled Agile

Framework


The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

The Scaled Agile Framework is a proven, publicly-facing framework

for applying Lean and Agile practices at enterprise scale

Synchronizes alignment,

collaboration and delivery

Well defined in books

and now on the web

Scales successfully to large

numbers of practitioners and

teams

Core values:

1. Code Quality

2. Program Execution

3. Alignment

4. Transparency

®

http://ScaledAgileFramework.com

http://scaledagileframework.com/


Roots of the Scaled Agile Framework

Lean Thinking Product

Development Flow Agile Development

Field experience at

enterprise scale

Iterative and

Incremental

Development


Contributors

Principal

Contributors

Drew Jemilo

Alan Shalloway

Colin O’Neill

Community Enterprise

Adopters

Associate

Methodologist

Acknowledgements

Alex Yakyma


SAFe Delivers Business Results

Agile teams

average 37-50%

faster to market

− QSM research

Significant

increase in

employee

engagement

- John Deere

Our agile

programs

introduced 50%

less defects into

production

− Confidential

We experienced a

20-50% increase

in productivity

− BMC Case Study


Agile Process Movement

Iterative

Processes Spiral RAD RUP…

Agile (Adaptive)

Processes Scrum, XP, Lean, Open UP, FDD, Crystal…

1970 1980 1990 2000

Predictive

Process

2010

Enterprise

Agility

SAFe

Enterprises

BMC Software,

TradeStation

Technologies,

John Deere,

Nokia,

Tripwire,

Mitchell

International,

Discount Tire,

Nokia Siemens

Networks,

Nordstrom,

SEI, Visa,

ValPak

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.flashline.com/images/content/EUP.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.flashline.com/content/Ambler/reuseRUP.jsp&h=310&w=514&sz=9&tbnid=JUCTbCsxtGQJ:&tbnh=77&tbnw=128&hl=en&ei=qQ4iQ9ClCZCUFoLvnY8D&sig2=gySkwlUwO7j5Ts7s_MxEKw&start=4&prev=/images?q=rational+unified+process&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/iterative.html

http://users.evtek.fi/~jaanah/ApplicationD/waterfall.gif




The Big Picture


Agile Teams

Empowered, self-organizing, self-managing teams with

developers, testers, and content authority

Teams deliver valuable, fully-tested software increments every

two weeks

Teams apply Scrum project management practices and XP

technical practices

Teams operate under program vision, system, architecture and

user experience guidance

Value description via User Stories


Scale to the Program Level

Common sprint lengths and normalized velocity

Face-to-face planning cadence provides development

collaboration, alignment, synchronization, and assessment

Value description via Features and Benefits

Self-organizing, self-managing team-of-agile-teams committed

to continuous value delivery

Continuously aligned to a common mission around enterprise

value streams

Deliver fully tested, system-level solutions every 8-12 weeks.


Scale to the Portfolio

Centralized strategy, decentralized execution

Investment themes provide operating budgets for release trains

Business and architectural epic kanban systems provide visibility

and work-in-process limits for product development flow

Enterprise architecture is a first class citizen

Objective metrics support governance and kaizen

Value description via Business and Architectural Epics


Where Do You Begin?


Where Do You Begin?

So...

You want to scale...

You’ve selected

SAFe...

Where do you begin?

Portfolio

Level?

Program Level?

Team

Level?


Should You Start at the Portfolio Level?

Requires lean-thinking

leaders and an Agile

PMO who understand

lean economics

Can be delayed due to

the complex

organizational and

cultural changes needed

for a full enterprise

transformation

Difficult to manage

software “assets” in a

Lean|Agile portfolio if

asset development isn’t

agile

Portfolio

Level?

Program Level?

Team

Level?


Should You Start at the Team Level?

It’s easy (of course it is!)

Implementing team-by-team

typically begins with your

simplest systems and stand-

alone teams (“a “pilot”) but do

we know how to address...

– Teams with disparate

practices?

– Managing dependencies?

– Alignment and guidance?

You can measure

efficacy of a process

at a small scale...

But who cares?

Delays dealing with the

real challenges of

implementing agile at scale

Portfolio

Level?

Program Level?

Team

Level?


Should You Start at the Program Level?

Requires more organization

than going team-by-team,

but significantly

less effort than a “big

bang” enterprise

transformation

Makes visible the real

challenges of agile at scale

Bigger, better results get

more attention

Gives true, fact-based

measures of enterprise

agility... the ability to quickly

deliver quality software

incrementally in a large,

complex enterprise

Portfolio

Level?

Program Level?

Team

Level?


Overview of

Agile Release Trains


The Agile Release Train

The Agile Release Train delivers solutions


The Agile Release Train

A virtual organization of 5 – 12 teams (50-100 individuals) that

plans, commits, and executes together

Common cadence and normalized story point estimating

Aligned to a common mission via a single program backlog

Operates under architectural and UX guidance

Produces valuable and evaluate-able system-level Potentially

Shippable Increments (PSI) every 8-12 weeks

The ART is a long-lived, self-organizing team of agile teams

that delivers solutions

Define new functionality

Implement Acceptance

Test Deploy

Repeat until further notice. Project chartering not required.


