Exploiting Core Scrum Practicesat the Program Level

Chris Waggoner, CSC - Keep Austin Agile 2015

Co-Creator: Jeff Lopez-Stuit

Program Challenges : Complex Environment

Program Challenges : Many people to collaborate with

Program Challenges : Working together on one product

Program Challenges : Lack of big picture “real time” visibility

Program Challenges : Lack of a simple means to discuss and clear impediments between teams

Program Challenges : Lack of means for continuous improvement

Potential Problems in Programs

Lack of visibility of impediments • Late arriving issues can impede or kill the program • If you don’t know it, you can’t solve it -> transparency & visibility is needed • Project boards don’t want to hear problems• Teams or PM hide impediments

Potential Problems in Programs

Lack of team interaction • Dependencies between teams are not clear • What teams are blocking each other now or in future?

Lack of incentive for teams to collaborate • What is the tangible benefit for cross-team cooperation? • A whole lot of teams means too many meetings?

Lack of continuous improvement across program • No inspect & adapt on program level

Traditional Agile Approaches to Program Complexity

Traditional Approach

Simple Visual Controls

Light Weight Face-to-Face Communications

Program Level Improvement

Impact of Non-Program Teams

Supports Agile Principles?

Scrum-of-Scrums

None Yes None Maybe F2F

Burn charts Yes Can drive conversation

None None Radiates Status

Dashboards Complex Can drive the wrong

conversations

None None Metrics Driven Mis-

BehaviorSAFe and other Agile@Scale

Big Picture Road Map

Can drown in complex

organizational change

None Yes PrescriptiveAttempt at Forecasting

Scrum Practices on a Program Level

Stand-up

RetrospectiveVisible Radiators

Impediment Board

Control by Flow, WIP and Policies

Face-to-Face Communication

The Program Stand-up/Impediment Board Combination

Program Stand-up

Impediment Board

The Program Stand-up: Promote visibility, clear impediments and collaboration across the program with 4 questions: 1. What has our team done since last time we met? 2. What will our team do before next time we meet? 3. Has another team put something in our way? 4. Are we about to put something in another teams way?

Program Impediment board: Visible teams dependencies • Simple visual controls across many teams. What teams are

blocking each other now? Or in future? • Impediments (blocked), potential impediments (risks),

Action items (task for managers to unblock teams)

• Harness the power of F2F communication, visible radiators, and the standup at the program level

• Requires a strong facilitator maintaining proper standup protocols

Program Impediment board – Simple Sample

• Resulted from dependencies conversation between services team and eCommerce Web teams

• Visibility into impediments required the addition of Operations, Enterprise Architecture, Testing, Security, etc.

• As visibility improved more groups wanted to help resolve cross-team impediments

Independent Teams

Dependencies and BlockedThe program stand-up should take no longer than 15 minutes or 1 minute per team

Program Impediment board – Complex Sample

Independent Teams

Dependencies and Blocked

• 20 plus teams• Meeting lasted 20 minutes or less daily• First on-time at budget project in years• Success credited to visual cues of the impediment board

Blocked

WIP

Backlog

This team used Gizmo avatars for potential impediments and Gremlins avatars for impediments

• Created later in the release process• Program manager was major agile skeptic• To force visibility the Program manager declared

all WIP as potential impediments• The teams represented were not agile• Fewer bugs than any release previous• Used similar board for defect triage

Standup at Program Impediment Board

Independent Teams

Dependencies and Blocked

WebVP

PM

Integration

ProgramManger

Legacy ServicesLegacy

Agile Game: Master Chef

Goal: Clear impediments and promote collaboration between teams with the program stand-up and program impediment board

Program Impediment board – Round 1

Teams Team vegetables

Team seafood

Team meat

Team roux Team gumbo

Team Jambalaya

Team PO boys

Team Plating

Team Dishwashing

Team red beans rice

Ingredients End-Products Delivery Fundamental layer

Teams Team vegetables

Team seafood

Team meat

Team roux Team gumbo

Team Jambalaya

Team PO boys

Team Plating

Team Dishwashing

Team red beans rice

Impediments Old chopping knives

No Bass

Not enough trinity (from veggie)

No beef

No PO boys

Potential impediments Prepare beans is additional work

Too many meetings to deliver roux?

Not enough roux

Not enough jambalaya

Not enough Red beans & rice

Low morale

Actions New chopping knives

Remove bass from menu

Order more meat

Make chicken PO boys

Push selling chicken PO boys

Teams Team vegetables

Team seafood

Team meat

Team roux Team gumbo

Team Jambalaya

Team PO boys

Team Plating

Team Dishwashing

Team red beans rice

Ingredients End-Products Delivery Fundamental layer

Teams & Dependencies

Impediment Board

Program Impediment board – Round 2

Teams Team vegetables

Team seafood

Team meat

Team roux Team gumbo

Team Jambalaya

Team PO boys

Team Plating

Team Dishwashing

Team red beans rice

Impediments Slimy okra

Crawfish delivered too late

Blocking:No Okra from vegie team No Crawfish from seafood team

No Crawfish from seafood team

Blocking: no gumbo No jambalaya, no red beans/rice no dishes

quit Veggie team need to work harder

Potential impediments

Unused beef

Too many meetings to deliver roux?

Actions Use shrimp from yesterday in stead of crawfish

The meetings are needed to improve quality of roux

Use okra spice powder in stead of fresh okra

Red beans & rice team do the dishwashing And use the compostable plates

Make red beans & rice every day otherwise we outsource you to India

Kanban or Impediment board?

• Visualize flow across an entire product development cycle?

• Working impediments• Measuring cycle time• Caution: Use only after teams have

perfected impediment board

Don’t underestimate the power of visibility and F2F conversation

Core Agile Principles do Scale to Program Levels – Be Creative!

Pain Snake

Ad-hoc Visibility

Q&A – How else could you use Core Scrum practices like F2F, Ceremonies, and Big Visible Radiators to bring agile value to the Program Level? Retrospective? Release planning? . . .

Stand-up

RetrospectiveVisible Radiators

Impediment Board

Control by Flow, WIP and Policies

Face-to-Face Communication