addressing enterprise complexity with the scaled agile framework ®

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.

Addressing Enterprise

Complexity with the

Scaled Agile Framework ®

Drew Jemilo and Alex Yakyma

Twitter: @ScaledAgile

July 11th, 2013


Introductions

CEO of Scaled Agile and SAFe

Principal Contributor

Worked with companies

ranging from Lean startups

to $35B global enterprises

Agile Center of Excellence

and Agile Portfolio Management

enthusiast

SAFe Associate Methodologist

Worked with highly distributed

large enterprises in the US, Asia

and Europe

Agile Architecture, Continuous

Delivery and Scalable Engineering

Practices enthusiast


Agenda

We Live in a Complex World

About the Scaled Agile Framework

How the Framework Addresses Complexities

Business Results

Questions


We Live in a Complex

World


WHAT DOES

SOFTWARE

DEVELOPMENT

COMPLEXITY

MEAN TO YOU?


Keeping Pace

Our modern world runs on software. What doesn't

now, likely will soon.

We’ve had Moore’s Law for hardware, and Moore’s

Law+ for envisioning what software could do

But our prior development practices – waterfall, RAD,

iterative and incremental – haven’t kept pace

Agile shows the greatest promise, but was developed

for small team environments

We need a new approach – one that harnesses the

power of Agile and Lean – but applies to the needs of

the largest software enterprises

Our methods must keep pace with an increasingly complex world


Aspects of Complexity

1. Too Many In-Flight Projects

2. Unaligned Organization

3. Thousands of Practitioners

4. Distributed Teams

5. Millions of Lines of Code

6. Chaotic Architecture and

Bloated Technology Stack

Adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org

http://commons.wikimedia.org/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/


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/


First, Some Thoughts on Agile Methods

Scrum

– Works great. Less filling. Ubiquitous.

– Scrumptious. Let’s use it.

Extreme Programming

– Really great code from really great coders

– Extremely useful. Let’s apply it

Kanban

– Clearest possible thinking on flow, demand

management and limiting WIP

– Very WIP Limiting. Let’s learn from it


Roots of the Scaled Agile Framework

Lean Thinking Product

Development Flow Agile Development

Field experience at

enterprise scale

Iterative and

Incremental

Development


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


Scale to the Program Level

Common sprint lengths and normalized estimating

Face-to-face planning cadence provides development

collaboration, alignment, synchronization, and assessment

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


What’s Behind the Framework?


Lean Thinking Provides the Tools We Need

Respect for

People

Product

Development

Flow

Kaizen


Product Development Flow

1. Take an economic view

2. Actively manage queues

3. Understand and exploit

variability

4. Reduce batch sizes

5. Apply WIP constraints

6. Control flow under uncertainty:

cadence and synchronization

7. Get feedback as fast as

possible

8. Decentralize control Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow

Respect for

People

Product

Development

Flow

Kaizen


Complexity: Aspect #1 –

Too Many In-Flight

Projects


The Portfolio Kanban System

The Portfolio Kanban System manages the

flow of Epics with visibility and WIP limits

Makes the strategic business initiative backlog fully

visible

Brings structure to the analysis and decision

making

Provides WIP limits to ensure the teams analyze

responsibly, and do not create unrealistic

expectations

Helps drive collaboration amongst the key

stakeholders in the business, architecture and

development teams

Provides a quantitative, transparent basis for

economic decision-making for the most important

business decisions


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 on a common cadence

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.



Unaligned Organization


Alignment

Alignment, from Portfolio to Program to Team, is built into the framework

Clear content authority

Face-to-face planning

Aligned Team, Program

and Business Owner

objectives

Cross-team and cross-

program coordination

Architecture and UX

guidance

Match demand to

throughput

Alig

nm

ent

Business Owners


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



Thousands

of Practitioners


How Big Can Agile Release Trains Be?

Effective Agile Release Trains typically consist of 50 - 125 people

Dunbar’s number “…a suggested cognitive limit to

the number of people with whom one can maintain

stable social relationships”*

Empirical evidence. Beyond 125, logistics and inter-

team dependencies are more difficult. Alignment is

harder to achieve.

