Experience the feeling of AWE!

Combine Agile and Waterfall to create

Excellence in Technology Delivery

Kumar Sathish and Jen Honermann Agile Philly, Oct 23rd 2017

A Little about Kumar Sathish

➢ Over 15 years of experience in technology delivery and

coaching teams in high tech and financial services

➢ Development-> Tech Lead-> Project/Program Manager->SM

➢ Currently leading two agile teams and integrated into a

Bank Program for Capital One’s Consumer Bank

A Little about Jen Honermann

Over 15 years of engineering,

delivery,and coaching experience in high

tech and financial services organization.

Test Automation->Development->Release

Management->SM->PO->Coaching

Currently leading an agile coaching

practice for Capital One’s Card LoB

Intro - There must be a better way!

Iterate delivery by cutting through waterfall process

Integrate agile principles into vendor practices

Retrospective on our learnings

Intro - Software development life cycle with third party vendor…..sound familiar?

➢ Vendor RFP

➢ Contract negotiation

➢ Requirement definition

➢ Lock Requirements

➢ Sign Contract➢ Engineer Design

➢ New discovery = “Requirement Change”

➢ SOW

➢ Implement phase 1➢ New discovery = “Requirement Change”

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

➢ Update resume

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

➢ SOW

Why AWE! (Combine Agile and Waterfall to create Excellence in Technology Delivery)

Intro - Our scenario

Debit Processing Vendor

Debit Card System of

Record Transaction

Processor

*Real-Time

*Real-Time

*Batch

*Real-Time

*Batch

360 Core Banking Platform

*Customer Account Balance Validation

Retail Core Banking Platform

*Customer Account Balance Validation

Web/Mobile & Internal Clients

*New Customer and Customer Experience Features

New

New

Existing

Customer

POS/ATM

Let’s consult the Agile Manifesto

Delivery - One plan

They gave us We wanted The compromise

An 800 line project plan

that was highly

inaccurate

Major milestones with a near

term view details over the next

~4 weeks

Roadmunk – one view of the plan

across both

Delivery - Iterate by customer wave

They gave us We wanted The compromise

Requirements for 2

years of scope and big

bang testing

Requirements prioritized by

customer facing wave and

iterative delivery into test and

prod

• Features prioritized by wave

• Shared design documents

• Incremental releases into shared test

environment and prod

Delivery - less status, more joint solving

They gave us We wanted The compromise

• Status meetings

• Steering meetings

• Meetings before the

meetings

• S1s, S2s, S3s

• Core Hours

• Daily stand up

• Twice weekly sessions for planning

and problem solving

• Sprintly steering

Quick Dive into our Twice a week sessions

Engagement model

• Targeted Agenda to

respect time

• Design, Solution Gaps and

Outcomes focused

• Flexibility to weave in

experts

Delivery: less escalation, more open communication

They gave us We wanted The compromise

Leadership escalation Ability to talk directly before

escalation

• Post stand up used as forum to

discuss potential escalations

• Build direct relationships with critical

players to create more transparency

Looking back, what would we have tried?

Joint Demos Third-Party video conference

Direct dev to dev interaction from day one

In person detailed design with accountable engineers

Incorporate iterative

approach into contract to

limit the number of

SOW

Build close partnership with supplier management

Avoid methodology discussions

Focus on shared outcomes rather than forcing methodology

Focus on iterative alignment from Day1

Q&A

References

SAFe Guidance on Mixing Agile and Waterfall, SAFe, 29-Dec-2012.

<http://www.scaledagileframework.com/mixing-

agile-and-waterfall-development-in-the-scaled-

agile-framework/>

“WaterScrum” (co-dependent Waterfall and

Scrum projects) vs ScrummerFall (enabling

Waterfall inside Scrum), Microsoft, 04-Jun-2007. <https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/nickmalik/200

7/06/04/waterscrum-vs-scrummerfall/>

A Tale of Two Scrums: Agile Done Right and Agile

Gone Wrong, 16-Jan-2014. <http://labs.openviewpartners.com/agile-done-

right-agile-gone-wrong/#.V_7QMfnR_Dd/>

Road Munk Tool, online,<https://roadmunk.com/>

Transitioning to Agile, Scrum Alliance, 08-Mar-2015.

<https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/artic

les/2013/march/transitioning-to-agile/>

An Agile Team and a vendor walk into a bar, Solutions IQ, 30-Jun-2015.

<https://www.solutionsiq.com/learning/blog-

post/an-agile-team-and-a-vendor-walk-into-a-

bar/>

Blending Agile and Waterfall, online, 13-May-2016.

<https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/blending-

agile-waterfall-successful-integration-10213/>

Jira Tool, online,<https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/>