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When you think “innovation,” you might not immediately think “railroad,” but this large intermodal transportation company in Florida is

moving down the tracks with its all-in adoption of agility.

As the company continues to develop and deploy new technology to become a safer, more efficient railroad, they are building a reputation

as one of the top Information Technology employers in the country, according to IDG’s Computerworld.

How?

“Management knew they needed to modernize systems and DevOps practices to be more efficient and cost-effective,” said MATRIX Agile

Coach, Bruce Kuykendall. “They wanted to respond to change quicker. To focus on value.”

As a heavily regulated transportation company, change was not easy for the railroad. Figuring out how to develop those collaborative and

cross-functional teams was a challenge.

Agile coaching key to unlocking potential.

In 2016, they had been undertaking an Agile Adoption without external help but were not seeing measurable improvements. “They had

attempted to implement Scrum without a fundamental change in mindset and without addressing their DevOps practices. Their planning

and management styles were still essentially traditional but were now being delivered in two-week iterations,” said Kuykendall. While this

was a slight improvement, it was still more iterative waterfall rather than truly Scrum.

Phase 1 – Getting Wins: Creating Trust & Credibility

Kuykendall was initially assigned a group of pilot projects to work with.

The first step was to expand the teams’ Definition of Done from “code

complete” to “releasable software” and include Key Performance

Indicators that would enforce key behaviors and best practices.

This included:

• 0 Escaped Defects

• 80% Unit Test Code Coverage

• 100% Functional Automated Test Coverage

• Deployed and passes Acceptance Testing in the UAT environment

To meet this new Definition of Done, coaching and training was delivered

for Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Teams to provide them with the

tools, skills and behaviors to be successful.

As these pilot projects matured and began to demonstrate success, they became the standard against which other teams were measured.

Key Behaviors and Disciplines • Leadership involvement

• Stable Teams

• Testing within the Sprint

• Regression within the Sprint

• DevOps practices

* Unit Test First (TDD)

* CICD (Daily Clean Code / Continuous Integration)

* Automated Testing

* Check in Early & Often

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Phase 2 – Building Momentum

As demand grew, coaching was made available to all technology teams on a voluntary basis. “The demand became so great that I had to

create a “Coaching Kanban Board” to keep up and to track the teams’ progress,” Kuykendall said. This led to the creation of the Steering

Committee with representation from each Sr. Leader within Technology. “They have become my Product Owners. They decide which

teams are in the Coaching Queue and prioritize which teams receive coaching first based on value and risk.”

Kuykendall also developed assessments to monitor and measure the teams’ maturity. “The assessments were tailored to the behaviors,

processes, and metrics that had led to the success of the teams that were accelerating.” The assessments are not merely “report cards”,

but a tool that allows teams to understand where they are in their agile maturity, and what behaviors/practices they need to implement to

gain in their acceleration. It is now common practice that all teams complete a self-assessment at each Retrospective – with independent

assessments administered at regular intervals.

Phase 3 - Sustainability

With the continued and growing success of the maturing teams,

demand for coaching began to greatly outpace capacity.

“It became apparent that dependence on external coaching was not

sustainable.” Kuykendall said. To address this, Kuykendall created

and rolled out the “Managers As Coaches Program”.

The goal of the program is to create the training, tools, and support

necessary to help front line leaders to coach their own teams

to maturity.

The program hinges on three areas:

Circles of Excellence

Circles of Excellence were established for Managers, Product Owners,

Scrum Masters and Developers. The COEs provide mentoring and

support to teams in their agile adoption, facilitate training, and create

assets for the Technology Knowledgebase.

To measure the maturity of the teams, an assessment

was created specifically adapted to the client.

• Discovery Skills/Behaviors/Values (Product Owner,

Backlog, Trailblazing) – These make sure we build the

right thing (Value, Prioritization, Quality)

• Process Skills/Behaviors/Values (Estimates, Planning,

Retrospective) – These make sure we work the

right way (Repeatability, Predictability, Continuous

Improvement)

• Delivery Skills/Behaviors/Values (Team, Definition of

Done, Testing Within the Sprint) – These make sure

we build it right (Reliability, Scalability,

Maintainability)

• Productivity/Stability (Velocity/Cycle Time & Flow

Efficiency)

Training

A formal training curriculum was created including full-day classes for:

• Managers as Coaches • Advanced Scrum Master

• Advanced Agile Developer • Advanced Product Owner

Knowledgebase/Lab/Informal

Specific Tool Training, Practice Training, and Lunch ‘n Learns have been established to prepare leaders and team members for success.

“We’ve really created a culture of continuous improvement, and a community of agilists and practitioners here,” Kuykendall said.

Kuykendall estimates that approximately 20% of all Technology Teams have achieved a maturity score of “norming” or better and over

500 people have been trained. Agile adoption is no longer voluntary. “Senior Leadership has set a goal that 75% of all Technology Teams

(where appropriate) will reach a maturity score of “norming” or higher by the end of 2019,” Kuykendall says. “It’s going to be a busy year,

but if we do our jobs right – I shouldn’t be needed here much longer.” “And that’s ok,” he adds, “experience tells me there are plenty of

people out there that can use our help.”

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About MATRIX

MATRIX is a technology solutions provider that blends staffing, consulting and professional services to help companies solve tough IT and business

challenges in an increasingly complex and competitive world. Over the last 10 years, we’ve delivered more than 1,000 IT projects and filled nearly 25,000

jobs with talented IT professionals for clients across the U.S.

Contact your MATRIX Account Executive or visit our website to