Queue size and WIP. Larger numbers of teams create

more dependencies (per team), longer delay queues,

and more work in process

* – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Dunbar’s number – a range of 100-230

people Optimum ART size is based on:

BO

Internal

queue


Self-organized ARTs in the Portfolio

Kanban

Pro

gram

Bac

klog

P

rogr

am B

ackl

og

Pro

gram

Bac

klog

Themes Drive Release Train Operating

Budgets

Por

tfolio

Bac

klog

Strategy

Investment Themes

Business Epics

Architectural Epics

………………… Portfolio Vision ………………...

Agile Programs



Distributed Teams


Distributed development

Joint ceremonies

– Backlog grooming

– Release planning

– System demo

– Inspect & Adapt

Other practices

– Local content authority

– Collective ownership

– Integration and branching approaches

SAFe evolved in distributed environments where program teams can

be on different continents


Distributed PSI Planning

Used by permission of Infogain Corporation



Millions of Lines of Code


Code Quality

You can’t scale crappy code

Agile Architecture

Continuous Integration

Test-First

Refactoring

Pair Work

Collective Ownership

Code Quality Provides:

Higher quality products and

services, customer

satisfaction

Predictability and integrity of

software development

Development scalability

Higher development velocity,

system performance and

business agility

Ability to innovate


Program Composition

Feature orientation fosters holistic view of the codebase

Faster cycle time prevents from knowledge depreciation

Fast feedback allows to capture defects with minimum

damage

SAFe recommends feature-oriented teams for the critical mass of the

program

Feature team

Component team

Feature team

Feature team

Feature team

Feature team

Feature team

Component team



Chaotic Architecture and

Bloated Tech Stack


Intentional Architecture and Emergent Design

Intentional Architecture and Emergent Design enable programs to

effectively create and maintain large-scale solutions

Leve

l o

f

abstr

actio

n

High

Low

Teams

Intentional

Architecture

Emergent

Design

Now

System

Architect

The Principle of Early Contact: Make early and

meaningful contact with the problem. -- Reinertsen


Design Simplicity

Design simplicity enables fast response to changing requirements

Welcome changing requirements, even late

in development. Agile processes harness

change for the customer's competitive

advantage. -- Principle 2 of Agile Manifesto

Design simplicity includes:

Using a simple common language to describe the system

Keeping the solution model as close to the problem domain as possible

Making object / component interfaces express the intent

Following good old design principles: Open-Closed, Single Responsibility, etc.

Continuously refactoring to support all of the above

“What’s the simplest thing that can possibly work?”

--Ward Cunningham


Business Results


Success Stories

http://scaledagileframework.com/case-studies/

SAFe Enterprises

• John Deere

• Nokia

• BMC Software

• Nordstrom

• Visa

• TradeStation

Technologies

• Tripwire

• Mitchell International

• Discount Tire

• Nokia Siemens

Networks

• SEI Global Services

• ValPak

•

...and more





Business Results

Field Issue resolution time: down 42%

Warranty Expense: down 50%

Time to production: down 20%

Time to market: 20% faster

Employee engagement: Up 9.8%

More responsive to market changes

and customer demands

Development teams more engaged,

empowered

Productivity up 20-50%

Significantly improved Product

Management-Development teamwork

Higher returns, reduced investments in

unfinished or unshipped work

John Deere ISG

Source: Chad Holdorf, John Deere, Intelligent Systems Group.

Dallas, Texas Presentation, Dec 2011

Source: QSM Associates Press Release, Sep, 2007


Business Results

Productivity has increased by at least

20-25%

Time to market and level of quality has

increased dramatically

Nearly zero defects after each tire store

system release

“No additional headcount and we're

taking on more than we ever have”

March 12, 2012 News Release

“TradeStation Receives Highest Rating In

Barron’s Magazine’s Annual Ranking of

Online Brokerage Firms”

Best Trading Experience and

Technology

Higher star-rating than 23 other

offerings leading brokers, including

TDAmeritrade, Charles Schwab,

Fidelity, E*TRADE…

Source: Chris Chapman, Director of Product Development,

Discount Tire

Source: Keith Black, CTO and VP, Product Development,

TradeStation Technologies


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


Questions?

Special offer

for Agile New England!

Get $100 off any

2013 class at

ScaledAgileAcademy.com

with the following

Promotional Code:

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