sdec09 kick off to deployment in 92days

Lean Software Development -

Kickoff to Deployment in 92

Days

Agenda

• Parks Reservation Service Project - The client

- The challenge

- The project

- The solution

- The results

• Lean Software Development - Principles and Practices

- How Project Management and Project Leadership are different

• Lean Software Development Tools and Techniques

• Declaration of Interdependence - Project Manager Declaration of Interdependence

• Is my client ready?

• Questions?

Parks Reservation Service

Project

Park Reservation Service – The client

• Manitoba Conservation is comprised of 4 divisions as

follows:

- Regional Operations – delivers departmental programs on a

regional basis (park and campground operations)

- Programs – provides the policy direction and systems support for

program thrusts of department (parks)

- Environmental Stewardship – legislation, policies, plans, and

programs to sustainably manage resources and the environment

(Exec Sponsor for PRS)

- Corporate Services – management of cross division services

such as human resources, financial, computer and

administrative support (IT support and financial management

for PRS)


• Dimensions of Parks and Campgrounds

- 57 Campgrounds

- About 5,500 campsites

- 11 Campgrounds currently computerized

• Bakers Narrows, Big Whiteshell, Birds Hill, Falcon Beach, Falcon Lakeshore,

Grand Beach, Gull Harbour, Kiche Manitou, Otter Falls, St. Malo and West

Hawk

Park Reservation Service – The challenge

• Government committed to have a “ made in Manitoba

solution “ for Spring 2006.

• The RFP was released in early December with a closing

date of Mid-December.

• Protegra proposed a consortium approach to deliver the

solution by the opening day of April 3rd.

• Protegra was awarded the contract in early January

2006.


• Challenges faced:

- Time line

- Client new to Protegra, Protegra new to provincial government

- Consortium approach – time and complexity

- Complex Government Environment


Terry Bunio

Protegra

Dan Haughey

GOM

Project Management OfficeCheryl Hedley

ProtegraSerge

Scrafield

GOM

Wadood

Ibrahim

Protegra

David

Primmer

GOM

Project Executive

John Clarkson

GOM

Project Sponsors

Protegra NextechnologiesManLabIDFusionFunction Four

ConservationService

ManitobaCommunicationsFinanceSTEM

EDS KeyMTSIBMDimark MonerisCrow

Park Reservation Service – The consortium

• To address the timelines and challenges a consortium

approach was created. The consortium involved the

following companies

- Function Four – GIS Technology and Training Expertise

- ManLab – Government of Manitoba Graphics Experience

- IDFusion – long time development partner of Protegra’s

- NexTechnologies – Domain Expert in Reservations

• This offered the team a unique balance of expertise, but

also had the following implications

- More time was spent early on in contract negotiations and

teaming agreements

- More time was spent determining how to communicate, report

and work well together

Park Reservation Service – The project

• The Parks Reservation System (PRS) was developed in

2006 to replace the existing campground reservation.

• Scope included:

- Self-initiated reservations over the Internet,

- Campground attendants to make reservations on behalf of

clients, and;

- Call centre employees to make reservations on behalf of

campers.

Park Reservation Service – The project

• Project details - Project team included over 20 developers at maximum

- First Phase was delivered in 3 months, On Time!

- Included investigation and integration of GIS mapping technology

- Phase 1 alone was over 7,400 hours of development work, all three Phases were over 12,000 hours.

- Quality of the application has exceeded industry standards with only a few defects since go live

- Project had to achieve PCI certification to go live. PRS was first of government applications to pass on the first test.

Parks Reservation Service – The solution

Shopping Cart

Account

Reports

Welcome

Payment and

RefundsCampground

Management

Reservation

Maintenance

Login

SQL Updates

Facility SearchNo public

authentication required

Authenticated Users only

Legend:

