Agile Network India | De-mystifying the Role of a Release Train Engineer by Rohit Bansal

1. By Rohit Bansal
*

2. Rohit is a "Release Train Engineer (RTE)",
"SAFe Program Consultant (SPC)", Agile
Coach, Mentor & Trainer. His key interest is
in helping organizations in achieving
business agility, improving flow, integration
management and nurturing people.
Rohit is working as “Vice President” with
one of the leading investment Bank. Rohit
brings a rich experience of approx. Two
decades in all phases of software
development life cycle.
Rohit is engaged in agile transformation for
an investment Bank since last few years.
Oct-21
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Rohit Bansal

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Disclaimer
Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the session
& presentation belong solely to me in a personal
capacity, and not necessarily to my employer/
organization.
Views, thoughts and opinion expressed in the session
& presentation are based on my learning, experience
as well as knowledge gathered through publicly
available material on the internet.
I am also not here to endorse/ promote any
organization, committee, product or person through
this session.

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Table of Contents
 Why RTE?
 Myths buster - RTE role
 Collaboration & Partnership with different roles
 Journey of a RTE - Coach in execution
 Key Takeaways

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Why RTE?
 An important program level senior role to bring a culture of
mutual respect, appreciation, speak up and relentless
improvements which is essential for an organization’s success
 A role which promotes sustainable solution/ product with in-built
quality
 A role which looks strategically; “are we organized right to
deliver value to customers in sustainable and shortest possible
time”
 A role which connects the dots, remove silos and bring right
stakeholders to common forum
 A role which helps people to do right things

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Myths buster - Release Train Engineer (RTE) role
What is a RTE
 True Leader/ Servant Leader
 Coach in Execution
 Chief Scrum Master of an ART (Agile Release Train; a
virtual org of 50 – 125 people)
 Manage & Optimize the flow of value through the ART
 Facilitator of Relentless Improvement for an ART

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Myths buster - Release Train Engineer (RTE) role
Role conflicting with RTE role to an extent
 A delivery manager
 A program manager
What is NOT a RTE
 Just Facilitator of all program/ART level events
 Dumping ground of everything else

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Collaboration & Partnership with different roles
RTE
Agile
Teams
Architecture/
Engineering/
CTO Team
Leadership
Team/
Other roles
Product
Management
+
Business
Owners

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Journey of a RTE - Coach in execution
Challenge 1: Adopting mind-set of a Servant Leader
 Actively Listened and Empathized with
people
 Enabled people for problem
identification and decision making
 Applied System thinking
 Used Persuasion rather than authority
 Worked towards creating psychological
safe environment
 Improved coaching style
Image Source: https://www.boldplanning.com/2019/02/01/resilience-takes-teamwork-teamwork-takes-planning-2/

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Journey of a RTE - Coach in execution
Challenge 2: Growing Technical debt
 Accepted the reality that technical
improvements are being ignored over
business features over the time
 Presented data to stakeholders to
prove how it had impacted platform’s
ability to meet business outcome
 Agreed continuous investment on
technical improvements
 Worked with engineering function for
better adoption of engineering
standards
Image Source: https://leadingwithtrust.com/2018/02/18/forget-work-life-balance-and-focus-on-these-5-things-instead/

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Journey of a RTE - Coach in execution
Challenge 3: Managing Waste and Systemic Issues
 Encouraged team to record efforts spent
in impediments/ blockers as waste
 Visualized waste, encouraged team to
own removal of waste which was in
their control
 Identified systemic issues out of waste
 Explained waste in monetary terms that
helped to draw attention of senior
leadership which was needed for
resolution of systemic issues
Image Source: https://www.resologics.com/resologics-blog/2019/3/22/systemic-issues-that-cause-conflicts-in-teams

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Journey of a RTE - Coach in execution
Challenge 4: Longer lead time, Unpredictable in meeting outcomes
 Visualized flow and
controlled WIP
 To improve flow,
performed value stream
(VS) mapping
 Projected bigger picture,
system thinking
 Empathy was the key
while implementing
results from VS mapping
exercise
 Difficult to implement
rather easier to do
Image Source: https://www.plutora.com/blog/value-stream-mapping

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Key Measures
 PI Predictability
 Flow Metrics
 Health assessment of ART
 Customer Satisfaction/ NPS Score
Image Source: https://adinermie.com/measuring-metrics-log-analytics-vs-azure-metrics-part-3-azure-metrics/

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Key Takeaways
Program
level senior
role
Coach of
ART,
Collaborator
across ART
Key challenges –
1. Adopting mind-set of Servant
Leaders
2. Growing technical debt
3. Waste management
4. Systemic Issues
5. Longer lead time,
Unpredictability
Focus in
optimizing
flow,
relentless
improvements
Lifelong
learning,
Coaching
instance

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References
 Images from internet for non-commercial use – reference mentioned
with URL on each applicable page

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Q/A
Thank You