LeSS adoption at_Italtel_francesco_sferlazza_23_05_2015

© 2015 Italtel Group S.p.A. All rights reserved. DD MMMM YYYY
Adoption at Italtel
mini IAD Vimercate, may 23th 2015
Francesco Sferlazza
@agile_frank

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© 2015 Italtel Group S.p.A. All rights reserved. 31 March 20152
Summary
> the context
> the challenge:
LeSS Adoption

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> the context

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 The 90-year history of Italtel is closely related to the history of telecommunications.
Among the first companies worldwide to develop VoIP technology, today Italtel is
positioned in the most innovative communication segments.
On the wave of Innovation
1921 80s 2000s 2004-2007 2008-201290s
80s and 90s: for twenty
years Italtel has been the
protagonist of Italian
Telephony digitalization
90s and 2000s: Italtel completes
the transformation of
Telecommunication Network
Control Centers
2000s: Italtel realizes the
transformation of
Telephony over the
Internet Protocol
Today: Italtel develops
products and solutions
for the new Multimedia
Communication

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Who we are
Italtel uses its Network and
System Integration capability on
the most relevant
Telecommunication and IT
Technologies:
 IP Networks
 Unified Comm&Collaboration
 HD Video
 NG Data Center
 Integrated Security
ICT Solution Provider &
System Integrator
Italtel has a solid Knowledge of
aspects related to networks
and services interoperability:
 Interconnection Layer
 Management Layer
 Control Layer
 Service Layer
 Data Layer
 Access Layer
Innovative Products
Vendor
Italtel offers Advanced
Professional Services
including engineering &
testing, consulting &
assessment , managed
services, IT System
Integration & OSS solutions
Advanced Professional
Services Provider

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 Italtel is a recognized player in the Telecommunications arena (ranked #1 Softswitch
Vendor in EMEA ) but:
the Softswitch market is a considered mature by Analysts, though there are opportunities
for replacement/expansion
Telecom Operators are observing a long-term trend of reduction of revenues and margins
The advent of OTT players - exploiting SP’s infrastructure investements - has jeopardized
the value delivered by Telcos whom role shift from VAS to “Dumb pipe”
 Lower investment profile by Telcos
 Uncertainty on RoI
 Italtel has to cope with a significant reduction in contributions by Telecom Italia and
need to better address OLO’s and foreign markets
 The dramatic growth of mobile broadband with the launch of LTE opens news
opportunities
The Problem: Italtel Business and Technology Scenario in 2010 (1)

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Multimedia Products & Solutions Org Chart – 2010, before LeSS Adoption

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> the challenge

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 Leverage on existing functionalities from the i-SSW, evolve them and make them
available also as new stand-alone Products
 Develop a new product line devoted to leading-edge Network interconnection
and interoperability for both voice, video and signaling streams
 Enable deployment over virtualized/cloud environment where applicable
 Improve “Technology-agnostic” Element Management capabilities
 Shift From FEW to MANY PRODUCTS
 Need to overcome expertise and competences bottlenecks (know-how
concentration)
 Improve time-to-market and flexibility
Innovate Italtel’s Product Portfolio beyond the traditional technology footprint

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 Transparency – Inspect - Adapt
• Creating feedback loops in our “System”
• Do the Right Thing
• Lowering the cost of the Change
 “Scrum hits the sweet spot between abstract principles and concrete practices.” –
Craig Larman
Why Scrum ?

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Craig Larman

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 LeSS is Scrum scaled
 LeSS is more than a set of principles and experiments. It also provides a
framework with rules. The LeSS Rules define what is LeSS (and what isn’t) and
they provide a concrete framework for applying LeSS. Within the LeSS
Framework, product groups can apply the experiments and discover what
works best for them at a certain moment.
Why LeSS ? (source: https://less.works)
LeSS Creators: Craig Larman & Bas Vodde

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 Top Management Support:
• Authority to make structural changes
• Broad Communications about the intention to adopt LeSS
• Provide Education and coaching
LeSS Adoption - Getting Started (1): Management

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 LeSS approach:
• Change is Continuous thorough experimentation and improvement
• LeSS Rules: Estabilish the complete LeSS structure «at the start»
 LeSS principles:
• Deep and narrow over broad and shallow
• Top-Down and bottom-up
• Use volunteering
LeSS Adoption - Getting Started (2): the Org Change and the 1st «experiment»

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 Educate everyone (goals, why,...)
 Have appropriately-structured teams
 Define ‘done’
 Only the Product Owner gives work to the team
LeSS Adoption: Getting Started (3)

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 Hire a great coach !
Craig Larman was personally available on site from 2011 to 2012
How better drive the Change ?

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Product
Development
The fourth Law of “Larman’s Law of Organizational Behavior”:
LeSS action: change the org
Smart Networks &
Products Product Unit
Product & Solution
Management
Product Strategy
& Marketing
Solution Engineering
& Delivery
Culture Follows Structure

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The Product Development org
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SCRUM MastersTechnology Dept.Innovation & Research
UIApplications Real TimePersistence Platform Hardware
TEAM

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 Define a product running (and working) with LeSS
 Expand to other products
 … how it was ?
• Rapid diffusion, due to the framework interdependencies
• Managing the exceptions raised by the Definition of Done
• More training
The Adoption Strategy

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 R&D Facilities located in Milan and Palermo
 26 SCRUM Teams
 20 Certified Scrum Masters / 20 Certified PO
 212 Team Member
 8 “Communities of Practice”
Scrum in Italtel
• Hardware
• Platform (O.S., Firmware, Drivers)
• Applications (Java, .Net, C++/C)
• Persistence (DBA)
• Real Time Applications
• User Interaction
• Testing
• Architectures

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 (Acceptance) Test Driven Development
 Continuous Integration
Engineering Practices
Product
Backlog
_________
_________
_________
_________
__________
PBI
Test Case x.1
Test Case x.2
Test Case …
Test Case x.n
Continuous
Integration
SBE
Get feedbackTest/Refactor

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 Technology Unit
 Communities of Practice
Governance
Prod Backlog
Refinement
CoP CoP
How Communities of Practice & Scrum fit together

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 Resistance from the middle management (status quo, ‘managing people’,..)
 How to split the work, in order to have a potentially shippable product
increment every week.
 Learning that the design is a continuous activity and the architecture lives and
changes with the product.
 What about the governance, old processes, tools, and so on.
Main obstacles

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 LeSS framework is in place.
 Still working hard in order to improve several critical aspects.
• some of the engineering practices were new to our R&D
• TDD/ATDD: as of today, every new development has its own automated
test case.
• we still have several parts of software really not covered by ATDD.
 “The art of the possible” is the only way to deal between the market, the
huge technical debt we have, and the human habits in our System.
Today

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 Strongest integration with other Areas (HR, Finance, Sales, Legal,..)
 DevOps
 Since 2015, jan the CMTO (chief Mktg & Technology Officer) has the goal to
extend & enforce the LeSS adoption
Next Steps

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 Our main product, NetMatch-S (Session Border Controller) is entirely
developed in a LeSS context, from scratch. It is now positioned into the
Gartner Magic Quadrant, between “Visionary”.
 http://less.works/case-studies/italtel.html
Conclusion

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 Visit LeSS website
 Books about Large Scale
 Upcoming: 1st LeSS Book (in review)
More about LeSS

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Francesco.sferlazza@italtel.com
Thank you !
Q&A Session

LeSS adoption at_Italtel_francesco_sferlazza_23_05_2015

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