A very common process flow

A common process flow

Campsite

Vacancy

Inventory

Management

Checkin Policy

Configuration

Public and Admin functional area

Admin only functional areaExchange Rate

Maintenance


SQL Server

Database

• Parks Database

• Security Database

• Resource Database

• Log Database

• Reporting Services

PRS Public Web Client

Protegra Client Frameworks

Internet

Public Users

· View Campground and Campsite details

· Create & Update Accounts

· Make & Change Reservations

· View Campground Vacancy

PRS Admin Web Client

Protegra Client Frameworks

· View Campground and Campsite details

· Create, Find, Update & Manage Accounts

· Make, Find, Change & Manage

Reservations

· View Reservation History

· Manage Campgrounds

· Update Campground Inventory & Maps

· Policy Configuration

· Administrative, Inventory and Finance

Reports

· Vehicle Permit Inventory and Sales

· Refund Management

PRS Services

Protegra Server Frameworks

Public and Admin Services

· Security service

· Campground and Campsite service

· Image service

· Campsite Search service

· Account service

· Account Search service

· Reservation service

· Transaction service

· Subscription service

Admin Only Services

· Inventory Management service

· Campground Management service

· Reporting service

· Reservation History service

· Admin Utilities service

· Inventory Sales service

· User Management service

· Account Alert service

· Daily Arrival Fax service

· Moneris Reconciliation service

· Campground Mapping service

· Inventory Report caching service

· Moneris Refund service

· Cheque Refund service

HTTP

S

Internet

Moneris

· ePayments and eRefunds

HT

TP

S

HTTPS

HTT

PS

Parks Staff

Campground

Attendants

Call Center

Staff

Intranet


- Phase 1 – Public and Call Centre Focus

• Duration: 3 months.

• Functionality focused primarily on the reservation process and

reservation maintenance (i.e. making reservations, changes,

cancellation, payment, refund, etc.)

- Phase 2 – Campground focused

• Duration: 1 month.

• Focused on management of campgrounds (i.e. check campers in,

check campers out, move campers, camping permits, revenue

reconciliation, etc.)

- Phase 3 – Admin site enhancements

• Duration: 7 months.

• Focused primarily on providing more back office support to Parks head

office users

- Phase 4 – Application Maintenance Services

• Duration: Ongoing

• Provided additional functionality for public users, call centre employees,

and campground and head office staff.

• Reservation Counts (Opening day to April 30)

Parks Reservation Service – The results

2005 2006 2007 2008

Web 7166 7818 10794 13452

Call Centre 3976 3925 4246 3705

Total 11142 11743 15040 17157

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

2005 2006 2007 2008

Web

Park Reservation Service – The results

• Benefits Realized from Lean Development Process

- Client decision maker on site is key to a Lean project.

- Liaise with the clients as much as possible

- Empowering the development team was crucial.

- Traceability of requirements is key with formal organizations

- The team succeeded because they trusted one another

• Potential Improvements

- Quality could be further improved with the use of TDD,

automated test and build tools

- Form in sub-teams of 6-8 to maximize efficiency. Assign a Client

decision maker to each one of these sub teams.

- Leverage Visual Project Management to an even greater extent

Park Reservation Service – The results

• The project was awarded the PMI project of the year

(Manitoba Chapter) for 2006

Process Notes

• Before even bidding a meeting was held with the project

team to ensure agreement in approach and commitment

to the project and approach

- Everyone knew this would not be an easy project

- Everyone was committed to the challenge and to success

- If we did not have consensus we would have not bid

Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development - Principles

• Traditional Project Management implies:

- Serialization of Project Phases

- Significant focus is on protection of scope

- Many handoffs between different phases and departments.

Many documents are produced because of these handoffs.

- Delivery of working code sometime waits until just before

UAT


• Lean Software development emphasizes customer satisfaction through continuous delivery of functional software, unlike traditional methods, lean developers liaise daily/continuously with business clients.

• Deliver working software as frequently as every two weeks during a project, and encourage changes to the requirements in response to evolving business needs

• The most crucial aspect is the execution of the project in iterations which enable quick feedback loops. NOTE: The iterations apply to the following tasks: - Project Management and Planning

- Analysis

- Technical Design

- Testing

- Deployment


• Iteration planning is the key planning initiative. Iterations

need to be planned in conjunction with the client to

accomplish the following:

- Deliver functionality to define the tempo of the project

- Deliver functionality to deliver real value to the client (working

code)

- Deliver functionality to minimize risk for the entire project

- Lessons learned from one iteration must feed into subsequent

iterations so that we don’t (just) execute the project in iterations

with similar results, but that we execute the project in iterations

with better results.

