Surviving in a Hybrid Agile-Waterfall World - Pega · Surviving in a Hybrid Agile-Waterfall World...

© 2016 Pegasystems 1

Surviving in a Hybrid Agile-Waterfall World

Steven Martin, PMI-ACP, CSPO, CSM

Senior Program Manager – Methodology & Governance

Pegasystems Project Office

October 25th, 2016


Workshop Objectives

• Gain insights into practices for “smoother” hybrid

Agile – Waterfall environments

• Provide some inspirations for next steps to try at your agency


Agenda

• Simple “demographics” of attendees in our session today

• What’s our problem?

• Tips and Tricks

• Q&A


Let’s set some expectations…

• This will not be an introductory talk on Agile or

scaling Agile frameworks, such as SAFe or LeSS

– This is intended for those with foundational

knowledge assumptions of Agile and Scrum

– Chances are, you are experiences issues with

Agile and Waterfall together

• We have 40 mins today

– Spar some thought processes of next steps

– But, will likely not solve your lingering

organizational circumstances

Expectation

is the root of

all heartache.

William Shakespeare


So…How you doin’?


Please Stand and Remain Standing if…

You are using

a Waterfall approach

at your agency

right now



You are using both

Agile and Waterfall approaches

at your agency

right now



You are have been using Agile at

you agency for…

• More than 1 year

• More than 2 years…

• More than …


Raise your hand if…

At your agency, you are using…

• Scrum

• Kanban

• Lean or Lean Startup

• Other Agile approaches?


How well are your projects going at your Agency?

Things are great!

Gimme a high 5!

Not bad, but could

use improvement.

I’m so on fire I’m

literally going to

combust right now.


Small Group Exercise

• Brainstorm at your tables:

“What are your largest challenges

with hybrid Agile – Waterfall approaches

at your organization?”

• 1 idea per card/sticky note

• Keep at “headline” (3-5 words)

• Start by writing one or two ideas as an individual

• Then share around the table

• As a table, pick one or two highest challenges

• Time box: 4 mins


You just experienced the first tip…

• Establish a small “task force” (7 +/- 2) to float between teams

– Note: did not say sit “above” teams

– Cross-functional team empowered to make decisions and try things

• Internal, Partner, Pega

– Relentless focus on enabling hybrid environment to work better

• Establish and prioritize a backlog of blockers,

impediments, risks, issues, etc. of working

together as a hybrid environment

• Limit Work In Process (WIP) to focus and resolve

– Pilot with a team

– Learn

– Expand reasonably and responsibly


Some foundational concepts reminders…


Source: http://agilemanifesto.org

http://agilemanifesto.org/


Scrum is an Empirical Process

• Scrum is based upon applying an empirical process control mindset

• An empirical process embraces change versus discouraging it

– Knowledge comes from experience

– Make decisions based on what is known

• The 3 components of any empirical process are:

– Inspection

– Adaptation

– Transparency

Source: Sutherland, Schwaber, “The Scrum Guide”, 2016

http://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2016/2016-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf


How does this impact hybrid Agile – Waterfall environments?

• Transitioning from focus on individual efficiency to organizational effectiveness

– An agile-waterfall hybrid approach impacts the organization, not just IT

– Go from “command and control” to creating environment for accountable

progress to solving highest value problems

• Working in hybrid environments does not favor one approach over the other

– Don’t force one to work with another

– Take the “best” from both, go from there

• Yes, you will have to do something different from today

– Change involves feelings of loss

– Good change management / communication essential


Considerations for adopting practices

Some considerations we may talk about today

• Syncing up teams

• Dividing your product releases into “independent” chunks

• Keeping stakeholders up to date

Use caution in using practices discussed here directly

Empower your “task force” to evaluate, adjust, experiment

for your agency


Some tips & approaches to consider…


Keeping Teams In Sync


Let’s pull inspiration from scaling models

• We are not advocating one scaling model

over another

• Consider the models with respect to your

organization

–Where does it make sense to adopt

Scaling Agile approaches?


Large Scale Scrum Framework (LeSS)

Source: http://less.works/


Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) – 4 Level

Source: www.scaledagileframework.com


Next Release Sprint 0

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Team 5

Case Study: Mixing Scrum and Waterfall Teams in 1 ProgramW

FS

cru

m

Current Release Hardening

Wks 1-2 Wks 3-4 Wks 5-6 Wks 7-8 Wks 9-12


Example Calendar for a 2 Week IterationMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning

(Next Sprint)

Sprint Retro

Sprint Review

Daily Scrum Daily ScrumDaily Scrum

Daily Scrum Daily ScrumDaily ScrumDaily Scrum Daily Scrum

Daily Scrum

SoS

SoSSoS

SoS

I

I

SM CoE

SM CoE

I


Some things that helped this program be successful

• Within each location, Teams were together (not split across multiple sites)

– All roles needed to get their increment of working product to “Done”

• All 3 Scrum teams had the same:

– Cadence for a sprint (2 weeks)

– Start and end date

• “Expert” resources at each physical site

– Product, Technology, Quality, Agile Coach/Lead, etc.

