Scaling Scrum using Lean/Kanban in Amdocs

Scaling Scrum using
Lean/Kanban @ Amdocs
April, 2010
Erez Katzav
Yuval Yeret

Your presenters…
Yuval Yeret (Agilesparks)
Lean/Agile Consultant/Coach, coming from R&D leadership background, specializing in scaling agile through Lean. Find me at yuval@agilesparks.com, http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalyeret, my google profile
AgileSparks is an elite team focused entirely on helping companies improve their product development operations, by leveraging Lean/Agile/Scrum thinking and techniques.
Erez Katzav (Amdocs)
Director of Process Engineering – Amdocs Product Business Group
Responsible for the implementation of Agile in big organization that includes more than 50 products and more than 1500 employees. As part of its role Erez performs Agile Coach for teams and executives and expertise in Change Management and effective agile transition
Find me: erezkat@amdocs.com

2

Agenda
Background & Transition to Agile
Our organisation
Scaling Scrum
Introducing Kanban
What went well?
The Challenges
The Solutions
change Management
Case Studies
Implementation Of Kanban
3
Case Studies

“…we provide state-of-the-art
customer experience system products and services, allowing Service Providers to achieve their business goals and gain a competitive edge”
4

annual revenues in excess of
$3 billion
Some of our customers
global employees
17,000+
customers in over
50 countries
5

PBG
Product Business Group
6

PBG Division
50 products
100 Components
1 Portfolio
1500 R&D employees
6 Countries, 9 Locations
7

Business Unit VP
Business Unit
$
Product
Product
Product
$
C
Dev
Director
Dev
Director
Dev
Director
C
Component
Component
Component
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Component
Component
Component
Component
Component
Component
$
C
Product
Structure
Release
Strategy
Organization
structure
Locations
P&L
Culture
8

Galileo
Agile Implementation in Amdocs Product Business Group (PBG)
9

Agile as Planned Organization Change
Balance
Balance
Balance
Balance
Balance
10

Phase 1 - Scaling Scrum
Each Product has its own heartbeat
All products are delivering to portfolio lab for integration every 3 month.
Products under the same BU are integrated within the 3 months
Opportunity Team (customer Team) are responsible for taking a project and breaking it to sprint size stories.
11

Backlog Management Process
Release Plan
Strategy
Managing Release Backlog
Initiations
Opportunity/customer Team
Solution Overview
High Level Design
Top Priority – Mini Release Items
Portfolio Planning
Plan 2
Plan 3
Plan 1
Plan 4
Portf Mini Release 1
Portfolio Heartbeat
Products Iterations
Scrum Team
Portfolio Integration Lab
Releases Development Product Integration
12

Opportunity Team
Project
Project
Opportunity Team
Feature
PDM
Backlog Items
Product Backlog
PDM
Architect
PgM
QA
Design
Development
Scrum Team
13

What went well?
14
Time to market
Scope Flexibility
Customer satisfaction
Team Satisfaction
Productivity
Quality

Agenda
Our organisation
Scaling Scrum
Introducing Kanban
What went well?
The Challenges
The Solutions
change Management
Case Studies
15
Case Studies

Challenges…
16
No sync Between Backlog Grooming and Development
Waste in Requirement Definition, idle resources
Not Enough visibility to the end to end process
Not enough focus on E2E cycle time
Not Enough Collaboration inside Opportunity team and with Scrum teams
Not Enough Quantitative Measures
Hard to show success, Hard to identify concrete areas for improvement focus
Big features
Less ability to control Flow and improve time to market
Pure Support Teams Planned Iterations don’t work

17
Symptoms:
Planning runs over into sprint
Rework due to changes for started work
Requirement/Design defects due to last minute crisis-mode
Backlog not ready
Last minute changes
READY?
DONE
Opportunity Team & Project Manager
Scrum Team

Why not READY?
MISSING
PO!!!

Solutions
Flow
Agile Requirements

Backlog Entities
Release Vehicle
Product/Architecture
Feature Pack
Project
Product
Portfolio
Component
Story
WMG
Feature
Sprint
Initiative
Epic
Epic
MMF
20

Solution – Continuous Flow-Based Opportunity Process
Based on Lean/Kanban Pull/Flow
Manage Work in Progress
Ensure sufficient READY buffer

22
Project/Component Kanban Board
DONE
READY!
E2E Flow  
Scrum Team
Opportunity Team

Kanban – The Change Management aspect
Benefit from team-level visibility created hunger for end-to-end visibility
Management liked the fact that Kanban can bring measurements that can be connected to concrete actions
Scrum teams welcome any method that will help them get ready and stable backlog for the sprint

Agenda
Our organisation
Scaling Scrum
Introducing Kanban
What went well?
The Challenges
The Solutions
change Management
Case Studies
24
Case Studies

Rollout Case Study – Catalog Group

Training

We started this way…

Than became more structured

Opportunity Team
29

* In House Development

What is the best granularity?
Features?
Epics?
Stories?
Epics/MMFs!

32
Kanbans… 4 Out of 60 active

What we see THESE DAYS(in this group and typically in others)
Quick Win – Monitor Sprint Readiness
Fixed problem of Designs not Ready for DEV
Fixed problem of Requirements not Ready for Design
Managers say “The Kanban is our work manager” and drive for wider use.
Most activities are on the board
Starting to customize the board
First stages of WIP awareness
First stages of flow

Predictability/Commitments

Integrative Programs
35

The need for sizing Features
36
Feature Points provide planning/tracking as long as Feature size varies

Feature Point
37

Agile EVM Using Feature Points
38

Projects?

Products?

Both!
+
Foundation Adoption!

Achieving Fast End to End Flow - Challenge

44
Initiative/Program Kanban Board

Business Unit VP
Business Unit
$
How do you drive
Process Improvement
In THIS environment?
Product
Product
Product
$
C
Dev
Director
Dev
Director
Dev
Director
C
Component
Component
Component
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Dev
Manager
Component
Component
Component
Component
Component
Component
$
C
Product
Structure
Release
Strategy
Organization
structure
Locations
P&L
Culture
45

Process Improvement WIP

Process Improvement WIP
WIIFM – Pull improvements based on specific context/pains
Replace Push with Pull by development groups
WIIFM – Pull ideas based on real needs of the field
Validate improvements/kits to improve quality and usability of improvements
Increase drive and capacity to deploy improvements

How to drive more Pull?

Thresholds Customization
50
To ensure min’ work at each stage
What is the average time each item should stay at each stage – to identify the ones that are not active
And not more then what can actually be handled

Flow/Pull Indications
51
And you get here a notice what is the problem
If one of the parameters are not met the column is colored
Indicates an “aging” note

Hot Items
52

Your presenters…
Yuval Yeret
Lean/Agile Consultant/Coach, coming from R&D leadership background, specializing in scaling agile through Lean. Find me at yuval@agilesparks.com, http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalyeret, my google profile
AgileSparks is an elite team focused entirely on helping companies improve their product development operations, by leveraging Lean/Agile/Scrum thinking and techniques.
Erez Katzav
Director of Process Engineering – Amdocs Product Business Group
Responsible for the implementation of Agile in big organization that includes more than 50 products and more than 1200 employees. As part of its role Erez performs Agile Coach for teams and executives and expertise in Change Management and effective agile transition
Find me: erezkat@amdocs.com

53

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Scaling Scrum using Lean/Kanban in Amdocs

by Yuval Yeret

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