The document discusses the challenges faced by a development team of around 100 people working on a large software platform project. They initially struggled with delays, bugs, lack of visibility and miscommunication due to working in silos. Some solutions that helped included creating a common prioritized backlog, holding joint planning meetings, ensuring adequate communication, breaking down silos between teams, and unifying common practices. The development process and release process are also summarized at a high level. Overall, the key lessons were around the importance of communication, integration between teams, and taking a holistic view of the entire platform rather than isolated components.

1. Agile Software Development
vs. Big Projects
Jakub Dziwisz
Karolina Stępień
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2. Agenda
 Story of TripCase Platform
 When the fun began
 Agile challenges – cases
 Where are we now
 Where do you go
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3. Everything started 18 months ago
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4. What are we working on?
 TripCase Platform - ca. 100 team members delivering
one product
 Common interface (one!), visible to end user
 Same vision and strategy
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5. I think frankly when it comes to chaos you ain't
seen nothing yet
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6. We started having serious problems...
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
Delays
Integration issuses, bugs
Lack of visibility
Miscommunication
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7. Problems and solutions
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8. Common backlog
 Situation
– Every team had their own backlog, prioritized list of
projects – at one point in time we could have multiple
projects having the highest priority
– Delivery dates for projects were discussed separately
across teams
 Problem
– Pretty often teams had conflicting priorities, yet projects
required collaboration (not competition)
 Solution
– Keep one backlog for all teams – this way we all know what
is the most important project at any point in time
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9. Pre-planning or just aligning priorities?
 Situation:
– Pre-planning meetings were separate for each team
– We have discussed (separate) priorities of projects
 Real problem:
– Projects’ priorities didn't exactly define scope of
iteration (which stories are the most important for
business?)
– Priorities were conflicting even though required
collaboration between teams
 Solution: joint pre-planning meeting – increase
visibility, address dependencies
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10. Distributed team
 Situation
– Integration of components took weeks due to a short
communication window between KRK and DFW
 Problem
– Knowledge about a component was available only in
one location, a tiny bug meant a wasted day
 Solution
– We need a team present both in KRK and DFW
– Team members need to be up to speed with all
projects going on in their area
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11. Share epics across teams
 Situation:
– We had duplicated stories within teams
– Code met acceptance criteria, but E2E solution was
incomplete or didn’t meet business requirements
– We have missed dependencies and were unable to
deliver on time
 Real problem: we were lacking bigger picture,
enough visibility and communication
 Solution: teams started working on the same epics
(aka goal) split into stories
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12. Plan communication
 Situation
– One project, 2-3 sets of requirements...
 Problem
– Changes to the project’s scope, requirements, dates... any
changes... not always communicated broadly enough
 Solution
– Plan communication about projects in general and each
single project
– Document requirements, document changes in
requirements
– Remember to invite the right people to meetings and copy
the right people in emails (not everyone!)
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13. Breaking down silos
 Situation:
– Although components were tested well and worked perfectly, E2E
solution did not
– We made assumptions which were incorrect
– No one wanted to take ownership for E2E solution
 Real problem:
– We used to work and think as single, isolated team and we still did
 Solution:
– Scheduled integration as soon as possible
(same iteration across teams)
– Enhance communication
– Doesn’t work on your side as long as it doesn’t E2E
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14. Unify common practices
 Situation
– Each team used their own flavor of Agile
 Problem
– We used same words to say different things
– A team expected from another artifacts that weren’t
going to be produced
 Solution
– Unify dates for „shared” milestones
– Unify implementation of practices that influence
other teams
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15. Architecture
 Situation:
– Similar business logic, data etc. was duplicated in all projects - designing
new solutions was truly cumbersome, technical debt growing
 Problem:
– From 3 separate projects we jumped into one platform without simplifying
architecture, consolidating components – “spaghetti” architecture
 Solution:
– Designing solution keep in mind longer term vision of architecture
– Refactoring architecture whenever possible
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16. Where are we now?
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17. Process at the high level
Phase
Discovery
Elaboration
Development
System Test
Release
Product Responsibilities
Feature
Description
Detailed
Requirements &
Budget
Project Approval
& Requirements
Clarification
Acceptance &
Release Notes
Customer
Communication
Integrate
Feature End-toEnd &
Demonstration
Deployed
Product
Project Start
Development
Responsibilities
BRD
Review
ROM
Kickoff
•Story Backlog
•Architecture
•Dependencies
•Schedule
•Effort / Cost
Checkpoint
Coding Start
•Detailed Stories
•Working Code
Code
Complete
Go /
No-Go

18. Release Process Overview
Translations
Sent
Publish
Release
Notes
Draft Release
Notes
INT Go/No
Go
Code Freeze
/ Branch Cut
Load Testing
Sys Owner
Review
Translation
Verification
Export
Defects
INT
Implement
CERT Go/No
Go
CERT CR
Prepared
System Test
Start
Security
Tests
CERT
Implement
PROD Go/No
Go
PROD CR
PROD
Implement

19. Still learning & improving
 Communication, communication, communication...
 „Love” sphaghetti!
 Integration
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20. Thank you!
jakub.dziwisz@sabre.com
Twitter: @dziwisz
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