• The project team executes better, smarter, and quicker

• The project team goes through the process of forming, storming, and

performing


• Eliminate Waste

• Build Quality In

• Create Knowledge

• Defer Commitment

• Deliver Fast

• Respect People (Empower the Team)

• Optimize the Whole

Copyright©2006 Poppendieck.LLC

Lean Software Development -

Principles

• Most deliverables are enhanced in every iteration

• Every iteration uncovers new opportunities for

improvement and learning

• Opportunities for improvement are evaluated at the

end of each phase and incorporated into the tool and

documentation

Seven Wastes of Manufacturing

• The Seven Wastes of Manufacturing

- Overproduction

- Inventory

- Extra Processing Steps

- Motion

- Defects

- Waiting

- Transportation

Copyright © 2002 Poppendieck.LLC

Seven Wastes of Software Development

• The Seven Wastes of Software Development

- Overproduction = Extra Features

- Inventory = Requirements

- Extra Processing Steps = Extra Steps

- Motion = Finding Information

- Defects = Defects Not Caught by Tests

- Waiting = Waiting, Including Customers

- Transportation = Handoffs


Seven Wastes of Software Development

• Extreme Programming (XP) is a set of practices

which focuses on rapid software development.

- Extra Features Develop only for today’s stories

- Requirements Story cards are detailed only for the

current iteration

- Extra Steps Code directly from stories; get verbal

clarification directly from customers

- Finding Information Have everyone in the same

room; customer included

- Defects Not Caught by Tests Test first; both

developer tests and customer tests

- Waiting, Including Customers Deliver in small

increments

- Handoffs Developers work directly with customers


Lean Software Development - Practices

• Requirements for a Lean Software Development Project

- Define Vision before iterations start. Defining the vision can be

iteration 0.

- Defined iteration length

- High Feedback loops

• Client representative on site and working with the team

• Client representative empowered to make decisions

• Daily project team meetings

- Visual Project Management

- Frequent Builds

- Test Case Driven Development and Documentation. (May be

TDD)

- Refocus requirement discussions on how not what

Lean Software Development - Practices

• Refocus requirements discussion on how not what - Waterfall (Point based)

• Document the scope or the what before we start

• Use the scope document to manage change control

• Discussions on new and modified scope can be difficult as these requests usually occur later in the project and require additional budget and schedule. Changes are avoided for these reasons.

• Discussions become adversarial

- Lean (Set based)

• Document the process on how we will define the scope and make decisions. Define at a high level what you need and how you will refine it.

• Use the process agreement to manage change control

• Joint Collaborative discussions on new and modified scope and how we can manage them in the project. Because we deliver in iterations, changes can be specified earlier and can often be accommodated without additional budget and schedule. Changes are welcomed.

Lean Software Development - How

Project Management is different

• Lean Software

Development Project

Manager

Characteristics - Traditional Project Management

manages the known, Lean or Agile

Project Management manages the

unknown

- There are distinctly different ways

how you manage the unknown

versus the known

- There are distinctly different people

and styles that are more suited to

managing the unknown versus the

known

Waterfall Project

Management Skills

Lean Project

Management Skills

Detail oriented Adaptable, encourages

change

Manages at a lower level Comfortable with ambiguity

Resistant to change Able to delegate

Controlling Trust or faith in team mates

Company Focus Client Focus

Transaction Manager Relationship Manager

Manages Scope, schedule,

budget

Manages Value

Temperment: Guardian Temperment: Idealist

Lean Software Development - How Project

Management is different

• Idealist - These are big picture people who lead followers to pursue

great dreams. They thrive on people issues and gravitate toward the soft skills: conflict resolution, negotiation, team building, facilitating. Diplomacy and strategy are their strong suits

• Guardian - People with this dominant temperament like to play by the

rules. These are the stabilizers in the organization, working to keep the boat on an even keel. Meeting budgets and deadlines and following the plan are important to Guardians.

Keirsey, D. Please Understand Me II. Del Mar, Calif: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, 1998



• In waterfall projects you focus on managing people and

tasks, in Lean projects you focus on leading the process

- Facilitate decision making versus making the decisions

• Project Managers and Project Leaders need to not solve

problems for the team

- Counter-intuitive

- The team will own the problem more if they own the solution

- This is essential for the team to self organize



• One-on-one skills required: - Effective listening

- Establishing rapport

- Negotiation

- Conflict resolution

- Emotional intelligence

- Partnering

- Influencing without authority

- Assertiveness

• Group skills required: - Team leadership

- Meeting management

- Problem solving and decision reaching

- Facilitation

- Presentation and persuasion

Doug DeCarlo, Principal, The Doug DeCarlo Group, Copyright © 2006 gantthead.com


Leadership is different

• Project Manager and Client Project Manager must work

even more closely together than a waterfall project

- Both must focus on the long term relationship

- Both must trust each other

- Both must encourage their companies to focus on value and the

long term relationship

- Both must define a common understanding together for

• Escalation

• Change Request Process

• Issue Tracking

• Reporting

• Formal versus Informal policies and procedures

Lean Software Development

Tools and Techniques

Lean Software Development Tools

and Techniques

• How do we manage scope and change in an

agile project?

