Slide deck on how Avanade, a consulting company with 25,000 employees, is going through a transformation from plan-driven, waterfall processes to agile, Scrum-based processes. Presented at Scrum Day Denmark on May 28th 2015.

1. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Agile transformation of a 25,000 people company
Mikkel Toudal Kristiansen [mikkel.t.kristiansen@avanade.com]
Senior ALM Advisor, Nordics Agile Coach

2. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
About Avanade
Providers of business technology solutions and managed services
Founded on a unique alliance in 2000:
To bring Microsoft technology to the Fortune 500 companies
Committed to the Microsoft Platform only
Worldwide organisation – 25,000 people in 70+ locations

3. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Why do customers want agility?
Value
Time
Risk
Time
Visibility
Time
Waterfall
Agile

4. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
It’s All About Demand
Customers are looking for faster and more flexible development approaches to
stay competitive
“Delivering more value quicker”, “flexibility in changing requirements” and
“improved collaboration between business and IT” are becoming key
differentiators for our customers
Due to economic uncertainty our customers’ agility is paramount to their success -
those that don’t are failing or already out of business
As a response, Avanade started back in 2011 with Agile @
Avanade to build an enterprise-wide (width) & -class (depth) agile
capability

5. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
It’s All About Demand
What worked for us…
…it’s more than putting in place a methodology or Framework
…the right attitude & cultural change
…throughout all layers of organisation
…global & local leadership support
What we wanted to avoid…
…thinking training alone will build you an enterprise-class capability

6. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Agile Coaches
37 carefully selected Agile practitioners & thought leaders across
organisation (12 the first year, 19 the second, and now 37)
Change Agents, Evangelising, Mentoring & Driving Awareness
Gone through Train The Trainer & PST programme
13 are Professional Scrum Trainers (PST)
2 are EBMgt Engagement Managers

7. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Agile Coaches
What worked for us…
…assembling a strong team of Agile Coaches – leaders
…having Agile Coaches to continuously evangelize & build
awareness
…letting them self-manage and provide leadership support
…being transparent with them
…instilling culture of learning, respect & pride
What we wanted to avoid…
…diluting the strength of our Agile Coaches community
…not keeping the bar high

8. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Having comprehensive training curriculum to build enterprise-class
capability throughout all layers of organisation is paramount
Training courses range from ½ day foundations for leadership &
support organizations to 5 days deep dive for agile practitioners
Licensed Professional Scrum Developer (PSD) from Accentient
All students go through Scrum.org PSM and/or PSD assessments
Training And Assessments

9. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Agile Training Curriculum
Development Team
members, SMDevelopment Teams members,
Project Managers, PO, SM
Leadership,
Sales,
SISAs,
Delivery
Leads
AFA – ½ or 1 day ASD - 3 daysASPM - 2 days
Level 300 - Deep Dive
For Agile Practitioners
Level 200 - Deep Dive
for Agile Project
Managers
Level 100 -
Foundational
for Leadership & Sales
ASF - 1 or 2 days
Development Team members,
Project Managers, PO, SM
Level 200 -
Foundational
For Agile Practitioners

10. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Training And Assessments
What worked for us…
…creating a comprehensive training curriculum for all
…aligning training with external assessment programme & tooling
What we wanted to avoid
…re-creating the wheel when developing training curriculum
…delivering training virtually to get the ‘numbers’ –
in-person led training is far more effective

11. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Qualifying Agile Projects
Careful qualification needs to happen to determine capability fit
To determine agile suitability, a custom built assessment tool is
used
Based on categories of questions with focus on alignment with
typical Scrum values & principles
Identifies risks associated with the given environment & approach
Connects with Agile Coaches community help mitigating risks and
provide mentoring & coaching

12. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Qualifying Agile Projects
What worked for us…
…always making sure our customers are going down the agile route
for the right reasons
…having conversation early on with customer
…playing the role of trusted advisors – being open & honest
What we wanted to avoid…
...feeding the excitement regardless

13. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Contracting
Scale
Distribution
Tooling
Lifecycle
Scrum
Ecosystem
Support For A Heterogeneous Environment
Need for a disciplined, enterprise-level agile approach supporting all lines
of business
All guidance is based on the Scrum Framework at its core
Supports full delivery lifecycle & continuous delivery
Focuses on adaption of scale & distribution
Lightweight, non-prescriptive collection of practices & guidance

14. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Support For A Heterogeneous Environment
What worked for us…
…keeping to one “version of the truth” for whole company
…keeping it succinct & to the point
…evangelising continuously making sure people get it
…being open to continuously inspect and adapt – it’s a living
thing
What we wanted to avoid…
…wrapping the traditional methodology around the agile one
…being too prescriptive
…creating a heavyweight “body of knowledge”

15. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Scrum.org And Avanade
Partners “in Principle”
The Partnership “in Principle” program is between Avanade and Scrum.org, joining together
to “Improve the Profession of Software Development”
We ascribe to the principles of “The Agile Manifesto” and also promote Scrum Values
We aim to foster agility and transparency
“…we believe having collaborative global teams that do more than just talk about Scrum and
agile, but live it every day, creates a stronger environment which enables our people to deliver
more value to customers…”, John-Paul Edwards, Senior Vice President, Global Delivery
“…Scrum.org’s collaboration with Avanade commits us to work together within the values and
principles of the Agile Manifesto. I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship...”
Ken Schwaber, CEO Scrum.org and Co-founder Scrum

16. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Finishing Thoughts
It’s a long term journey
Start small & think big
Leadership buy-in is essential
“connect top-down support with bottom-up enthusiasm”
Measure to improve
“Continuously Inspect and Adapt”
We’re not only doing it for ourselves – customer stands central

17. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Key Messages and Some key numbers
• Every aspect of Agile @ Avanade offers succinct, but high impact value – the focus is on
simplicity and agility
• We have built an enterprise-level capability throughout all Service Lines and the Global Delivery
Network supported by a world-class agile training curriculum licensed from Scrum.org
• Avanade ascribes to the principles of The Agile Manifesto and promote Scrum values whilst
aiming to foster Agility and Transparency within our own organisation and our customers
• Proven experience with a broad set of customers across various business domains,
technologies, and distributed geographies
• Proven experience with scaled and distributed enterprise agile delivery across Avanade offshore
delivery centres including BDC, IDC and PDC
250+
Certified in
Professional
Scrum Master (PSM)
Industry recognized
100+
Certified in
Professional
Scrum Developer (PSD)
Highly selective
13
Professional
Scrum
Trainers (PST)
Less than 135 exist worldwide
1500+
Trained Avanade
Scrum Developers
& Project Managers
Our best Agile practitioners
37
Avanade
Agile Coaches
Our Change Agents
Trained by Scrum.org

18. © 2015 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Questions and Answers
Q&A