presented at agileindia2012

1. “REDUCE WASTE”
Campaign
By
Belkis Vasquez-McCall
&
Surbhi Bhati

2. STORY TELLERS
Belkis Vasquez-McCall Surbhi Bhati
Senior Product Owner/ Product Owner /
Agile 2.o team Agile 2.0 team
1

3. Once upon a time in a far, far
away land...
2

4. there was a software
organization that wanted to
improve their practices...
3

5. since there was a lot of trouble
in their software development
land !
4

6. So they decided to start their
AGILE adoption !
5

7. They worked hard to master
the AGILE practices...
6

8. & as they practiced AGILE, their
deliveries went smooth and their
stakeholders were happy ☺!
7

9. But 5 years later, they became
complacent !
Too
comfortable ...
not pushing barriers!!
8

10. So we decided to shake
things up ...(Agile 2.0 team)
...but just
a little !
9

11. & there occurred a huge ...
BRAINSTORM !
10

12. And thus arrived ...
11

13. A challenge to tickle their
brains, & ideate on eliminating
waste in ...
TECHNOLOGY
COMMUNICATION
PROCESS
Anything else!!
19

14. IT had come to get the teams,
find scope of improvement ...
& start asking
WHY??
12

15. So, IT went around talking
about Lean & Reducing
Waste ...
13

16. then teams asked ...
“WHAT IS
WASTE ?”
14

17. So IT said: “WASTE” is ...
Defects that reach
the business
Features that
are not used
Documents that
are not referenced
Processes which
do not add business
value
Communication
overload
Anything that does
not add real
business value
15

18. This got the teams curious ...
IT had got them thinking !
16

19. “How can we ...
Improve our agility 2
weeks
in our sprint cycle?”
Shorten the 2
weeks 1
feedback loop” week
Adapt a continuous Lean
flow culture”
17

20. IT created an application to
facilitate for people submit
ideas ...
22

21. Idea Storm was a platform to ...
Share ideas on waste reduction
Gain support for your idea
Generate
discussion
to encourage
lean thinking
20

22. Each idea could be
voted up/down
The idea winning
maximum votes was
to be rewarded!!
Tool facilitated
discussion on ideas
23

23. The Competition ...
Lasted for 2 weeks
Had different categories
for teams to ideate on
Benefited from horizontal
marketing
21

24. As days passed, it grew
BIGGER ...
Day 1 : 3 ideas, 2 comments
Day 3 : 17 Ideas, 30+ comments
End of 1st week : 40 Ideas,
50+ comments
End of 2nd week : 76 Ideas
and we didn’t count all the comments!
24

25. & different ideas came in from all
directions ...
25

26. Like ...
Reducing two weeks sprints to
1 week
Automating repetitive tasks
like QA deployments, code
integration
Reducing sprint ceremonies
26

27. Some of the ideas implemented
were ...
Effective communication
1 week sprint model
Ad-hoc and daily retros
Shared testing
30

28. Then, IT went on to show
teams what a 1-week sprint
would look like ...
Assignment
Create a poster on what it means to move from
a 2 weeks sprint to a one week sprint
Acceptance Criteria
Teams of 1-5 people
Posters to reach One-One team
by 28-Dec-09, 3-00 pm IST
Reviewers
AGILE teams
27

29. 28

30. 29

31. And so the “Campaign”
achieved what it had set out to!
Infused new energy in project
teams
Got them to think ‘lean’ and
develop new Agile habits
Shortened the feedback cycle
31

32. 29

33. Moral of the Story !
AGILE adoption is a continuous journey
Always think why you
are doing what you are
doing
AGILE lets you write
your own rules, make
the most of it!
32

34. 33

35. What we have achieved so far…
Organizational Rhythm One - One Challenge
Consistency and Rhythm: Reduce waste campaign:
▪ Teams are starting to use ▪ 90%+ of our teams are now
a common tool for their following one week sprints
project management ▪ Teams deploy to production
▪ All teams in a portfolio more frequently
have their sprint review ▪ Kicking-off Frictionless
on the same day Deployments initiative with
Arch CoE
▪ Focusing on team reflection in
August….stay tune for more
App Dev Staffing Sitting Together
Staffing Model: Co-locating the group/teams:
▪ 70% of the teams are intact ▪ Everyone in the group sits on
over last one year the same floor
▪ Avg. dev team size 5+/-2 ▪ Sitting is ‘Team-based’
▪ 80% of dev teams staffed in (every onsite team has a
pairs team room)
▪ No dedicated Scrum Master ▪ Feedback collected from
assigned to team AppDev NYC to determine
“what’s next”