• Integration team (“task force”) floated across entire 5-team program

– Not directly working on features, but ensuring well oiled machine

• Technical environments available

– Dev, QA, Staging then Prod


Keeping Product In Sync


Release Roadmaps

• Release Roadmaps help set “scope” over a series of deployments

• Some reasons for Release Roadmaps:

– Gains consensus around the direction/vision,

especially if multiple partners involved

– Helps to establish reasonable architecture runway

– Avoids the “last/loudest” priority problem

– Prevents “too large” releases early in program

(everything plus the kitchen sink…)

– Becomes a filter for user story creation and

backlog prioritization

• Caution: A roadmap is not a contract…it will likely change over time


GUI

Business Logic / Rules

Database

Rel 1 Rel 2

Releases as Vertical Slices


Name of Release /

Version (to where)

Release date

Key Features:

1. Feature A

2. Feature B

3. Feature C

Theme: Prove “?”

For <stakeholder X>,

this release provides

<what value>

Roadmap: Example Template

• Release date, driven by:

– An event or specific dates/schedule

– Level of functionality needed

• Name of Release / Version

– Make name meaningful

– Indicate where release will happen:

• Internal delivery to a platform, other team,

or release train

• Distribution to Production

• Theme

– Compelling reason to use by whom?

– Significant business value to the organization

• Planned feature set

– High-level descriptions of system services

that delivers value to the user/customer


Full CC exp’n/Mobile POC

R4 (to PROD)

1. Monitor performance

2. Run mobile POC

with client subset

(TBD)

3. Revise forms with

critical/moderate

improvements as

needed

• For remaining client

subgroups, submit

claim request for autos

via call center

• Pilot POC for mobile

with subgroup #1

June August October

1. Update/expand 2

forms with feedback

2. Auto validate

processing

confirmation

3. Auto send email

confirmation

4. Validate/revise

training materials

• For client subgroups 2-

4, submit claim request

for autos via call center

1. Revise forms with

critical/moderate

improvements and

bug fixes

2. Validate

performance

3. Establish POC for

mobile (customer

driven) claim

submission

• For client subgroups

5-10, submit claim

request for autos via

call center

• Create POC for mobile

app

First CC expansion

R2 (to PROD)Second CC expansion

R3 (to PROD)

April

1. Simple 2 forms (data

entry, data validation)

2. Send data to sub

system to initiate

processing

3. Validate manually in

sub system

4. Manually send email

confirmation

• For client subgroup #1,

submit claim request for

autos via call center

Pilot CC

R1 (to PROD)

Roadmap: Example Template


Release Planning Approach Overview

Show N Tell

Refresh Strategy

Story Identification

& Sizing

Sequence Epics,

Start Story ID

Reconcile &

Tweak

Lunch Lunch

Day 1 Day 2

Mo

rnin

gA

ftern

oo

n

Exec Readout Exec Readout


Day 1 Afternoon / Day 2 Morning – In Action…

• Epics are printed from system for all items in release

for all teams (both Agile and WF)

• Business and Technology force-rank prioritize

– Items at top of table are highest priority

• Estimate / confirm size of epic(s)

– Teams given preset # of stickies, representing

available time

– Color-coded by team

– Teams put stickies on stories

• Understand dependencies between teams

– Orange stickies represent critical dependencies


Sprint 1 Sprint 3Sprint 2

Theme T1S1 Theme T1S2 Theme T1S3



PO Team 1

Chief

Product

Owner

(CPO)

PO Team 2

PO Team 3

Day 9: Next Sprint

Look Ahead

Day 4: 3 to 5 Sprint

Look Ahead

The Product Owner Forum






PO Team 1

Chief

Product

Owner

(CPO)

PO Team 2

PO Team 3

Day 9: Next Sprint

Look Ahead

Sprint 4

Theme T1S4

Theme T2S4

Theme T3S4

D4:

3-5 D9:

Next


Look Ahead







PO Team 1

Chief

Product

Owner

(CPO)

PO Team 2

PO Team 3

Day 9: Next Sprint

Look Ahead

Sprint 4

Theme T1S4

Theme T2S4

Theme T3S4

D4:

3-5

D4:

3-5D4:

3-5D9:

Next

D9:

NextD9:

Next


Look Ahead



Enabled “the business” to see

the forest and the trees

at the same time




Sprint Planning

Backlog

Sync-up

Sprint Planning

(Next Sprint)

Sprint Retro

Sprint Review



Daily Scrum

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

PO Forum

PO Forum

SoS

SoSSoS

SoS

I

I

SM CoE

SM CoE

I


Keeping Stakeholders Informed



Sprint Planning

Backlog

Sync-up

Sprint Planning

(Next Sprint)

Sprint Retro

Sprint Review



Daily Scrum

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

Refine

(Next Sprints)

PO Forum

PO Forum

SoS

SoSSoS

SoS

Enablement Team

Enablement Team

I

I

SM CoE

SM CoE

I

Status

Status

Release Planning*

*not every 2 wks…

Exec Review


Metrics…

Backward-looking, inactionable,

vanity metrics

Forward-looking, actionable,

enable decision-making

• % Complete (if not using

working software as measure

of progress, such as Reqts,

Des, Testing, etc.)