• There is no question we will deliver more value,

but how do we provide the visibility the clients

need?

• A lot of the sources out there talk about looser

project management with unconfirmed budget

and scope. How can you ever get a project

approved?

- Don’t provide estimates until after 1-2 iterations

- Execute the iterations until the budget is exhausted

- Keep on adding scope as the project executes by

trading other items

Protegra Givens:

• We are a consulting company, some of the luxuries like

not estimating the full project are not options for

Protegra.

- We need to estimate the project for the clients

• We need to inform the clients of changes. Sometimes

Agile proponents advocate change, but we need a

process to ensure the change is communicated and

approved.

- Some times the change is recorded and implied that there are

less formal processes

Waterfall

• Provide an estimate for the entire project

• Take a significant amount of time and sign off

detailed estimates

• Execute to that plan. Change request anything to

that plan.

• Scope trading usually not an option. Client not

usually given option to remove items as it

complicates matters

• Objectives:

- Minimize surprises

- Minimize changes

- Maximize predictability

Lean or Agile

• Provide an estimate for the entire project

• Take a material amount of time and produce solution and

high level estimates

• Refines estimates as iterations proceed

• Execute to the iterations. Change request anything that

cannot be accommodated.

• Objectives:

- Maximize Value

- Encourage Change

Questions

• What is a CR and what is refinement? How should we

account for this time?

• How do you balance Agile and change control?

• What is a scope enhancement? How can we make them

defendable?

• What is an issue? How do you resolves issues and

changes with agile practices.

Fundamental Issues

1. Trading Requirements and Refinement of

Requirements can lead to more changes

- Hard to defend as to whether it is a change. Sometime

you don’t know all the assumptions you need to make

and now you have more change!!!

2. Focus on Agility leads project to sometimes

accept more change

- Want to encourage a win-win environment. Don’t want

to make it adversarial right away

3. Agility sometimes leads clients to not give

requirements the attention they deserve early on

- They know they can change it later if they don’t get it

right.

Management – Before and During

• Before- Client Expectation Setting

- Meet with Client and determine proper SDLC

• 3 options - Lean, Iterative Development, Waterfall

• Honest discussion of what value is expected

• During-There are two types of scope creep

- New or modified scope items that are easily defendable

(NEW)

• Two types:

- Ones that are identified and documented by the team

- Ones that are just absorbed by the team

- New of modified scope items which are not easily

defendable (MORE)

• They are just MORE

- More complex, More work, More involved

Management – Leading Indicators

• Leading Indicators- We need to track proactively

- Burn down charts overall

- EPI – Estimate Performance Index

- Time Entry - ETC

45

During Best Practices

• Scope Creep – New Guidelines

- All items added to or removed from the Product Backlog need to

have a change request generated and approved. No exceptions.

• User story name template – US ###.Date

• All stories need to be estimated

• Confirm all estimates with clients before start on Iteration

- This gets buy-in on the level of estimates.

During Best Practices

• Scope Creep – More Guidelines

- Bucket that we propose and agree to manage jointly where

estimates are not sufficient.

- Details

• CRs will still occur for obvious scope changes

• To be used for interpretation issues or more issues

• Can be used to manage scope when level of complexity changes

• Requires trust. This may not be possible on some initial engagements

Leading Indicators Guidelines

• On the weekly status report, the following leading

indicators will be reported:

- Estimate Performance Index = hours on schedule/hours

actually spent

- Overtime Performance Index = Overtime hours/normal

hours

• This is in additional to the weekly status report of

budget, hours and general progress

- These items above are meant to track the specific type

of scope baby crawl that occur in some agile projects

- I call it baby crawl because it is cute at the start

because it shows customer interaction and

engagement. But unless you set up the gates by the

stairs, scope can get away on you!

