Context Matters sponsored this presentation by Catherine Haugh at Agile Australia 2015. Do you want to fast track your Agile adoption? Would you like to go from Wagile to Agile in under six months? RMIT shares how they launched their first Agile Release Train and became an official Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Case Study within six months. This warts-and-all tale from the trenches will talk to the experiments, hiccups, wins and losses, ongoing challenges and the secret to success! And the expansion of Agile practises beyond IT and into the core of the student administration operations at Australia’s largest university, and even some teams members’ home lives!

1. >
StAART - Student Administration Agile
Release Train @ RMIT
Agile Australia
18 June 2015

2. The story goes something like ...
We started like this: And have come to this:
Then introduced this:
Project
Manager
Project
Team
Project
Manager
Project
Team
Project A
Project
Control Group
Project
Sponsor(s)
Portfolio
Manager
Project
Manager
Project
Team
Project B Project C

3. A global university
RMIT Partner
RMIT Campus
82 000
7500
500
43 large projects
underway
159,000 service
calls in 2014
ITS @
RMIT College of Business has
more enrolments than 27% of
Australian universities - 24,284
Australia’s largest university.
Dual-sector, providing higher
education and vocational
education programs.
Singapore Institute of
Management is largest offshore
location with 9000 students.

4. What was the problem we were trying to solve?
Imagine if you could increase
productivity, eliminate waste,
release value faster and
increase staff engagement...
@rwbrown: #Agile Irony: People
who used to wait a year for the
wrong thing now can't wait four
weeks for the right one.

5. A possible solution….
We use a delivery framework
called
"Scaled Agile
Framework" (SAFe).
SAFe is designed for
organisations that have teams
delivering work across
multiple, interlinked projects.
● Kanban
● Lean
● Scrum
● Kaizen
● Servant leadership
Teams are at the heart of
SAFe
This image is known as The Big Picture. It describes the structure of a SAFe
working environment, from the grassroots level of squads doing technical
delivery (Team level) up to the management of major projects across the
organisation (Portfolio level).

6. What is a release train?
A long-lived, self-organizing team-of-agile-teams, that delivers solutions
With a purpose ...
The release train aligns a group of teams to a common vision and is organised
around an enterprise value stream.
Iteration
Manager
TesterFunctional
Analysts
Business
Analyst
Chapter Lead
Squads on the train
Developers

7. StAART Release Timeline & Rituals
PI Rituals
Week prior…
PSI Planning
Days
Inspect &
Adapt
Workshop
After...
12 week
cycle
Program Increment - PI
1st
Iteration
2nd
Iteration
3rd
Iteration
5th
Iteration
6th
Iteration
2 wks
12 wks
4th
Iteration
Innovation
Planning
(IP)
● Cadence
● Synchronisation
● Capacity
● Conversation
● Velocity
● Fast feedback
Iteration Rituals
Squad
Standups
Scrum of
Scrums
Standup
Everyday...Day 1…
Iteration
Showcase
Squad
Retros
Last day...
2 week cycle
Iteration
Kickoff
Squad
Iteration
Planning
Sessions

8. How did StAART evolve?
Student Admin
Portfolio
Horizon 1 label
PSI 1.0
- StAART where we are
- Stand up Release Train based
on current portfolio structure
- Review roles and team
structure for PSI 2.0+
PI 2.0 +
- Integrate Operational activities
- Review demand management
- Review team structures for
future PIs
PI 15.2 +
- Incorporate other project
work requests
- Review team structures/
capacity for future PSIs
Target State
2014-15
25 Sept 2014
25 Jun 2014
StAART
(incl. GE, GG, SIDM)
Student Admin Value
stream
StAART
(incl. GE, GG, SIDM)
+
2 x Operational
teams
Other project work
requests
Student Admin Value
stream
StAART
(incl. GE, GG, SIDM)
2 x Operational
teams
April/May 2014
Get Ready
- Leading SAFe training
- ART planning
- Scrum XP training
- Projects in flight

9. Project/
Por*olio
Team
and
the
Program
Project
Manager
RTE
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
BAs
(Epic
owners,
Change
Manager
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
Business
Product
Manager
Feature
Owners
How
we
evolved
working
together….
Project
Manager
Por*olio
Manager/RTE
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
Product
Manager
Team
Por)olio/Program
Change
Manager
Plus
epic
owners
(BAs)
and
feature
owners
(business)
Developers,
Testers,
FA,
IM
PI 1.0
PI 2.0+
Feature
Owners
Epic
Owners
(Bas)
Change
Manager

10. How work comes to the train….
V
Portfolio
Kanban
Other ITS
teams
Program Backlog for all
Student Admin demand
Break/ Fix
items
FEATURE
FEATURE
FEATURE
EPIC
VSM
ITS Lifecycle
mgmt
Work requests
Program
Kanban
Priority
& Rank
Prioritise
& Rank
StAART Student Administration Agile
Release Train
Feature
Backlog
Feature
Definition
PI
Planning
Team
Backlog
Program
Kanban
Team
Kanban
Prioritise
& Rank
BAU Backlog
Architecture
Program
Kanban
Portfolio
Kanban
50%
capacity
50%
capacity
Other projects
Architecture
Current
projects
FEATURE
FEATURE
FEATURE
EPIC
Program
Kanban
Project Backlog
Prioritise
& Rank
Priority
& Rank
Capacity
● Backlog
● Capacity
● Prioritisation

11. What does the team say….

12. Release Planning

13. Release Planning
The Program Board illustrates when features are planned for technical deployment and key dependencies between
StAART features and/or external teams.

14. Iteration Kick-offs

15. Showcase

16. Inspect and Adapt

17. Relentless improvement

18. What’s changed?
● Conversation
● Continuous collaboration
● Visibility
● Transparency
● Shared understanding
“More talk!”
Merryn Jackson,
StAART Product
Manager

19. Brave new world… aligning StAART & BSP
A jam-packed 30 mins!
● we went to the gemba
● we talked face-to-face
● we shared our practices (including our bulldogs ball - how good are the doggies!)
● we started to get a shared understanding of our work
現場

20. Preparing our backlog
*NEW* StAART Market *IMPROVED* Feature Backlog Planning

21. We’re think we’re getting better….
A maturing team, more experienced and
with higher expectations of what this system
should deliver.
“Working with product owners that
really own the product. Having the
trust of our business.”
“More access to business
and quicker decisions from
them“
“More business
involvement from the
real business people”

22. Our Business partners agree….
NPS
0
10%
90%
-90
62.5%
12.5%
13
25%
Before
May 2014
April 2015
We recently carried out an NPS survey of our stakeholders. At
the same time, we wanted to look back to try and get a sense
of what a baseline might have been before StAART
commenced.
We had 15 respondents for the current release NPS.
We had 10 respondents for the pre-StAART rating.
All responses were anonymous.
What can we do to improve:
● More software demos at showcase
● Clarity re product owner participation/role in release train
events
● More focus on release train squads supporting
implementation of software
● Increased capacity for business stakeholders to be
involved with release train teams/activities
● More involvement of staff in schools where appropriate
● More focussed analysis for feature definition
● More transparent solution design
● More consistent practice across squads

23. Thank you from the StAART team
“High performance isn’t, ultimately, about running faster, throwing harder, or leaping farther.
It’s about something much simpler: getting better at getting better.”
from Better All the Time, by James Surowieke, in The New Yorker, November 10, 2014

24. Catherine Haugh
Release Train Engineer
catherine.haugh@rmit.edu.au
@reflectadapt
Contact us