• # Teams using Agile

• # People trained on Agile

• Release burn-ups of working

software

• Effectiveness of teams (star

charts)

• Actionable scorecards


Example Release Burn-Up

41

Image Source: http://agilewhys.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-create-release-burn-up-chart.html


Example Radar Chart (1 Team)

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0Ownership

Scrumability

Accountability

Quality focused

Collaboration

Resilience

Team Average

Combo Coach/SM Rating

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0Ownership

Scrumability

Accountability

Quality focused

Collaboration

Resilience

Team Average

Coach Rating

After 5 Sprints (1 Team) After 10 Sprints (1 Team)


Example Post-Release Scorecard

Business Expectations:

• % User Story Definition Before

Coding Begins (%)

• Did Release meet release

expectations (1-5, user)

Quality:

• % Code Coverage for Unit Testing (%)

• % Code Coverage for Functional

Testing (%)

• # Runs/Day for Unit Tests (#)

• # Runs/Day for Functional Tests (#)

Communication:

• % Items in Communication Plan

Completed (%)

• Effectiveness of Communications

(1-5, user)

Planning:

• # Story Points/Day (#)

• Velocity Variance (%)


Governance…

• Status Reporting

• Tactical

• Not fun (blame and shame)

• Advisory & alternatives discussions

• Strategic

• More fun (possibilities and how

we solve problems)

• Every other week Executive reviews

• Approx. 2 days after traditional Sprint Reviews

• Key working software functionality (wrt problems we’re solving)

• Where we were going next

• Where we needed help

• What did they need to know so they wouldn’t be caught off-guard


Implications of Change

• Benefits to using Agile approach is to

harness information to help drive

greater value and reduce risk

― Change is unpredictable, but

expected

― How to acknowledge change when

we see it, but not panic

Hey,

Change.

Hey.


Benefits Obtained from Implementing Agile

Source: 10th Annual State of Agile Survey, VersionOne, 2016.


Role of Change in Scrum: Exploit feedback to maximize business value

• Change requests can be added to the backlog as a new (revised)

user story at anytime

― Still need to go through prioritization, like any backlog item.

― The new (revised) user story may be prioritized as the highest

value backlog item

― If high enough priority, then start to estimate (size)


Roles & Responsibilities

• Your Product Owner should be

empowered to make these prioritization

decision

― If your PO must get approval before

proceeding, then this is a sign your PO

is not empowered…


Do I still need a Change Control Board?

• Actually, it is recommended

― Not all your projects in your organization may be “Agile” or “Scrum”

• Agile doesn’t mean “free reign for everybody.” There needs to be

reasonable guardrails. Reasonable…

• Need to have clear threshold / intake criteria, such as:

― Does it impact teams outside of your project or program?

― Is there a financial limit (e.g. do as long as its 1 sprint or less of

work, with a certain burn rate per sprint)?

― Do you impact overall release timeframe?

― Does this impact core vision of company? Product?


Tips for Change Management in Agile

• Make sure understanding of embracing change is expected from

project inception

― Project Charter / Kickoff

― Clear roles & responsibilities

― PO, Stakeholders in Reviews, Teams, etc.

― Guardrails for a change management board

― Expected behaviors for change

• Hold those involved to expected behaviors during product builds

― Especially for management and customers/stakeholders

― Takes greater discipline to be self-organized

― With great power comes greater responsibility…


Q&A


Closeout


Key Nuggets to Take Away…

• Establish your agile-waterfall “working together” task force

• Create prioritized backlog of issues specific to your agency

• Will impact beyond IT

• Don’t force one way to work with the other

• Use practices from others as inspiration

• Use critical thinking to determine hypothesis for next step

• Experiment with pilot team

• Learn and adapt as needed

• Expand responsibly


twitter.com/pega

linkedin.com/company/pegasystems

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Coming soon – Next in Agile Webinar Series

Lalig Musserian

Senior Program Manager,

Methodology and Governance

Pegasystems Project Office

Topic: Defining Agile Change Control

Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Time: 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Info/Register: www.pega.com/agile

http://www.pega.com/agile


Available replays from 2015 Scrum Series

www.pega.com/agile

Surviving in a Hybrid Agile-Waterfall World - Pega · Surviving in a Hybrid Agile-Waterfall World...

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