Leading Graphical Indicator

• Leading Graphical Indicator will be a burn up

chart

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

features complete

features in scope

budget

Burn up chart

• Unlike a burn down chart which doesn’t refer to budget,

the burn up chart refers to budget and scope

• This gives constant feedback on the amount of work

required to finish the project

Visual Project Management

51

Visual Status Reporting

• Status Report

https://dashboard.protegra.com/sites/Protegra/DeliveryManagement/Shared Documents/Lean LifeCycle Templates/Status Report YYYYMMDD.dotx

Declaration of Interdependence


• At the 2004 Agile Development Conference, a number of

project, product, and management experts started

working together to answer the question "How would you

extend the Manifesto for Agile Software Development to

non-software products, project management, and

management in general?" Their answer is a document

called "The Declaration of Interdependence."

Continuous Flow of Value

• WE INCREASE RETURN ON INVESTMENT BY

MAKING CONTINUOUS FLOW OF VALUE OUR

FOCUS

- Unlike traditional waterfall we are managing to the continuous

flow of value, not to what was signed off.

- This may result in delivering something totally different, but of

more value to the client at no additional cost.

- focus on "flow of value" (e.g., not "tracking effort")

Joint Ownership

• WE DELIVER RELIABLE RESULTS BY ENGAGING

CUSTOMERS IN FREQUENT INTERACTIONS AND

SHARED OWNERSHIP

- The key is frequent interaction and shared ownership.

- We are a team solving the business problem.

- engage customers in frequent interactions

Embrace Change

• WE EXPECT UNCERTAINTY AND MANAGE IT

THROUGH ITERATIONS, ANTICIPATION, AND

ADAPTATION

- We embrace change and encourage it as it adds more value for

the client

- This also integrates highly with the Risk Management Strategy

• Do the riskier items earlier to allow for reaction time

- We do this by iterations, iterations, iterations….

People

• WE UNLEASH CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION BY

RECOGNIZING THAT INDIVIDUALS ARE THE

ULTIMATE SOURCE OF VALUE AND CREATING AN

ENVIRONMENT WHERE THEY CAN MAKE A

DIFFERENCE

- Software Development is ultimately a creative endeavour.

• Like Cooking.

- People are not just cogs but can contribute to be more than the

sum of all there parts

- recognize individual human beings as the ultimate source of

value

Empower the team

• WE BOOST PERFORMANCE THROUGH GROUP

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR RESULTS AND SHARED

RESPONSIBILITY FOR TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

- Teams can achieve incredible things when faced with the

challenge.

- Ensure that the focus is on the team and individual recognition

- group accountability for results (i.e., the whole group is singly

accountable, no in-team blame)

Customize

• WE IMPROVE EFFECTIVENESS AND RELIABILITY

THROUGH SITUATIONALLY SPECIFIC STRATEGIES,

PROCESSES, AND PRACTICES

- No solution is exactly the same twice

- Even the same problem will be solved in multiple ways by the

same team

- situationally specific strategies, processes and practices. (i.e., no

one answer, folks, get used to it)

What’s this got to do with

Project Management?

• Good Projects for me come down to four items:

- Good People - their hearts and minds;

- Good Situationally specific strategies - all recommendations are

specific to the context at hand, there are very few really general

strategies to follow in all cases

- Frequent Feedback - close in and end-to-end.

- True Delegation

• True Delegation is not having someone do a task like you would

• True Delegation is about trusting teammates by providing an end state and

letting them determine the path

• True Delegation is letting teammates make decisions, even when thier

decisions do not agree with your own

Is my client ready?

• Rather than consider Lean Software Development as an

approach that fits every client and project, there

definitely is a continuum of appropriate project

methodologies

- Some clients have predictability, procurement, and legislative

requirements that prevent full Lean adoption

- Some clients have more discretion

- Almost never does a first time client do Lean fully. It requires

trust to be built up!

- Some projects even within the same client may be a better

candidate for Lean. (business facing versus compliance)

The Continuum

The Test

• Ask your client the following two questions and ask

which one better describes them:

- A successful project will be about delivering the scope and or

solution we have defined in alignment with the project budget

and schedule.

• Predictability

• purchase

- A successful project will be about starting with the scope and or

solution but ultimately delivering more business value and a

solution we cannot anticipate currently.

• Value

• Partnership

Questions

• Thank you for your time and interest

• Any questions?