Coaching lessons learned during enterprise agile transformation

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1 confidential | ©2015 Sabre GLBL Inc. All rights reserved. Coaching lessons learned during Enterprise Agile Transformation KRISHNAKUMAR CHINNAPPACHARI Principal agile Coach

Transcript of Coaching lessons learned during enterprise agile transformation

1confidential | ©2015 Sabre GLBL Inc. All rights reserved.

Coaching lessons learned during Enterprise Agile Transformation

KRISHNAKUMAR CHINNAPPACHARIPrincipal agile Coach

2confidential | ©2015 Sabre GLBL Inc. All rights reserved.

Agenda

About Sabre & its Agile Journey

PLC Initiative

PLC Implementation

2015 accomplishments

Challenges

2016 Revised Approach

Achieving Business outcomes using 4DX

How did tie 4DX, Scrum together

2016 accomplishments

Key takeaways for change agents

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About Sabre

Our Mission: An innovative technology company that leads the travel industry by helping our

customers succeed

3

REACHSoftware used

in 144 Countries

SCALE16,000 Physical & Virtual Servers

VOLUME100K

Messages/Sec 1.4 bn API Calls/Day

TEAMMore than 9000

employees across 160 Countries

USER425,000

Travel Agents Airline Agents

10,000 Airports

SUPPLIERS400+ Airlines

175,000 Hotels27 Car Rentals

50+ Rail Services

RESULT$120 Billion of Travel Spend

1.1 Trillion System Messages Each Year

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Why Agile in Sabre

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New Product Life Cycle (PLC) must

help reverse this trend

Dev labor spend has grown faster than revenue

over last 2-3 years unsustainable over long term

QUALITY ISSUES ACROSS ALL

RELEASES; LARGEST ARE THE WORST

2–5% defect

leakage

target

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Concept Definition& Validation

SupportMarket &Business Strategy

Architecture, Design& Elaboration

Development & TestRelease, Deploy

& OperateRetirement

PROJECT & PORTFOLIO

MANAGEMENTSOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS

Our MissionReinvent how we operate as a

company – from portfolio management

to software development to system

operations – to drive customer value

faster than ever before.

Achieve more innovation, faster

Lower costs

Produce better quality

Improve customer support

Goals

SDLCPPM DevOps

PLC (PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE) INITIATIVE

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How did we go about implementing PLC in 2015: Wave Approach

Team selection from each BU’s program

management

Training (Leaders, Role specific and

team), 1 sprint

Coaching for 3 sprints

(2 teams/Coach)

Team selection from each BU’s program

management

Training (Leaders, Role specific and

team), 1 sprint

Coaching for 3 sprints

(2 teams/Coach)

Wave1

Wave 2

.

.

.

.

Wave 5

Wave is an 8 week period which entails Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner, Agile for Executives, and Scrum Team Launch Training. It also includes 3 two-week sprints with Agile coaching support for each team.

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2015 Accomplishments with the Wave approach

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2105 Accomplishments with the Wave approach

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• Sustaining agility was a challenge

– Primary focus was more on numbers to get maximum no. of development teams to use Scrum (Train -> Coach -> Move model), waterfall’ish

• Limited agility

– Collaboration between Dev and QA members increased though Dev and QA are separate functions

• Lack of standard outcome based metrics

– Cycle time, Quality improvement

• Lack of detailed assessment of leaders and teams before getting into coaching engagements

– Coaching effectiveness or Value for the teams involved was very less, due to their unpreparedness

What did we learn in 2015 to improve further in 2016

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Revised Approach for 2016

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Revised Approach for 2016

• The term “Wave” no longer used. Instead, we are adopting the concept of a Voyage.

– A voyage is about achieving a specific outcome and not just about completing training, 3 sprints coaching or migrating to Rally. Desired outcomes will be set in advance and agreed to by everyone.

– A voyage requires active participation from everyone associated. This includes everyone from the VP to the developer or tester, project and program managers, marketing and delivery counterparts and the Agile COE.

– A voyage will have a set cadence of inspection and adaption of at least once every 2 sprints.

– A voyage is selected by the BU VPs.

OUTCOME

DRIVEN

ACTIVE

PARTICIPATION

REGULAR

CADENCE

STRATEGICALLY

FOCUSED

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Achieving Outcomes using 4DX (4 Disciplines of execution)

Start here:

Focus on

the Wildly Important

Act on the

Lead Measures

Keep a

Compelling Scorecard

Create

a Cadence

of Accountability

It is a simple, repeatable, and proven formula for executing on your most

important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind.

