Influences onAgile Practice Tailoring in

Enterprise Software Development

Dr Julian M. Bass

Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK19th February 2012

Introduction Introduction Case Study Results Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements

Introduction Enterprise Software Development

Global – Outsourcing and Off-shoring Large scale Complex commercial and technical infrastructure Unpromising context

• 2004 Study, – on site customer, special room layout

Agile Methods Improve software quality and team productivity

Contents Introduction Case Study Results Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements

Case Study Motivation

What can we learn about agile adoption in large enterprises?

Research questions What (if any) agile methods are used in the

selected enterprises? Are the agile methods being tailored?

If so, in what ways are they being tailored? Why are the agile methods being tailored?

Case Study 7 International Companies Bengaluru (Bangalore) and London, UK Participants (19 over 15 month period)

– Team members (developers, testers)– Scrum Masters, architects– Project managers, programme managers– Clients, product owners, customer

representatives

Case StudySector Interviewee Job Titles

Company A IT Service Provider Program ManagerSenior Project ManagerTeam Member

Company B Internet Delivery Manager Product Manager (interviewed twice,Jan 2010 and April 2011)

Company C Software Service Provider Development Manager

Company D(Offshore Provider to Company E)

Software Service Provider Project ManagerProduct OwnerScrum Master (3)QA LeadTeam Member

Company E Enterprise CRM Program ManagerProject ManagerDirector of Engineering

Company F Industrial Products Scrum Master

Company G IT Service Provider Engagement Manager

Contents Introduction Case Study Results Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements

Results

Product OwnerScrum Master

Product BacklogUser Stories

Sprint PlanningStand-Up Meetings

Increment DemoRetrospective

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Pl Gam Sm Rel Metaphor Sim Des TDD Ref Pair Prog Col Own Cont Int Cod Stan On-Site Cust0

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Results - Agile Tailoring Coding Standards (XP)

Mandatory in Enterprise setting Collective code ownership (XP)

Mandatory in Enterprise setting Sprint Demo (scrum)

Demo to Enterprise customers not appropriate Company B, Internet domain, B2C Company E Calendar 6 month release cycle Frequent integration of updates unattractive

Results - Agile Tailoring Continuous integration

Daily builds not feasible on complex enterprise projects Company E, 3 days needed to conduct automated

regression tests Company D, Release process

Code Freeze (no code check-ins) Integration complete (Integration testing complete) Release Candidate Release

Results - Agile Tailoring Pair Programming

Under utilised techniques Only during spikes (Company D)

Test Driven Development Independent user acceptance test teams Client UAT teams Integrating testing into sprints requires

organisational change processes Testing budget assigned to separate team

Contents Introduction Case Study Results Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements

Discussion Distributed agile development

Client onshore; development offshore typical Extended knowledge transfer visits Preference for co-located feature teams Distributed feature teams complicated Follow-the-sun approaches very difficult

Daily scrum (Standup meetings) Video or audio conferencing used

Product owner or technical specialist dial-in

Discussion Sprint and Sprint Duration

Company B Migrated from 9 month to 1 month sprint durations Organisational change processing taking 1 year Agile Enterprise

Enables new product opportunities

Contents Introduction Case Study Results Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements

Conclusions SCRUM presents management view of Agile

Easily understood, deceptively simple XP

Only explicitly adopted in one company Some practices conventional in large

enterprises Coding standards Collective code ownership

Conclusions Adoption process in large enterprises

Can start within institutional boundaries Clandestine adoption Increments used internally within development teams Successes used to garner institutional support

Enterprise adoption needs high-level support De-construct institutional boundaries Respondents report “Agile Enterprise” benefits

Scope for greater use of Pair programming, test-driven development

Acknowledgements

The study companies and participants IIM-B Students who kindly helped access target

companies The research benefited from travel funding from

the UK Deputy High Commission Bangalore, Science and Innovation Network