Program Execution

Agile Release Trains – self-organizing teams of agile teams – reliably

and frequently deliver enterprise value

Driven by Vision and

Roadmap

Lean, economic

prioritization

Frequent, quality

deliveries

Fast customer feedback

Fixed, reliable cadence

Regular Inspect and

Adapt drives continuous

improvement


Every Team Must Be on the Train

Waterfall Doesn’t Iterate

delay

Planned release

MRD PRD SRS Dev Drop 1 to QA

Drop 2 to QA

Test drop 1

Release docs

Test drop 2

Ports, certs

Actual release

Agile Iterates

Iterate Iterate Iterate

Release docs

Ports, certs

Iterate Iterate Iterate

Integration can’t work here

What do we

integrate here?

PSI


Cadence Alone is Not Enough

Planned system release date

…the system is not sprinting ....time spent thinking you are on track……. Integrate

and slip!

System

External Release

External Release

External Release

PSI

PSI

Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate

Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate

PSI


Release docs

Port and certs

Port and certs

Release docs

Release docs


Synchronize to Assure Delivery

PSI Second System PSI or Release

Sys 1 Sys 2 Sys 3 Sys 4 Sys 5 Sys 6 Sys 7 Sys 8




System

Iterations

External Release

External Release

External Release

Release docs

Ports certs

Release Docs

Release Docs

Ports certs

Ports certs

PSI

PSI

PSI

Continuous Integration



System

Team

Dev

Teams


The Start of the Journey: Quickstart

Quickstart immersion trains all teams and aligns them to common

business objectives in their first PSI planning session

SAFe Agile Release Train Quickstart

MON TUE WED THU FRI

SAFe ScrumXP™

Release Planning

PO & SM

Orientation

SAFe Scrum and XP immersion

Same trainer, method, time

Cost effective training

Align to a common mission

Build program esprit

Commit to release

objectives

Scrum Master

and Product

Owner role

orientation

Scrum roles,

activities,

ceremonies

You are

AGILE,

Now

A f i v e - d a y , a l l - i n i m m e r s i o n f o r n e w A g i l e p r o g r a m s


Question:

Why Do ARTs and Quickstarts

Work?

Answer:

Because it’s an Agile, adaptive,

closed loop system


We Synchronize with Release Planning

Two days every 8-12 weeks

Everyone attends in person if at all possible

Product Management owns feature priorities

Development team owns story planning and high-level estimates

Architects, UX folks work as intermediaries for governance,

interfaces and dependencies

Result: A committed set of program objectives for the next PSI

Cadence-based PSI/Release Planning meetings are the “pacemaker”

of the agile enterprise


We Keep the Train on the Tracks

Release

Planning

Release

Management System

Demo

Inspect &

Adapt Scrum of

Scrums


We Demo the Full System Every Sprint

What/Why:

A demonstration of the integrated

team software assets. Assets not

yet integrated are still highlighted

When:

After the team sprint demos (may

lag by as much as a sprint)

By Whom:

Demo by the System Team and

Product Management for business

owners and other program

stakeholders (many of whom

cannot/should not attend every

team demo)

Every sprint, the System Team/Product Management demonstrates

the full solution increment to the program stakeholders

System Demo


We Inspect and Adapt at the Program Level

I&A has three parts:

Part 1. The PSI demo

of the solution’s

current state to

program stakeholders

Part 2. Quantitative

measurement

Part 3. The problem

solving workshop

Attendees: teams and

stakeholders

Timebox: 3-4 hours per

PSI

Inspect and Adapt is a routine event which consists of the program

demo and retro


Program Performance Reporting

As part of the Solution Demo, teams compare planned vs. actual

PSI Objectives

Notes

Teams meet with

their business

owners to self-

assess the

percentage of

business value they

achieved for each

objective

Each team’s

planned vs. actual is

then rolled up to the

program level

Reprinted by Permission of

Discount Tire Corporation


Release Predictability Report

The Release Predictability Report show whether the PSI objectives %

completion falls within an acceptable process control band

PSI 2 PSI 3 PSI 4 PSI 1 PSI 5


The Problem Solving Workshop

Using root cause analysis, teams systematically address the larger

impediments that are limiting velocity

Establish accountability

Create new stories

Specify measurable results

Set achievable deadlines

Monitor progress


Next Steps

Browse the framework

Read the book

Build your expertise with training

and certification

Accelerate value delivery with

your first Agile Release Train

Get help from the experts at

Scaled Agile and Scaled Agile

Partners

Join the community

Become a SAFe

Lean Thinking

Manager-Teacher

Launch Agile

Release Trains

Leverage the

Community


See ScaledAgileFramework.com/implementing for more information

http://scaledagileframework.com/implementing


And now...

and now...

Questions Sign up for the newsletter at

community.scaledagile.com

Coming Next:

Running a Release Planning Meeting

(Date TBA)

1.

2. 3.

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Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise

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Learn how to launch Agile Release Trains

with the Agile Release Train Quickstart

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at Scaled Agile Partners

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launching agile release trains: why start at the program level? (30-may-2013 webinar)

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