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4DX: Focus on WIGs (Wildly Important Goals)

Rule #1: No team focuses on more than two WIGs at the same time.

The key is not to overload any single leader, team or individual performer.

Rule #2: The battles you choose must win the war.

The sole purpose of WIGs at lower levels in the organization is to help achieve

the WIGs at higher levels.

Rule #3: Senior leaders can veto, but not dictate.

While the senior leaders will undoubtedly determine the top-level WIG, they

must allow the leaders at each level below to define the WIGs for their teams.

Rule #4: All WIGs must have a finish line in the form of from X to Y by when.

Every WIG at every level must contain a clearly measurable result, as well as

the date by which that result must be achieved.

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4DX: Act on Lead Measures

While a lag measure tells you if you’ve achieved the goal, a lead measure tells you

if you are likely to achieve the goal.

A lead measure is predictive, meaning that if the lead measure changes, you can

predict that the lag measure will also change.

A lead measure is also influence-able; it can be influenced by the team.

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4DX: Keep a compelling score card

Great teams must know at every moment, whether or not they're winning, otherwise,

they don't know what they have to do to win the game.

A compelling scoreboard tells the team where they are and where they should be,

information essential to team problem solving and decision-making.

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4DX: Create a cadence of accountability

Team meets at least weekly in a WIG session (no longer than 20-30 minutes)

WIG session has a set agenda and goes quickly, establishing weekly rhythm of

accountability for driving progress toward the WIG

The accountability created in a WIG session is not organizational, it’s personal to a

weekly commitment that the team member made and that is within his/her power

to keep

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How did we tie all these together

• We short listed our business outcomes to be either 1-2 WIGs (top level ones at VP level)

1. Cycle time reduction

E.g.: Reduce cycle time for Airline Crew Manager features developed from 6 months

to 4 months by end of Nov’16

2. Quality Improvement

E.g.: Reduce defect leakage for Airport solutions from 12% to <=7% by end of Nov’16

• These WIGs were translated into Sub-WIGs by the managers and their Scrum teams

E.g.: Scrum team achieve the sprint goal of completing & accepting 10 PBIs (current

state of 15 incomplete PBIs) by Nov’16.

Scrum Masters/Agile Coaches keep track of the progress every sprint (lead measure) and

discussed in retrospectives.

Team maintained physical Kanban boards and Rally (for remote teams)

Agile Coaches/Scrum Masters observed the WIG sessions & their effectiveness

• Reviewed the voyage monthly with the Leaders (VP level) & removed organizational

impediments, if any

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How did we tie all these together

• We continued to use Scrum as the development framework

• Used “Agile Coaching Competency Framework” to upskill Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters

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2016 Accomplishments

These success stories

were published in

Community of Practice

events, newsletter,

Yammer & inspired other

teams to get on the

voyage

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By 4Q 2016 increase ability to make 3 roadmap releases per year from current 2 per

year

Sprint backlog sufficiency of 2

sprints look ahead by Q2 of 2016

Increase UT automation to 57.5% from

42.5% by Q4 of 2016 (Increase of

15%)

Increase FFT automation to

52% from 37% by Q4 of 2016

(Increase of 15%)

Track velocity sprint on sprint for using in 5.10 (Q2) and 5.11 (Q3/Q4)

MRP events

2016 Market Intelligence Voyage

WIG

I am extremely pleased with the progress the MI teams have made since embarking on the voyage program. There is an increased level of trust between the teams and a refreshed excitement in what we are working on. Our goals have given each of the teams clear direction for process improvements which have improved alignment and communication across the teams. Ultimately, this has led to increased productivity and efficiency across teams which leads to consistency in what is planned and ultimately released to our customers. Solution Manager, Marketing and Solutions Management, Sales & Revenue Analysis

Sub-WIG

Sub-WIGSub-WIG

Sub-WIG

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• Assess the situation on why are we trying to BE AGILE than doing, following or implementing agile

• Educate on agile manifesto, values and principles, Scrum framework (values, rules, roles, events, artefacts) at all levels (VP, middle management and teams)

• Provide hands on coaching to teams and partner with managers and above to create a “agile conducive” environment

• Form Agile CoE (center of excellence) driven by an executive (e.g.: VP level) to establish and manage consistent standards, guidelines and communications across all development centers

• Switch your hat as a Teacher, Mentor, Coach, Facilitator, Consultant/Partner/Advisor based on the situations and the maturity level of the leaders/teams that you are dealing with

• Focus on end to end agility (business to technology to operations) than the silo’d approach

• Create and manage Community of practices for sustaining agility

Key Takeaways for Change Agents (Leaders/Agile Coaches/Scrum Masters)

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Q & A